You must login with a username and password. If you have not already created one, you should do so by generating one and adding it to the Hulk passwd file in passwd. To generate a user/password key/pair, use: $ genpass myusername It will prompt for a password. Inspect it first to confirm it is correct. To write it to the passwd file use $ genpass myusername >> /path/to/hulk/data/passwd And configure your IRC client to use your username and to send a *server* password.