Bone Baboon writes: > I am not using Tor. This bugged me, so I asked in #freenode. > I have not changed my rcirc configuration that was working. But Freenode probably changed theirs: nckx: some IP ranges are sasl required high risk ranges jess: Aha. That's probably it. It would explain the suddenly. it's an unfortunate measure but sometimes necessary VPNs used for password guessing? we did it to some domestic ranges fairly recently in response to significant abuse darsie: some VPNs require SASL to make it more work to evade/abuse using them So my suggestions are: (1) move (2) change ISPs/use a bouncer (3) just set up SASL Definitely not in that order. nckx: does rcirc not support sasl? sasl is very good That I don't know yet. SASL is sweet and tasty. if it doesn't, aim me at someone to whom i can explain sasl I'll keep that in mind. Unless you can obtain a new IP that isn't part of these ‘high-risk ranges’, or connect through a bouncer elsewhere, you *need* to set up SASL. How that's done differs per client. I briefly looked for rcirc how-tos but found none. The manual[0] doesn't mention SASL at all. I'm not going to spend time learning about rcirc, but every modern IRC client should support SASL. If it doesn't, find a better one, or take one of the alternative actions above. jess seems to be willing to explain SASL to the rcirc developers if needed. > I have tried adding the `gnutls`, `gsasl` and `cyrus-sasl` > packages to > my system configuration and reconfiguring. These packages do > not fix > this problem. Simply installing some packages won't cut it. You need to actually register your nickname and configure your client to log you in using SASL. Some very general information: Kind regards, T G-R [0]: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/rcirc.html