E-mail to SMS alert

This guide gives information about how to setup the built in email server (SMTP server) of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway to be able to do e-mail to SMS forwarding. This solution is ideal if you want to send SMS to mobile phones and you use e-mail.

Introduction

To create e-mail to SMS forwarding you have three options. All three options have advantages and drawbacks, so it is up to you which is more appropriate for your system.

Option 1 - E-mail to SMS alert forwarding using a direct SMTP connection to the built in SMTP server

You can configure the built in SMTP server of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway to have e-mail to SMS alert forwarding. If the SMTP server is enabled it will accept e-mail messages. These e-mail messages can be sent to the an e-mail address that contains the phone number. For example, you can send an e-mail to +441234567@192.168.0.10, where +441234657 is the phone number and 192.168.0.10 is the IP address of the SMS gateway (Figure 1). The subject of the email and the body of the e-mail can contain text that will be sent as an SMS alert message to the +441234657 phone number.

To get this configuration working you need to configure 192.168.0.10 as the SMTP server for the computer that sends the e-mail (192.168.0.11).

forwarding an e-mail alert with direct mail relay — Figure 1 - E-mail to SMS alert forwarding using a direct mail relay

The advantage to this approach is it's simplicity. The drawback is that your computer that sends the alert (192.168.0.11), will not be able to send e-mail messages that are should not be sent as SMS alert, because the built in SMTP server of Ozeki NG will not forward e-mail to other mail servers.

Option 2 - E-mail to SMS alert forwarding through a corporate SMTP server

The second option is to use your company mail server (mail.company.com) to accept e-mail messages from your computer (192.168.0.11) and to forward e-mail messages that should be sent as SMS to the built in SMTP server of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway (Figure 2). The configuration of this approach is similar to the configuration of the previous option. All you have to do is enable the built SMTP server for E-mail to SMS alert forwarding in Ozeki NG SMS Gateway.

In this case you will also send messages in the format +441234657@sms.company.com, and the subject and body of the e-mail messages will be sent as SMS to the phone number +441234657. The difference in settings is that in your computer (192.168.0.11) you will have to configure your company mail server as the SMTP server.

If you use this configuration, you have to create a DNS entry that points to your SMS Gateway. The DNS entry can look like this: (sms.company.com -> 192.168.0.10). The reason you need, this is because most company e-mail relays will not forward e-mail messages to IP addresses. This means, that the +441234567@192.168.0.10 will not be a valid address, you have to use +441234567@sms.company.com instead.

forwarding an e-mail to sms using the corporate relay — Figure 2 - E-mail to SMS forwarding using the corporate mail relay

The advantage to this solution is that it allows you computer (192.168.0.11) to send both standard e-mail messages and e-mail messages intended to be sent as SMS at the same time. Your company e-mail server will relay the e-mail messages to the sms gateway or to the e-mail destination without any configuration. The disadvantage is that it requires a DNS setting to point to your SMS gateway.

Option 3 - E-mail to SMS forwarding using a POP3 client connection and a dedicated POP3 mailbox

The third option is to setup an POP3 mailbox on the company mail server and configure the Ozeki Software to download the new messages from this mailbox periodically and send the downloaded messages in e-mail (Figure 3).

If you go with this option, you will send your e-mail messages to the same address e.g.: john@mail.company.com and you will put the mobile telephone number into the subject line of the e-mail. In this case the body of the e-mail message will be sent to the telephone number in the subject line as an SMS message.

To configure this solution you need to setup an e-mail user in Ozeki NG SMS Gateway that will do the periodic downloads. During the configuration make sure, that the e-mail user deletes the downloaded messages, so they will not be sent more then once.