IRC was **originally a plain text protocol** (although later extended), which on request was assigned port **194/TCP by IANA**. However, the de facto standard has always been to **run IRC on 6667/TCP** and nearby port numbers (for example TCP ports 6660–6669, 7000) to **avoid** having to run the IRCd software with **root privileges**.
For connecting to a server it is required merely a **nickname**. Once connection is established, the first thing the server does is a reverse-dns to your ip:
It seems that overall **there are two kinds of users**: **operators** and ordinary **users**. For logging in as an **operator** it is required a **username** and a **password** (and in many occasions a particular hostname, ip and even a particular hostmask). Within operators there are different privilege levels wherein the administrator has the highest privilege.
Here you can see how to connect and access the IRC using some **random nickname** and then enumerate some interesting info. You can learn more commands of IRC [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_Internet\_Relay\_Chat\_commands#USERIP).
