Setting up a Raspberry PI to send SMS notifications was my task within a two-weeks student internship at ePages. Starting position: the external service provider AnySMS is integrated in the Icinga Monitoring. The Icinga sends error messages to our standby phone via AnySMS. To being able to carry out this service ourselves, we realised this via a Raspberry Pi.
First, AnySMS and the Raspberry Pi should run in parallel, so that if one fails the other could still send an SMS. The Raspberry Pi should be able to send SMS via a web service and has to be integrated with the Icinga.
Preparing the Raspberry Pi
- Write Raspbian image to SD card.
- Connect SD card, power supply, monitor, keyboard and LAN cable to Raspberry Pi and perform basic configuration.
- Expand SD card (Expand filesystem) to make use of all the available space.
- Change password.
- Adjust language options.
- Set up SSH connection.
- etc.
Installing the Gammu SMS Daemon
To send SMS via Raspberry Pi, an SMS gateway has to be installed. Connect a UMTS stick with SIM card to the Raspberry Pi (maybe use a USB hub if there are not enough connections available) and install the Gammu SMS Daemon on the Raspberry Pi. As an alternative to Gammu you may also use SMS Server Tools 3, Kannel or the like.
- Check if Raspberry Pi recognises the UMTS stick:
$ Isusb- Download and install the Gammu SMS Daemon:
$ sudo apt-get install gammu-smsd- Configure the file /etc/gammu-smsrdc. according to the example; only the password varies:
$ vi /etc/gammu-smsdrc# Configuration file for Gammu SMS Daemon
# Gammu library configuration, see gammurc(5)
[gammu]
# Please configure this!
port = /dev/ttyUSB0
connection = at
# Debugging
logformat = textalldate
# SMSD configuration, see gammu-smsdrc(5)
[smsd]
pin = 1234
service = files
#logfile = syslog
logfile = /var/log/gammu-smsd
# Increase for debugging information
debuglevel = 4
ReceiveFrequency = 300
# Paths where messages are stored
inboxpath = /var/spool/gammu/inbox/
outboxpath = /var/spool/gammu/outbox/
sentsmspath = /var/spool/gammu/sent/
errorsmspath = /var/spool/gammu/error/- Restart Gammu:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/gammu-smsd restart- Send a test SMS:
$ echo "MESSAGE" | sudo gammu-smsd-inject TEXT "NUMBER")Installing PlaySMS
Sending an SMS should be controlled via a website. We use PlaySMS for this.
- Install PlaySMS and the belonging software (Apache, PHP, MySQL, cURL):
$ sudo -s
$ apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server php5 php5-cli php5-mysql php5-mcrypt php5-gd php5-imap php5-curl- Attention: if you’re asked for a new root password, choose a very strong one:
$ php5enmod mcrypt
$ service apache2 restartWhen calling the Raspberry Pi’s IP address in the browser, “It Works” should appear:
http://your-ip- Install PlaySMS:
$ cd /tmp/
$ wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/playsms/playsms/Version%201.1/playsms-1.1.tar.gz
$ tar -zxf playsms-1.1.tar.gz -C /usr/local/src
$ ls -l /usr/local/src/
$ cd /usr/local/src/playsms-1.1/- Copy the file install.conf.dist to install.conf, then edit the files:
$ cp install.conf.dist install.conf
$ vi install.conf- Amend the content in the config file. We used DBPASS as password for the root.
# INSTALL DATA
# ============
# Please change INSTALL DATA below to suit your system configurations
# Please do not change variable name, you may change only the value
# MySQL database username
DBUSER="root"
# MySQL database password
DBPASS="SICHERESPASSWORT"
# MySQL database name
DBNAME="playsms"
# MySQL database host
DBHOST="localhost"
# MySQL database port
DBPORT="3306"
# Web server's user, for example apache2 user by default is www-data
# note: please make sure your web server user
WEBSERVERUSER="www-data"
# Web server's group, for example apache2 group by default is www-data
# note: please make sure your web server group
WEBSERVERGROUP="www-data"
# Path to playSMS extracted source files
PATHSRC="$(pwd)"
# Path to playSMS web files
# note: please make sure your web root path, in this example its /var/www/html
PATHWEB="/var/www/html/playsms"
# Path to playSMS additional files
PATHLIB="/var/lib/playsms"
# Path to playSMS daemon and other binary files
PATHBIN="/usr/local/bin"
# Path to playSMS log files
PATHLOG="/var/log/playsms"
# END OF INSTALL DATA
# ===================- Run the following command:
$ ./install-playsms.shIf everything looks fine, confirm with Y. To start PlaySMS as soon as the Raspberry Pi is initialised, configure the following file:
$ vi /etc/init.d/rc.local- Write the following line to the end of the file and save:
....
/usr/local/bin/playsmsd start- Now amend the following file:
$ vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/defaultServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/playsms
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
<directory "="" usr="" lib="" cgi-bin"="">
AllowOverride None
Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined- Reload Apache:
$ service apache2 reloadNow you can again call the website http://your-ip. This time, a login screen should appear. By default the login data are set to:
username: admin password: admin
- To connect PlaySMS and Gammu, add the gateway Gammu to PlaySMS:
Settings > Manage gateway and SMSC > Gateway Gammu (Add)Now you’re able to send SMS via PlaySMS or via the command line.
Installing SSL certificate
Use an SSL certificate to encrypt internet data transfer.
Integrating Raspberry Pi with Icinga
As you are now able send SMS via a URL, the only step remaining is integrating the Raspberry Pi with Icinga. For AnySMS there’s already an integration, so that you can store the Bash files with the same path. To change something within Icinga, you can use Git Bash. Git Bash manages the changes within Icinga.
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