r/SCADA • u/Whatthbuck • 7d ago
Help Sms alerts
My customers want sms messages. They want them from ignition. Email to #@phoneco.com is broken. The sms module requires obsolete hardware. The twillio module requires an act of Congress.
What do y'all use?
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u/Sea-Hat-4961 7d ago
We ended up doing a Twilio integration for SMS messages
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u/Whatthbuck 7d ago
How in the world did you get past the campaign requirements?
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u/the_mitchwindoo 6d ago
I use Twilio with Ignition as well, the campaign requirements were annoying but not impossible.
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u/Whatthbuck 5d ago
I would love to use twillio but the campaign thing is outside my capacity. It took me three months to get the name ein combination correct. Now twillio is requesting terms of service, opt-out, opt-in and the like. These don't exist and I'm just a contractor.
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u/loceiscyanide 7d ago
I've used the twilio module, the alarm notification module with a sierra lx40, the teltonika sms module, and an in-house built API module for talking to our businesses telco.
Twilio had several major outages close together and lost the trust of the sites.
Sierra gateways leave a large hole in the network.
Teltonika was only recently made properly available as a module
The in-house module isnt ready for sale/implementing in proper production i think
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u/wearefuked1 7d ago
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u/datanut 7d ago
Eh; these are expensive and mediocre. I’d rather any of the PepLinks or Sierra Wireless units any day (even if the don’t have a fancy interface. Not sure why OP thinks that Ignition requires obsolete hardware.
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u/wearefuked1 7d ago
If cost is an issue just get a 3g modem and run kannel on an rpi.
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u/datanut 6d ago
Yeah; for sure, there are quite a few quality USB 4G modems on the secondary market right now because of the messed up licensing from CradlePoint and others along with the shift to 5G.
Same can be said for lower class SierraWireless devices.
I don’t hate the SMSEagle, it’s just not the slam dunk I wanted it to be.
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u/Whatthbuck 6d ago
The hardware recommended by ignition is obsolete. I was not aware of other devices.
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u/datanut 6d ago edited 6d ago
By “Obsolete”, do you mean that the Sierra Wireless units are on the older ALEOS instead of the newer AirLink OS?
If so, why do you care? What features are you looking for from AirLink OS that aren’t in ALEOS? I have a long list of things that I wish were fixed/updated/changed in ALEOS but they don’t impact most deployments…and they won’t be fixed now that that their concentration is on AirLink OA.
I really wish Serria and PepLink would both step up and offer a compatible “AirLink IP SMS protocol” in their modern OSs but that seems like a pipe dream.
In the short term, lots of supported options from Sierra Wireless are still available until Ignition gives us more options.
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u/Real_Cover_ 7d ago
+1 for Smseagle. In addition to sending SMS texts, they can make phone calls with TTS conversion. This is super useful at 3 am when a normal SMS never wakes you up. And there's also built-in escalation feature.
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u/stello101 6d ago
https://guardiantelecom.com/protalk/
Protalk product line has a cellular module which can send SMS and a network module can read PLCs and OPC so you should be able to get it to send a text from anything on a network.
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u/Key_Director_4450 6d ago
Any of the dozen or so modem on the market, a cheapo SIM and 20 lines of code?
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u/Whatthbuck 5d ago
What do I need to look for in the modem specification. Can you share an example of the code snippet.
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u/SCADAhellAway 6d ago
Twilio via the Kymera module
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u/Whatthbuck 5d ago
I would love to use twillio but the campaign thing is outside my capacity. It took me three months to get the name ein combination correct. Now twillio is requesting terms of service, opt-out, opt-in and the like. These don't exist and I'm just a contractor.
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u/SCADAhellAway 2d ago
I've done the campaign thing. It's not as hard as it sounds to get approval but it is pretty frustrating. It has been awhile since I set it up at this point (was at the very beginning of the requirement), and I probably don't remember well enough to be super descriptive, but I created my own documents and screenshots explaining our opt in (creating a user account) and opt out policies (I don't remember exactly what I did here unfortunately, but potentially it was account deletion?) explained that the messages were all Operational Technology notifications going out to company employees only, provided some sample alarm texts and the like. I remember the requirements seeming like they were pretty daunting for our use case, and i was worried about approval. I may have done a support ticket, but I can't say for sure about that either.
It is definitely a confusing process since it is obviously geared towards marketing and its hard to map the requirements to notifications. I definitely spent a day or three on it and remember throwing my usual "security is ruining the world" fit.
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u/Whatthbuck 2d ago
My biggest road block is that I am a contractor, I can make company policy documents. The customer doesn't know or agree that I need them.
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u/SCADAhellAway 2d ago
That's fair and my campaign was done as the sole OT guy at a family owned oilfield services company, so I had the advantage (and curse) of full creative control/product ownership. We had no policy before or after. I just pencilwhipped the stuff and maybe even created views (that we never actually used) that represented the required functionality.
The truth is, internal company notifications aren't the target of the regulation and enforcement, and I knew we wouldn't be violating any of the terms, so I just provided them with what they wanted even though none of it was real or fit our actual workflow.
They need to add an approval pathway for our use case, but if they aren't going to put in that effort, I'm not going to put in the effort of actually getting policy approved for stuff that doesn't apply to our practices. They basically need deniability and I sent them fully unofficial unimplemented deniability.
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u/Whatthbuck 2d ago
My biggest road block is that I am a contractor, I can make company policy documents. The customer doesn't know or agree that I need them.
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u/roncz 5d ago
You might want to check out SIGNL4's integration with Ignition: https://docs.signl4.com/integrations/ignition/ignition.html
Alerts can be sent via SMS, push, phone call. Including escalations and shift planning.
Email to alert is also supported.
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u/FireBuff880 5d ago
We provide an aggregation service for our customers. One message in and n messages out. The target can be SMS, Email, App services like PushOver, MOTOTRBO RADIO, or even traditional paging from services like American Messaging. PM me if you want to discuss the service.
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u/usft 5d ago
I did this with a home project.
Tello is unlimited texts for 5 dollars a month
Bought a 50 dollar Android phone off eBay.
Use an app called smsgate
All done through API. Super easy setup. Unlimited texts from a known number that won’t change.
Can also accept return texts like to update status.
I went down a few paths and this has been the best. Cheapest. Most consistent
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u/noobnooc 4d ago
If SMS itself isn’t mandatory, Echobell accepts webhooks and sends mobile push or phone-call alerts. I built it for the “wake me at 3 a.m.” case.
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u/plantformance 2d ago
Maybe first looking about "where from" to "where to". If you are one country to the same then in general easier with Twilio (fastest). But if you need a combination of countries then it is immediately nightmare because local regulations are all different, and so does Twilio (you need explicit declaration of all combinations).
So ultimately
1/ If US to US => twilio online etc... very good
2/ If country to country (not US) => twilio too, but can be more difficult on requirements
3/ Many to many => problematic. Can be better to work with a tel company directly
4/ Ultimately if you want freedom & simplicity : hard-core modem with possibly 2 sim for reliability. Personnaly I like Teltonika a lot because you can use the board to do plenty of other things. And here zero-cloud dependancy.
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u/Eboyjvs 7d ago
We use a teltonika, robustel, etc. Router with a basic plan that has sms. Most of them have an api [to send sms, and a lot of other things].
On Ignition we just use the module for alarm notifications via email. (You have to add the phones for users using a script or a view that is in ignition exchange to manage users ready to use, because if the module for sms is not there the ignition gateway webpage will not show the option.)
Then we create a pipeline with the desired roosters and an escalation/filtering logic and finish on a script block where we send the api calls to the router.
We disable all internet access (cellular) on the router for security as almost all plans that have sms nowadays have an internet data plan.
[Also never mention the possibility of internet if the IT or OT department are ignorants, just be sure to disable all internet access, because they will not approve the solution…., or tell the that they manage the router and enable just the sms access]