- A Bandwidth.com account with a static 2-way SMS-enabled phone number (the User ID, User Token and Token Secret ready to use) (it's cheaper than Twilio!)
OR
- A Twilio.com account with a static 2-way SMS-enabled phone number (the Account SID and Auth token ready for you to use)
- A Facebook Messenger account
- Python 3+ (and the requirements in requirements.txt)
I assume you know how to download/clone the repository.
First, create a virtualenv at the root of the project. (Optional)
cd /project/path/SMSenger-Bridge
virtualenv .
Activate the virtualenv (Optional)
./Scripts/activate
Install the requirements using pip
pip install -r requirements.txt
Duplicate the .env.example file and name it .env. Fill all the data in it with yours (see later section for more details)
Finally, run main.py
python main.py
Once installed and running...
Open your port (5000 by default) in your firewall and add a port forward rule so it is accessible from the outside world
Then follow either the Twilio or Bandwidth setup steps (depending on the provider you chose):
- Go to your twilio SMS webhook (Phone Numbers => Manage Numbers => Active Numbers => your purchased number)
- Paste your IP:port/sms link (looks like http://155.73.2.44:5000/sms) in the "A MESSAGE COMES IN" field. Make sure the API is set to GET.
- Go to your Bandwidth Application (Applications => [App name])
- Paste your IP:port/bandwidth link (looks like http://155.73.2.44:5000/bandwidth) in the "Messaging callback URL" field. Make sure the Callback request method is set to GET.
Once your sms provider is setup...
All the messages you are sent through facebook messenger will be sent to you via SMS (note that you pay PER SMS in many sms providers and PER NUMBER sometimes too)
If you want to talk to someone, send a message that looks like this: @RECIPIENT NAME: Hello!
The @RECIPIENT NAME: part can be left out if you want to send a message to the same person many times in a row.
You can send +MUTE from your phone to disable SMS remotely. Send +UNMUTE to bring SMS back. This allows you to let the app run endlessly.
| Environment variable | Description |
|---|---|
| SMS_PROVIDER | The third-party SMS provider you wish to use. Either 'twilio' or 'bandwidth' for the moment. |
| BANDWIDTH_USER | Bandwidth User ID found in the account tab (use only if SMS_PROVIDER is set to bandwidth) |
| BANDWIDTH_TOKEN | Bandwidth token found in the account tab (use only if SMS_PROVIDER is set to bandwidth) |
| BANDWIDTH_SECRET | Bandwidth secret found in the account tab (use only if SMS_PROVIDER is set to bandwidth) |
| BANDWIDTH_FROM_NUMBER | Your own bandwidth number. The one you bought |
| TWILIO_SID | Twilio SID (use only if SMS_PROVIDER is set to twilio) |
| TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN | Twilio Auth Token (use only if SMS_PROVIDER is set to twilio) |
| TWILIO_FROM_NUMBER | Your own twilio number. The one you bought |
| YOUR_NUMBER | The phone number you want to chat with. Will be used to notify and to check for incoming SMS. Should be a "long code" (+18473920495) |
| MESSENGER_LOGIN | Your facebook messenger login (usually an e-mail address) |
| FLASK_HOST | Set this to '0.0.0.0' in order to make your application public and respond to HTTP requests. You can also use ngrok instead of this. Optional parameter. |
| FLASK_PORT | Port to use for hosting the web server. Optional parameter, will be 5000 if left out. |
For now, the next steps for the project are:
- Support group chat (very low priority)
- Add a way to enable/disable automatically to save money on SMS usage (detect that you are connected/disconnected from elsewhere) (low priority)
- Add a way to ping the service in order to see if it's still alive if not connected to the internet (low priority)
- Add a way to retrieve messages from N minutes in the past (if you think you missed on any messages and did not +UNMUTE) (medium priority)