gnu-social/docs/user/src/sms.md

SMS

StatusNet supports a cheap-and-dirty system for sending update messages to mobile phones and for receiving updates from the mobile. Instead of sending through the SMS network itself, which is costly and requires buy-in from the wireless carriers, it simply piggybacks on the email gateways that many carriers provide to their customers. So, SMS configuration is essentially email configuration.

Each user sends to a made-up email address, which they keep a secret. Incoming email that is "From" the user's SMS email address, and "To" the users' secret email address on the site's domain, will be converted to a notice and stored in the DB.

For this to work, there must be a domain or sub-domain for which all (or most) incoming email can pass through the incoming mail filter.

1. Run the SQL script carrier.sql in your StatusNet database. This will usually work:

   mysql -u "statusnetuser" --password="statusnetpassword" statusnet < db/carrier.sql
   

   This will populate your database with a list of wireless carriers that support email SMS gateways.

2. Make sure the maildaemon.php file is executable:

   chmod +x scripts/maildaemon.php
   

   Note that "daemon" is kind of a misnomer here; the script is more of a filter than a daemon.

3. Edit /etc/aliases on your mail server and add the following line:

   *: /path/to/statusnet/scripts/maildaemon.php
   

4. Run whatever code you need to to update your aliases database. For many mail servers (Postfix, Exim, Sendmail), this should work:

   newaliases
   

   You may need to restart your mail server for the new database to take effect.

5. Set the following in your config.php file:

   $config['mail']['domain'] = 'yourdomain.example.net';