Telegram messenger CLI

Command-line interface for Telegram. Uses readline interface.

API, Protocol documentation

Documentation for Telegram API is available here: http://core.telegram.org/api

Documentation for MTproto protocol is available here: http://core.telegram.org/mtproto

Installation

Clone GitHub Repository

$ git clone https://github.com/vysheng/tg.git && cd tg

or download and extract zip

$ wget https://github.com/vysheng/tg/archive/master.zip -O tg-master.zip
$ unzip tg-master.zip && cd tg-master

Linux

Install libs: readline openssl and (if you want to use config) libconfig and liblua. If you do not want to use them pass options --disable-libconfig and --disable-liblua respectively On ubuntu use:

$ sudo apt-get install libreadline-dev libconfig-dev libssl-dev lua5.2 liblua5.2-dev

On gentoo:

$ sudo emerge -av sys-libs/readline dev-libs/libconfig dev-libs/openssl dev-lang/lua

Default Makefile uses liblua5.2 from ubuntu. If you use different version of liblua or linux you have to run ./configure script or you will get some strange compilation error.

Then

$ ./configure
$ make

Mac OS X

The client depends on readline library and libconfig, which are not included in OS X by default. You have to install these libraries manually, e.g. using Homebrew.

$ brew install libconfig
$ brew install readline
$ export CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/Cellar/readline/6.2.4/include"
$ export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/Cellar/readline/6.2.4/lib"
$ ./configure && make

Thanks to @jfontan for this solution.

FreeBSD

Install these ports:

• devel/libconfig
• devel/libexecinfo

Then build:

$ env CC=clang CFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib ./configure
$ make

Other UNIX

If you manage to launch it on other UNIX, please let me know.

Usage

./telegram -k <public-server-key>

By default public key is stored in the same folder named tg.pub:

./telegram -k tg.pub

Client support TAB completion and command history.

Peer refers to the name of the contact and can be accessed by TAB completion.

Supported commands

Messaging

• msg <peer> Text - sends message to this peer
• fwd <user> <msg-seqno> - forward message to user. You can see message numbers starting client with -N
• chat_with_peer <peer> starts one on one chat session with this peer. /exit or /quit to end this mode.
• add_contact <phone-number> <first-name> <last-name> - tries to add contact to contact-list by phone
• rename_contact <user> <first-name> <last-name> - tries to rename contact. If you have another device it will be a fight
• mark_read <peer> - mark read all received messages with peer

Multimedia

• send_photo <peer> <photo-file-name> - sends photo to peer
• send_video <peer> <video-file-name> - sends video to peer
• send_text <peer> <text-file-name> - sends text file as plain messages
• load_photo/load_video/load_video_thumb <msg-seqno> - loads photo/video to download dir
• view_photo/view_video/view_video_thumb <msg-seqno> - loads photo/video to download dir and starts system default viewer

Group chat options

• chat_info <chat> - prints info about chat
• chat_add_user <chat> <user> - add user to chat
• chat_del_user <chat> <user> - remove user from chat
• rename_chat <chat> <new-name>

Search

• search <peer> pattern - searches pattern in messages with peer
• global_search pattern - searches pattern in all messages

Secret chat

• create_secret_chat <user> - creates secret chat with this user
• visualize_key <secret_chat> - prints visualization of encryption key. You should compare it to your partner's one

Stats and various info

• user_info <user> - prints info about user
• history <peer> [limit] - prints history (and marks it as read). Default limit = 40
• dialog_list - prints info about your dialogs
• contact_list - prints info about users in your contact list
• suggested_contacts - print info about contacts, you have max common friends
• stats - just for debugging
• show_license - prints contents of GPLv2
• help - prints this help