Gline

Gline (sometimes written as G-line or G:Line) is an IRC-related term. It refers to banning a client from an IRC-network. Glines are sometimes stored in the configuration file of the IRCd(s), although some networks, who handle lines through the services, prefer to have them stored in their service's configuration files. Whenever a glined person attempts to connect to the IRC-network, either the services or the IRC daemon will automatically disconnect the client, often displaying a message explaining the "reasoning" behind the ban.

Glines are a variant of K-lines, which work in much the same way, except K-lines only disconnect clients on one server of the network. Most Glines are "awarded" to people who, having a K-line on one server, continue to abuse the network through another. K-line is an abbreviation for "kill line," and gline for "global kill line."

Glines are often regarded as an extreme measure, only to be used in cases of repeated abuse when extensive attempts have been made to reason with the offending user. Therefore, especially on larger networks, often only very high ranking global IRC operators are permitted to set them, while K-lines, which are mostly regarded as a local affair, are left to the operator(s) of the individual server in the network.

Glines also work slightly differently from Klines. Glines are typically set as *@IP or *@host, with the first being the better option. Glines do still wait for an ident response from the connecting user (if specified in the ban regex), but immediately close the socket once the user's IP is compared to the Gline list and a match is found. If the *@host option is used, the server must conduct a reverse DNS lookup on the user and then compare the returned host to the hosts in the Gline list. This results in delay, and, if the DNS doesn't return correctly, the banned user may still get on the network.

ee also

* K-line
* Zline
* IRC services