Are there any good books/comprehensive resources for a beginner wanting to experiment with the irc protocol? I tried setting up my own irc server on an aws instance once. Opening the firewalls, connecting it to other clouds and to the clients was hard [for me]. Would love a step by step guide, that gives quick win and further confidence to get started.

This was my original inspiration: https://aaronparecki.com/2015/08/29/8/why-i-live-in-irc