[Xymon] State of the art SMS alerting?

[Jeremy Laidman]

There's SmushBox: smushmobile.com

Easier to find technical info here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smush/smart-sms-texting-for-everyone-the-smushbox

Connect via ethernet, handles queueing, web interface for configuration,
access controls, etc.  But $400 is a big investment.  I've never used one,
but they sound kind-of neat.

In the past, I've used Gnokii, with an old Nokia phone connected via cable
to a serial port.  Due to the lack of queue management, I wrote a script to
interface Postfix with Gnokii, so that Postfix handles all the queueing.
 Script details here: http://tools.rebel-it.com.au/sms-transport/

Also, have used sms_client (mentioned by others) with a modem talking to
Vodafone (Australia) via TAP.  Also used an MTA for its queueing features.
 This was a long time ago, and I'm a bit surprised that TAP services still
exist.

IMHO, Gnokii+Postfix is probably the best option, perhaps with a 3G modem,
as described here:

http://wiki.gnokii.org/index.php/ZTEUSBModem

Because it's USB, it doesn't require a separate power supply.  So no
worries about someone kicking the power cord out and draining the battery.

But most telcos provide a web interface, and if you're not paranoid about
losing Internet connectivity, this is a good option that requires no
specialist hardware and corresponding software/drive maintenance.

If you're super-paranoid about your paging solution failing and hence not
getting an alert about it, you can get a pair of smart 3G modems that can
be configured to probe each other via SMS, and one will send you an alert
if the other one doesn't respond.  If you had using a separate carrier and
located at a different site, you'd have a pretty good HA solution.  I think
the company that made these was Maxon.

J



On 9 January 2014 02:45, Jon Dustin <jdustin at usm.maine.edu> wrote:

> >>> On 1/7/2014 at 7:59 PM, in message <52CCA30D.5000404 at alaska.gov>,
> John Thurston
> <john.thurston at alaska.gov> wrote:
> > Can anyone shed light on the current 'state of the art' for alerting
> by
> > SMS from Xymon? Are there recommended usb-modem/software combinations
> to
> > achieve this?
> >
> > I'd like to have the option of sending alerts from my Xymon server
> > without relying on email->SMS gateways. (When I need to announce that
>
> > the mail queue has reached critical, it seems foolish to try to
> dispatch
> > that alert by mail.)
> >
> > I'm running Xymon on Solaris which will ultimately limit my options,
> but
> > I'm interested in any information you have to share.
>
>
> We have been running this package for several years:
> http://smstools3.kekekasvi.com/
>
> Connected to a MultiTech GSM modem:
> http://www.multitech.com/en_US/products/families/multimodemgprs/
>
> I cannot remember the exact model of modem we have, but it connects via
> serial port and works very well. Sending SMS messages is not
> particularly speedy (about 2 seconds for each message), but it works
> fairly well.
>
> Good luck!
>
> --
>
> Jon Dustin - Network Specialist
> University of Southern Maine
> Portland, ME  207-780-4152
>
> _______________________________________________
> Xymon mailing list
> Xymon at xymon.com
> http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
>
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