About

A simple Telegram bot for monitoring Linux machines:

• CPU and RAM usage thresholds.
• On alert - sends top 20 processes sorted by memory usage / CPU usage.
• Notifies on user logins and sudo by tracking /var/log/auth.log.
• Sends per-NIC current network upload and download speed.
• Can be configured to watch any log file and send updates to Telegram.

All-in-one. No agents/servers/complicated setup. Almost zero-config, except Telegram Bot and Chat ID.

Main idea why it exists is that on my small VPS there were random CPU usage jumps periodically.

I wanted a small and simple monitoring script to send alerts to Telegram. But I did not find one to send the per-process details to debug the usage jumps.

It does not pretend to be super-clean or fully featured, but a quick and simple implementation fitting basic needs: monitor a small VPS linux server for anomalies or unexpected login attempts.

Please fill free to use or change it upon your will or contact me if you need any help.

Installation and Configuration

Tested on Ubuntu 22.04. You can use these instructions or install it manually on your own.

Pre-requisites

• git;
• python3.8 or above.

Installation Steps

Install a systemd service

Run as root (or do in a more secure way on your own).

sudo -i
cd /opt
git clone <the_project_url>
cd linux_telegram_monitor
./install_ubuntu.sh

See install_ubuntu.sh for the exact installation steps.

In short: it prepares a python virtualenv and installs the python script as a systemd service.

The script will be run from the current directory.

A .env file in the current dir will be used for configuration.

Register a new bot in Telegram

In Telegram contact BotFather.

Type: /newbot

Follow the instructions to get the new bot token.

Fill the token in the .env file and restart the service with:

sudo systemctl restart linux-telegram-monitor

Get and fill your chat ID

Now we have the bot token but to ensure that it is only you who sees the messages we need to hardcode your chat ID into the service.

The only way to know the chat ID is to contact the bot - it will be seen on the bot side.

With the service started, contact the bot and type /start.

The bot will respond with your chat ID.

Fill it into the .env file and restart the bot again with:

sudo systemctl restart linux-telegram-monitor

Now it should be working.

Checking status and logs

Checking the service status:

sudo systemctl status linux-telegram-monitor 

Checking the service logs:

sudo cat /var/log/syslog

Updating

To update - pull the new version from git and restart or reinstall the service.

Full re-install should be something similar to:

sudo -i
cd /opt/linux-telegram-monitor
./uninstall_ubuntu.sh
rm -rf venv
git pull origin master
# check if any new .env config needed
./install_ubuntu.sh

Uninstalling

sudo systemctl stop linux-telegram-monitor
sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/linux-telegram-monitor.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload