Quoting the official weechat documentation: “The Relay plugin can act as an IRC proxy: it will simulate an IRC server, and you can connect to WeeChat with any other IRC client (including WeeChat itself). You can define one port by IRC server, or one generic port for all servers.”
Weechat supports two different relay protocols: irc and weechat. The weechat protocol is easier to set up but it has the disadvantage that you can only connect to it with a client that supports it (for example, weechat itself, QWeeChat or weechat-android). The irc one is a bit longer to setup depending on how many irc networks you connect to, but it is very easy to use and you can connect to it with almost all irc clients. Choose between the two following setups the one that best suits your needs.
Using the IRC protocol:
Configuring weechat's irc relay plugin turns out to be really simple and straightforward. The great advantage over irssi's proxy plugin for sdf/sdf-eu users is that in weechat you only need one port for all your servers whereas in irssi you need a different port for each server. This means that you need as many open ports on the host as irc servers you connect to.
sdf/sdf-eu users have one available port which is their id number. To find out your port type id at the terminal. You will see something similar to this:
odin:~$ id
uid=007(bond) gid=500(arpa) groups=500(arpa),600(MetaARPA),700(dba),900(motd)
Only the uid part is relevant here, uid=007(bond) which means that 007 is the 'port' and bond is the 'username'. Let's now assume that user bond wants to use the password james_bond (This way, you will understand the examples better).
To begin with, start weechat-curses, connect to your networks/servers and join your favourite channels.
1.- Inside weechat:
* First check that you have the relay plugin installed typing:
/plugin
The relay plugin should be loaded by default. If it is not, for any reason, you can load it with:
/plugin load relay
Then, start the configuration as follows:
* Add the irc proxy, for all servers
/relay add irc port #Remember that your port is your id number
Example: /relay add irc 007
* Set the password
/set relay.network.password "password"
Example: /set relay.network.password “james_bond”
2.- Now on the client side:
Configure your client to connect to sdf.org or sdfeu.org through your port.
Example: sdfeu.org/007
One important consideration here is to remember that since you are going to use the same port for all your servers, you have to make sure that your client sends the password in the form server:password. You can use the PASS command for that (PASS server:password).
Examples of adding the servers and connecting to them providing the password (the syntax may be different depending on the client you are using).
/server add freenode sdfeu.org/007 -password=freenode:james_bond
and then:
/connect freenode
You have to repeat the process for each server:
/server add oftc sdfeu.org/007 -password=oftc:james_bond
and then:
/connect oftc
Keep going until you have added all your servers:
/server add sdf sdfeu.org/007 -password=sdf:james_bond
and then:
/connect sdf
You will see how your client automatically connects to the servers you have just added and how your favourite channels appear in the client. As a bonus point, weechat will send the backlog to your client.
Using the WEECHAT protocol:
Again, this is easier to setup but it has the disadvantage that your client must support the weechat protocol. For this protocol you only need one single port.
1.- Inside weechat:
* First add the relay
/relay add weechat port
Example: /relay add weechat 007
* Set the password
/set relay.network.password "password"
Example: /set relay.network.password “james_bond”
2.- Now on the client side:
Simply connect from your client to sdfeu.org using your port and your password. Your client will connect to all networks and channels and retrieve the backlog.