Access to linux server using Telegram bot in Python

Quite often there are situations when access to the server is needed here and now. However, connecting via SSH is not always the most convenient way, because you may not have an SSH client, server address, or user/password combination at hand. Of course have Webmin, which simplifies administration, but it also does not provide instant access.

So I decided to implement a simple but interesting solution. Namely, to write a Telegram bot that, when launched on the server itself, will execute the commands sent to it and return the result. Having studied some articles on this topic, I realized that no one has yet described such implementations.

I implemented this project on Ubuntu 16.04, but for a trouble-free run on other distributions, I tried to make everything in a general way.

Bot registration

Register a new bot with @BotFather. We send him /newbot and further in the text. We will need a new bot token and your id (you can get it, for example, from @userinfobot).

Python preparation

To run the bot, we will use the library telebot (pip install pytelegrambotapi). Using the library subprocess we will execute commands on the server.

Bot launch

Create a bot.py file on the server:
nano bot.py

And paste the code into it:

from subprocess import check_output
import telebot
import time

bot = telebot.TeleBot("XXXXXXXXX:AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA")#токен бота
user_id = 0 #id вашего аккаунта
@bot.message_handler(content_types=["text"])
def main(message):
   if (user_id == message.chat.id): #проверяем, что пишет именно владелец
      comand = message.text  #текст сообщения
      try: #если команда невыполняемая - check_output выдаст exception
         bot.send_message(message.chat.id, check_output(comand, shell = True))
      except:
         bot.send_message(message.chat.id, "Invalid input") #если команда некорректна
if __name__ == '__main__':
    while True:
        try:#добавляем try для бесперебойной работы
            bot.polling(none_stop=True)#запуск бота
        except:
            time.sleep(10)#в случае падения

We replace the bot token in it with the one issued by @BotFather, and user_id with the id value of your account. Checking the user id is needed so that the bot provides access to your server only to you. Function check_output() executes the given command and returns the result.

It remains only to start the bot. For running processes on the server, I prefer to use screen (sudo apt-get install screen):

screen -dmS ServerBot python3 bot.py

(where "ServerBot" is the process ID)

The process will automatically run in the background. Let's go to the dialogue with the bot and check that everything works as it should:

Congratulations! The bot executes the commands sent to it. Now, in order to access the server, you just need to open a dialogue with the bot.

Command repetition

Often, to monitor the state of the server, you have to execute the same commands. Therefore, the implementation of repeating commands without resending them will be very out of place.

We will implement it using inline buttons under the messages:

from subprocess import check_output
import telebot
from telebot import types #Добавляем импорт кнопок
import time

bot = telebot.TeleBot("XXXXXXXXX:AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA")#Токен бота
user_id = 0 #id вашего аккаунта
@bot.message_handler(content_types=["text"])
def main(message):
   if (user_id == message.chat.id): #проверяем, что пишет именно владелец
      comand = message.text  #текст сообщения
      markup = types.InlineKeyboardMarkup() #создаем клавиатуру
      button = types.InlineKeyboardButton(text="Повторить", callback_data=comand) #создаем кнопку
      markup.add(button) #добавляем кнопку в клавиатуру
      try: #если команда невыполняемая - check_output выдаст exception
         bot.send_message(user_id, check_output(comand, shell = True,  reply_markup = markup)) #вызываем команду и отправляем сообщение с результатом
      except:
         bot.send_message(user_id, "Invalid input") #если команда некорректна

@bot.callback_query_handler(func=lambda call: True)
def callback(call):
  comand = call.data #считываем команду из поля кнопки data
  try:#если команда не выполняемая - check_output выдаст exception
     markup = types.InlineKeyboardMarkup() #создаем клавиатуру
     button = types.InlineKeyboardButton(text="Повторить", callback_data=comand) #создаем кнопку и в data передаём команду
     markup.add(button) #добавляем кнопку в клавиатуру
     bot.send_message(user_id, check_output(comand, shell = True), reply_markup = markup) #вызываем команду и отправляем сообщение с результатом
  except:
     bot.send_message(user_id, "Invalid input") #если команда некорректна

if __name__ == '__main__':
    while True:
        try:#добавляем try для бесперебойной работы
            bot.polling(none_stop=True)#запуск бота
        except:
            time.sleep(10)#в случае падения

Restarting the bot:

killall python3
screen -dmS ServerBot python3 bot.py

Let's check again that everything works correctly:

By pressing the button under the message, the bot must repeat the command from which this message was sent.

Instead of a conclusion

Of course, this method does not pretend to be a replacement for the classic connection methods, however, it allows you to quickly find out about the state of the server and send commands to it that do not require complex output.

Source: habr.com