Well, I finally got around to installing and getting my two IRC bots online. It's been nearly a year since I removed Serena (procrastination, it will be my downfall!). I have however run into an unforeseen problem.

Every previous incarnation of bot I've had, has been hosted on a shell (i.e. someone else's PC), and I've just connected to the shell and controlled them from there. Now that I know my own Linux box is stable, I thought it would make sense to host them myself.

Wrong! It's actually more complicated.

Although both I and the two bots are behind a firewall, in order for me to communicate with them, I have to issue my commands by pushing myself out of the firewall and then attempting to make a telnet connection back inside again. (yeah, backward or what?)
Not surprisingly, my firewall is pretty much saying "on yer bike" and refusing the connection. DCC doesn't work for the same reason. (I apologise if bits of this don't make sense, it would take too long to explain - just understanding the gist of my frustration will be enough - thanks)

Round one to the firewall.