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+Abstract
+--------
+ii is a minimalistic FIFO and filesystem based IRC client.  It creates an irc
+directory tree with server, channel and nick name directories. In every
+directory a FIFO file (in) and normal file (out) is placed.
+
+The in file is used to communicate with the servers and the out files include
+the server messages. For every channel and every nick name there will be new in
+and out files.
+
+The basic idea of this is to be able to communicate with an IRC server with
+standard command line tools.  For example if you want to join a channel just do
+echo "/j #channel" > in and ii creates a new channel directory with in and out
+file.
+
+
+Installation
+------------
+Edit config.mk to match your local setup. ii is installed into
+/usr/local by default.
+
+Afterwards enter the following command to build and install ii (if
+necessary as root):
+
+    $ make clean install
+
+
+Running ii
+------------
+Simply invoke the 'ii' command with required arguments
+
+To make ii a bit more comfortable use it in combination with the multitail
+program and for example with vim. Run vim in the server directory and use
+key mapping like:
+map w1 :.w >> \#ii/in<cr>
+map w2 :.w >> \#wmii/in<cr>
+to post to channels.
+
+If you use the next editor line for a new posting you can use ctrl-p for nick
+completion if you wrote the nick in the past.
+Thanks to Matthias Kopfermann for this hint.
+
+You can find an example of how this nested environment could look like on:
+http://nion.modprobe.de/blog/archives/440-Using-the-ii-irc-client.html
+
+
+SSL/TLS support
+---------------
+
+Below is an example using OpenBSD relayd which sets up a TCP TLS relay
+connection on localhost. A similar setup can be accomplished using
+stunnel or netcat with TLS support. This also works for other programs
+that don't support TLS natively.
+
+/etc/relayd.conf:
+
+	table <freenode> { irc.freenode.net }
+	table <oftc> { irc.oftc.net }
+
+	protocol "irctls" {
+		tcp { nodelay, sack }
+	}
+
+	relay "freenode" {
+		listen on 127.0.0.1 port 6668
+		protocol "irctls"
+		forward with tls to <freenode> port 6697
+	}
+
+	relay "oftc" {
+		listen on 127.0.0.1 port 6669
+		protocol "irctls"
+		forward with tls to <oftc> port 6697
+	}
+
+
+Then connect:
+
+	./irc -n nick -u name -s 127.0.0.1 -p 6668
+	./irc -n nick -u name -s 127.0.0.1 -p 6669
+
+
+Configuration
+-------------
+No configuration is needed.
+
+
+Changelog
+---------
+Since I missed the chance to add a proper changelog right from the beginning,
+please have a look at the commit messages on http://git.suckless.org/ii/
+they are fairly descriptive on releases prior to 1.2.