Relay bot

New in version 0.2.0

The bridge supports using a Telegram bot to relay messages for unauthenticated users, allowing Matrix users who are not logged into their Telegram account to chat with Telegram users.

Setup

0. If you haven't yet, create a new bot on Telegram by chatting with @BotFather.
   • Make sure you disable privacy mode using BotFather's /setprivacy command in order to allow the bot to read messages in groups.
   • If you added the bot to a group before disabling privacy mode, you'll have to remove the bot and re-add it to apply the change.
1. Configure the bridge to use the bot you created by setting the token you got from BotFather in the telegram → bot_token field in the bridge's config.
2. Restart the bridge and check status with the !tg ping-bot command on Matrix.
3. Invite the relaybot to groups where you want it to bridge messages from unauthenticated Matrix users. If you're logged in to the bridge, you can use !tg ping-bot, click the user pill and click invite directly. If not, you can add the bot on the Telegram side.

If the room was created by the bridge and you don't have invite permissions, you can either use !tg set-pl to give yourself permissions, or /invite <mxid> (on Telegram) to invite users through the bridge bot.

Creating relaybot portals from Telegram

You can also create portals from Telegram if you have the relay bot set up and have allowed creating portals from telegram in the config (bridge → relaybot → authless_portals). Simply invite the relay bot to your Telegram chat and use the /portal command. If the chat is public, the bot should create the portal and reply with a room alias. If the chat is private, you'll need to invite Matrix users manually with /invite <mxid>.

Message format configuration

The format of messages and membership events that the bot sends to Telegram can be configured both bridge-wide and per-room. Per-room configs can be managed using the !tg config command.

For example, to disable bridging of membership events in a room, you can run

!tg config set state_event_formats join: ''
leave: ''
name_change: ''

which sets the state_event_formats config option to an object containing the empty strings join, leave and name_change.

Commands

If you have your own Telegram bot for the bridge, you can copy this to the /setcommands BotFather command:

invite - Invite a Matrix user to the portal room.
portal - Create the portal if it does not exist and get the join info.
id - Get the prefixed ID of the chat that can be used with `!tg bridge` and `!tg filter` in Matrix
mxban - Ban a relayed Matrix user. Must reply to a relaybot message.
mxkick - Kick a relayed Matrix user. Must reply to a relaybot message.