bitnsbot

@bitnsbot

Bitcoin network events notification bot. It can send notifications on watched addresses and transactions. It also sends various information and statistics on Bitcoin network

How to run

Prerequisites

• Bitcoin Core node running with RPC, REST, ZMQ notification and transactions index enabled. Fully synced and not pruned
• telegram-bot-api running locally on the same machine

Command-line flags

Flag	Default	Description
-bot-token	(required)	Telegram bot token used to authenticate outbound Bot API calls
-listen	:8080	Address the webhook server listens on
-webhook-path	/bot	Path the Bot API server will POST updates to
-webhook-url		URL the Bot API server should send updates to, e.g. http://localhost:8080/bot
-api-base-url	http://localhost:8081	Base URL of the local telegram-bot-api server
-secret-token		Optional secret checked against the X-Telegram-Bot-Api-Secret-Token header
-register-webhook	true	Call setWebhook on startup
-db	watches.db	Path to the bbolt watches database
-core-url		Bitcoin Core JSON-RPC URL, e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8332 (leave empty to skip connecting to the node)
-core-user		Bitcoin Core RPC username (or use -core-cookie)
-core-pass		Bitcoin Core RPC password (or use -core-cookie)
-core-cookie		Path to Bitcoin Core's .cookie file, an alternative to -core-user/-core-pass
-core-zmq		Comma-separated ZMQ endpoints publishing hashblock and rawtx, e.g. tcp://127.0.0.1:28332,tcp://127.0.0.1:28333
-core-rest		Base URL of Bitcoin Core's REST interface for building the address index (empty disables indexing)
-backup		Path to copy the database to periodically (empty disables backups)
-backup-interval	24h	How often to back up the database
-backup-script		Command run after each backup, with the backup path as $1 and in $BACKUP_FILE
-verbose	0	Log verbosity: 0 = ERR/WARN/status, 1 = +INFO, 2 = +NET/DB
-log-no-ts	false	Omit the date and time prefix from each log line
-dbui-listen		Address for the database admin web UI, e.g. 127.0.0.1:8090 (empty disables it; bind to localhost only)
-history-file		Path to a JSON file containing historical BTC/USD rates (same format as blockchain.info/charts/market-price); backfilled from this file on first run instead of fetching over the network
-config		Path to a properties file (name=value lines) with flag values; command-line flags take precedence

Configuration file

Instead of passing all flags on the command line, you can use a properties file. Lines are name=value pairs (without the leading -). Comments start with #.

Example bitnsbot.conf:

# Telegram
bot-token=123456:ABC-DEF1234ghijklmnop
webhook-url=http://127.0.0.1:8082/bot
listen=127.0.0.1:8082
api-base-url=http://localhost:8081

# Database
db=bitnsbot.db

# Bitcoin Core RPC (use either cookie or user/pass)
core-url=http://127.0.0.1:8332
# core-user=rpcuser
# core-pass=rpcpassword
core-cookie=/path/to/.cookie

# Bitcoin Core ZMQ for real-time block/tx notifications
core-zmq=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332,tcp://127.0.0.1:28333

# Bitcoin Core REST for address index
core-rest=http://127.0.0.1:8332

# Backups
backup=/var/backups/bitnsbot.db
backup-interval=24h

# Logging
verbose=1

Running

Build and run:

go test ./... && go build .

With a configuration file:

./bitnsbot -config=bitnsbot.conf

Any flags passed on the command line override values from the config file:

./bitnsbot -config=bitnsbot.conf -verbose=2

With command-line flags only:

./bitnsbot -bot-token=... -webhook-url=http://127.0.0.1:8082/bot -listen=127.0.0.1:8082 -db=bitnsbot.db -core-url=http://127.0.0.1:8332 -core-cookie=cookie -core-rest=http://127.0.0.1:8332 -core-zmq=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332 -verbose=1

Another option: there are scripts to deploy a bot as a systemd service.

Useful tools

advertise - simple command line tool which sends advertising packets with a specific IP to all nodes in Bitcoin network

dbui - simple web interface to manage bot database. Embedded into a bot itself

Roadmap

• I18N
• Daily statistics. Send every day market, transactions volume, moved coins, etc statistics
• Improve data quality. More reliable and correct answers on addresses