telegram-cli

Control your server using a Telegram bot

Installation

git clone https://github.com/matheuss/telegram-cli.git
cd telegram-cli
npm install

Configuration

build.js

You need to set some "build variables":

exports.PORT                = 0;
exports.WEBHOOK_ENDPOINT    = "";
exports.BOT_TOKEN           = "";
exports.OWNER_ID            = "";
exports.OWNER_USERNAME      = "";

The PORT should be one of the following: 443, 80, 88 or 8443.

The WEBHOOK_ENDPOINT should be a "secret" path, to ensure that the requests are coming from Telegram. Example:

exports.WEBHOOK_ENDPOINT = "/BIcif92WztBwirBmgVnsmiZqR3WMZJveaRF5cznO" // don't use that one!

The BOT_TOKEN you can obtain with BotFather.

The OWNER_ID should be your Telegram user id. To find out yours, talk to this bot.

The OWNER_USERNAME should be your Telegram username.

HTTPS

HTTPS is mandatory when using a webhook. You can generate a self-signed certificate with the following:

openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -sha256 -nodes -keyout key.key -x509 -days 365 -out cert.pem -subj "/C=US/ST=New York/L=Brooklyn/O=Example Brooklyn Company/CN=CHANGE_THIS"

The CN field should contain the domain/IP where your bot will be running. Examples:

CN=my-bot.herokuapp.com
CN=205.139.40.96

Note: don't include anything else. Just the domain or the IP. No protocols (http:// or https://) are required.

Now you should issue a POST request to register your webhook. I recommend Postman for that. Here's an example of the request.

Running

All set, ready to go:

node index.js

Now you should be able to talk with your bot. If he doesn't responds, you probably have done something wrong on the HTTPS step. Feel free to reach me @matheus.frndes (It took me a long time to get this step done correctly, so I think I can help 😊)