xmr_tx_notify

Contents

• Description
• Possible use-cases
• Features
• Demo
• Supported OSs
• Dependencies
• Installation
• Config
• Usage
• Disclaimer
• Todo

Description

This application shows a notification pop-up (+ optional sound effect), when a Monero transaction is received by your wallet.
It is also possible to receive messages linked via transaction id.

Possible use-cases

• Can be used by a streamer, to receive donations in Monero and display the donators name + message in a pop-up.
• If you're fancy, you could just get notifications for your mining (or even, depends on how fancy you are, regular) wallet.

Features

Receive Messages

Have a MessageReceiver wait for messages in the format '<tx_id>:<message>'. If the tx_id refers to a recently received transaction, the message is stored in a queue and gets displayed in a notification pop-up.
For now there is only one kind of MessageReceiver, for what is planned/considered to be added see Todo.

IRC-Bot

Warning: Using this over clearnet exposes your IP. It is advised to use tor (see how to config).

The IRC-Bot is just hanging out in an arbitrary channel and waits for private messages.
/PRIVMSG <bot_name> <tx_id>:<msg>
The benefits of an IRC-Bot are:

• It's easy to use for everyone:
  • Donation recipient: just change some settings in the config.
  • Donator: can use one of many IRC clients or use a webchat.
  • Developer: this was my first attempt to write a bot, and it went pretty well, I guess.
• Does not require to open ports on your router, because we rely on outgoing connections only and use the IRC network's infrastructure.

Sound

Play a custom sound effect, when notification pops up.

Demo

streamer_donation_wallet_demo.webm

Supported OSs

• Should work on most ubuntu-like systems.
• Windows 10

Dependencies

• Get the latest monero release (v0.18.3.3 at the time of writing this).

Linux:

• Python
  • install pip3 install pygame pysocks
• Command line tools:
  • install with sudo apt install notify-send wmctrl xdotool xprop
  • optional to be able to use launch_script_linux.sh install sudo apt install tmux

Windows:

• Python
  • install pip3 install requests pygame pysocks pywin32

Installation

git clone https://github.com/SNeedlewoods/xmr_tx_notify

Create a new Monero wallet, if you don't already have a wallet you want to use for this.
It's recommended to use a view-only wallet, this application does not check the actual balance, so there are no downsides.

Config

Small overview of the most important settings:

Config xmr_tx_notify.py

• Set IS_FANCY_NOTIFY:
  • True (default): Uses dependencies for notification.
  • False: Uses system level notification.
• Set MODE:
  • MODE_DONATION (default): Uses a message receiver (and in some cases default messages).
  • MODE_NOTIFICATION: Uses default messages.
• Set default messages:
  • DEFAULT_NOTIFICATION_NAME
  • NOTIFICATION_PREFIX
  • DEFAULT_NOTIFICATION_MESSAGE
• RPC Settings:
  • These need to match the settings you use to launch monero-wallet-rpc (see Usage)
    • RPC_PORT
    • RPC_LOGIN_USERNAME
    • RPC_LOGIN_PASSWORD
• Set window position and notification pop-up display size (default is top left corner of screen 1 with size 600x300 pixels)
  • WINDOW_POS_X, WINDOW_POS_Y, WINDOW_WIDTH, WINDOW_HEIGHT
• If you want to change the background image, or sound you can put the new files into assets/ and make sure the names match.

Config irc_bot.py

• Set IRC network:
  • IRC_SERVER
  • IRC_PORT
• Set IRC user:
  • IRC_PASSWORD
  • IRC_BOTNICK
  • IRC_CHANNEL
• Set USE_PROXY:
  • True (default): Uses tor browser proxy (127.0.0.1:9150).
  • False: Use this if you don't want to use tor.

For Tor:
Open the Tor browser and connect to the tor network before you launch xmr_tx_notify.py.

Config launch_script_linux.sh

Using this script is optional, change settings to the same that you would use in Usage.

Usage

1. Launch monerod (with your usual settings)

cd <path_to_monerod>
./monerod

2. Launch wallet rpc

cd <path_to_monero-wallet-rpc>
./monero-wallet-rpc --wallet-file <path_to_wallet>/<wallet_file> --password '<password>' --rpc-bind-port <RPC_PORT> --rpc-login <RPC_LOGIN_USERNAME>:<RPC_LOGIN_PASSWORD>

These need to match the settings you used to create the (view-only) wallet:
--wallet-file
--password
These need to match the settings from config:
--rpc-bind-port (default: 18099)
--rpc-login (default: notification_wallet:password)

3. Launch main application

python3 xmr_tx_notify.py

Quick start (Linux only)

If you have tmux installed and configured launch_srcipt:

./launch_script_linux.sh

Then wait until monero-wallet-rpc is running and press enter (fingers crossed, everything should work).

Disclaimer

This was written by a noob in many subjects that this application touches and my initial intention was just to get a proof of concept. It is not reviewed by anyone with experience or expertise. So use it at you own risk (if you're using a view-only wallet for the monero-wallet-rpc, there shouldn't be too much risk though AFAIK (don't quote me on this)). Don't sue me pls :)

TODO

General

• Add a min_amount for a tx to be displayed, to prevent getting spammed with messages.

Considerations

MessageReceiver

• IRC-Bot
  • Add feature to IRC-Bot to respond to private messages.
    • At least if a possible <tx_id>:<message> pair is detected, so the donator/message sender knows the bot isn't dead.
  • consider adding commands like:
    • help - show what bot can do (and how)
• Alternatives:
  • Twitch / YouTube / etc. bot, directly on the platform where streamer is streaming (probably best user experience from donator perspective).
  • Email (not sure about this one)

General

• Trust modes

  • trust_mode (current default)
    • Just show the notification pop-up with the message.
    • Works with one screen.
  • no_trust_mode
    • First show the message on another (not live streamed) screen. Then, depending on the content you can decide to:
      • decline and
        • don't show a notification at all.
        • show a notification, but don't show the message (could use default for that).
      • accept and make it appear on the shared screen.

• Add the option to remember top donators and display them on screen

  • either short-term per stream in memory
  • or long-term all-time in a persistent file