Replicate Multiple Telegram Accounts via the CData Sync CLI

CData Sync for Telegram is a stand-alone application that provides solutions for a variety of replication scenarios such as replicating sandbox and production instances into your database. Both Sync for Windows and Sync for Java include a command-line interface (CLI) that makes it easy to manage multiple Telegram connections. In this article we show how to use the CLI to replicate multiple Telegram accounts.

Configure Telegram Connections

You can save connection and email notification settings in an XML configuration file. To replicate multiple Telegram accounts, use multiple configuration files. Below is an example configuration to replicate Telegram to SQLite:

Windows

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<CDataSync>
  <DatabaseType>SQLite</DatabaseType>
  <DatabaseProvider>System.Data.SQLite</DatabaseProvider>
  <ConnectionString>Profile=C:\profiles\Telegram.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_bot_token';</ConnectionString>
  <ReplicateAll>False</ReplicateAll>
  <NotificationUserName></NotificationUserName>
  <DatabaseConnectionString>Data Source=C:\my.db</DatabaseConnectionString>
  <TaskSchedulerStartTime>09:51</TaskSchedulerStartTime>
  <TaskSchedulerInterval>Never</TaskSchedulerInterval>
</CDataSync>

Java

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<CDataSync>
<DatabaseType>SQLite</DatabaseType>
  <DatabaseProvider>org.sqlite.JDBC</DatabaseProvider>
  <ConnectionString>Profile=C:\profiles\Telegram.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_bot_token';</ConnectionString>
  <ReplicateAll>False</ReplicateAll>
  <NotificationUserName></NotificationUserName>
  <DatabaseConnectionString>Data Source=C:\my.db</DatabaseConnectionString>
</CDataSync>

Using API Key Authentication

Telegram uses Bot Tokens to authenticate API requests. You can obtain a Bot Token by creating a bot via BotFather on Telegram (https://t.me/BotFather). Once created, BotFather will provide a token in the format

123456789:ABCdefGhIJKlmNoPQRsTUVwxyZ

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Telegram Bot Token obtained from BotFather.

Example connection string

Profile=C:\profiles\Telegram.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_bot_token';

Configure Queries for Each Telegram Instance

Sync enables you to control replication with standard SQL. The REPLICATE statement is a high-level command that caches and maintains a table in your database. You can define any SELECT query supported by the Telegram API. The statement below caches and incrementally updates a table of Telegram data:

REPLICATE AvailableGifts;

You can specify a file containing the replication queries you want to use to update a particular database. Separate replication statements with semicolons. The following options are useful if you are replicating multiple Telegram accounts into the same database:

You can use a different table prefix in the REPLICATE SELECT statement:

REPLICATE PROD_AvailableGifts SELECT * FROM AvailableGifts 

Alternatively, you can use a different schema:

REPLICATE PROD.AvailableGifts SELECT * FROM AvailableGifts

Run Sync

After you have configured the connection strings and replication queries, you can run Sync with the following command-line options:

Windows

APISync.exe -g MyProductionAPIConfig.xml -f MyProductionAPISync.sql

Java

java -Xbootclasspath/p:c:\sqlitejdbc.jar -jar APISync.jar -g MyProductionAPIConfig.xml -f MyProductionAPISync.sql