Installing the bot on hosting

This section describes how to install TG Support Bot on hosting without using Docker Compose.

Alternative installation method

Installation via Docker Compose automatically deploys all the required services: the database, logging, and monitoring. When installing on hosting you will need to create the database in advance and specify its credentials yourself in the .env file.

Cloning the repository

Go to the project directory and make sure it is empty:

ls -A

If the directory is not empty, clear it:

find . -mindepth 1 -delete

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/prog-time/tg-support-bot.git .

Creating a bot and a group in Telegram

1. Open @BotFather and create a new bot with the /newbot command;
2. Set a name and a username for the bot;
3. Copy and save the token you receive;
4. Create a new private Telegram group;
5. Add the bot to the group and make it an administrator;
6. In the group settings, enable the ability to create topics;
7. To find out the group ID, temporarily add the @getMyId bot (or a similar one) to it. Once you have the ID, remove it from the group.

Creating the .env file

Copy the configuration file from the template:

cp .env.example .env

Filling in the .env

Open the .env file and replace the variable values with real data:

1. Domain

MAIN_DOMAIN=example.com
APP_URL=https://example.com

2. Database credentials

DB_CONNECTION=pgsql
DB_HOST=pgdb
DB_PORT=5432
DB_DATABASE=database_name
DB_USERNAME=username
DB_PASSWORD=password

Integration parameters are configured in the admin panel.

Applying database migrations

After configuring the database connection, run the migrations to create the necessary tables:

php artisan migrate

Redirecting requests to the public directory

TIP

This step may vary depending on your hosting. If you cannot get the bot running, contact your hosting provider's technical support or ask a question in our Telegram community — t.me/pt_tg_support.

For the application to work correctly, all incoming requests must be directed to the public directory. Create a .htaccess file in the project root with the following contents:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule (.*) public/$1

After that, make sure requests are processed correctly through public/index.php.