howto: configure smstools on fedora

smstools3 is a command line tool to send sms via your gsm modem. version3 has a new maintainer keke who i must say is very helpful. and over the weekend helped me get smstools to send messages.

the setup i used was fedora 13 x86_64 and a vodafone usb modem: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. E220 HSDPA Modem / E270 HSDPA/HSUPA Modem 

to install smstools3, i did a 

yum -y install smstools

then 

chkconfig smsd on

after that it was time to configure /etc/smsd.conf. after much testing and help and 2 new versions of smsd from keke, this is what it looks like:

logfile = /var/log/smsd/smsd.log
loglevel = 7
user = smstools
smart_logging = yes
pidfile = /var/run/smsd/smsd.pid
national_prefixes = 0
blocktime = 60
whitelist = /var/lib/smstools/whitelist.txt
[GSM1]
device = /dev/ttyUSB0
init = ATZ
voicecall_hangup_ath = yes
hangup_incoming_call = yes
voicecall_ignore_modem_response = yes
incoming = no
outgoing = yes
cs_convert = yes
decode_unicode_text = yes
internal_combine = yes

you will notice that i am only sending out messages and disabled incoming messages as well as voice calls. next, we need to set up the environment.

usermod -G dialout,smstools smstools

and

mkdir /var/run/smsd
chown smstools.smstools /var/run/smsd

these 2 issues are recorded in bug #605203 and #605211.

finally, we send out trial sms messages to verify the setup is working correctly.

su - smstools

smssend <mobile_number> "<text message to be sent>"

there is one important thing to remember though; the mobile number is in international format, so 002010... and 2010... are both acceptable.