Getting started

A few simple steps to get started with EFB.

Install EH Forwarder Bot

EH Forwarder Bot can be installed in the following ways:

Install from PyPI

pip will by default install the latest stable version from PyPI, but development versions are available at PyPI as well.

pip3 install ehforwarderbot

Install from GitHub

This will install the latest commit from GitHub. It might not be stable, so proceed with caution.

pip3 install git+https://github.com/ehForwarderBot/ehforwarderbot.git

Alternative installation methods

You can find a list of alternative installation methods contributed by the community in the project wiki.

For scripts, containers (e.g. Docker), etc. that may include one or more external modules, please visit the modules repository.

Note

These alternative installation methods are maintained by the community, please consult their respective author or maintainer for help related to those methods.

A stable internet connection

Since the majority of our channels are using polling for message retrieval, a stable internet connection is necessary for channels to run smoothly. An unstable connection may lead to slow response, or loss of messages.

Create local directories

EFB uses a *nix user configuration style, which is described in details in Directories. In short, if you are using the default configuration, you need to create ~/.ehforwarderbot, and give read and write permission to the user running EFB.

Choose, install and enable modules

Currently, all modules that was submitted to us are recorded in the modules repository. You can choose the channels that fits your need the best.

Instructions about installing each channel is available at their respective documentations.

Set up with the configuration wizard

When you have successfully installed the modules of your choices, you can the use the configuration wizard which guides you to enable channels and middlewares, and continue to setup those modules if they also have provided a similar wizard.

You can start the wizard by running the following command in a compatible console or terminal emulator:

efb-wizard

If you want to start the wizard of a module for a profile individually, run:

efb-wizard -p <profile name> -m <module ID>

Set up manually

Alternatively, you can enable those modules manually it by listing its Channel ID in the configuration file. The default path is ~/.ehforwarderbot/profiles/default/config.yaml. Please refer to Directories if you have configured otherwise.

Please note that although you can have more than one slaves channels running at the same time, you can only have exactly one master channels running in one profile. Meanwhile, middlewares are completely optional.

For example, to enable the following modules:

  • Master channel

    • Demo Master (foo.demo_master)

  • Slave channels

    • Demo Slave (foo.demo_slave)

    • Dummy Slave (bar.dummy)

  • Middlewares

    • Null Middleware (foo.null)

config.yaml should have the following lines:

master_channel: foo.demo_master
slave_channels:
- foo.demo_slave
- bar.dummy
middlewares:
- foo.null

If you have enabled modules manually, you might also need configure each module manually too. Please consult the documentation of each module for instructions.

Launch EFB

ehforwarderbot

This will launch EFB directly in the current environment. The default Profiles is named default, to launch EFB in a different profile, append --profile <profile-name> to the command.

For more command line options, use --help option.

Use EFB in another language

EFB supports translated user interface and prompts. You can set your system language or locale environmental variables (LANGUAGE, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES or LANG) to one of our supported languages to switch language.

You can help to translate this project into your languages on our Crowdin page.

Note

If your are installing from source code, you will not get translations of the user interface without manual compile of message catalogs (.mo) prior to installation.

Launch EFB as a daemon process

Since version 2, EH Forwarder Bot has removed the daemon helper as it is unstable to use. We recommend you to use mature solutions for daemon management, such as systemd, upstart, or pm2.