Ubuntu Manpage: Profanity - a simple console based XMPP chat client.

Provided by: profanity-light_0.15.0-1_amd64

NAME

       Profanity - a simple console based XMPP chat client.

SYNOPSIS

       profanity [-vh] [-l level] [-a account]

DESCRIPTION

       Profanity  is a simple lightweight console based XMPP chat client. Its emphasis is on having a simple and
       configurable command driven UI, see the homepage at:

       <https://profanity-im.github.io>

OPTIONS

       -v, --version
              Show version and build information.

       -h, --help
              Show help on command line arguments.

       -a, --account ACCOUNT
              Auto connect to an account on startup, ACCOUNT must be an existing account.

       -c, --config
              Use an alternative config file.

       -l, --log LEVEL
              Set the logging level, LEVEL may be set to DEBUG, INFO (the default), WARN or ERROR.

       -f, --logfile
              Specify a different logfile

       -r, --cmd
              Specify the commands that should be run right after starting  up.   This  can  be  given  multiple
              times, e.g.
              profanity --cmd /foo --cmd "/sleep 10" --cmd /quit

       -t, --theme THEME
              Specify   which   theme   to   use.    THEME   must   be   one   of   the   themes   installed  in
              $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/profanity/themes

KEYBINDINGS

Tab, Shift+Tab
Tab completion next, previous. Works for commands, nicks and quotes (when input line starts with
>).

ALT+1..Alt-0 or F1..F10
Choose window 1..10.

ALT+q..Alt-p (in QWERTY layout)
Choose window 11..20.

ALT+LEFT
Choose previous chat window.

ALT+RIGHT
Choose next chat window.

PAGEUP Page the active window up.

PAGEDOWN
Page the active window down.

ALT+PAGEUP
Page the occupants or roster panel up.

ALT+PAGEDOWN
Page the occupants or roster panel down.

ALT+UP or ALT+WHEELUP
Scroll up. Note: limited support for scrolling with mouse wheel, please, get in touch with devs if
you know how to add support for other terminals.

ALT+DOWN or ALT+WHEELDOWN
Scroll down. See note above.

ALT+a Jump to the next unread window.

ALT+v Mark current window for later reading with an attention flag.

ALT+m Switch between windows marked with the attention flag.

ALT+ENTER
Add newline character without sending a message/command.

ALT+c Run external editor (see profanity-editor(1)) for current input line.

CTRL+DOWN
Store current input line in history but do not execute it.

Note: Profanity is using GNU Readline library to handle input so default configuration file ~/.inputrc
affects operation. In addition to that $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/profanity/inputrc is read after all default
keybindigs are set so one can override or add settings there. For reference, see Readline documentation:
info readline "Command Line Editing" "Readline Init File" "Readline Init File Syntax" and the list of
available Profanity commands in inputwin.c. Standard Readline keybindings are supported, including C-r
for interactive history search and C-x C-r for reloading inputrc without restart.

USING PROFANITY

The first step is to connect to an XMPP Server. The /connect and /account command can be used to setup
the XMPP accounts within profanity (see profanity-connect(1) and profanity-account(1)) with an existing
XMPP Account. The /register command can be used to register an account on a server. profanity-
register(1) Use the /help commands connection command in profanity to display more commands for managing
your connection.

The roster is your address book. By default, your roster will be shown in "window 1" which is the
profanity /console. It's possible to /roster hide and to /roster show the address book in the profanity
console. Buddies can be added via /roster add JID.

To see the online status of your contacts, the /sub command can be used to manage subscriptions to the
presence of contacts. /sub request will send a request. /sub allow is used to approve a contact's
subscription request. Use /help commands roster to get a list of commands which can be used to manage
your roster.

Open chat windows can been shown by /wins command. Jumping to a window can be done via /win NUMBER or
/win JID. profanity supports autocompletion with TAB-Key. The /msg command can be used to start a chat
with your contact. Groupchats can be joined with the /join command or managed within the account's
bookmark.

If the group chat is stored in the bookmarks, the group chat can be set to auto-join. If the auto-join is
switched off, use /bookmark join to join the group chat. The /sendfile and /url command can be used to
share and download files. Enter > and press the TAB key to quote an existing message in the chat window.

The user guide can be found at <https://profanity-im.github.io/userguide.html>.

ENCRYPTION

Profanity supports various kinds of encryption: OMEMO, OTR, PGP, OX. You can only enable one of them per
correspondent at a time.

OMEMO OMEMO (/omemo) is defined in XEP-0384. It uses an implementation of the Signal protocol for key
management and to synchronize messages among different clients. It works even when other clients
are offline. And offers Perfect Forward Secrecy and Plausible deniability. Servers need to support
PEP (XEP-0163). We implement the "siacs" version of OMEMO. Version 0.3.0, which is currently the
widest adopted option. OMEMO is the only encryption option in Profanity that also supports
encryption for MUCs (XEP-0045) and file transfer via HTTP upload (XEP-0363).

OTR OTR (/otr) is defined in XEP-0364. It uses a combination of the AES symmetric-key algorithm, the
Diffie–Hellman key exchange, and the SHA-1 hash function. It offers deniable authentication and
Perfect Forward Secrecy. To initialize a session both clients need to be online at the same time.
A session is between two clients, so multiclient chats are not working. Which is a feature not a
bug. OTR does by design not work for MUCs.

OpenPGP
OpenPGP (/pgp) is defined in XEP-0027. Is uses a public and secret key. It is also known as Legacy
OpenPGP and has been deprecated. It doesn't provide protection against replay attacks. MUCs and
file transfer via HTTP upload are not specified and thus not supported.

OX OX (/ox) is defined in XEP-0373 and XEP-0374. It's a more modern way to use OpenPGP on XMPP and
tries to fix the shortcomings of legacy XEP-0027. Servers need to support PEP (XEP-0163). MUCs and
file transfer via HTTP upload are not specified and thus not supported.

DETAILS
For more details read the relevant XEPs and look at the overview at
<https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/XMPP_E2E_Security>

TERMINOLOGY

       There is some XMPP specific terminology that might be unknown for fresh users. We will  try  to  describe
       them here since they are often references in the help and man pages.

       JID    Stands for Jabber ID. It refers to an XMPP address. Historically XMPP was also known as Jabber.

       MAM    Stands  for  Message  Archive Management (XEP-0313) and describes the ability to store messages on
              the server and retrieve them later.

       MUC    Stands for Mutli-User Chats (XEP-0045) and are also called,  groups,  group  chats,  chatrooms  or
              conferences.

       Roster The roster is your contact list. By default displayed at the right side on the console window. See
              RFC6121.

       XEP    XMPP  is  aa  extendable protocol. There are core features and optional features described in XMPP
              Extension Protocols, short XEPs.

CONFIGURATION

       Configuration for Profanity is stored in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/profanity/profrc  ,  details  on  commands  for
       configuring  Profanity  can be found at <https://profanity-im.github.io/reference.html> or the respective
       built-in help or man pages.

BUGS

       Bugs can either be reported by raising an issue at the Github issue tracker:

       <https://github.com/profanity-im/profanity/issues>

       or to the mailing list at:

       <https://lists.posteo.de/listinfo/profanity>

LICENSE

       Copyright (C) 2012 - 2019 James Booth <boothj5web@gmail.com>.  Copyright (C) 2019 - 2025  Michael  Vetter
       <jubalh@iodoru.org>.   License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
       This is free software; you are free to change and redistribute it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to  the  extent
       permitted by law.

AUTHORS/CREDITS

       Profanity  was created by James Booth <boothj5web@gmail.com> with many contributions from others, see the
       full list at: <https://github.com/profanity-im/profanity/graphs/contributors>

0.15.0                                             2025-03-27                                             man(1)