The Lounge: The self-hosted web IRC client

The Lounge is the perfect solution for you if you are looking for an "Always connected" and self-hosted IRC client.

Installation

This application is available on GitHub and DockerHub and is super straight-forward to install.
On my side, I installed it using docker-compose. No worries, you can find well detailed package or Docker installation steps in their documentation.

First thing first, you need to create a folder for this project and put inside your docker-compose.yml file.

As you know, IRC provide features to get other user hostname or IP address very easily, for that reason, we are going to run it behind a VPN.
I will not get into details regarding the VPN part, if you need more details, read the article Routing Docker traffic through a VPN container.

Routing Docker traffic through a VPN container

I’m using a VPN for years now but I recently decided to route the traffic of some of my container through a VPN connection to by-pass some country-specific restrictions and to enhance my privacy.

TheLazyFox's BlogTheLazyFox

The docker-compose.yml file is pretty simple to setup, you just need to map the config folder.

version: "3.2"
services:
  vpn:
    container_name: vpn-thelounge
    image: dperson/openvpn-client:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks:
      default:
        ipv4_address: 172.30.0.2
    dns:
      - 9.9.9.9
      - 8.8.8.8
    ports:
      - 9000:9000
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    sysctls:
      - net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=0
    security_opt:
      - label:disable
    environment:
      - PUID=1026
      - PGID=100
      - TZ=Europe/Paris
    devices:
      - /dev/net/tun:/dev/net/tun
    volumes:
      - /home/thelazyfox/docker/thelounge/vpn/config:/vpn
    command: '-f "" -r 172.30.0.2/24'
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-Ss", "ifconfig.co"]
      start_period: 5s
      interval: 60s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 3

  thelounge:
    container_name: thelounge
    image: thelounge/thelounge:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
       - vpn
    network_mode: "service:vpn"
    environment:
      - PUID=1026
      - PGID=100
      - TZ=Europe/Paris
    volumes:
      - /home/thelazyfox/docker/thelounge/config:/var/opt/thelounge

networks:
  default:
    driver: bridge
    ipam:
      config:
        - subnet: 172.30.0.0/16
          gateway: 172.30.0.255

Please remember to create all folders and files before trying to launch your docker-compose.

How does it look like on my server:

thelounge/
      |_ docker-compose.yaml
      |_ config/
      |_ vpn/          
          |_ config/ 

And now, you just have to launch your docker-compose file with the following command cd thelounge && docker-compose up -d

Features

TheLounge is very easy to use and complete so I will let you discover all the features by yourself.

We can highlight as main capabilities:

• Push notifications
• File upload
• Always connected
• Responsive interface
• Multi user support
  In case of trouble, their user administration doc is super complete
• Themes management
  TheLounge is currently integrated into Theme.park if you are looking for custom themes

Theme.park: Custom themes for your favorite apps!

Theme.park is a Github project which propose a collection of of themes/skins for most of your favorites apps!

TheLazyFox's BlogTheLazyFox

If you still have some doubts, give a try to the demo client.

Conclusion

TheLounge is the best self-hosted IRC solution available from my point of view, easy to setup and configure. It's a must-have in your setup, go for it!