Bayham's Nagios - SMS Notification Client is a worldwide solution for delivering Nagios notifications via SMS. delivering an efficient and low-cost way of sending text messages from a Nagios installation to mobile phones in 165 countries.
In a nutshell the key features are:
- Worldwide SMS capability
- Dynamically set Sender ID to anything you like (including alphabetical strings!)
- High message throughput
- MWI Support
|
|
News 3 December, 2007: Due to persistent fraud by a number of people, messages to Nigeria will no longer be sent by default,
but you will still be charged credits as though they were sent.
Dispatch can be turned on, on an account-by-account basis, by sending a request to our support dept.
We will consider each request based on a history of non-fraudulent payment, and may refuse until such a history is available.
We will also change your account settings so that each future purchase must be manually confirmed before allocation to your account, without exception.
We apologise for the inconvenience that this may cause to those customers who make perfectly reasonable use of their accounts, and will
endeavour to process their requests as soon as possible.
This change is also detailed on our Network List.
16 April, 2007: New version of the SMS client is available for download.
12 February, 2007: A beta version of the SMS client is available for download.
|
What is Nagios? Nagios is a system and network monitoring application. It watches hosts and services that you specify, alerting you when things go bad and when they get better. For more information or to download Nagios go to www.nagios.org.
What does the Bayham Nagios SMS Notification Client do?
Nagios is able to generate notification messages when things go wrong on your server, using this simple client you can send these notifications to Bayhams system where they are then encoded for delivery to the mobile network. There are two main components to the Bayham solution:
- A small module that you run locally on your Nagios installation. When installed, you can forward notifications as text messages.
- A remote gateway that is managed and hosted by Bayham which accepts messages from your Nagios server, validates the parameters passed, and then injects these into the PLMN (Public Land Mobile Network - the mobile equivalent of the PSTN). The gateway also determines the best point to hand your message over to the PLMN (we connect into several carriers) in order to ensure a reliable and cost-effective route to your chosen endpoint.
How does the Bayham solution compare with other SMS Notification solutions available for Nagios?
The key differences between the Bayham solution and the other SMS solutions for nagios can be summarised as follows:
|
Other SMS Notification Methods |
Bayham SMS Notification Client |
Cost |
Depends on carrier (BT charges UK customers £0.10 per message) |
Typically much cheaper than the per message cost charged by a carrier. Actual price depends on the number of messages you pre-pay for and the destination of the message.
See Pricing Information.
|
Restrictions to usage |
Dependent on carrier's terms (BT limits usage to 100 messages per day and forbids "computer generated texts" and telemarketing) |
We only forbid spamming and unlawful usage. |
Example Usage Scenarios
Having downloaded and installed this client, you can start using it with nagios to send notifications.
Check that notifications are enabled in the main nagios configuration file, you need 'enable_notifications=1'.
Add the following notification command :-
# 'notify-by-sms' command definition
define command{
command_name notify-by-sms
command_line /usr/local/bin/fastsms $CONTACTPAGER$ "Service: $SERVICEDESC$\nHost: $HOSTNAME$\nAddress: $HOSTADDRESS$\nState: $SERVICESTATE$\nInfo: $SERVICEOUTPUT$\nDate: $LONGDATETIME$\n"
}
In each service definition or host definition that you want to be notified about, you need to include the option.
The fastsms client program is a simple Linux command line program, and you can use it from the command line, or from scripts.
Usage: fastsms [-h] [-v] [-V] [-f ] <mobile number> <text>
Installation and Usage Instructions
Pre-requisites
A working nagios installation
A usable gcc
Library libcurl
To build and install
make
make install
(* To be able to install in the default place /usr/local/bin, you probably need to su to root)
Then edit the file /etc/nagios/fastsms.conf
and set the companyid,userid and password values.
The values required are supplied by Bayham Systems, you can see them by logging in
at https://secure.bayhamsystems.com/nagios/main.php
On the 'Account Summary' page you will see a section called 'Installations'.
Set companyid= to the Company Id value
Set userid= to the Installation Id value
Set password= to the Password value
Test it!
$ fastsms Hello world
|
