🤖 PosterBot — Anonymous Telegram Suggestion Bot

🇷🇺 Русская версия: README_RU.md

You also can try my ready-made solution https://t.me/vsanonkabot

PosterBot is a Telegram bot for receiving anonymous suggestions, written in Rust using teloxide and SQLite. It allows users to anonymously submit ideas, text, photos, videos, audio, and media albums (media groups). Moderators can review submissions, approve them for publication in a Telegram channel, reject them, or ban users.

✨ Features

• Anonymous submissions: Users send content via private messages to the bot, while moderators only see the submitted content.
• Media support: Text, photos, videos, audio, voice messages, video notes, stickers, and media albums (media groups).
• Moderation panel: Convenient inline keyboard with Approve / Reject / Ban / Specify reason actions.
• Post replies: Users can reply to published posts using deep-link buttons.
• Ban system: Ban users with automatically generated appeal codes (BAN-ID) and unban them using the /pardon command.
• Internationalization (i18n): Supports English and Russian. The owner can switch the bot language using /lang <en|ru>.
• Reliable storage: SQLite with WAL mode enabled. Duplicate messages are automatically discarded.

⚙️ Configuration

Create a .env file in the project root based on .env.example:

TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11
OWNER_ID=123456789
CHANNEL_ID=-1001234567890
OWNER_NAME=Your_Name
BOT_USERNAME=your_bot_username
DB_PATH=data/bot.db
RUST_LOG=posterbot=info,teloxide=info

• TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN: Your bot token from @BotFather.
• OWNER_ID: Your numeric Telegram ID (you can get it from @userinfobot).
• CHANNEL_ID: The ID of the Telegram channel where approved posts will be published (starts with -100...). The bot must be an administrator of the channel.
• OWNER_NAME: Your username (without @) or any display name.
• BOT_USERNAME: Your bot's username (without @).
• DB_PATH: Path to the SQLite database file (default: data/bot.db).

🚀 Deployment

Option 1: Docker Compose (Recommended)

1. Make sure Docker and Docker Compose are installed.
2. Create the .env file as described above.
3. Start the project:

docker compose up -d --build

The bot will start in the background automatically. The database will be stored in the ./data directory on the host machine, preventing data loss when recreating the container.

View logs:

docker compose logs -f

Option 2: Systemd (VPS / Bare Metal)

1. Install the Rust toolchain:

   curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
   source $HOME/.cargo/env

2. Clone the repository and build the binary:

   cargo build --release

3. Create a directory for the bot and copy the required files:

   sudo mkdir -p /opt/posterbot/data
   sudo cp target/release/posterbot /opt/posterbot/
   sudo cp .env /opt/posterbot/
   sudo cp -r migrations /opt/posterbot/

4. Create a dedicated user and set permissions:

   sudo useradd -r -s /bin/false -d /opt/posterbot posterbot
   sudo chown -R posterbot:posterbot /opt/posterbot
   sudo chmod 600 /opt/posterbot/.env

5. Create the systemd service /etc/systemd/system/posterbot.service:

   [Unit]
   Description=Telegram Anonymous Suggestion Bot (Rust)
   After=network-online.target
   Wants=network-online.target
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   User=posterbot
   Group=posterbot
   WorkingDirectory=/opt/posterbot
   EnvironmentFile=/opt/posterbot/.env
   ExecStart=/opt/posterbot/posterbot
   Restart=always
   RestartSec=10
   StandardOutput=journal
   StandardError=journal
   SyslogIdentifier=posterbot
   NoNewPrivileges=true
   ProtectSystem=strict
   ProtectHome=true
   ReadWritePaths=/opt/posterbot/data
   PrivateTmp=true
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target

6. Enable and start the service:

   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   sudo systemctl enable --now posterbot

View logs:

sudo journalctl -u posterbot -f

📋 Bot Commands

User Commands

• /start — Start using the bot or open the moderator panel (if authorized).
• /start reply_<ID> — (Automatically used) Reply to a specific channel post.
• /reply <ID> — Reply to a published post by its numeric ID.

Moderator Commands

• /proposals — Open the moderation queue of pending submissions.

Owner Commands

• /addadmin <ID> — Add a moderator by Telegram ID.
• /removeadmin <ID> — Remove a moderator.
• /admins — List all moderators.
• /banned — Show all active bans.
• /pardon <BAN-ID> — Unban a user using their appeal code.
• /lang <en|ru> — Change the bot interface language.

🧪 Development & Testing

The project includes unit tests covering database logic such as duplicate prevention, media grouping, and user state management.

Run the test suite with:

cargo test

📄 License

Licensed under the MIT License. Feel free to use, modify, and distribute the project.