Kafka-connect-telegram

A Kafka Connect source for Telegram

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Getting started

The Telegram connect plugin needs a bot to communicate with. Currently you must use and create your own bot, e.g. the KafkaConnectBot using the BotFather

• Start Telegram app and Open the BotFather.
• Use the /newbot command to create a new bot. The BotFather will ask you for a name and username, then generate an authorization token for your new bot.
  • The name of your bot is displ§ayed in contact details and elsewhere.
  • The username is a short name, to be used in mentions and telegram.me links. Usernames are 5-32 characters long and are case insensitive, but may only include Latin characters, numbers, and underscores. Your bot's username must end in ‘bot’, e.g. KafkaConnectBot.
  • The token is a string along the lines of 110201543:AAHdqTcvCH1vGWJxfSeofSAs0K5PALDsaw that is required to authorize the bot and send requests to the Bot API.
• (Optional) Set the picture of the bot, using the Logo
  • Type /setuserpic in the BotFather followed by the name of the bot, e.g. @KafkaConnectBot and the logo.
• Enable adding the bot to a group
  • Type /setjoingroups in the BotFather followed by the name of the bot, e.g. @KafkaConnectBot and the logo and enable joining.
• Create a new group, i.e. Burglar-alerts
• Add the bot to the group
  • Select the @KafkaConnectBot and choose Add to group, select the Burglar-alerts group.
  • Confirm to add the bot to the group.
• Send the message /test to the group; this should be sent to the bot as well, even in privacy mode

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Determine and verify the (group) chat ID

• The group chat id can be retrieved from the Telegram API, using the output fom the following command, replacing XXtokenXX by the actual token
  • curl https://api.telegram.org/botXXtokenXX/getUpdates
    • Note that bot must always be present—it's just XXtokenXX that you need to replace
  • In the JSON response, e.g chat":{"id":-999991234,"title":"Burglar-alerts","type":"group" you can find the chat id, here -999991234
• Your bot should be able to send using a simple curl command:
• curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"chat_id":"-999991234", "text":"Hello world!"}' https://api.telegram.org/botXXtokenXX/sendMessage