Using an SMS Gateway with PRTG

Dear Trygve,

PRTG does not support SMS Gateways itself. You might be able to achieve this with third-party tools like PageGate for example, but this (how to use/configure those) would be beyond our scope.

Best Regards.

Oct, 2010 - Permalink

do you have any plans on implementing this in your existing software? In my point of view this is the last piece of the puzzle thats missing to make PRTG a 10/10 product. Going about it with 3-party solutions isn't smood enough and would also cost more money to implement.

Any thoughts comments about this?

Oct, 2010 - Permalink

We will most likely not going to implement anything in that direction as, simply put, the variety of Mobile Providers, Cell Phones, GSM (and even the newer technologies) is way too large to cover for us. We try to cover as much as possible hardware in terms of 'monitoring stuff', but for notifications, our resources are limited.

Oct, 2010 - Permalink

I would like to add to this feature request for PRTG. I disagree with your assertion that your product would need to support a large variety of hardware and mobile providers. All your product need to do is to be able to sent an intialization string to a standards-compliant modem and then format the alert is SMS (which it already does) and then send the alert to the phone number in the SMS gateway. I beleive you are making it sound more complicated than it really is to add this feature. Other monitoring software has the ability to send an SMS to a gateway phone number using a standard land-line modem, I would request that PRTG add this capability too.

Thanks for your consideration,

-Rob

FYI, kere is the KB article explaing how to do it with a third-party software package https://www.paessler.com/knowledgebase/en/topic/393-how-can-i-send-sms-text-message-notifications-via-a-modem-or-a-mobile-phone-with-prtg

Additonal Note: PageGate (mentioned in the KB article) does not support 64-bit Windows server operating systems, another reason to implement this feature in PRTG. the currently listed highest level of support is Vista 32-bit. http://www.notepage.net/pagegate.htm

Mar, 2011 - Permalink

I agree. PRTG need to add this feature (send SMS) to his software. It is very important for any monitor software.

I do a little search and how to send sms using a standard cell phone, and it is very easy using a hyperterminal session, you only need to write 3 commands AT+CMGF=1 <ENTER> AT+CMGS="+31638740161" <ENTER> >Hello World ! <CTRL-Z> See this link: http://www.smssolutions.net/tutorials/gsm/sendsmsat/ I try with a two Cell Phones Nokia E71 and Huawei E166, but you only need your phone is installed in your modem section of the panel control, y you open the COM?? port with hyperterminal.

Oct, 2011 - Permalink

Guys, If you want to use SMS as a notification platform, why not use on of the many many online options. They charge anywhere between 3 to 10 cents per notification depending on carrier.

Even if you have 1000 notifications a month the cost is most likely to be <100 $ / euros. With all the other options like push notifications, tweets, mail, icq, aim options available, hooking up a cellphone to a com port seems somewhat 'behind the times' to me.

Oct, 2011 - Permalink

Paessler is missing the point on this issue entirely. PRTG should definitely support standard modems with configurable pager gateway settings. It is the only way to provide true out-of-band management. Relying on third-party products is really not acceptable in a "production-quality" product and without old-fashioned dial-up modem support, PRTG cannot send alerts for "Internet down" situations.

Products like ipMonitor (and I'm not promoting that product) have had generic paging gateway and dial-up modem support for TEN YEARS. It's not that complicated. I don't understand why Paessler is so against it.

May, 2012 - Permalink

Dear User "SW Operations":

We understand your request regarding native SMS gateway functionality in PRTG. However, we do not see such a support come for various reasons.

We see the strength of PRTG in being a monitoring solution that can be set up in very different environments to meet various needs. We have customers all over the world, of all sizes, and in many different business areas. All of those have different ideas of how they want to be alerted. Regarding SMS functionality, there are requests to send them via dial-up connections, GSM, or via the internet.

Providing native functionality for all countries, involving specific hardware/drivers would distract development from producing new features that a greater majority of our users profit from.

The other reason is that providing good support for such a feature is hard, because there are so many aspects involved that we can't control. And we can not even replicate a fraction of all possible hardware/provider setups in our labs, too.

That is why we think providing instructions on how to connect external solutions to PRTG is the best way for both us and our users, leaving support for hardware/drivers to third-party experts.

Our idea is to leave this to software companies who have been doing this for many years and have the expertise. We rather invest this time into the monitoring side of PRTG.

We hope this explains our decision!

Dirk Paessler CEO, Paessler AG

Jun, 2012 - Permalink

You can use FoxBox equipment, it support alert sending using a common SIM card and is working in many countries, there is a PRTG integrationmethod on the SMS FoxBox dokuwiki http://www.smsfoxbox.it/sms_foxbox_documentation/doku.php?id=prtg_integration

May, 2013 - Permalink