Question: Is there a nice way to set up an IRC server for my wireless home network, running on an old Mac Mini?

On other forums people have recommended compiling [IRCD-Hybrid](https://www.ircd-hybrid.org/) for OS X. I have [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/) installed and it contains a formula for [ngIRCd](https://ngircd.barton.de/); would that work?

Or should I give up and just use the Bonjour functionality built into iChat?

Answer: 
Since you have `Homebrew` installed, `ngircd` is very simple to install and configure.

Install ngIRCd

```
$ brew install ngircd

```

Add /usr/local/sbin to your PATH

```
$ vi ~/.bash_profile

```

edit the config file (very easy to follow, even for a beginner, as the defaults are just fine for everything.) **Note** the path may be different for you to homebrew / ngircd version folders.

```
$ cd /usr/local/mxcl-homebrew-697d2ae/Cellar/ngircd/17.1/etc/
$ vi ngircd.conf

```

Here's a [sample config file](http://ngircd.barton.de/doc/sample-ngircd.conf), should you need it.

Verify your config, if you like:

```
$ ngircd --configtest

```

Then simply start the server:

```
$ ngircd

```
There are a couple packages available via MacPorts. If you haven't used MacPorts it's just like `yum` or `apt-get` on Linux.