In my Open-Source Classroom column in the May 2016 issue, I discussed how to set up Gmail as your SMTP provider for outgoing email. The problem with email is that sometimes the sheer quantity of it makes important messages slip past my radar. So for really important error messages, I like to get SMS messages. Thankfully, I get several orders of magnitude fewer text messages than I do email messages. That means if a text comes, I almost always notice, and I always check it. ("Inbox Zero" is far more attainable with my SMS inbox!)

Most providers have an email gateway for sending text messages, but figuring out what format to use for what number is frustrating. I prefer a simple way to add a one-liner into a script that will send a text message. Thankfully, Ian Webster provides TextBelt free of charge! You can download the source code and host it yourself if you prefer, but Ian graciously offers a running instance of TextBelt that is free as in beer and free as in speech to use. To send a text, simply use curl:

curl -X POST http://textbelt.com/text -d number=5551234567 -d
 ↪'message=Warning! Your server is on fire! Also,
 ↪you are out of milk.'

The code above will send a text message to any of the major carriers in the US. You'll get a response on the command line showing either success or failure. There's also an international gateway that is available; go here for more information.

Note: there are a still a few goofy carriers. My Android phone is on Cricket Wireless, and although I do get a success message, the text never arrives. I suspect this is because Cricket recently changed its email gateway; hopefully the TextBelt code will be updated shortly. The moral of the story is, test first before relying on the service to work!