Installation

$ git clone ...
$ cd matrix-appservice-tg
$ npm install

Setup

1. Create a new Matrix room to act as the administration control room. Note its internal room ID.

2. Create a telegram-config.yaml file for global configuration. There is a sample one to begin with in config/telegram-config-sample.yaml you may wish to copy and edit as appropriate. This needs the following keys:

   matrix_homeserver: "http URL pointing at the homeserver"
   
   matrix_user_domain: "domain part of the homeserver's name. Used for
                        ghost username generation"
   
   username_template: "template for virtual users, e.g. telegram_${USER}"
   
   matrix_admin_room: "the ID of the room created in step 2"
   
   auth_key_password: "a random string used to obfuscate authentication keys
                       stored in the user database"

3. Pick/decide on a spare local TCP port number to run the application service on. This needs to be visible to the homeserver - take care to configure firewalls correctly if that is on another machine to the bridge. The port number will be noted as $PORT in the remaining instructions.

4. Generate the appservice registration file (if the application service runs on the same server you can use localhost as $URL):

   $ node index.js --generate-registration -f telegram-registration.yaml  -u $URL:$PORT

5. Start the actual application service. You can use forever

   $ forever start index.js --config telegram-config.yaml --port $PORT

   or node

   $ node index.js --config telegram-config.yaml --port $PORT

6. Copy the newly-generated telegram-registration.yaml file to the homeserver. Add the registration file to your homeserver config (default homeserver.yaml):

   app_service_config_files:
      - ...
      - "/path/to/telegram-registration.yaml"

   Don't forget - it has to be a YAML list of strings, not just a single string.

   Restart your homeserver to have it reread the config file and establish a connection to the bridge.

7. Invite the newly-created @telegrambot:DOMAIN user into the admin control room created at step 1.

The bridge should now be running.