Sms2Mail FoxBox

USER MANUAL

(addenda to SMS/MMS FoxBox Manual)

English Version 2.0

Index of contents

1. Introduction to Sms2Mail FoxBox

2. Control panel

3. SMS management

4. System profile

5. Contacts & users

1. Introduction to Sms2Mail FoxBox

Sms2Mail FoxBox is a light-weighted version of the classic FoxBox G20, created to easily handle the interaction between SMS and email channels.

The bigger part of the arguments related to the device are available in this guide, however it is possible that for some advanced topic you will have to refer to the “FoxBox G20 Guide” available at www.smsfoxbox.it

In order to connect to the FoxBox, you have a web interface at the address:

192.168.0.98

Here you will access using the credentials:

• Username: admin

• Password: admin

On the other hand, if you need to remotely access the device with SSH or TTY, the credentials are:

• Username: root

• Password: foxboxg20

Remember that supported browsers are:

• Mozilla Firefox

• Opera

• Netscape

• Internet Explorer 6

• Google Chrome

2. Control panel

From this window you can manage the core of the system. More precisely:

• SMS engine: This button is used to control the main SMS engine. This is enabled by default and gives to the system the power of “send messages” and “receive messages”. Stopping the engine will immediately hang the machine, so all processes of sending and receiving will be halted. Clicking on the name, you will access its configuration page. Remember that every setting modified on this configuration requires that the engine will be restarted to take effect.

• SMS gateway: This button controls the EmailToSMS gateway engine (procmail+fetchmail). Clicking on the name, you will access its configuration page. Also here you need to restart engine to obtain the changes.

• Modem: start and stop the GSM/GPRS internal modem. This control automatically starts and stops the SMS engine. From this menu you can send AT commands to the internal modem and view the output. This is really usefull for country code settings and internal configuration.

• Buzzer: Acustic beep on incoming message.

• Signal quality: This is the air carrier signal indicator. It can be in one of this four positions:

• No signal: There is no signal, please check your antenna.

• Low: The signal is low, if possibile try to move your GSM antenna in a better position.

• Good: The signal is good, the antenna is in a good position and the box operations are normal.

• Very Good: The signal is excellent.

3. SMS management

3.1 Incoming messages

From the menu, clicking on “Inbox”, you will access the list of all the SMS received by the FoxBox. More precisely, you will see the queue associated to your current user (see Chapt. 5 for details).

Here you can also execute Polls on them, or simply read and reply.

The meaning of the fields shown are:

• From (the SMS sender)

• From_SMSC (the SMS center that delivered the message)

• Sent (date and time of creation of the SMS)

• Received (date and time of receipt by the box)

• Subject (Logical name of the modem that received the SMS, typical GSM1)

• Alphabet (alphabet in which the message is encoded)

• Text of the message.

3.2 Outgoing messages

You can write your new SMS in the menu “Write New”. Here you can define the number/s of the receivers, the type of the message and its content.

Once you click on “Send”, it will be moved to the “Outbox”, from where the modem takes the messages to deliver, and then to “Sent”. Note that if the sending fails three times, then the message will be found in the “Failed” list instead of the “Sent” one.

3.3 Polls

Polls are a simple way to obtain fast and custom statistics on SMS content of incoming messages. This function allows you to specify a list of patterns. Every time an SMS message contains one of this patterns, the counter for the poll is incremented and a graphic with percentage is displayed. To add/remove pattern subjects, simply click on add or remove.

4. System profile

Here we have the configuration of the dedicated features of this FoxBox Mail.

This page is divided, as you can see, in two parts. The first one is called “SMS to Email configuration”. These are the parameters needed by the FoxBox to forward a received SMS to one or more mailboxes previously specified. The fields in details are:

• Sender domain: it is the domain of the sender;

• SMTP server: IP address (or fully-qualified domain name) of the SMTP server to use (it is possible to use the embedded Postfix using parameters given on interface);

• Sender address: it is the mail address that will appear as sender;

• Destinations: it is the list of the receivers of the forwarded messages;

• Custom subject: if you want, you can define an ad-hoc subject;

• Forwarding of SENT and RECEIVED messages: here you can decide if you want to forward this kind of messages;

• Forwarding of FAILED messages: same as before, but this time for failed messages;

• Authorization type on SMTP server: here you specify the type of authorization needed by your SMTP server (look on interface for possible values);

• Username for login to SMTP server: username for SMTP server;

• Password for login to SMTP server: password for SMTP server;

• SMTP server port: port number of the SMTP service on server.

The second part of the page contains parameters to forward received emails to a SIM card (typically associated to a mobile phone), whose number is specified into the from, the body or the subject of the mail. Fields required in this case are:

• Server to poll: IP address (or fully-qualified domain name) of the mail server where the mailbox is hosted;

• Protocol: which protocol is used by the server (POP3 or IMAP);

• Username: username to login the mailbox;

• Password: password to login the mailbox.

Remember to activate the SMS gateway engine in the Control Panel.

To associate the receiver number, you need to configure it into the machine through Procmail.

5. Contacts & users

5.1 Address book

Here we have the list of contacts to which send the messages, also associated to some group to allow massive sendings.

Obviously, there are features to add/modify/delete contacts.

5.2 User profiles

SMS FoxBox is a multi-users system with access privileges.

In “Users profiles” you can configure users and grant to each one a dedicated incoming message queue. The Admin user is a special user, it can perform every setting on the box and create other users. Then we have other two levels: the Operator (with no setup capabilities) and the Viewer (can only view incoming messages and perform base operations).

For each user the Admin should specify a different incoming queue, so new users will work on a dedicated environment without interfer with others, or link it to the default queue shared by other users. Only the Admin can access historical queue (where all incoming messages are stored).

Note that if you have defined a custom queue for a user and you delete it you will delete also the associated database, only the default and the historical queues cannot be deleted.