Webhook not working on python telegram bot

Question

Please, someone help me with this, I'am really struggling for hours by now. Don't know what to do anymore, searched every page everywhere, still no solution.

I have a telegram BOT which I'am migrating from getUpdates() to a webhook. Here goes the code I'am executing (it works, you will see ahead):

BOT_TOKEN = 'xxxx' #no show
HOST     = 'y.y.y.y' #no show
PORT     = 443
CERT     = '/home/bot/scripts/python/cert.pem'
CERT_KEY = '/home/bot/scripts/python/private.key'

bot = telegram.bot.Bot(token=TOKEN)
updater = Updater(bot=bot)
updater.start_webhook( listen=HOST,
                       port=PORT, url_path=BOT_TOKEN,
                       key=CERT_KEY, cert=CERT,
                       webhook_url='https://%s:%s/%s'%(HOST,PORT,BOT_TOKEN)
                     )

updater.dispatcher.add_handler(CommandHandler('start', start))
updater.idle()

The Webhook starts as the DEBUG shows:

[root@rrpump python]# python3.6 bot_telegram.py
2018-03-06 16:04:04,243 - telegram.ext.dispatcher - DEBUG - Setting singleton dispatcher as <telegram.ext.dispatcher.Dispatcher object at 0x7fd490525ef0>
2018-03-06 16:04:04,243 - JobQueue - DEBUG - JobQueue thread started
2018-03-06 16:04:04,243 - telegram.ext.updater - DEBUG - dispatcher - started
2018-03-06 16:04:04,244 - telegram.ext.updater - DEBUG - updater - started
2018-03-06 16:04:04,244 - telegram.ext.updater - DEBUG - Updater thread started
2018-03-06 16:04:04,247 - telegram.ext.dispatcher - DEBUG - Dispatcher started
2018-03-06 16:04:04,263 - telegram.bot - DEBUG - Entering: set_webhook
2018-03-06 16:04:04,265 - telegram.vendor.ptb_urllib3.urllib3.connectionpool - DEBUG - Starting new HTTPS connection (1): api.telegram.org
2018-03-06 16:04:04,704 - telegram.vendor.ptb_urllib3.urllib3.connectionpool - DEBUG - https://api.telegram.org:443 "POST /botxxxx/setWebhook HTTP/1.1" 200 57
2018-03-06 16:04:04,706 - telegram.bot - DEBUG - True
2018-03-06 16:04:04,706 - telegram.bot - DEBUG - Exiting: set_webhook
2018-03-06 16:04:04,706 - telegram.utils.webhookhandler - DEBUG - Webhook Server started.

But when I send a /start command to my bot, nothing arrives.

Then, I openned the 443 port on my server:

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT

And verified if my bot script was listening to that port:

[root@rrpump bot]# lsof -i | grep python3.6
python3.6 30598     root    7u  IPv4 2781012079      0t0  TCP rrpump.com:https (LISTEN)
python3.6 30598     root    9u  IPv6 2781012225      0t0  TCP rrpump.com:43682->[2001:67c:4e8:f004::9]:https (ESTABLISHED)

Yes, it was. But still, my bot was not responding to /start commands through telegram.

Then, I tryied POSTMAN and simulated a /start command sent directly to my webhook just like explained here :

No success. The webhook still don't receive anything. Something is clear until now: It is not a problem with api.telegram.org servers. When I do a updater.bot.getWebhookInfo(), I can see there are 14 pending updates, all my 14 '/starts' I sent to my bot through telegram:

print(updater.bot.getWebhookInfo().to_dict())
{'has_custom_certificate': True,
 'last_error_date': 1520355514,
 'last_error_message': 'Connection timed out',
 'max_connections': 40,
 'pending_update_count': 14,
 'url': 'https://y.y.y.y:443/xxxx'}

Then I tried to send a message with '/start' to my webhook directly from inside my server to itself like here :

[root@rrpump bot]# curl -v -k -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Cache-Control: no-cache"  -d '{
> "update_id":10000,
> "message":{
>   "date":1441645532,
>   "chat":{
>      "last_name":"Test Lastname",
>      "id":1111111,
>      "type": "private",
>      "first_name":"Test Firstname",
>      "username":"Testusername"
>   },
>   "message_id":1365,
>   "from":{
>      "last_name":"Test Lastname",
>      "id":1111111,
>      "first_name":"Test Firstname",
>      "username":"Testusername"
>   },
>   "text":"/start"
> }
> }' "https://y.y.y.y/xxxx"

* About to connect() to y.y.y.y port 443 (#0)
*   Trying y.y.y.y...
* Connected to y.y.y.y (y.y.y.y) port 443 (#0)
* Initializing NSS with certpath: sql:/etc/pki/nssdb
* skipping SSL peer certificate verification
* SSL connection using TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
* Server certificate:
*       subject: CN=y.y.y.y 1,O=Example Brooklyn Company,L=Brooklyn,ST=New York,C=US
*       start date: Mar 06 13:54:03 2018 GMT
*       expire date: Mar 06 13:54:03 2019 GMT
*       common name: y.y.y.y
*       issuer: CN=y.y.y.y,O=Example Brooklyn Company,L=Brooklyn,ST=New York,C=US
> POST /xxxx HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.29.0
> Host: y.y.y.y
> Accept: */*
> Content-Type: application/json
> Cache-Control: no-cache
> Content-Length: 392
>
* upload completely sent off: 392 out of 392 bytes
* HTTP 1.0, assume close after body
< HTTP/1.0 200 OK
< Server: WebhookHandler/1.0 Python/3.6.4
< Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:52:55 GMT
<
* Closing connection 0

And the webhook was triggered:

2018-03-06 16:52:55,844 - telegram.utils.webhookhandler - DEBUG - Webhook triggered
2018-03-06 16:52:55,844 - telegram.utils.webhookhandler - DEBUG - 93.188.166.161 - - "POST /415365952:AAFMeP6TVyhey4D1MNAaqhhiH0lh4EUvLVE HTTP/1.1" 200 -
2018-03-06 16:52:55,844 - telegram.utils.webhookhandler - DEBUG - Webhook received data: {
"update_id":10000,
"message":{
  "date":1441645532,
  "chat":{
     "last_name":"Test Lastname",
     "id":1111111,
     "type": "private",
     "first_name":"Test Firstname",
     "username":"Testusername"
  },
  "message_id":1365,
  "from":{
     "last_name":"Test Lastname",
     "id":1111111,
     "first_name":"Test Firstname",
     "username":"Testusername"
  },
  "text":"/start"
}
}

*Now.. the question is: how could my server be listening on port 443 only for itself? Why isn't it listening to external addresses just like I saw in the command lsof -i | python3.6?

This command also shows that:

[root@rrpump bot]# lsof -i:443
COMMAND     PID USER   FD   TYPE     DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
python3.6 30644 root    8u  IPv4 2785755157      0t0  TCP y.y.y.y:https (LISTEN)

Answer 1

That worked for me:

updater = Updater("xxxx")    
updater.start_webhook(
    listen='0.0.0.0',
    port=8443,
    url_path='xxxx',
    key='private.key',
    cert='cert.pem',
    webhook_url='https://y.y.y.y:8443/xxxx'
)
updater.idle()

where yyyy is external IP of server running the bot code and xxxx is the token. I had to port forward 8443 port in my router, because the mentioned server is connected to the router and NAT is enabled.