Loadshedding Power Updater Telegram Bot

Power Updater is an app that provides Eskom Loadshedding updates - running on AWS Serverless. Users can interact with Power Updater in two ways:

1. A Telegram bot: @PowerUpdatedBot
2. A web front-end: https://powerupdater.hacksaw.co.za/

The app pulls the Eskom loadshedding stage and schedule info from https://loadshedding.eskom.co.za/LoadShedding/, and makes it available as a Telegram bot and Flask web app. Power Updater is a GenAI-powered chatbot, so you can interact with the chatbot directly using natural language, or you can request the loadshedding schedule using the /schedule command. To be able to receive automated load shedding notifications, you can subscribe using the /subscribe command, and/or the bot can be added to your Telegram community groups/channels, and it will post the schedule for your area.

The bot will post the following information five times a day (or depending on the EventBridge Schedule):

Buccleuch Loadshedding Notice 
Stage 6  
The loadshedding schedule for today - Sun, 16 Apr: 
 16:00  -  20:30 (4 hours)
  
The loadshedding schedule for tomorrow - Mon, 17 Apr: 
 06:00  -  08:30
 14:00  -  18:30 (4 hours)
 22:00  -  02:30

The bot also supports you asking it for the schedule on an ad-hoc basis using the /schedule command.

The bot has a web front-end: https://powerupdater.hacksaw.co.za/ - where you can see the list of areas and schedules.

Loosely-based off https://github.com/daffster/mypowerstats, but completly re-written.

Architecture

For a detailed view of the architecture, read my blog about how this uses choreography and orchestration

1. get_schedule_lambda.py Lambda function gets invoked via an EventBridge schedule to call the Eskom loadshedding status endpoint and get the loadshedding stage. This is stored on DynamoDB, for each area/location/suburb.
2. A filter is setup on DynamoDB Streams to send changes to the notification_lambda.py Lambda function. If the loadshedding stage has changed, the new stage will be sent, which will be posted to Telegram.
3. Once a day, get_schedule_lambda.py Lambda function gets invoked via an EventBridge schedule to call the Eskom loadshedding schedule endpoint and store the schedule in DynamoDB.
4. A filter is setup on DynamoDB Streams to send changes to the notification_lambda.py Lambda function. If the loadshedding schedule has changed, it will be posted to Telegram
5. Every 2 hours, notification_lambda.py Lambda function gets invoked via cron schedule (EventBridge rule) to send loadshedding reminders. It reads the latest stage and schedule from DynamoDB, and posts to Telegram

How to run it

• Create your bot using BotFather, and take note of the token, e.g. 12334342:ABCD124324234

• Store the token securely in AWS SSM: aws ssm put-parameter --name "/power-updater/telegram/prod/bot_token" --type "SecureString" --value "12334342:ABCD124324234" --overwrite

• Use AWS SAM to build and deploy to AWS:

• • Install AWS CLI, and configure it
• • Install AWS SAM CLI

• To build and deploy your application for the first time, run the following in your shell:

sam build
sam deploy --guided

For future deploys, you can just run:

sam build && sam deploy

• Update your Telegram bot to change from polling to Webhook, by pasting this URL in your browser, or curl'ing it - Use your own bot token and Lambda URL endpoint: https://api.telegram.org/bot12334342:ABCD124324234/setWebHook?url=https://1fgfgfd56.lambda-url.eu-west-1.on.aws/. You can check that it was set correctly by going to https://api.telegram.org/bot12334342:ABCD124324234/getWebhookInfo, which should include the url of your Lambda URL, as well as any errors Telegram is encounterting calling your bot on that API.
• To ensure that only Telegram (servers) are calling your webhook, use the following to protect your webhook:
• • Set the secret_token on the webhook to ensure that header “X-Telegram-Bot-Api-Secret-Token” is sent: https://api.telegram.org/bot12334342:ABCD124324234/setWebHook?url=https://1fgfgfd56.lambda-url.eu-west-1.on.aws/Prod&secret_token=thisismysecret

TODO

• Even though area is a field in the DB, need to configure it properly for multiple areas
• Pull announcements from https://twitter.com/Eskom_SA
• Use WAF to limit API GW clients to Telegram IP
• Use API GW HTTP Header Request Validator to ensure that the header “X-Telegram-Bot-Api-Secret-Token” exists