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Meshtastic-Telegram revised: Documentation

Overview

This project is a powerful, two-way gateway that bridges a Meshtastic (LoRa) radio network with a Telegram chat group. It allows users on a remote, off-grid Meshtastic network to send and receive text messages from users on the internet via Telegram, and vice-versa.

The gateway is designed to run 24/7 as a reliable, hands-off server application, but it also includes a command-line interface for direct interaction with the mesh.

Key Features 🚀

• Two-Way Messaging: Seamlessly relays messages from Meshtastic to Telegram and from Telegram to Meshtastic.
• Command-Based Forwarding: Telegram users can send broadcast messages with /send and private direct messages with /dm, giving them full control over what gets sent to the radio network.
• Dynamic Node Naming: Automatically learns and stores the friendly names of nodes on the mesh (e.g., "Jay," "dcn1") and uses them in Telegram. For unknown nodes, it displays a clear hexadecimal ID (e.g., [!7f4dbc79]).
• Automated Welcome DMs: Can be configured to automatically send a welcoming direct message to new nodes the first time they are heard on the mesh.
• Robust Message Handling: Automatically splits long messages from Telegram into multiple, numbered chunks that are suitable for the small packet size of the Meshtastic network.
• Powerful Command-Line Interface (CLI): Directly send broadcast messages, DMs, and list all known nodes from your server's command line, independent of the Telegram bridge.
• Secure & Configurable: Works with encrypted channel traffic and allows you to independently enable or disable each direction of the relay in the configuration file.

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Requirements

1. Hardware:
   • A Meshtastic device configured to act as an MQTT gateway.
   • A server or computer to run the gateway script (e.g., a Raspberry Pi or a small cloud server running Linux).
2. Software:
   • An MQTT broker (like Mosquitto).
   • Python 3.8+
   • A Telegram account and a Telegram Bot token.

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Setup Instructions

Follow these steps to get the gateway running.

Step 1: Configure Your Meshtastic MQTT Gateway

Ensure your Meshtastic device is correctly configured to talk to your MQTT broker. In your device's MQTT module settings:

• Set the MQTT server address, username, and password.
• Ensure JSON enabled is turned off (disabled).

Step 2: Prepare the Server

1. Get the project code onto your server.
2. Create and activate a Python virtual environment.

   python3 -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate

3. Create a requirements.txt file with the necessary libraries:

   # requirements.txt
   aiomqtt
   python-telegram-bot
   cryptography
   pysqlite3
   

4. Install the libraries:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

Step 3: Create the config.ini File

Create a file named config.ini and paste the following content into it, filling it out with your own details.

# config.ini

[telegram]
api_key = YOUR_TELEGRAM_BOT_API_KEY_HERE
chat_id = YOUR_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID_HERE

[mqtt]
host = your_mqtt_broker_address
port = 1883
user = your_mqtt_username
password = your_mqtt_password

[relay]
meshtastic_to_telegram_enabled = true
telegram_to_meshtastic_enabled = true

[welcome_message]
enabled = true
message = Welcome to the mesh! This is an automated message from the Telegram gateway.

[database]
path = ./meshtastic.sqlite

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Running the Gateway

You can run the gateway as a 24/7 service or interact with it directly using the new command-line interface.

1. As a 24/7 Service

To run the full Telegram bridge continuously, set it up as a systemd service.

• Create a service file: sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/meshtastic-gateway.service

• Paste in the following, updating the User and paths to match your setup.

  [Unit]
  Description=Meshtastic to Telegram Gateway
  After=network.target
  
  [Service]
  User=dcn1
  WorkingDirectory=/home/dcn1/Documents/meshtastic-telegram-gateway
  ExecStart=/home/dcn1/Documents/meshtastic-telegram-gateway/venv/bin/python -m dcnbot.gateway.gateway
  Restart=always
  RestartSec=5
  
  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target

• Enable and start the service:

  sudo systemctl daemon-reload
  sudo systemctl enable meshtastic-gateway.service
  sudo systemctl start meshtastic-gateway.service

2. Using the Command-Line Interface (CLI) ⌨️

The CLI allows you to send messages and manage nodes directly from your server's terminal, without interacting with Telegram.

• List All Known Nodes This command displays a formatted table of all nodes stored in the database.

  python -m dcnbot.cli.cli nodes

• Send a Broadcast Message This sends a message to everyone on the mesh. The message appears to come from the gateway node itself.

  python -m dcnbot.cli.cli send This is a test broadcast from the command line.

• Send a Direct Message (DM) This sends a private message to a specific node using its name or hex ID.

  # By name
  python -m dcnbot.cli.cli dm Jay Hello from the CLI!
  
  # By hex ID
  python -m dcnbot.cli.cli dm !da5c80d4 This is a direct message via hex ID.