irssi is a wonderful chat client. I’m closing it and reopening it all of the time so its nice when it automatically connects to the server that you want, identifies your nickname and joins your channels. Here is how to do it.

How to configure irssi to auto connect to a server

Add the server or servers that you want to connect to

/SERVER ADD -auto -network freenode irc.freenode.net 6667

Set and Identify nickname

If you want to automatically set and identify your nickname with nickserv you can do it like this…

/NETWORK ADD -autosendcmd "/^nick phutchins;/^msg nickserv identify mysecurepassword;wait 2000" freenode

Automatically join certain channels upon connection to a specific network

To join a channel

/CHANNEL ADD -auto #powerline freenode

To join a channel with a password

/CHANNEL ADD -auto #awesomesecretchannel freenode supersecurepass