PurpleRelay relays and routes messages from Pidgin/Finch to Discord utilizing D-BUS for IPC(inter-process communication).

PurpleRelay is configured through a routes.json file to filter incoming messages received through Pidgin using regular expressions that are then relayed to specified Discord channels. Any instant messaging / chat account that Pidgin supports or through plugins should theoretically be capable of being relayed to Discord.

Relaying is simple to set up and there is even a Docker image available utilizing Finch for a headless GUI-less setup.

• Table of contents
• Relay Configuration
  • Reference
  • Example
• Docker
  • Quick reference
  • Start an instance
  • Where to Store Data
  • Docker Stack and Compose
• Running from source
  • Requirements
  • Installing dependencies and running

All possible configuration for the bot is done in the routes.json file. There is a provided routes-example.json in this repo for a simple setup.

• config: (dict) - Core config key-value pairs
  • token: (string, required) - The Discord bot token from Discord developers that will be used to join and send messages to relay target channels.
  • max_dbus_reconnect: (integer, default: 5) - The maximum number of D-BUS reconnection attempts to make in the event of a lost IPC connection to Pidgin/Finch before exiting with code 1. Set to 0 to disable and infinitely retry reconnecting to Pidgin/Finch.
  • bot_status: (bool, default: true) - Change the bot status color indicator for D-BUS errors or chat disconnects and set the activity indicator to display currently connected/total enabled Pidgin/Finch accounts. Setting this to false will disable updating the status indicator and activity so the bot will always appear as online(green).
• routes: (list, default: []) - A list containing multiple relay route dictionaries. A relay route dictionary defines a set of regex rules for input messages that can then be routed to multiple Discord targets channels.
  • route dictionary definition
    • name: (string, default: "relay_ID") - The identifier name used in logging and the console. This is simply an internal identifier and isn't relayed.
    • src: (string) - The service type of the source Pidgin/Finch account (ex: IRC, XMPP). This does nothing at the moment but may be implemented in the future for chat source specific overrides and handling.
    • filter_input_account: (string, default: .*) - The account input filter regex. A Pidgin/Finch message must match this and all other input regex filters to be relayed to targets. Regex DOTALL flag is enabled.
    • filter_input_sender: (string, default: .*) - The sender input filter regex. A Pidgin/Finch message must match this and all other input regex filters to be relayed to targets. Regex DOTALL flag is enabled.
    • filter_input_conversation: (string, default: .*) - The conversation input filter regex. A Pidgin/Finch message must match this and all other input regex filters to be relayed to targets. Regex DOTALL flag is enabled.
    • filter_input_message: (string, default: .*) - The message input filter regex. A Pidgin/Finch message must match this and all other input regex filters to be relayed to targets. Regex DOTALL flag is enabled.
    • filter_input_flags: (string, default: .*) - The flags input filter regex. A Pidgin/Finch message must match this and all other input regex filters to be relayed to targets. Regex DOTALL flag is enabled.
    • targets: (list, default: []) - A list containing multiple relay target dictionaries.
      • relay target dictionary definition
        • name: (string, default: "route_ID") - The identifier name used in logging and the console. This is simply an internal identifier and isn't relayed.
        • channel_id: (integer, required) - The target Discord channel ID.
        • title: (string, default: "") - The title prefixed to a relayed message. This title is included in the relayed message and can be anything.
        • embed: (bool, default: true) - Post message to this target as a Discord embed instead of plaintext.
        • embed_color: (integer, default: 4659341) - The color of a Discord embed (if embed=true).
        • timestamp: (bool, default: true) - Display the timestamp of the source message prefixed to relayed messages.
        • mention: (string, default: "") - The mention prefixed to relayed messages. Examples: "@here", "@everyone", "@group"
        • strip_mention: (bool, default: false) - Strips "@here" and "@everyone" from source messages before relaying the message. This option does not conflict with the "mention" setting for targets.
        • spam_control_seconds: (integer, default: false) - Do not relay a message if the same content has be successfully relayed in this many seconds ago. Setting this to 0 disables spam control and duplicate messages can be relayed.
• logger: (dict) - Logger configuration
  • log_purple_messages: (bool, default: true) - Logs all messages received by Pidgin/Finch into ./logs/purpleChat/. Includes time, account, sender, conversation, flags, message_raw/html, message text. Useful for building and testing input regex filters.
  • log_routed_messages: (bool, default: true) - Logs the message content and relay target channel id if the message was successfully relayed to ./logs/relayRoutes/
  • days_delete_after: (integer, default: 5) - Delete logs after this many days.

{
  "config": {
    "token": "",
    "max_dbus_reconnect": 5,
    "bot_status": true
  },
  "routes": [
    {
      "name": "RelayName",
      "src": "IRC",
      "filter_input_account": ".*",
      "filter_input_sender": ".*",
      "filter_input_conversation": ".*",
      "filter_input_message": ".*",
      "filter_input_flags": ".*",
      "targets": [
        {
          "name": "InternalRouteName",
          "channel_id": 123,
          "title": "Relay",
          "embed": true,
          "embed_color": 4659341,
          "timestamp": true,
          "mention": "@here",
          "strip_mention": true,
          "spam_control_seconds": 0
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "logger": {
      "log_purple_messages": true,
      "log_routed_messages": true,
      "days_delete_after": 5
  }
}

The Docker variant of PurpleRelay uses Finch to provide a GUI-less connection to chat services for relaying to Discord.

• stable
• development

• Where to get help:

  Discord support server

• Where to file issues:

  https://github.com/Nathan-LS/PurpleRelay/issues

This image uses a single Docker volume to persist the Finch config, logs, and routes.json. See volumes for information about Docker volumes.

See this guide for using Finch.

1. Create a named Docker volume.

   docker volume create relayvol
   

2. Find the volume's mountpoint

   docker volume inspect relayvol | grep "Mountpoint"
   

3. Place the configured routes.json file into the root of the volume's mountpoint.
4. Start PurpleRelay with the volume.

   docker run -it -v relayvol:/app --name myrelay nathanls/purplerelay
   

5. Finch is started in the background on the container as a screen session named finch. You will need to exec into the container to initially sign into the chat accounts with Finch from another terminal session. If a volume is mounted at /app on the container the Finch config will persist across restarts. You can also manually edit files within the Pidgin/Finch config directory which would be located at /app/.purple on the container and volume.

   docker exec -it myrelay screen -r finch
   

Persist data through mounting named volumes to the /app directory within the container.

Example stack.yml for PurpleRelay:

version: '3.7'
services:
  purple:
    image: nathanls/purplerelay:stable
    deploy:
      restart_policy:
        condition: any
    volumes:
      - relayvol:/app
    networks:
      - purple-network

volumes:
  relayvol:

networks:
  purple-network:
    driver: overlay

• An operating system currently utilizing D-Bus (most Linux distributions)
• System packages for PyGObject
• Python 3.7+ with packages from requirements.txt

This section outlines the process for manually installing dependencies and running the application on Fedora if you choose not to utilize the Docker image of PurpleRelay.

Note: Package names and commands may differ between Linux distros.

1. Install Python3

   dnf install -y python38
   

2. Install the PyGObject dependencies. See PyGObject install guide

   dnf install -y gcc gobject-introspection-devel cairo-devel pkg-config python3-devel gtk3
   

3. Clone and make a virtualenv

   mkdir ~/relay
   cd ~/relay
   git clone https://github.com/Nathan-LS/PurpleRelay.git
   cd PurpleRelay
   python3 -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate
   

4. Install requirements

   pip3 install -r requirements.txt
   

5. Rename routes-example.json to routes.json and add in your channel message routing. See Relay Configuration for information on configuration definitions.

   mv routes-example.json routes.json
   nano routes.json
   

6. Make a Discord application/bot and copy the token to config->token in the routes.json file. See the relay-configuration on this document for config reference.

7. Ensure Pidgin or Finch is running and start the bot.

   ./venv/bin/python3 ./PurpleRelay