telegram-bot-bash/doc/0_install.md

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Check bash installation

There may systems where bash seems to be installed but it is not, e.g. embedded systems, or where bash is to old. Run the following commands to see if your bash looks ok ...

# system say bash is there?
if which bash; then echo "bash seems available..."; else echo "NO bash"; fi

# real bash supports ARRAY
bash -c 'if eval "a[1]=1"; then echo "Shell support arrays..."; else echo "Shell has NO arrays"; fi'

# check for bash version by feature
bash -c 'if [ "$(echo -e "\u1111")" != "\u1111" ]; then echo "Bash version ok ..."; else echo "LBash Version may be to old ..."; fi'

Install bashbot

1. Go to the directory you want to install bashbot, e.g.
   • your $HOME directory (install and run with your user-ID)
   • /usr/local if you want to run as service
2. Download latest release zip / tar archive from github and extract all files.
3. Change into the directory telegram-bot-bash
4. Activate the bot example commands cp mycommands.sh.dist mycommands.sh
5. Run ./bashbot.sh init to setup the environment and enter your Bots token given by botfather.

Edit mycommands.sh to your needs. Now your Bot is ready to start ...

If you are new to Bot development read Bots: An introduction for developers

Update bashbot

Note: all files including mycommands.sh may overwritten, make a backup!

1. Go to the directory where you had installed bashbot, e.g.
   • your $HOME directory
   • /usr/local
2. Download latest release zip / tar archive from github
3. Stop all running instances of bashbot
4. Extract all files to your existing bashbot dir
5. Run sudo ./bashbot.sh init to setup your environment after the update

If you modified commands.sh move your changes to mycommands.sh, this avoids overwriting your commands on update.

Now you can restart your bashbot instances.

Get zip / tar archive on command line

wget -q https://github.com/$(wget -q https://github.com/topkecleon/telegram-bot-bash/releases/latest -O - | egrep '/.*/.*/.*tar.gz' -o)

Use JSON.awk (beta)

JSON.awk is an awk port of JSON.sh, it provides the same functionality but is 5 times faster. Most systems with awk can use JSON.awk as drop in replacement ( gnu awk, posix awk, mawk, busybox akw ).

BSD and MacOS users must install gnu awk and adjust the shebang, see below

After you have checked that 'JSON.awk' is working correct on your system make JSON.awk executable and (re)start bashbot.

Note: If you are not using the zip / tar archive, you must install JSON.awk manually into the same directory as 'JSON.sh`:

wget https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/step-/JSON.awk/JSON.awk 
wget https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/step-/JSON.awk/tool/patch-for-busybox-awk.sh
bash patch-for-busybox-awk.sh

Install bashbot from github

The first install can also be done from github, updates should always done from the zip or tar archive to avoid overwriting your config and mycommands.sh files.

1. Go to the directory you want to install bashbot, e.g.
   • your $HOME directory (install and run with your user-ID)
   • /usr/local if you want to run as service
2. Run git clone https://github.com/topkecleon/telegram-bot-bash.git
3. Change into the directory telegram-bot-bash
4. Run dev/all-tests.sh and if everything finish OK ...
5. Run rm addons/* to deactivate the example add on's
6. Run sudo ./bashbot.sh init to setup the environment and enter your Bots token given by botfather.

Get the latest development updates from github

To update an existing installation to the latest development version from github you must create the update archives yourself.

1. Run git clone https://github.com/topkecleon/telegram-bot-bash.git
2. Change into the directory telegram-bot-bash
3. Run git checkout develop
4. Run dev/make-distribution.sh
5. If no errors occur you will find archive files in DISTRIBUTION

Note for BSD and MacOS

On MacOS you must install a more recent version of bash, as the default bash is way to old, see e.g. Install Bash on Mac

On BSD and MacOS I recommend to install gnu coreutils and include them in your PATH environment variable before running bashbot, e.g. the gnu versions of sed, grep, find ...

On BSD and MacOS you must adjust the shebang line of the scripts bashbot.sh and json.sh to point to to the correct bash or use the script: examples/bash2env *.sh */*.sh to convert them for you.

Bashbot will stay with /bin/bash shebang, as using a fixed path is more secure than the portable /usr/bin/env variant, see Security Considerations

I considered to make bashbot BSD sed compatible, but much of the bashbot "magic" relies on (gnu) sed features, e.g. alternation |, non printables \n\t\< or repeat ?+ pattern, not supported by BSD sed. BSD/MacOS sed compatibility will result in a rewrite of all grep/sed commands with an uncertain outcome, see BSD/MacOS vs. GNU sed to get an impression how different they are.

If you can convert the following examples to work correct with gnu and BSD sed, contact me.

  # easy start
  sed -n -e '0,/\['"$1"'\]/ s/\['"$1"'\][ \t]\([0-9.,]*\).*/\1/p'
  OUT="$(sed -e ':a;N;$!ba;s/\r\n/ mynewlinestartshere /g' <<<"$1"| iconv -f utf-8 -t utf-8 -c)"

  # more complex
  address="$(sed <<< "${2}" '/myaddressstartshere /!d;s/.*myaddressstartshere //;s/ *my[nkfltab][a-z]\{2,13\}startshere.*//;s/ *mykeyboardendshere.*//')"

  # for experts?
  source <( printf "$1"'=( %s )' "$(sed -E -n -e ':x /"text"\]/ { N; s/([^"])\n/\1\\n/g ; tx }' -e '/\["[-0-9a-zA-Z_,."]+"\]\+*\t/ s/\t/=/gp' -e 's/=(true|false)/="\1"/')" )

Notes per Version

Change in storing config values

Up to version 0.94 bashbot stores config values as values in token, botadmin and count. Since version 0.96 bashbot uses jsonDB key/value store. Config is stored in botconfig.jssh, counting of users is done in count.jssh. The acl file botacl stay as is. On first run of bashbot.sh after an update bashbot converts the files to the new config format. Afterwards the files token, botadmin and count can be deleted.

You may notice the new file blocked.jssh, every telegram user or chat id stored here will be blocked from using your bot.

removal of TMUX

From version 0.80 on TMUX is no longer needed and the bashbot command 'attach' is deleted. Old function 'inproc' is replaced by 'send_interactive'. send_interactive does checks if an interactive job is running internally. Pls check if you make use of inproc and remove it including the old checks, e.g.

if tmux ls | grep -v send | grep -q "$copname"; then inproc; fi
# or
[ checkprog ] && inproc

must be replaced by send_interactive "${CHATD[ID]}" "${MESSAGE}"

Do not edit commands.sh

From version 0.60 on your commands must be placed in mycommands.sh. If you update from a version with your commands in 'commands.sh' move all your commands and functions to mycommands.sh.

From version 0.80 on 'commands.sh' will be overwritten on update!

Location of var / tmp / data dirs

From version 0.70 on the tmp dir is renamed to 'data-bot-bash' to reflect the fact that not only temporary files are stored. an existing 'tmp-bot-bash' will be automatically renamed after update.

From version 0.50 on the temporary files are no more placed in '/tmp'. instead a dedicated tmp dir is used.

Changes to send_keyboard in v0.6

From Version 0.60 on keyboard format for send_keyboard and send_message "mykeyboardstartshere ..." was changed. Keyboards are now defined in JSON Array notation e.g. "[ \"yes\" , \"no\" ]". This has the advantage that you can create any type of keyboard supported by Telegram. The old format is supported for backward compatibility, but may fail for corner cases.

Example Keyboards:

• yes no in two rows:
  • OLD format: 'yes' 'no' (two strings)
  • NEW format: '[ "yes" ] , [ "no" ]' (two arrays with a string)
• new layouts made easy with NEW format:
  • Yes No in one row: '[ "yes" , "no" ]'
  • Yes No plus Maybe in 2.row: '[ "yes" , "no" ] , [ "maybe" ]'
  • numpad style keyboard: '[ "1" , "2" , "3" ] , [ "4" , "5" , "6" ] , [ "7" , "8" , "9" ] , [ "0" ]'

Next Create Bot

$$VERSION$$ v1.2-dev2-51-g05bb23a