Using uppercase PASS and NICK commands triggers a connection reset by peer

Chat and IRC
1

Hello,

I’m in the process of writing a small bot for Twitch chat, and I am using ncat to connect to twitch chat and explore a bit.

The problem is that every time I use uppercase PASS and NICK commands to connect to the server I get a “Connection Reset by Peer” error after the NICK command is sent.

This does NOT happen when using lowercase pass and nick commands. Here’s the output of ncat:

$ ncat irc.chat.twitch.tv 6667
PASS oauth:youdontneedtoknowmyoauthtoken
NICK kustomgames
Ncat: Connection reset by peer.
$ ncat irc.chat.twitch.tv 6667
pass oauth:youdontneedtoknowmyoauthtoken
nick kustomgames
:tmi.twitch.tv 001 kustomgames :Welcome, GLHF!
:tmi.twitch.tv 002 kustomgames :Your host is tmi.twitch.tv
:tmi.twitch.tv 003 kustomgames :This server is rather new
:tmi.twitch.tv 004 kustomgames :-
:tmi.twitch.tv 375 kustomgames :-
:tmi.twitch.tv 372 kustomgames :You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
:tmi.twitch.tv 376 kustomgames :>

This is highly annoying since any IRC library I might rely on uses uppercase commands.

Is this by design or a bug? Am I the only one having this issue?

Thank you!

2

I always send uppercase commands:

    this.send("PASS " + oAuth);
    this.send("NICK " + login);

And have not had a problem, that said, I am not aware of Twitch having an issue with uppercase PASS or NICK commands, and not sure why you would have an issue.

Also, just using a straight telnet connection:
[Nyx] /opt/iobot/scripts/games
% telnet irc.chat.twitch.tv 6667
Trying 52.32.237.213…
Connected to irc-production-388322493.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
PASS oauth:hiding_oauth_key
NICK illusionarybot
:tmi.twitch.tv 001 illusionarybot :Welcome, GLHF!
:tmi.twitch.tv 002 illusionarybot :Your host is tmi.twitch.tv
:tmi.twitch.tv 003 illusionarybot :This server is rather new
:tmi.twitch.tv 004 illusionarybot :-
:tmi.twitch.tv 375 illusionarybot :-
:tmi.twitch.tv 372 illusionarybot :You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
:tmi.twitch.tv 376 illusionarybot :>

3

Same issue with any library I can use. Since they send uppercase commands I get an err conn reset

Same goes for a simple telnet connection:

$ telnet irc.chat.twitch.tv 6667
Trying 54.69.84.41...
Connected to irc-production-388322493.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
PASS oauth:aintnobodoygotkeyfodat
NICK kustomgames
Connection closed by foreign host.
$ telnet irc.chat.twitch.tv 6667
Trying 52.32.156.153...
Connected to irc-production-388322493.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
pass oauth:aintnobodoygotkeyfodat
nick kustomgames
:tmi.twitch.tv 001 kustomgames :Welcome, GLHF!
:tmi.twitch.tv 002 kustomgames :Your host is tmi.twitch.tv
:tmi.twitch.tv 003 kustomgames :This server is rather new
:tmi.twitch.tv 004 kustomgames :-
:tmi.twitch.tv 375 kustomgames :-
:tmi.twitch.tv 372 kustomgames :You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
:tmi.twitch.tv 376 kustomgames :>

This is strange to say the least

4

That is very strange! I honestly have not seen this before.

5

This is getting stranger by the minute. Using ncat/telnet from one of my servers (instead of my workstation) I can connect using uppercase PASS and NICK commands.

This issue seems to be limited to my workstation. Small dump for future reference:

Ubuntu 16.04, kernel is 4.4.0-47-generic 
The libc used by telnet/ncat: GNU C Library (Ubuntu GLIBC 2.23-0ubuntu4) stable release version 2.23
6

Sounds like it could be a firewall blocking the IRC protocol.

7

Doesn’t seem likely since ncat can connect to the server on that precise port and sending lowercase commands work.