diff --git a/bot/utils.lua b/bot/utils.lua
index d8b90c5..043844d 100644
--- a/bot/utils.lua
+++ b/bot/utils.lua
@@ -110,4 +110,12 @@ function scandir(directory)
       t[i] = filename
   end
   return t
-end
\ No newline at end of file
+end
+
+-- http://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/manual.html#pdf-io.popen
+function run_command(str)
+  local cmd = io.popen(str)
+  local result = cmd:read('*all')
+  cmd:close()
+  return result
+end