Forward incomming SMS

Hi!

Is there a way to get incomming SMS shown somewhere on dashboard? My provider tells me when data contingent is reached out. So it would be nice to get this SMS shown somewhere.
On another RPI project I use gammu to forward sms to email. Has somebody tried to install gammu or is there any other solution?

2 Likes

Hi @Saimen

This is a really good idea. I’m sure you are not the only one with this request.

There are many good ways of showing incomming SMS, either on the dashboard or through an email.

You can actually already list incomming SMS’s. You need to use this command from the terminal:

ec2x.list_sms

The documentation to the ec2x module is found here:

Just in case you want to contribute to the project or if you feel like expaning the feature with gammu.

best
Peter

After getting ssh access to the dongle, I was able to install and configure gammu-smsd. After checking the serial ports I found:
/dev/ttyAMA0: ELM327, the OBD Adapter
/dev/ttyUSB0: From messages log: “usb 1-1.2: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0”
/dev/ttyUSB1: No answer to AT command. What is it used for?
/dev/ttyUSB2: AT commands checking for GPS (“AT+QGPSLOC=2” “+CME ERROR: Notfixed now”)
/dev/ttyUSB3: Answers to AT commands. So possibly usable for gammu-smsd

So configured gammu-smsd to use ttyUSB3. Started and received some SMS. So I thought everything is fine.
The bad awakening comes after a reboot. No AP anymore, no cloud connection. So the only posibility I figured out, was to open the housing and connecting a monitor and a keybord, Then I realised that the PI hungs up completely with salt hanging at 100% CPU, 10s after booting has finished. So needed to mount the SD card externally to disable gammu-smsd.

So my conclusion for now:

  1. /dev/ttyUSB3 is used by salt stack. It is not really a bug, but there should be a timeout and error checking on all serial communication, and even a log, There could even be a hardware fault which can’t be found in any log actually, when PI hungs up.
  2. The PI’s onboard serial ttyAMA0 can’t not be used as serial console, because it is connected to OBD adapter.
  3. gammu-smsd can’t be used, because it needs a serail port with at commands.
  4. Handling incomming SMS needs to be implemented in salt stack and made visible in cloud.

Hi Saimen,

All the ttyUSB* devices you mention belongs to the modem. But we interface the modem using qmilib and the cdc-wdm0 device. So when you use one of the devices with gammu-smsd, then salt-minion, qmilib and gammu will try to use the same serial ports and make the system hang.

My best recommendation is that you interface the ec2x module through gammu in some way. I’m not sure how you would do that, but it would ensure that salt maintains control over the serial ports.

You can also extend the module on your own, and then push it to the AutoPi Core. Then we will add it in the next revision.

best
Peter