Question: alternative(s) to sms/mms gateways
Question for the Xymon list:
What have you used, other than email-to-sms/mms gateway, to send xymon alerts to cell phones? I've been hit a few times with unreliable email to mms gateway (TMobile).
I know about pushover.net. Are there any others?
Thanks,
glauber
I'm in the US and use Verizon Wireless. I've used npanxx1234 at vtext.com for many years with success. I don't get a whole lot of alerts (maybe 10-20 a month).
If you don't like that you might look at something like PagerDuty. They have a good API and work well with our other software (not Xymon related).
Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373
On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Ribeiro, Glauber < glauber.ribeiro at experian.com> wrote:
Question for the Xymon list:
What have you used, other than email-to-sms/mms gateway, to send xymon alerts to cell phones? I've been hit a few times with unreliable email to mms gateway (TMobile).
I know about pushover.net. Are there any others?
Thanks,
glauber
Xymon mailing list Xymon at xymon.com http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
I use a Huawei device driven by Gammu.
Jeremy
Sent from my iPad
On 24 Aug 2015, at 16:41, Ribeiro, Glauber <glauber.ribeiro at experian.com> wrote:
Question for the Xymon list:
What have you used, other than email-to-sms/mms gateway, to send xymon alerts to cell phones? I've been hit a few times with unreliable email to mms gateway (TMobile).
I know about pushover.net. Are there any others?
Thanks,
glauber
Xymon mailing list Xymon at xymon.com http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
I've considered using Pushbullet for this. It seems to have a good API, and I already use Pushbullet for device-to-device sharing. My concern about Pushbullet is that there is no delegation capability nor can access be granular. So my passphrase needs to be stored on the Xymon server, and anyone who gets hold of this can do anything with my Pushbullet account.
Pushover might have more granular security for these sorts of things. But a quick scan of their website indicates that there's only one user key for everything. PushBullet has been very responsive to feedback, so I might suggest some enhancements to their API.
Of course this all fails if the Internet link is down. This is also a risk if email-to-SMS gateways are used, or if you rely on receiving email alerts on your mobile device. Hence locally-connected SMS gateways are preferred for some. These are typically mobile phones connected by cable, or GSM/3G USB devices, or network-connected paging appliances. In days of old, modems could be used to dial up a carrier's "TAP" service to send SMS messages, but many carriers no longer provide such a service and have moved either to a web-based service or nothing.
For good coverage of the options, see the threads here: http://lists.xymon.com/archive/2014-January/038693.html
Cheers Jeremy
On 25 August 2015 at 01:41, Ribeiro, Glauber <glauber.ribeiro at experian.com> wrote:
Question for the Xymon list:
What have you used, other than email-to-sms/mms gateway, to send xymon alerts to cell phones? I've been hit a few times with unreliable email to mms gateway (TMobile).
I know about pushover.net. Are there any others?
Thanks,
glauber
Xymon mailing list Xymon at xymon.com http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
On Mon, Aug 24, 2015, at 10:41, Ribeiro, Glauber wrote:
Question for the Xymon list:
What have you used, other than email-to-sms/mms gateway, to send xymon alerts to cell phones? I've been hit a few times with unreliable email to mms gateway (TMobile).
I know about pushover.net. Are there any others?
Thanks,
glauber
Pushover.net and a script to use their HTTP API for sending the alerts.
Am Montag, 24. August 2015, 15:41:28 schrieb Ribeiro, Glauber:
Question for the Xymon list:
What have you used, other than email-to-sms/mms gateway, to send xymon alerts to cell phones? I've been hit a few times with unreliable email to mms gateway (TMobile). I know about pushover.net. Are there any others?
Hello Glauber,
I read this as you're seaching for a more reliable solution than sending E- Mails to a remote E-Mail-to-SMS Gateway.
Since it makes less sense to send alerts for network/internet is broken via internet, we needed an other solution. We're operating a wide area network and the xymon of course should alert us about network issues.
We are running SMS-Gateways directly attached to the Bigbrother/Hobbit/Xymon- Servers for a very long time. The vendor of both of our modems is MOXA, but it's of course a much older model than this one: http://www.moxa.com/product/OnCell_G2111.htm
But the specs haven't changed much from the first look. Today there are also some other vendors.
This takes a SIM-Card like a mobile phone, and is moutet to DIN-Rail, were also the external switching-powersupply is located.
On the Xymon-Servers we're running the smsd from the smstools provided by http://smstools3.kekekasvi.com. Since the Server is a Ubuntu they're already available as a package. We are running this as an E-Mail-to-SMS-Gateway more or less for historical reasons, or because we've some other Systems using this as E-Mail-to-SMS- Gateway, choose one. We're running this as with a Script that is plugged into postfix as pipe-Script (perl-Script), but it would be also possible to let an Xymon-Alert-Script drop the SMS into the smsd-queue. Writing a file into a specific folder with some specific headers isn't really rocket science. ;-)
We're using this for about 12 years with the smstools, now. And some years with a Tobit-Server in between, before.
For one of the xymon servers, we needed to get out of the ferrocroncrete cellar rooms, where no mobile phone works, to get the modem work realible.
One thing you should also consider is, that SMS-Flatrates are (nearly) always shipped with a clause prohibidding the use for SMS-Gateways. On other contracts this is not so wide spread. So read the contract you are using for this carefully. This might affect the realibility of the alerts. On the other hand you should have a look at the amount of send SMS carefully. Multipart SMSes might also increase expenses, but the smstools allow to deactivate them. ;-) :-)
This is not really a solution for sending huge amounts of SMSes (mainly because of the costs), but it's a highly independent way to send alerts. We are using 2 modems, one attached to each xymon server.
Kind regards, Lars
-- man-da.de GmbH, AS8365 Phone: +49 6151 16-71027 Mornewegstraße 30 Fax: +49 6151 16-71198 D-64293 Darmstadt e-mail: lk at man-da.de Geschäftsführer Marcus Stögbauer AG Darmstadt, HRB 94 84
participants (6)
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feld@feld.me
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glauber.ribeiro@experian.com
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jeremy.ruffer@gmail.com
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jlaidman@rebel-it.com.au
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josh@imaginenetworksllc.com
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lk@man-da.de