telegramircd

telegramircd is an IRC server that enables IRC clients to send and receive messages from Telegram.

Arch Linux

• aur/telegramircd-git
• aur/telegram-cli-git. telegramircd uses the JSON output of telegram-cli to communicate with Telegram servers. Run telegram-cli and login to get credential before using telegramircd.
• Create /etc/systemd/system/telegramircd.service from the template /lib/systemd/system/telegramircd.service
• systemctl start telegramircd

telegramircd.py (the server) will listen on 127.0.0.1:6669 (IRC) and 127.0.0.1:9003 (HTTPS + WebSocket over TLS).

If you run the server on another machine, it is recommended to set up IRC over TLS and an IRC connection password with a few more options: --irc-cert /path/to/irc.key --irc-key /path/to/irc.cert --irc-password yourpassword. You can reuse the HTTPS certificate+key. If you use WeeChat and find it difficult to set up a valid certificate (gnutls checks the hostname), type the following lines in WeeChat:

set irc.server.telegram.ssl on
set irc.server.telegram.ssl_verify off
set irc.server.telegram.password yourpassword

Not Arch Linux

• python >= 3.5
• pip install -r requirements.txt
• Install telegram-cli
• ./telegramircd.py --http-uri http://localhost:9003

Serve file links via HTTPS

A few more options: --http-key /etc/telegramircd/key.pem --http-cert /etc/telegramircd/cert.pem --http-url https://127.1:9003. File links will be shown as https://127.1:9003/document/$id.

You need to generate self-signed certificate and import it to the browser.

openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout key.pem -x509 -out cert.pem -subj '/CN=127.0.0.1' -dates 9999

Chrome/Chromium

• Visit chrome://settings/certificates, import cert.pem, click the Authorities tab, select the 127.0.0.1 certificate, Edit->Trust this certificate for identifying websites.

Firefox

• Install extension Redirector, redirects app.js as above, click Applies to: Main window (address bar), Scripts.
• Visit one file link, Firefox will show "Your connection is not secure", Advanced->Add Exception->Confirm Security Exception.

Usage

• Run telegramircd.py.
• Connect to 127.0.0.1:6669 in your IRC client

You will join +telegram channel automatically and find your contact list there. Some commands are available:

• help
• status, mutual contact list、group/supergroup list
• eval $expr: eval the Python expression $expr. Examples:

  eval client.peer_id2special_room
  eval client.peer_id2special_user
  

The server will be bound to one account, however, you may have more than one IRC clients connected to the server.

IRC features

• Standard IRC channels have names beginning with #.
• Telegram channels/chats have names beginning with &. The channel name is generated from the group title. SpecialChannel#update
• Contacts have modes +v (voice, usually displayed with a prefix +). SpecialChannel#update_detail
• Multi-line messages: !m line0\nline1
• Multi-line messages: !html line0<br>line1
• nick0: nick1: test will be converted to @GroupAlias0 @GroupAlias1 test, where GroupAlias0 is the name set by that user, not your Set Remark and Tag. It corresponds to On-screen names in the mobile application.
• Reply to the message at 12:34:SS: @1234 !m multi\nline\nreply, which will be sent as 「Re GroupAlias: text」text
• Reply to the message at 12:34:56: !m @123456 multi\nline\nreply
• Reply to the penultimate message in this channel/chat: @2 reply

!m , @3 , nick: can be arranged in any order.

server-time extension from IRC version 3.1, 3.2. telegramircd.py includes the timestamp (obtained from JavaScript) in messages to tell IRC clients that the message happened at the given time. See http://ircv3.net/irc/. Seehttp://ircv3.net/software/clients.html for Client support of IRCv3.

Configuration for WeeChat:

/set irc.server_default.capabilities "account-notify,away-notify,cap-notify,multi-prefix,server-time,znc.in/server-time-iso,znc.in/self-message"

Supported IRC commands:

• /cap, supported capabilities.
• /dcc send $nick/$channel $filename, send image or file。This feature borrows the command /dcc send which is well supported in IRC clients. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Client-to-Client#DCC_SEND.
• /invite $nick [$channel], invite a contact to the channel.
• /kick $nick, delete a group member. You must be the group leader to do this. Due to the defect of the Web client, you may not receive notifcations about the change of members.
• /kill $nick [$reason], cause the connection of that client to be closed
• /list, list groups.
• /mode +m, no rejoin in --join new mode. /mode -m to revert.
• /names, update nicks in the channel.
• /part [$channel], no longer receive messages from the channel. It just borrows the command /part and it will not leave the group.
• /query $nick, open a chat window with $nick.
• /squit $any, log out
• /topic topic, change the topic of a group. Because IRC does not support renaming of a channel, you will leave the channel with the old name and join a channel with the new name.
• /who $channel, see the member list.

Server options

• Join mode, short option -j
  • --join auto, default: join the channel upon receiving the first message, no rejoin after issuing /part and receiving messages later
  • --join all: join all the channels
  • --join manual: no automatic join
  • --join new: like auto, but rejoin when new messages arrive even if after /part
• Surnames come first when displaying Chinese names. SpecialUser#name
• HTTP/WebSocket related options
  • --http-cert cert.pem, TLS certificate for HTTPS. You may concatenate certificate+key, specify a single PEM file and omit --http-key. Use HTTP if neither --http-cert nor --http-key is specified.
  • --http-url http://localhost, Show file links as http://localhost/document/$id .
  • --http-key key.pem, TLS key for HTTPS.
  • --http-listen 127.1 ::1, change HTTPS listen address to 127.1 and ::1, overriding --listen.
  • --http-port 9003, change HTTPS listen port to 9003.
• --listen 127.0.0.1, short option -l, change IRC/HTTP/WebSocket listen address to 127.0.0.1.
• IRC related options
  • --irc-cert cert.pem, TLS certificate for IRC over TLS. You may concatenate certificate+key, specify a single PEM file and omit --irc-key. Use plain IRC if neither --irc-cert nor --irc-key is specified.
  • --irc-key key.pem, TLS key for IRC over TLS.
  • --irc-listen 127.1 ::1, change IRC listen address to 127.1 and ::1, overriding --listen.
  • --irc-nicks ray ray1, reverved nicks for clients. SpecialUser will not have these nicks.
  • --irc-password pass, set the connection password to pass.
  • --irc-port 6669, IRC server listen port.
• telegram-cli related options
  • --telegram-cli-command telegram-cli, telegram-cli command name.
  • --telegram-cli-port 1235, telegram-cli listen port.
  • --telegram-cli-timeout 10, telegram-cli request (like load_photo) timeout in seconds
  • --telegram-cli-poll-channels 1031857103, telegram-cli cannot receive messages in some channels https://github.com/vysheng/tg/issues/1135, specify their peer_id to poll messages with the history command
  • --telegram-cli-poll-interval 10, interval in seconds
  • --telegram-cli-poll-limit 10, history channel#{peer_id} {telegram_cli_poll_limit}
• Server side log
  • --logger-ignore '&test0' '&test1', list of ignored regex, do not log contacts/groups whose names match
  • --logger-mask '/tmp/telegram/$channel/%Y-%m-%d.log', format of log filenames
  • --logger-time-format %H:%M, time format of server side log

See telegramircd.service for a template of /etc/systemd/system/telegramircd.service.

Demo

Known issues

• telegram-cli cannot receive messages (most messages if not all, tgl/mtproto-client.c:rpc_execute) from some channels https://github.com/vysheng/tg/issues/1135. Use /list to get their peer_id:

  &test0(0): channel#1000000000 test0
  &test1(0): channel#1000000001 test1
  End of LIST
  

  Specify --telegram-cli-poll-channels 1000000000 1000000001 to make telegramircd poll messages with the history channel#{channel_id} 10 command.