A convenient script to send a Telegram message from the command line. You could call this from other scripts to notify you of events or problems on a system.
The following packages must be installed:
- curl
- jq
curl is used to interact with the Telegram API.
jq is used to read the JSON response from the API.
Install these with:
# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install curl jq
If you haven't already done so you will need to create a bot and channel on Telegram.
On Telegram start a chat with @BotFather.
Send the message \newbot and follow the on-screen instructions.
Make a note of the name you give the bot e.g. @my_name_bot
You will get an API token looking something like 123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11.
Save this API token into the api_token.secret.sample file here, then rename the file to api_token.secret
Once the bot is created send it a message through the Telegram app to start a channel.
- Start a message to your bot
@my_name_bot - Send the message
\start - Then send another message like
Hello bot
You can now find the channel ID use the following curl command substituting in the API token generated above.
curl https://api.telegram.org/bot<API_TOKEN>/getUpdates
You should get a JSON response that contains, for example, "chat": {"id":-1231231231,, this is the number you want.
Save this chat ID into the chat_id.secret.sample file here, then rename the file to chat_id.secret
Note: if you get an empty JSON result, simply send another message to the channel and run the curl command again.
To send a message just run the script with a message in quotes e.g.:
./telegram-send.sh "Hello from bot"
It is useful to be able to call this script from within other scripts.
Copy the directory into /opt
sudo cp -r /<path>/telegram-send/ /opt/
Create a symlink into /usr/local/bin so it can be used system-wide.
sudo ln -s /opt/telegram-send/telegram-send.sh /usr/local/bin/telegram-send.sh
Now telegram-send.sh "my message" can be called from any other script.