---
id: messaging-and-voice-channels
sidebar_label: Connecting to a Channel
title: Connecting to Messaging and Voice Channels
description: Check out how to make your Rasa assistant available on platforms like Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram or even your very own website.
abstract: Rasa provides many built-in connectors to connect to common messaging and voice channels.
  You can also connect to your website or app with pre-configured REST channels or build your own custom connector.
---

## Connecting to A Channel

Learn how to make your assistant available on:

* [Your Own Website](./connectors/your-own-website.mdx)

* [Facebook Messenger](./connectors/facebook-messenger.mdx)

* [Slack](./connectors/slack.mdx)

* [Telegram](./connectors/telegram.mdx)

* [Twilio](./connectors/twilio.mdx)

* [Microsoft Bot Framework](./connectors/microsoft-bot-framework.mdx)

* [Cisco Webex Teams](./connectors/cisco-webex-teams.mdx)

* [RocketChat](./connectors/rocketchat.mdx)

* [Mattermost](./connectors/mattermost.mdx)

* [Google Hangouts Chat](./connectors/hangouts.mdx)

* [Custom Connectors](./connectors/custom-connectors.mdx)


## Testing Channels on Your Local Machine

If you're running a Rasa server on `localhost`, 
most external channels won't be able to find your server URL, since `localhost` is not open to the internet. 

To make a port on your local machine publicly available on the internet, 
you can use [ngrok](https://ngrok.com/). Alternatively, see this [list](https://github.com/anderspitman/awesome-tunneling)
tracking and comparing other tunneling solutions.

After installing ngrok, run:

```bash
ngrok http 5005; rasa run
```

When you follow the instructions to make your assistant available on a channel, use the ngrok URL.
Specifically, wherever the instructions say to use `https://<host>:<port>/webhooks/<CHANNEL>/webhook`,
use `<ngrok_url>/webhooks/<CHANNEL>/webhook`, replacing `<ngrok_url>` with the randomly generated
URL displayed in your ngrok terminal window. For example, if connecting your bot to Slack, 
your URL should resemble `https://26e7e7744191.ngrok.io/webhooks/slack/webhook`.

:::caution
With the free-tier of ngrok, you can run into limits on how many connections you can make per minute.
As of writing this, it is set to 40 connections / minute.

:::

Alternatively you can make your assistant listen on a specific address using the `-i` command line
option:

```bash
rasa run -p 5005 -i 192.168.69.150
```

This is particularly useful when your internet facing machines connect to backend servers using a VPN 
interface.
