# Subscribe via ntfy CLI In addition to subscribing via the [web UI](web.md), the [phone app](phone.md), or the [API](api.md), you can subscribe to topics via the ntfy CLI. The CLI is included in the same `ntfy` binary that can be used to [self-host a server](../install.md). !!! info The **ntfy CLI is not required to send or receive messages**. You can instead [send messages with curl](../publish.md), and even use it to [subscribe to topics](api.md). It may be a little more convenient to use the ntfy CLI than writing your own script. It all depends on the use case. 😀 ## Install + configure To install the ntfy CLI, simply **follow the steps outlined on the [install page](../install.md)**. The ntfy server and client are the same binary, so it's all very convenient. After installing, you can (optionally) configure the client by creating `~/.config/ntfy/client.yml` (for the non-root user), or `/etc/ntfy/client.yml` (for the root user). You can find a [skeleton config](https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/blob/main/client/client.yml) on GitHub. If you just want to use [ntfy.sh](https://ntfy.sh), you don't have to change anything. If you **self-host your own server**, you may want to edit the `default-host` option: ``` yaml # Base URL used to expand short topic names in the "ntfy publish" and "ntfy subscribe" commands. # If you self-host a ntfy server, you'll likely want to change this. # default-host: https://ntfy.myhost.com ``` ## Publish messages You can send messages with the ntfy CLI using the `ntfy publish` command (or any of its aliases `pub`, `send` or `trigger`). There are a lot of examples on the page about [publishing messages](../publish.md), but here are a few quick ones: === "Simple send" ``` ntfy publish mytopic This is a message ntfy publish mytopic "This is a message" ntfy pub mytopic "This is a message" ``` === "Send with title, priority, and tags" ``` ntfy publish \ --title="Thing sold on eBay" \ --priority=high \ --tags=partying_face \ mytopic \ "Somebody just bought the thing that you sell" ``` === "Send at 8:30am" ``` ntfy pub --at=8:30am delayed_topic Laterzz ``` === "Triggering a webhook" ``` ntfy trigger mywebhook ntfy pub mywebhook ``` ### Attaching a local file You can easily upload and attach a local file to a notification: ``` $ ntfy pub --file README.md mytopic | jq . { "id": "meIlClVLABJQ", "time": 1655825460, "event": "message", "topic": "mytopic", "message": "You received a file: README.md", "attachment": { "name": "README.md", "type": "text/plain; charset=utf-8", "size": 2892, "expires": 1655836260, "url": "https://ntfy.sh/file/meIlClVLABJQ.txt" } } ``` ### Wait for PID/command If you have a long-running command and want to **publish a notification when the command completes**, you may wrap it with `ntfy publish --wait-cmd` (aliases: `--cmd`, `--done`). Or, if you forgot to wrap it, and the command is already running, you can wait for the process to complete with `ntfy publish --wait-pid` (alias: `--pid`). Run a command and wait for it to complete (here: `rsync ...`): ``` $ ntfy pub --wait-cmd mytopic rsync -av ./ root@example.com:/backups/ | jq . { "id": "Re0rWXZQM8WB", "time": 1655825624, "event": "message", "topic": "mytopic", "message": "Command succeeded after 56.553s: rsync -av ./ root@example.com:/backups/" } ``` Or, if you already started the long-running process and want to wait for it using its process ID (PID), you can do this: === "Using a PID directly" ``` $ ntfy pub --wait-pid 8458 mytopic | jq . { "id": "orM6hJKNYkWb", "time": 1655825827, "event": "message", "topic": "mytopic", "message": "Process with PID 8458 exited after 2.003s" } ``` === "Using a `pidof`" ``` $ ntfy pub --wait-pid $(pidof rsync) mytopic | jq . { "id": "orM6hJKNYkWb", "time": 1655825827, "event": "message", "topic": "mytopic", "message": "Process with PID 8458 exited after 2.003s" } ``` ## Subscribe to topics You can subscribe to topics using `ntfy subscribe`. Depending on how it is called, this command will either print or execute a command for every arriving message. There are a few different ways in which the command can be run: ### Stream messages as JSON ``` ntfy subscribe TOPIC ``` If you run the command like this, it prints the JSON representation of every incoming message. This is useful when you have a command that wants to stream-read incoming JSON messages. Unless `--poll` is passed, this command stays open forever. ``` $ ntfy sub mytopic {"id":"nZ8PjH5oox","time":1639971913,"event":"message","topic":"mytopic","message":"hi there"} {"id":"sekSLWTujn","time":1639972063,"event":"message","topic":"mytopic",priority:5,"message":"Oh no!"} ... ``` <figure> <video controls muted autoplay loop width="650" src="../../static/img/cli-subscribe-video-1.mp4"></video> <figcaption>Subscribe in JSON mode</figcaption> </figure> ### Run command for every message ``` ntfy subscribe TOPIC COMMAND ``` If you run it like this, a COMMAND is executed for every incoming messages. Scroll down to see a list of available environment variables. Here are a few examples: ``` ntfy sub mytopic 'notify-send "$m"' ntfy sub topic1 /my/script.sh ntfy sub topic1 'echo "Message $m was received. Its title was $t and it had priority $p' ``` <figure> <video controls muted autoplay loop width="650" src="../../static/img/cli-subscribe-video-2.webm"></video> <figcaption>Execute command on incoming messages</figcaption> </figure> The message fields are passed to the command as environment variables and can be used in scripts. Note that since these are environment variables, you typically don't have to worry about quoting too much, as long as you enclose them in double-quotes, you should be fine: | Variable | Aliases | Description | |------------------|----------------------------|----------------------------------------| | `$NTFY_ID` | `$id` | Unique message ID | | `$NTFY_TIME` | `$time` | Unix timestamp of the message delivery | | `$NTFY_TOPIC` | `$topic` | Topic name | | `$NTFY_MESSAGE` | `$message`, `$m` | Message body | | `$NTFY_TITLE` | `$title`, `$t` | Message title | | `$NTFY_PRIORITY` | `$priority`, `$prio`, `$p` | Message priority (1=min, 5=max) | | `$NTFY_TAGS` | `$tags`, `$tag`, `$ta` | Message tags (comma separated list) | | `$NTFY_RAW` | `$raw` | Raw JSON message | ### Subscribe to multiple topics ``` ntfy subscribe --from-config ``` To subscribe to multiple topics at once, and run different commands for each one, you can use `ntfy subscribe --from-config`, which will read the `subscribe` config from the config file. Please also check out the [ntfy-client systemd service](#using-the-systemd-service). Here's an example config file that subscribes to three different topics, executing a different command for each of them: === "~/.config/ntfy/client.yml (Linux)" ```yaml subscribe: - topic: echo-this command: 'echo "Message received: $message"' - topic: alerts command: notify-send -i /usr/share/ntfy/logo.png "Important" "$m" if: priority: high,urgent - topic: calc command: 'gnome-calculator 2>/dev/null &' - topic: print-temp command: | echo "You can easily run inline scripts, too." temp="$(sensors | awk '/Pack/ { print substr($4,2,2) }')" if [ $temp -gt 80 ]; then echo "Warning: CPU temperature is $temp. Too high." else echo "CPU temperature is $temp. That's alright." fi ``` === "~/Library/Application Support/ntfy/client.yml (macOS)" ```yaml subscribe: - topic: echo-this command: 'echo "Message received: $message"' - topic: alerts command: osascript -e "display notification \"$message\"" if: priority: high,urgent - topic: calc command: open -a Calculator ``` === "%AppData%\ntfy\client.yml (Windows)" ```yaml subscribe: - topic: echo-this command: 'echo Message received: %message%' - topic: alerts command: | notifu /m "%NTFY_MESSAGE%" exit 0 if: priority: high,urgent - topic: calc command: calc ``` In this example, when `ntfy subscribe --from-config` is executed: * Messages to `echo-this` simply echos to standard out * Messages to `alerts` display as desktop notification for high priority messages using [notify-send](https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man1/notify-send.1.html) (Linux), [notifu](https://www.paralint.com/projects/notifu/) (Windows) or `osascript` (macOS) * Messages to `calc` open the calculator 😀 (*because, why not*) * Messages to `print-temp` execute an inline script and print the CPU temperature (Linux version only) I hope this shows how powerful this command is. Here's a short video that demonstrates the above example: <figure> <video controls muted autoplay loop width="650" src="../../static/img/cli-subscribe-video-3.webm"></video> <figcaption>Execute all the things</figcaption> </figure> If most (or all) of your subscriptions use the same credentials, you can set defaults in `client.yml`. Use `default-user` and `default-password` or `default-token` (but not both). You can also specify a `default-command` that will run when a message is received. If a subscription does not include credentials to use or does not have a command, the defaults will be used, otherwise, the subscription settings will override the defaults. !!! warning Because the `default-user`, `default-password`, and `default-token` will be sent for each topic that does not have its own username/password (even if the topic does not require authentication), be sure that the servers/topics you subscribe to use HTTPS to prevent leaking the username and password. ### Using the systemd service You can use the `ntfy-client` systemd service (see [ntfy-client.service](https://github.com/binwiederhier/ntfy/blob/main/client/ntfy-client.service)) to subscribe to multiple topics just like in the example above. The service is automatically installed (but not started) if you install the deb/rpm package. To configure it, simply edit `/etc/ntfy/client.yml` and run `sudo systemctl restart ntfy-client`. !!! info The `ntfy-client.service` runs as user `ntfy`, meaning that typical Linux permission restrictions apply. See below for how to fix this. If the service runs on your personal desktop machine, you may want to override the service user/group (`User=` and `Group=`), and adjust the `DISPLAY` and `DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS` environment variables. This will allow you to run commands in your X session as the primary machine user. You can either manually override these systemd service entries with `sudo systemctl edit ntfy-client`, and add this (assuming your user is `phil`). Don't forget to run `sudo systemctl daemon-reload` and `sudo systemctl restart ntfy-client` after editing the service file: === "/etc/systemd/system/ntfy-client.service.d/override.conf" ``` [Service] User=phil Group=phil Environment="DISPLAY=:0" "DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus" ``` Or you can run the following script that creates this override config for you: ``` sudo sh -c 'cat > /etc/systemd/system/ntfy-client.service.d/override.conf' <<EOF [Service] User=$USER Group=$USER Environment="DISPLAY=:0" "DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/$(id -u)/bus" EOF sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl restart ntfy-client ``` ### Authentication Depending on whether the server is configured to support [access control](../config.md#access-control), some topics may be read/write protected so that only users with the correct credentials can subscribe or publish to them. To publish/subscribe to protected topics, you can use [Basic Auth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_access_authentication) with a valid username/password. For your self-hosted server, **be sure to use HTTPS to avoid eavesdropping** and exposing your password. You can either add your username and password to the configuration file: === "~/.config/ntfy/client.yml" ```yaml - topic: secret command: 'notify-send "$m"' user: phill password: mypass ``` Or with the `ntfy subscibe` command: ``` ntfy subscribe \ -u phil:mypass \ ntfy.example.com/mysecrets ```