[Asterisk-Users] Text Messaging or AIM

[Greg Hill]

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005, Jess Coburn wrote:

> So you basically want an SMS or IM callback app right?
>
> One way to do this would be send an email to an address like
> (callmeback at domain.com) and have a cronjob query/pop this email
> address for your specific message and then when it finds it have it
> create a .call file to call you and connect you to whatever context
> you setup, etc.  Shouldn't be very hard at all.  This would allow for
> emails and I'm pretty sure every cell can send an email.

As an extension to that idea, if your asterisk host is also your email
host, the you could send mail to whatever user Asterisk runs as. Set up a
.forward file and use procmail etc to filter the message and
"authenticate" or validate the source (remembering that email is easily
spoofed, so don't let this gateway have access to anything terribly
sensitive), then create a .call file from there. This approach is nice
because it's asynchronous: as soon as the email arrives it'll be processed
and .call will be generated. The cron approach means that you'd have to
wait until the next job runs before any action will be taken, although if
your email doesn't get delivered in such a way that you can do scripting
in .forward, then it may be the only choice.

Greg