SupportBot

Telegram bot, which allows process support requests from users. Includes Support Portal (django backend) and bot itself.

• Demo
• Installation and running
  • Manual
    • Installation
    • Running Bot
    • Running Support Portal
  • Docker
    • docker-compose
    • MySQL and RabbitMQ
    • Support Portal
    • Bot
• Post-installation steps
  • Creating first administrator
  • Location picker support

Demo

Demo Telegram Bot available here: @NotSupportTestBot

Demo Support Portal available at https://supportbot.sychusha.com/

Test accounts:

• Support:

username: demo_support
password: support_test

• Administrator:

username: demo_admin
password: administrator_test

In order to prevent abusing demo server, it runs in demo mode: some features, like creating new staff users or creating/editing settings, are not available.

Installation and running

Manual

Installation

• Download and setup Mysql and RabbitMQ.
• Create separate virtual environments for bot and backend.
• Install via pip packages listed in requirements.txt for every matching virtual environment.
• If you don't already have a Telegram bot, create one and obtain authorization token.
• Paste your Telegram bot's token in bot/.env file:

BOT_TOKEN="TOKEN:GOES_HERE"

Alternatively you can paste it in docker-compose.yaml in environment section for bot service (Docker only).

Bot and Portal settings are available in bot/config.py and backend/backend/settings.py.

For Support Portal you should specify your domain:

• Directly in django settings file on ALLOWED_HOSTS variable.
• Via environment variable HTTP_HOSTS. You can specify multiple domains separated by commas.

Django SECRET_KEY should be passed via environment variable SECRET_KEY.

MySQL and RabbitMQ connections settings could be also specified via environment variables (for both Bot and Support Portal) or in the .env files:

MYSQL_HOST='127.0.0.1'
MYSQL_PORT='3306'
MYSQL_DBNAME='support_bot'
MYSQL_USER='root'
MYSQL_PASSWORD='password'

RABBITMQ_PORT='5672'
RABBITMQ_HOST='localhost'

Running Bot

• On Linux

python bot/main.py

• On Windows

python bot\main.py

Running Support Portal

Start as usual Django application from backend directory:

• The development server
• Deploying Django

If DEBUG = True, django.contrib.staticfiles will be automatically enabled. Otherwise, you should use webserver (like Nginx or Apache) to serve static files.

Before starting server, you should make initial migration and fixtures import:

python manage.py migrate support zero
python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

python manage.py loaddata groups
python manage.py loaddata lines
python manage.py loaddata settings

Docker

You can use Dockerfiles from this project to run SupportBot in Docker. Dockerfiles are available separately for all instances: bot, backend and mysql.

Before running any container, you should create three docker volumes for file storage, mysql and rabbitmq data:

docker volume create supportbot_file_storage
docker volume create supportbot_mysql_storage
docker volume create supportbot_rabbitmq

By default, nginx on backend container is configured to be used as proxy_pass backend. So webserver on your host is required.

In these examples environmental variables are passed into containers via -e argument of docker command. But you can also place .env files with them on the subdirectories of the components. These files will be placed directly in the containers.

docker-compose

This is the simplest way to deploy the bot:

docker-compose up -d

Or you can start services separately via docker-compose start <service-name>.

You can edit some settings, like BOT_TOKEN or other, from the previous section, in environment variables in docker-compose.yaml. Or you can build containers with .env files (only for bot and backend).

Outgoing port for Nginx should be also described in the backend section in docker-compose.yaml:

services:
  ...
  backend:
    ...
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:PORT:80"

Where PORT should be replaced with a port, which would be used as outgoing from container.

MySQL and RabbitMQ

docker image build -t supportbot_mysql mysql/
docker container run -d --name supportbot_mysql -p 127.0.0.1:3306:3306 -e 'MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=password' \
    -v supportbot_mysql_storage:/var/lib/mysql supportbot_mysql
docker run -d --name supportbot_rabbitmq -p 127.0.0.1:5672:5672 \
    -v supportbot_rabbitmq:/var/lib/rabbitmq rabbitmq:3

Where password should be replaced with selected MySQL root password

Support Portal

Make Docker image via Dockerfile and run container based on it:

docker image build -t supportbot_backend backend/
docker container run -d --name supportbot_backend -p 127.0.0.1:PORT:80 \
    -v supportbot_file_storage:/var/www/supportbot supportbot_backend \
    -e 'SECRET_KEY=DJANGO_SECRET_KEY' \
    -e 'MYSQL_HOST=localhost' \
    -e 'MYSQL_PORT=3306' \
    -e 'MYSQL_USER=root' \
    -e 'MYSQL_PASSWORD=password' \
    -e 'MYSQL_DB=support_bot' \
    -e 'RABBITMQ_HOST=localhost' \
    -e 'RABBITMQ_PORT=5672' \
    -e 'DEBUG=false'

Replace PORT with host server port, which would be used to access webserver on the container via HTTP.

Also replace password from MYSQL_PASSWORD with password from previous section.

If you are using your own MySQL server, then change values of MYSQL_HOST, MYSQL_PORT, MYSQL_USER, MYSQL_PASSWORD and MYSQL_DBMANE variables.

Bot

Make Docker image via Dockerfile and run container based on it:

docker image build -t supportbot_bot backend/
docker container run -d --name supportbot_bot \
    -v supportbot_file_storage:/var/www/supportbot supportbot_bot \
    -e 'BOT_TOKEN=BOT_TOKEN' \
    -e 'MYSQL_HOST=localhost' \
    -e 'MYSQL_PORT=3306' \
    -e 'MYSQL_USER=root' \
    -e 'MYSQL_PASSWORD=password' \
    -e 'MYSQL_DB=support_bot' \
    -e 'RABBITMQ_HOST=localhost' \
    -e 'RABBITMQ_PORT=5672' \
    -e 'BACKEND_HOST=localhost' \ 
    -e 'BACKEND_PORT=PORT' \
    -e 'DEBUG=false'

Bot container should wait for Nginx on the backend container. So you should pass variables BACKEND_HOST and BACKEND_PORT.

Like in the previous section, MYSQL_PASSWORD should be set with password of mysql root user.

Post-installation steps

Creating first administrator

For creating first administrator staff user, you should open this URL:

http://yourdomain.ru/install/

Installation page will request APP_SETUP_PASSWORD. You can find it in server output (after requesting installation page) or in the MySQL database in the support_settings table:

SELECT * FROM support_settings WHERE key='APP_SETUP_PASSWORD';

If you deployed Support Bot via default docker-compose config, you can run this command:

sudo docker exec -it supportbot_backend grep 'APP_SETUP_PASSWORD' /var/log/gunicorn-error.log | tail -n 1

Location picker support

Support Portal uses MapBox API for location picker dialog on the chats interface. In order to use it, you should:

• Create account on MapBox.
• Create a new access token or copy Default public token.
• Edit mapbox.api_token setting on Settings page of your Support Portal: paste access token to setting value and save it.