O-line

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An O-line, shortened from Operator Line, is a line of code in an IRC daemon configuration file that determines which users can become an IRC Operator and which permissions they get upon doing so. The name comes from the prefix used for the line in the original ircd, a capital O. The O-line specifies the username, password, operator flags, and hostmask restrictions for a particular operator. A server may have many O-lines depending on the administrative needs of the server and network.

Operator flags are used to describe the permissions an operator is granted. While some IRC Operators may be in charge of network routing, others may be in charge of network abuse, making their need for certain permissions different. Operator flags available vary widely depending on which IRC daemon is in use. Generally, more feature rich IRC daemons tend to have more operator flags, and more traditional IRC daemons have less.

An O-line may also be set so that only users of a certain hostmask or IP address can gain IRC Operator status using that O-line. This is, however, lesser used in smaller networks because members of the network staff tend to have home connections to the internet with dynamic IP addresses. Using hostmasks and IP addresses in the O-line require the IP address to remain the same; if it is set to accept anyone using the same internet service provider, the O-line will be just as secure as if it would have no hostmasks or IP addresses set at all.