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Use an old Mobile Phone as a GSM Gateway in Asterisk

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Like most people I carry a mobile phone, but mine is for emergencies only. Just a
handful of people know the the number and that's how I like to keep it. Because
I use Asterisk, I'm always reachable through my land line number which I route
around between various destinations or voicemail depending on what suits me.
I'm spoilt by this, so having my mobile phone ring unexpectedly at an
inconvenient time is a bit intrusive.

But, increasingly, almost everyone I interact with wants my mobile number -

employers, customers, banks, garages, insurance companies - if it doesn't start

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single-number-reach setup I use. This 070 number was presented at my SIP

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using a 'personal use' 070 number which is designed for precisely the kind of
provider, who would then route the calls to my Asterisk server across the

internet. In the end, this proved to be unsatisfactory because many providers

block the 070 range with the justification that it has been abused for

premium-rate scams. For example, the number couldn't be dialled from T-Mobile
or Orange. Shame.

CR520/CR720

Undeterred, I tried another approach. I now have an old spare mobile phone

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to Asterisk. This is a real mobile with a real mobile number. I simply feed any

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which never leaves the house and is permanently connected through bluetooth
incoming calls to this mobile into a macro which handles the call in the same way
as calls to my landline. If I want to take calls on my (real) mobile, I can. If I'm

not available to take the call, the caller is passed to my Asterisk voicemail box.
SMS text messages arrive as emails, my replies to which are sent by SMS.
Having all my incoming calls and voicemail messages in one place is very

convenient and it prevents me from missing calls when I am in the house and
probably would not hear a mobile phone ringing.

Asterisk has included support for bluetooth connections to mobile phones and

headsets for some time now. This is accomplished through chan_mobile. Not all
phones are supported, so it's worth taking a look at voip-info.org's page which
lists the confirmed compatible dongles and phones. I am getting good results

with a D-Link DBT-120 dongle and a Nokia E72, 6306i, 6021 handsets, however

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only the 6021 works with SMS. It is worth noting that each bluetooth dongle can

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but it's not as though USB dongles are very expensive.

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support only one mobile device - this is an annoying limitation of chan_mobile,

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chan_mobile is an addon, so it needs to be enabled before Asterisk is compiled.

# apt-get install bluez-utils bluez-hcidump libbluetooth-dev

then, go to your Asterisk source directory and use make menuselect to enable
chan_mobile. It's in Add-ons -> chan_mobile:
# cd /usr/src/asterisk-1.8.11.0

# ./configure && make menuselect

Whilst it compiled and installed OK, I had to make a modification to the
chan_mobile source before it would recognise my phone:

# vi /usr/src/asterisk-1.8.11.0/addons/chan_mobile.c
Find this:

addr.rc_channel = (uint8_t) 1;

Replace with:

addr.rc_channel = (uint8_t) 0;

Build Asterisk and (re)install:

# make && make install
In order to use a bluetooth-connected phone as a GSM gateway, it's necessary to
pair the phone with the Asterisk server. In Debian, this can be accomplished

painlessly through the CLI. First, make your phone discoverable and then scan
for it:

# hcitool scan
Scanning ...

EC:1B:6B:64:C2:88

Trollphone

Make a note of the MAC address. In order to pair, a helper is required to handle
the PIN. Run the helper in the background and begin the pairing process:
# bluetooth-agent 7472 &

# rfcomm connect hci0 EC:1B:6B:64:C2:88

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Once the pairing has succeeded, make sure your phone is configured to

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paring is working at any time by running:

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automatically accept connections for this paring in future. You can verify that the

# hcitool con
Connections:

< ACL EC:1B:6B:64:C2:88 handle 41 state 1 lm MASTER AUTH ENCRYPT

BT Infinity FTTC (and my own

Now, Asterisk needs to be configured to use the paired phone. We need to know

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chan_mobile:

FreeBSD router)
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which rfcomm channel offers the voice service. The easiest way is to use

# rasterisk

*CLI> module load chan_mobile.so

Don't worry about any errors loading the module, it'll do for now:

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# hcitool dev
Devices:

hci0

00:81:C5:33:25:A4

At last we have all the information needed. Edit or create the chan_mobile
configuration file:

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Use an old Mobile Phone as a GSM

Gateway in Asterisk

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Mobile Phone Number

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Asterisk GSM Gateway

CLI and use hcitool:

# vi /etc/asterisk/chan_mobile.conf

FXS Card

Phone

address of the bluetooth dongle installed in the Asterisk server. Exit the Asterisk

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handsets with Asterisk

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In this case it is rfcomm channel 2. In addition, we need to know the MAC

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address = 00:81:C5:33:25:A4
id = pabx

[Trollphone]

address = EC:1B:6B:64:C2:88
port = 2

context = from-trollphone
adapter = pabx

You will need something in the dialplan to handle this, at minimum something
like:

# vi /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf
[from-trollphone]

exten => s,1,Dial(SIP/100)

[my-phones]

exten => *12,1,Dial(MOBILE/Trollphone/150)

When the mobile rings, you should get a call on SIP extension 100. Dialling *12
will cause the phone to dial 150, which in my case gives me Orange customer
services. I'm sure you get the idea.

What about SMS?

Trickier, but there is a solution. None of the phones I had spare were supported

by chan_mobile's SMS capabilities. According to the chan_mobile wiki page, only

three phones are known to support SMS: the Nokia models E51, 6021 and 6230i.
Of the three, the 6021 seems to be the most widely available - I was able to get
three of them from eBay for just a few pounds.

Once the phone is paired in the normal way, it will send any incoming SMS

messages to Asterisk over the bluetooth connection. Asterisk looks for an 'sms'

extension in the context you specified in chan_mobile.conf. I suggest something

like this in your dialplan:
[from-trollphone]

exten => sms,1,Verbose(Incoming SMS from ${SMSSRC} ${SMSTXT})

exten => sms,n,System(echo "To: stocksy@stocksy.co.uk" > /tmp/smsmail)

exten => sms,n,System(echo "Subject: SMS from ${SMSSRC}" >> /tmp/smsmail)

exten => sms,n,System(echo "${SMSTXT}" >> /tmp/smsmail)

exten => sms,n,System(sendmail -t -f ${SMSSRC}@sms.stocksy.co.uk < /tmp/smsmail)

exten => sms,n,Hangup()

At first, incoming messages were all arriving with a blank ${SMSSRC}, the easy
solution was to apply a patch and re-compile:

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# cd /usr/src/asterisk-1.8*

# wget --no-check-certificate https://issues.asterisk.org/jira/secure/attachment/420

# patch -p0 < sms-sender-fix.diff

# ./configure && make && make install

Now, incoming messages are delivered to me as emails claiming to be from
+MOBILENUMBER@sms.stocksy.co.uk. Obviously, this requires the Asterisk

system to have a working MTA, the setup of which I won't cover here. If you
don't have an MTA at present, take a look at postfix.

Outgoing SMS messages are more work because it's necessary to parse the
contents of the email message, the format of which will be a little less

predicatable than an SMS. I elected to use python to do this because it already

has a library to do this.

#!/usr/bin/env python

# (:? YOUR SCRIPT IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD! (:?

# I'M NOT A DEVELOPER AND THIS IS PROBABLY VERY, VERY BAD, but it does work.
# email2sms.py James Stocks

# based upon emailspeak.py by sysadminman - http://sysadminman.net

# v0.0

2012-04-28

# Import libs we need

import sys, time, email, email.Message, email.Errors, email.Utils, smtplib, os, sock
from datetime import date

from email.Iterators import typed_subpart_iterator

from time import sleep

# Asterisk Manager connection details

HOST = '127.0.0.1'
PORT = 5038

# Asterisk Manager username and password

USER = 'your-ast-man-user'
SECRET = 'dysmsdvsa'

# Generate a random number as a string. We'll use this for file names later on
callnum = str(random.randint(1, 100000000))
# Taken from here, with thanks -

# http://ginstrom.com/scribbles/2007/11/19/parsing-multilingual# email-with-python/

def get_charset(message, default="ascii"):

"""Get the message charset"""

if message.get_content_charset():

return message.get_content_charset()

if message.get_charset():

return message.get_charset()

return default
# Taken from here, with thanks -

# http://ginstrom.com/scribbles/2007/11/19/parsing-multilingual# email-with-python/

def get_body(message):

"""Get the body of the email message"""

if message.is_multipart():

#get the plain text version only

text_parts = [part

for part in typed_subpart_iterator(message,

'text',

'plain')]

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body = []

for part in text_parts:

charset = get_charset(part, get_charset(message))

body.append(unicode(part.get_payload(decode=True),
charset,

"replace"))
return u"\n".join(body).strip()
else: # if it is not multipart, the payload will be a string
# representing the message body

body = unicode(message.get_payload(decode=True),
get_charset(message),
"replace")

return body.strip()

# Read the e-mail message that has been piped to us by Postfix

raw_msg = sys.stdin.read()

emailmsg = email.message_from_string(raw_msg)
# Extract database Fields from mail
msgfrom = emailmsg['From']
msgto =

emailmsg['To']

msgsubj = emailmsg['Subject']
msgbody = get_body(emailmsg)

# Find the part of the 'To' field that is the phone number
phonenum = re.match( r'\+?([0-9]+)', msgto, re.M)
# Whose mobile is this?
mobile = sys.argv[1]

# Write a log file in /tmp with a record of the e-mails

currtime = date.today().strftime("%B %d, %Y")
logfile = open('/tmp/email2sms.log', 'a')
logfile.write(currtime + "\n")

logfile.write("Call Number: " + callnum + "\n")

logfile.write("From: " + msgfrom + "\n")
logfile.write("To: " + msgto + "\n")

logfile.write("Subject: " + msgsubj + "\n")

logfile.write("Body: " + msgbody + "\n\n")
logfile.close()

# Send the call details to the Asterisk manager interface

s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.connect((HOST, PORT))
sleep(1)

s.send('Action: login\r\n')

s.send('Username: ' + USER + '\r\n')

s.send('Secret: ' + SECRET + '\r\n\r\n')

sleep(1)

s.send('Action: originate\r\n')

# Dummy channel - I don't actually want any phones to ring

s.send('Channel: LOCAL/1@sms-dummy\r\n')
s.send('Context: mobiles\r\n')

s.send('Exten: ' + mobile + '\r\n')

s.send('WaitTime: 30\r\n')

# This is a bogus value, but the field is required

s.send('CallerId: 5555\r\n')

# Do not wait for response from dummy channel

s.send('Async: true\r\n')
s.send('Priority: 1\r\n')

# The variables ${SMSTO} and ${SMSBODY} are used in the dialplan

s.send('Variable: SMSTO=' + phonenum.group(1) + ',SMSBODY=\"' + msgbody + '\"\r\n\r\

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sleep(1)

s.send('Action: Logoff\r\n\r\n')

#Omitting this causes "ast_careful_fwrite: fwrite() returned error: Broken pipe"

sleep(3)

s.close()
Copy the above script to /usr/sbin/email2sms.py and make executable:
# chmod +x /usr/sbin/email2sms.py
The script uses the Asterisk Manager Interface, so it will need an AMI user.
Append this to manager.conf:

# vi /etc/asterisk/manager.conf
[your-ast-man-user]
secret=dysmsdvsa

read=call,user,originate

write=call,user,originate
and also make sure it is enabled in the general section:
# vi /etc/asterisk/manager.conf
[general]

enabled = yes

webenabled = yes
port = 5038

You'll note that I'm using the context 'mobiles'. You'll need to make sure that the
extensions you'll be using exist in this context in extensions.conf:
# vi /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf
exten => stocksy,1,MobileSendSMS(JS6021,${SMSTO},${SMSBODY})

exten => karen,1,MobileSendSMS(trollphone,${SMSTO},${SMSBODY})

Secondly, there is a dummy extension which the 'call' needs to connect to. A

NoOp isn't quite sufficient, I could only get it to work if the extension answered
and then did something, in this case answer and wait 10 seconds:
# vi /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf
[sms-dummy]

exten => 1,1,Answer()

exten => 1,n,Wait(10)
exten => 1,n,Hangup

Reload Asterisk to pick up the changes.

So, calling email2sms.py with the argument 'stocksy' uses the JS6021 mobile,
and calling it with 'karen' uses the trollphone mobile.

You need to make sure that email for the domain you have chosen - in my case
sms.stocksy.co.uk - is routed to the Asterisk box. This will normally be

accomplished by creating an MX record or creating a transport for the domain on

your mail server. Again, I'm not going to cover that part here, but I will cover
how to pipe the incoming messages into the python script.

Assuming that you are using postfix, you'll need a new transport for each mobile
you want to use. In my case:

# vi /etc/postfix/master.cf
sms-stocksy unix -

pipe

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flags=FR user=stocksy argv=/usr/sbin/email2sms.py stocksy

sms-karen unix

pipe

flags=FR user=stocksy argv=/usr/sbin/email2sms.py karen

postfix needs to know that it must use these transports for SMS domains:
# vi /etc/postfix/transport ; postmap /etc/postfix/transport
sms.stocksy.co.uk sms-stocksy
sms.herdomain.co.uk sms-karen
If postfix doesn't already have a transport_maps setting, create one. Obviously
this could break any existing postfix setup you might have, but if so I'm
expecting you to know what you're doing:

# postconf -e transport_maps=hash:/etc/postfix/transport
Restart postfix and that should be all that's necessary.
# /etc/init.d/postfix restart
You need to satisfy yourself that you are not allowing the entire world to
relay through your SMS gateway! Understand and make use of postfix's

security features! Don't wait until you've racked up a collosal SMS bill! Loud
noises!

If things aren't quite working, start by checking your mail log:

# tail -f /var/log/mail.log
You can do a packet trace to see what's happening on the Asterisk Manager
Interface:

# tcpdump -A -i lo port 5038

Try talking to the AMI directly:
$ nc localhost 5038
Action: login

Username: your-ast-man-user
Secret: dysmsdvsa
Action: originate

Channel: LOCAL/1@sms-dummy
Context: mobiles
Exten: stocksy
WaitTime: 30

CallerId: 5555
Async: true
Priority: 1

Variable: SMSTO=5555555555,SMSBODY="foo"
Action: Logoff
Watch out for whitespace in the AMI - exten 'stocksy' != 'stocksy '.
Good luck.

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New Comments
9 Comments

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sasikarans

Its Ok but HOW TO CONNECT MULTIPLE PHONES IN

CHAN_MOBILWE?

Like Reply Jul 18, 2012 10:18pm

James Stocks

Calm down my friend, there is no need for caps here. Firstly,

remember that you must have one bluetooth dongle per
device. You need to pair each device, one at a time, using
bluetooth-agent. You will need to specify which hciX
interface you wish to pair with, for example: bluetooth-agent
--adapter hci2 2345 &. Once the bluetooth-agent is running,
use either Asterisk itself or rfcomm to establish a connection
and complete the pairing process.

Like Reply Jul 19, 2012 10:30am

vpn4voip_net

thanks for your nice post. now I would like to forward the call to
another mobile.
Like when asterisk get a call it goes to a mobile. then the mobile will
call the destination number.
So the mobile will act like a GSM gateway.
I would like to use the Mobile as 1 Port GSM Gateway?
How can I do that?

Like Reply Aug 16, 2012 5:24pm

James Stocks

The mobile is presented to Asterisk in exactly the same way

as any other channel, so instead of diverting to
SIP/yourtrunk/12345 you'd divert to MOBILE/somemobile
/12345. I would need to know what the rest of your dialplan
looks like to be more specific.

Like Reply Aug 17, 2012 1:09am

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