Configuring SASL for Irssi

The setup for SASL on Irssi differs depending on the version you have (you can find out by running irssi -v in your nearest shell).

Irssi 0.8.18 or later

Recent Irssi versions include built-in SASL support via /network:

/network add -sasl_username <login> -sasl_password <password> -sasl_mechanism PLAIN freenode
/server add -auto -net freenode -ssl -ssl_verify chat.freenode.net 6697
/save

Troubleshooting

To check that the setting was correct, run /network and confirm that the freenode entry looks like this:

freenode: sasl_mechanism: plain, sasl_username: gryllida, sasl_password: (pass)

All three items (mechanism, username, and password) must be set.

Older versions

These versions need a separate script in order to support SASL: cap_sasl.pl. You can install it from https://scripts.irssi.org:

mkdir -p ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun
cd ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun
wget https://scripts.irssi.org/scripts/cap_sasl.pl -O ../cap_sasl.pl
ln -sf ../cap_sasl.pl .

Now load and configure it inside Irssi:

/script load cap_sasl
/network add freenode
/server add -auto -net freenode -ssl -ssl_verify chat.freenode.net 6697
/sasl set freenode <login> <password> PLAIN
/sasl save
/save