Why does MacOpera ask for authentication when using Opera Chat?
Originally posted on Friday, June 03, 2005
Users of MacOpera may have noticed an authentication dialog when using Opera Chat.
The good news is that you can safely ignore this most of the time. The bad news is that there is no way (yet) to disable this completely.
When you connect to and IRC server (see Day 13: Opera Chat) using MacOpera, you will see this prompt:
![[MacOpera prompt saying that Opera requires that you type your password]](http://operalover.tntluoma.com/images/macopera-irc-requires-password-437x238.png)
Don’t panic if MacOpera asks for your password. In fact, you don’t even have to enter it if you don’t want to.
This prompt actually comes from Mac OS X, as MacOpera is attempting to reply to an ident request from the IRC server (technically speaking, MacOpera is attempting to open port 113 briefly).
“ident” is an old method of trying to authenticate someone’s identity when they connect to an IRC server. It is not considered particularly secure as people have been spoofing ident for a long time.
So if you see this prompt when using MacOpera, it is probably because you are trying to connect to an IRC server. You can either type in your password or just click cancel (or press esc) and the prompt will go away.
Most IRC servers will let you connect anyway (Opera’s does).
Hopefully a future version of MacOpera will have a feature to disable authentication entirely, so you won’t have to see this prompt at all.
Comments
On September 20, 2005 at 09:45 PM, TjL (tntluoma.com) ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://operalover.tntluoma.com/nav-commenters.gif)
wrote:
It is Opera requesting permission to open a connection to port 113 so that the IRC server can connect to it, or try to. That's how it was explained to me, at least.
On September 20, 2005 at 09:19 PM, Eric Blade wrote:
Actually, it's the IRC server connecting to port 113 to ident you, not Opera connecting to port 113.
Not going to go away. :D