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I have been told that IRC uses UDP for client to server communication and TCP for server to server communication (in the case of linked servers). It seems that TCP is the better transport layer protocol for text chat since you need a ensure the text gets to the server. Just because a client displays the text as being in the channel/on the server it doesn't mean the server actually received it.

It's clear that IRC uses UDP. Is UDP used to pass the text messages from client to server?

Will
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IRC uses TCP for client-server communication.

Try it for yourself: telnet irc.freenode.net 6667 will establish a TCP connection between you and an IRC server.

The wikipedia page you linked to also lists the TCP port range 6665–6669 as IRC.

Kenny Rasschaert
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As kenny.r notes, IRC uses TCP. According to that page, HTTP also uses UDP. Numerous other services are also listed as using their ports on both UDP and TCP, even though they really only use one or the other.

I believe those ports were simply reserved for both protocols to avoid the confusion that would happen from another service having the same port on the other protocol; Having something running on UDP port 80 would potentially be confusing.

At the same time, other services only list the 'correct' protocol; HTTPS, SMTP and POP3 on that list, for example, all only list TCP. Nothing uses the same port numbers on UDP, though.

Andrew Barber
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