Alamin GSM SMS Gateway - News

* December 6, 2006
Published java client written by Javier Ballesteros - Infodesa: gsgc.java.

* December 6, 2006
Published HOWTO document from Darek Sliwa: ALAMIN_howto.pdf.

* December 28, 2005
Published document from Juan Miguel Alcarria about using Alamin in a services monitorization server.

* September 8, 2004
Updated Devices page. Siemens wireless modules tested.

* September 4, 2004
Development has started again. I have a lot of changes queued to be done. In the following days other news will detail changes to the Alamin GSM SMS Gateway. Thanks for your patches, your patiente, GSM modems from Siemens and your suggestions.

* November 14, 2001
After a lot of months, Alamin development is going to continue. Main reason to the development stop is a lot of work. Motivation for the project has not falled. Alamin has been included into the Debian distribution during this time. In the next weeks, the smsqp protocol will be finished, and reroute over another gateway will be included in the gateway. gsgc client functionalities will be expanded too.
Next saturday November 17, a report called "SMS messaging gateways" will be presented at the Congreso Hispalinux, in Madrid, Spain. Its contect will include the Alamin gateway. Images and text about the report will be added to this project website.

* May 5, 2001
Version 0.3.6 is real now. We have had some delays due to little corrections and man pages. You can get it now in the download area, with its corresponding signature from Project Manager. Alfredo Martin has made some banners and buttons to identify the project in web pages that want to link Alamin. Dan Sotomayor finished some days ago FAQ translation to english, that you can get from the project web site.

* April 22, 2001
Alamin is now 1 year old. We have been working hard this year to give you Alamin. We want to thanks all the people that is contributing with his work, suggestions and help. Alamin is growing with our needs and our efforts. We hope you give us your comments and your help. Thanks for using Alamin. Thanks for contributing Alamin.

* March 29, 2001
We have a new frequent asked questions (FAQ) page. You can access it through the options menu link. It is ready now in Spanish only. Translation into English will be done in some days. The new 0.3.6pre3 version is ready in the download area. This will be the final 0.3.6 version except by bugs than may be corrected until 0.3.6 will be released. Added functions to this last version are client verification using a CHAP similar scheme, destination phone verification and phone lists files to include multiple destinations. All this controls had been added to the smtp interface too. The Digest::MD5 Perl module is now needed. "gsgc" client has been tested onto Windows NT with ActivePerl. Patched "gsgc" to be used into Windows NT is in the "otherOS" directory. "alamin.org" domain name has been reserverd to be used with the project. Collaborators can now ask for email addresses in this domain, if they want. Official URL for the project web site has changed to http://www.alamin.org, although the old one at SourceForge will continue being valid. "Project Release Manager" (prmanager@alamin.org) figure has been created to sign with GnuPG packages that will be uploaded into the download area. Version 0.3.6pre3 has its new sign. Sign file is there too. Public key of the Project Release Manager is in its new page, and it has been sent to some PGP key servers of the world. If you want, you can ask Project Release Manager for confirmation of the fingerprint of the GnuPG public key.

* March 14, 2001
The best form of being late is to promise to do something a fixed day. I am sorry about the delay in the 0.3.6 version, that is not ready yet. But, a the 0.3.6pre2 has been uploaded to the software area. It has new functionalities that were needed. Allow or deny a connection based on ip, phone numbers groups and alias and selection of the sms service center to be used, by the whole gateway or by a send request. Some more, man pages are being wrote these days. It may be inside final 0.3.6 version. Before 0.3.6 version, a new 0.3.6pre3 will include destination number limitation based on a patch from Tomas Halgas, and client authentication using a client name and a password.

* January 25, 2001
As of a few days ago, Debian and Red Hat packages for version 0.3.5a have been ready to download. Today version 0.3.6pre1 has been uploaded. This new 0.3.6 version will include plenty of changes to control message sending service. Debian and Red Hat packages for "pre" versions won't be generated, but we hope to have version 0.3.6 ready in mid February. The main changes in 0.3.6pre1 consist of using Sys::Syslog instead of calling the logger program, thereby reducing the load to the system; some AT interface changes to better communicate with GSM modems; and the possibility of using alias and groups of phone numbers. Please check the BUGS and CHANGELOG files in the doc directory. At the end of the download area, in the "Other" section, there is an alert generator for "mon", alamin.alert. In it you can find documentation to set it up inside a "mon" system. This script calls the Alamin client, gsgc, with the results of the alert generated by "mon".

* December 20, 2000
A few small errors have been found in Version 0.3.5, principally in the installation script for Debian, which didn't execute the tasks correctly with regard to 2.1 (slink), and in the AT interface for sending messages, which did not correctly construct the chat script when the message contained more than one line. These errors have already been fixed, and the new Version 0.3.5a is available in the download area of the project.

* December 19, 2000
Finally, Version 0.3.5, with corrections to its security and adjustments which were needed, is ready to be used. It is recommended that those production servers upgrade to the latest version in order to avoid being attacked using one of the security problems that plagued earlier versions. From now on, security will be a priority in all future versions. Up until now, priority was given to functionality over security, since it was a beta and it was necessary to have certain functionality, not using the time in small details.

* December 6, 2000
During the month of November, the security and stability of the gateway were rev ised. The appropriate changes are being made to guarantee that the systems on which the gateway is installed are not put at risk. Version 0.3.5, which will be available at the end of next week, will include changes in security as well as some minor changes in the options to select ports for smtp and smsqp, and the logging of more information for incoming connections.

* November 5, 2000
Version 0.3.4 is finalized and available from the download area. The following changes were made since version 0.3.3:

# 0.3.4 - November 4, 2000
#               Support for different versions of Gnokii.  At present,
#       versions 0.3.0 and 0.3.2 have been tested.  Gsgsmtpd is the
#       daemon which provides the SMTP interface.  Gsgcmd can
#       receive messages to be sent to multiple destinations, not just
#       one.  Gsgc was modified to permit sending a message to
#       multiple destinations at the same time.  The umask for the
#       gateway was changed to allow read/write permissions on 
#       message files owned by user or group, but not others.
#       The SMTP interface allows formatting of the message to be 
#       sent over GSM.  Added --help and --version command line 
#       options.  A new example of input message processor 
#       was included:  gsgimp-sms2email. 

* October 25, 2000
Anonymous FTP can be used to download project files. The FTP server can be found at ftp://alamin.sourceforge.net/pub/alamin.
The first Redhat and Debian packages for version 0.3.4pre1 are ready for download, thanks to Abu and Brian, respectively.

*October 21, 2000
A new distribution list called alamin-announce was added to the project with announcements of new versions of the gateway and important changes in the project web pages. If somebody is not interested in the questions inside the alamin-user list, he can subscribe to the new announcements list to find out about new versions. More information can be found in the Lists page. Thanks to the collaboration search service of SourceForge, some volunteers are starting to add theirs efforts to the project. We hope some documentation will become available soon to help with installing and using the gateway. In the new People web page you can see the current list of volunteers with their respective tasks.

* October 12, 2000
IANA reconsidered the port number "smsqp" is using. Alamin GSM SMS Gateway is to continue using port number 11201 that it has been using since its inception. The October 3, 2000, notification regarding port 1287 is no longer valid. In the /etc/services file, the new lines for "smsqp" are as follows:

smsqp           11201/tcp   # gsm short message service queue protocol
smsqp           11201/udp

* October 4, 2000
A second discussion list was created for developers, documentation writers, and maintainers of the project web page. You can get additional information from the Lists page.

* October 3, 2000
IANA answered us about the request for a TCP user port. 1287 is the new assigned port to "smsqp" (sms queue protocol). The next version (0.3.4) will include this change. Default value will be "smsqp", but if you have not updated your /etc/services file yet, you can use the "port" option of the config file to 1287, or to the older port used until now, 11201, if you maintain old clients running with its "port" option not updated. The /etc/services lines for "smsqp" look like this:

smsqp           1287/tcp   # gsm short message service queue protocol
smsqp           1287/udp

* October 2, 2000
The request for project space at SourceForge was granted. The Alamin GSM SMS Gateway web pages were moved to the new site, which will be the source for all project information: http://alamin.sourceforge.net. Web site hosting is the only service that is currently being used from SourceForge, but other services will be used later on, such as the CVS server, mailing list and the bug tracking system. The new URL was announced in Freshmeat and BarraPunto. An answer was received from RAN Internet stating that they knew of the problem of not being able to update web pages under .es.org domains, but that there was no solution yet.

* October 1, 2000
For about 7 days, the project web pages at http://www.alamin.es.org could not be updated. With no response from maintenance personnel of .es.org domains, project space was requested from SourceForge to host Alamin GSM SMS Gateway.

* September 27, 2000
After summer vacation, September examinations and the annual feast in my town, version 0.3.4 is almost ready. Since some functionalities in the SMTP interface haven't been completed, and I would like to include man pages, I have just prepared a preview package with version 0.3.4pre1. gsgcmd and gsgmdd programs won't change, if no security problems appears. The configuration file (gsgd.conf) has some changes, but it contains many comments to make it easy to configure and understand. gsgc (the client) is actually the same as in version 0.3.3.

* September 27, 2000
After today, news will also be posted in the alamingsg mailing list.

* September 20, 2000
A TCP port in the user space was solicited from the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). Its name is smsqp (sms queue protocol). The port number solicited is 11201, the one currently used by Alamin GSM SMS Gateway. This is the port used between the client and the server, and is the same one to be used when the inter-server communication is implemented. We are waiting to hear from IANA with an answer to our request.

* August 2, 2000
A new contribution was added to the download area to implement an easy email-to-SMS gateway. It uses procmail and can be used with other SMS senders.

* August 1, 2000
The version currently being developed, Version 0.3.3, was added to the download area. Changes were made mainly to facilite its startup, and options that were needed to configure some paths were added.

* July 18, 2000
A new discussion list was created to talk about comments, questions, signaling, etc., any stuff about the gateway. You can get additional information from the Lists page.

* July 15, 2000
Release of version 0.3.2. New functionalities include priority queues, retries if the GSM network is not ready or the communication with the GSM device fails, and limiting the number of messages that can be processed in a message dispatcher cycle. Visits to the web page increased a lot since the BarraPunto.com and FreshMeat.net announcement, from 25 on June 21 to 524 on July 14.

* June 22, 2000
Announcement in BarraPunto.com and FreshMeat.net about the new page at http://www.alamin.es.org.

* June 14, 2000
In the 0.3.1 version, the gateway code is separated into two components, gsgcmd (Core Module) and gsgmdd (Message Dispatcher) which is responsible for communicating with the GSM devices. Installation is made easier with two scripts, install and uninstall. They were tested in a Debian distribution, so they may need changes in other GNU/Linux distributions.

* June 6, 2000
Version 0.3.0 is released after a lot of changes. The new native protocol between IP clients and the gateway appears (gsgp - GSM SMS Gateway Protocol). Syslog is used to see what the gateway is doing.
First example input message proccessor is written. It is a financial transaction simulator.
Web page changes its address to http://www.alamin.es.org.

* May 23, 2000
0.2.4 version. SMTP client interface is rewritten, and some error control is added to the AT interface.

* May 22, 2000
0.2.3 version. GSM modems that support extended AT commands are supported now. Code is rewritten to use "strict" Perl.

* May 16, 2000
0.2.2 version. No more multiple processes running. Started using standard Perl sockets libraries. The server name changes to gsgd.

* May 2, 2000
With the 0.2.1 version, support to send to multiple phones, better error checking and nonsimultaneous access to the GSM device are added.

* April 18, 2000
Second version (0.2.0). Functionalities are defined and the communication with Gnokii is ready. Client protocol is SMTP.

* April 13, 2000
The first version (0.1.0) of a server software to send messages to the GSM network from IP clients. Its name is gsmsmsd.