# Requirements

To use BotBasher to protect your group or channel, the following requirements must be met:

* The group or channel must be **private**.\
  Public groups and channels are not supported.
* For groups, the group must be configured to not allow inviting members directly.

  The **Add Members** permission must be toggled off for the group itself and all the chat members (if granular participant permissions are used).
* BotBasher has to have admin access in the group/channel with the following permissions:
  * **Ban users**
  * **Invite users via link**
* Only the invite links with **Request admin approval** flag enabled must be used to join the group/channel.\
  Note:
  * The invite links provided by the bot's **Get invite link** button satisfy that criteria, but you can use any admin's invite link as long as it has **Request admin approval** flag turned on.
  * Primary invite links - the ones that are created for each admin by default - can't be edited, and thus you can't turn the **Request admin approval** flag in them and use them; they also can't be permanently removed, as the Telegram will recreate them automatically on the backend - so our recommendation is to leave them be and not use them.