I have a server that monitors my network and issues text messages if there are events of note that require human intervention. There is some process filtering that ensures it also is not able to issue more than 1 alert maximum per 5 minutes, to ensure it doesn't flood pagers with messages all screaming the sky is falling when things are not going well. Recently however, this server is no longer able to deliver messages to vtext.com - it gets nothing but 554 errors:
telnet 69.78.67.53 25
Trying 69.78.67.53...
Connected to 69.78.67.53.
Escape character is '^]'.
554 txslspamp10.vtext.com
Connection closed by foreign host.
Granted on some days during challenging times it can send 30 or 40 messages before we get to it and get it squelched / silenced, but it's otherwise reasonably well behaved IMHO and I don't think we are any heavy volume sender. So I am trying to figure out why it's blacklisted then and am rolling snake eyes. If anyone who is an admin for verizon or who has any insight to share I'd certainly appreciate it. Email to text is a critical function we depend on.
Same boat... We are sending messages to PHONENUMBER@vtext.com and getting
bouncebacks or lost items. I assume its because some limits are now being put
into place. We are a Verizon subscriber so I am paying, it is not a free
service. But .... I am totally up for paid services if you can recommend some
that will reliably get us texts to our verizon phones.
Sam
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Ryan, Spencer
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2016 4:17 PM
To: Josh Luthman; Mike
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: RE: Email to text - vtext.com blacklisting ip
I agree. Pay Pager duty or a SMS gateway with a SLA. Relying on the free
Unfortunately I am not in the same boat here in Milwaukee WI all messages to vtext.com personal and business on greater that four subnets that we own are being delivered. I would suspect what you are seeing may be a local problem to be resolved soon.
It's worth looking at the $40 Adafruit FONA cellular modem with inexpensive Ting month-to-month cellular service. We've been using it and it's great! I'm happy to share my simple Raspberry Pi serial port glue code that connects to Intermapper's paging interface via a local web service.
Add a GPS board and you can make it double as a GPS-based time server, since FONA will extract time and latlong from GPS and make it accessible via the serial port.
If it's critical I'd suggest a service than can depended on...
Pretty much any VoIP provider has an API you can use to send SMS for
5c each or less. Or if you're worried about your upstream connection
dying, the cheap GSM modem is a good option.
If it's critical I'd suggest a service than can depended on...
Pretty much any VoIP provider has an API you can use to send SMS for
5c each or less. Or if you're worried about your upstream connection
dying, the cheap GSM modem is a good option.
R's,
John
honestly, if the backhauls to your NOC go down, you will not be able to
send email-to-sms messages at all. a dial-up solution with a fee is the
best option, imho. also best to use a 'collapsible rover' to keep pages
to a minimum
We use Zang.io and are very happy. Be careful when using long codes (10
digit numbers) as if you send too many messages out in a day (500+) the
larger carriers such as Verizon will start blocking you. As Jeff mentioned
if your monitoring tool is onsite and the internet goes down then it's
worthless. In our case it's in another DC so if everything goes down we
still get alerts. You can also try twilio and telnyx.
This subject pops up every 6 months and it's a problem that can be solved
100 ways. One way we did it at Team Cymru was install a foxbox sms gateway
in our datacenter. It was a pain to get working, (mainly due to some
miscommunication with the Italian support team), but one we got past a few
problems it works flawlessly for all alerts. If alerts are unack'd for a
specific amount of time, escalation alerts go out via email-to-sms AND SMS
to a broader group to ensure someone gets the message.
Just a heads up to everyone with these suggestions, Mike is complaining the
thought of using a paid service for a "critical" function to be a waste of
bandwidth. He will then block your email address.
Just thought I'd save everyone's time from trying to help him. He is only
concerned about fixing the free service and not a solution to the problem.
Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340
Direct: 937-552-2343
1100 Wayne St
Suite 1337
Troy, OH 45373
Then I went into a t-mobile store and bought a few $25/mo SIM cards, put credit card on file to auto renew each month, slapped them in, and pointed our NMS’s at them. Now we can send SMS alerts from each facility and have had no reliability issues. There’s an easy to write for http interface, and many common things, like Zabbix or Nagios, already have modules written.
David
Same boat... We are sending messages to PHONENUMBER@vtext.com and getting
bouncebacks or lost items. I assume its because some limits are now being put
into place. We are a Verizon subscriber so I am paying, it is not a free
service. But .... I am totally up for paid services if you can recommend some
that will reliably get us texts to our verizon phones.
Sam
> From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Ryan, Spencer
> Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2016 4:17 PM
> To: Josh Luthman; Mike
> Cc: NANOG list
> Subject: RE: Email to text - vtext.com blacklisting ip
>
> I agree. Pay Pager duty or a SMS gateway with a SLA. Relying on the free
service
Then I went into a t-mobile store and bought a few $25/mo SIM cards, put credit card on file to auto renew each month, slapped them in, and pointed our NMS’s at them.
Since this comes up from time to time, here's the cheapest US SIM plans I know of.
Tracfone BYOD runs on AT&T or Verizon (the latter is LTE only) and the
cheapest plan is $18 for 90 days if you sign up and autorenew. That
gives you 180 SMS. and if you want them 180 mins of voice and 180MB of
data, unused rolls over. Customer service is OK, seems to be in the
US, aimed at a bilingual Spanish/English market.
Airvoice Wireless runs on AT&T. Their $10/mo plan is good for 500
SMS/mo, no rollover. Their $20/mo plan has unmetered SMS and voice.
They have very good US-based customer service.
There isn't, really, the closest you can get (on a GSM-derived, LTE
network) is probably a pay-as-you-go data plan per GB on one of Rogers'
sub-brands Fido or Chatr.
There isn't one. Ting is run by Tucows who are located in Toronto.
They'd love to provide similar service in Canada, but the network
operators aren't interested.
