DALnet is an Internet relay chat (IRC) network founded in July 1994 by members of the EFnet #startrek channel. This new network was known as "dal's net", after the nickname used by the administrator of the first IRC server on the network, "dalvenjah", taken from the dragon "Dalvenjah Foxfire", in a fantasy novel by Thorarinn Gunnarsson. The network was soon renamed from dal's net to DALnet. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. ... QuakeNet is the largest IRC network, with its average number of users close to 145,000 every day and over 180,000 channels. ... The Undernet is one of the largest IRC networks. ... IRCnet is one of the largest IRC networks. ... EFnet or Eris Free network is a major IRC network, with over 100,000 users. ... The title of this article should be freenode. ... GameSurge is a popular Internet Relay Chat network devoted to the online multiplayer gaming community. ... Rizon is a large IRC network, popular perhaps due to the allowance of channels for sharing warez and other copyrighted material for free. ... Aitvaras is a popular Lithuanian IRC network. ... Abjects is an unmoderated, mid-sized Internet Relay Chat Network. ... AbleNET is an IRC network. ... AfterNET is an IRC network and was founded in September 1996. ... AustNet or austnet is an IRC network which aims to provide a friendly and secure alternative to other IRC networks such as DALnet and EFNet. ... Blitzed is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network founded on October 31st, 2000 in response to the collapse of WreckedNet. ... Delinked is an Internet Relay Chat network, founded in early 2003 on the premise of providing users with a unique chatting experience, free of the abuse from users and network operators often found on other networks. ... DeltaAnime (sometimes referred to as DAnet) is an anime and Ragnarok Online oriented IRC Network, web host and Bit-torrenttracker. ... EsperNet, often referred to as Esper. ... GamesNET is an Internet Relay Chat network devoted to the Internet gaming community. ... // History IRCHighway is a large IRC-network with over 10,000 users connected every day. ... LinkNet is a secure IRC-network that support SSL-encryption. ... // Introduction NetGamers is a medium-sized network, with servers across Europe and N.America, with an average of about 2000 concurrent users, which rises depending on the popularity of its partner games. ... The Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) is an IRC network founded in 2001. ... SlashNET is a medium-sized, independently-operated Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network. ... Zirc is a town in Veszprém county, Hungary. ... Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. ... Blue RJ-45 patchcord of the type commonly used to connect network devices. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... EFnet or Eris Free network is a major IRC network, with over 100,000 users. ... The current Star Trek franchise logo, which represents 40 years of Star Trek Star Trek is an epic American science fiction franchise. ... Saint George versus the dragon, Gustave Moreau, c. ... Thorarinn Gunnarsson is the pseudonym of an American author of science fiction and fantasy. ...

At one point DALnet was one of the four biggest IRC networks. It is accessible by connecting with an IRC client to an active DALnet server on ports 6660 through 6669 and 7000. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of instant communication over the Internet. ...

From 25 users in July 1994, the number of users grew to 1,000 by November 1995, 5000 by June 1996, 10,000 by December 1996, 50,000 by October 1999, 100,000 in November 2001, and peaked around 142,000 in April 2002. The user count then slowly reduced again until the DDoS attack (see below) at which point it plummeted and never really recovered. The number of servers grew from 2–4 when started, peaking at 44 in April 2002. The network is currently populated by a stable population of around 40,000 users (neither growing nor shrinking appreciably) in about 18,000 channels, with 40 servers making up the network. 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... In computer security, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ...

In contrast to other IRC networks of the time, in 1995 DALnet implemented "services", a system that enforced IRC nickname and channel registrations. Traditionally, on IRC, anybody can own a channel or a nickname; if no one is using it, it can be used by anyone who chooses to do so. On DALnet, however, this was no longer the case. This service—which many users saw as a way of firmly establishing their online identities—was a significant factor in DALnet's popularity and afforded the network a distinctive reputation among IRCers. While attempts to implement a similar system had been made before and other networks have since developed registration services of their own, at the time DALnet's successful decision to allow and enforce nickname and channel registration was considered to be unique and even controversial, as it went against established practice. IRC services is a common name for a set of features implemented in most modern Internet Relay Chat networks. ...

The network operation was severely disrupted in late 2002 and early 2003 due to distributed denial of service attacks. Added to the DDoS issues was the fact that the owner of twisted.dal.net (the world's largest single IRC server, hosting more than 50,000 clients most of the time) delinked his servers (for personal reasons). The other servers on the network could not absorb the extra client load, leading to users' complete inability to connect to DALnet. The network was first crushed by attacks, and then by its own userbase. About 60% of DALnet's population moved to other IRC networks due to these extended connectivity issues. For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A denial-of-service attack (also, DoS attack) is an attack on a computer system or network that causes a loss of service to users, typically the loss of network connectivity and services by consuming the bandwidth of the victim network or overloading the computational resources of the victim system. ...

In 2003, DALnet put up their first anycast servers under the name "The IX Concept", and made irc.dal.net resolve to the anycast IP. Since then, most new client servers linked are anycast. 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Routing Schemes anycast broadcast multicast unicast Anycast is a network addressing and routing scheme whereby data is routed to the nearest or best destination as viewed by the routing topology. ...

DALnet has since recovered and remains functional, though it no longer tops the list of the most populated IRC networks. As of 2004, DALnet is the seventh largest publicly monitored IRC network by average monthly user count. 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

DALnet Recommended Help Channels

• An online centralized Help resource for the DALnetIRC Network
• #DALnetHelp - For DALnet Services Help
• #Help - For DALnet Basic IRC Commands for newbies
• #IRCHelp - For all round help
• #OPERHelp - For IRC Operator Assistance
• #mIRC - For mIRC help
• #helpdesk - For mIRC Scripting Help
• #nixhelp - For Linux/UNIX/BSD-related help
• #html - For ridicule and insults

External links

• DALnet web site
• Impact of the DDoS attacks on DALnet
• DALnet stats from irc.netsplit.de
• DALnet History
• DALnet Helpsite
• IX Concept information