IRC Issues with ZoneAlarm

by Jonathan Peters aka Govvy @ EFnet

This short guide covers common IRC problems seen with the ZoneAlarm
personal firewall software product. The problems are common to all such
products, we're just focusing on the specific fixes for ZoneAlarm here.
Presumably you've already seen our Firewall FAQ at the URL below, and
identified that your problem is indeed due to ZoneAlarm and nothing
else:
       http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/security/fwfaq.html

If you haven't read that guide yet, please do, otherwise you may be
wasting time fixing stuff that isn't broken.

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Problem: Identd

The Identd isn't working, and you are having problems
connecting to servers, and when you do connect you have incorrect identd
settings and your username starts with ~ (tilde).

Solution: You need to add the IP addresses of the servers you wish to
connect to in the advanced settings on the security tab.

Comment: If you can try and stick to 1 server for each network.

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Problem: DCC

When trying to send or receive items over DCC. The DCC
doesn't respond at all and you just have error messages.

Solution: You will need to add the IP of the person your sending to or
receiving from into the advanced settings on the security tab. (Note
that when you DCC send, the connection is actually incoming and vice
versa. See the firewall FAQ above for details.)

Comment: Most users use dynamic IPs so after you have finished sending,
or your friend has disconnected from IRC, you should then remove that IP
address from your advanced settings.

The reason for that is, later on, that IP will be used again by another
user and there is a possibility that user could be malicious and can do
your computer harm.