Telegram Data Collection

A Telegram client application for collecting and processing channel messages using the gotd/td library.

Prerequisites

• Go 1.19 or higher
• Make

Setup

1. Copy the environment variables template:

cp .env.example .env

2. Get your Telegram API credentials:

   • Visit https://my.telegram.org/
   • Log in with your phone number
   • Go to 'API development tools'
   • Create a new application
   • Copy the api_id and api_hash

3. Configure your .env file with:

   • Your phone number (international format, e.g., +1234567890)
   • Your API ID from my.telegram.org
   • Your API hash from my.telegram.org

Configuration

Add your whitelisted channels to the .env file:

TELEGRAM_CHANNEL_WHITELIST=@testchannelcollect,123456789

You can specify channels using either:

• Channel usernames (starting with @)
• Numeric channel IDs

The application will automatically resolve usernames to channel IDs during startup.

Running the Application

1. Start the application:

make telegram

2. First-time Authentication:
   • Enter the verification code sent to your Telegram
   • If 2FA is enabled, enter your password when prompted
   • Sessions are saved locally for future use

Features

• Automatic session management
• Update recovery system
• Flood wait handling
• Rate limiting
• Peer storage caching