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Comment by jotm | Hacker News Reader

I wonder where you host it? Every other hosting provider does not allow IRC servers, what a shame.

I've not run into too many issues with IRC servers being blocked, but nothing is going to block IRC over SSL running on a non-standard port anyways.

I've never run across a VPS or dedicated server provider that blocked inbound IRC. What providers prevented you from running an ircd?

This was a long time ago (7-10 years), but 1and1, Hetzner, OVH, HostGator, LiquidWeb did not allow IRC hosting. They were the cheapest, tbf. I only use Linode now, haven't looked into it.

Hi there! Disclaimer - Linode employee here.

I can't speak for the other services, but we have a very active IRC channel. I run my IRC instance off of a Linode I created just for that purpose.

Ah. Of those, I've used Linode and OVH. Neither ever gave me grief for having IRC, but I also ensured that I never had botnets connecting to me, which is what most of them don't like dealing with. I've never tried 1and1, Hetzner (ive heard good things about them), HostGator or Liquidweb.

I am certain that Linode won't give you any grief as long as you make some effort to keep botnets from abusing your service.

I think they might no longer do this but for many years Linode's Atlanta location blocked access to IRC-specific ports, I believe because of a specific policy by their Atlanta datacenter.

Linode Employee here:

I've personally checked with our Network Operations team, and ran a test with a teammate. We do not currently block IRC ports.

>I never had botnets connecting to me, which is what most of them don't like dealing with.

It’s the DDoS attacks they didn’t like dealing with, but I suppose that’s one way of describing it.

Yeah both really. The botnets usually act as C&C for tools that create outbound DDoS attacks and exfil user data. They also create jump-off proxy points to mask their location. IRC is a very handy way to control large numbers of attack bots.

Even if it's not blocked it is discouraged or against ToS for a fair number of places (including our current provider, tilaa). However I asked specifically for an exemption because we've been around for nearly 20 years at this point.

Most cloud providers (GCE, AWS, Azure) don't seem to mind though.

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