Querying/rebooting a router via SMS?

[ashkentapa]

Hi all.

I'm planning a standardisation project to convert all of our remote sites to Cisco (currently we have a mismatch of routers from many vendors). We have a number of unmanned sites with 3G connections. We are using Cybertec 3G routers at many of these sites since the Cybertecs have a really nice feature that allows the routers to be queried/rebooted via SMS. We find this very handy because quite often when we have connectivity problems we find the 3G connection has gone down but the router is still accepting SMS messages. Rebooting the router vis SMS usually fixes the problem and saves us having to get someone out to site.

I've looked all over the Cisco website and can't see any reference to equivalent functionality. Am I looking in the wrong places, or do the Cisco 3G platforms not support it? Thanks.

[paolo bevilacqua]

No, the Cisco 3G router products do not support SMS or Voice in any manner.

The philosophy is that a correctly working router does not need to be rebooted, ever.

[ashkentapa]

I found a solution for this problem so I thought I would post it in case this thread turns up in someone's search results.

Cisco routers may not need to be rebooted much but the modems in their 3G WICs certainly do. As I mentioned in my opening post we have an number of industrial devices that accept reboot command via SMS (Cybertec series 2000, Maxon Smartmax). They are also able to monitor their 3G conennections and will restart themselves if they detect a problem. We can't do SMS reboots on a Cisco router but we can get them to restart their 3G modems using EEM scripts.

From a production router:

service internal

!

track 200 interface Cellular0/0/0 line-protocol

delay down 60 up 10

!

event manager applet RESET-3G

event track 200 state down

action 1.0 cli command "enable"

action 2.0 cli command "test cellular 0/0/0 modem-power-cycle"

action 3.0 syslog msg "EEM SCRIPT - 3G modem power cycled"

Notes:

1. The "service internal" command is necessary to enable the "test cellular 0/0/0 modem-power-cycle" command.

2. The delays on the tracking are there because many of our sites have transient cellular outages that rectify themselves within about 25 seconds. Resetting the modem every time would just extend the outage.*

3. We could have the EEM script reset the cellular interface but sometimes the 3G modem locks up and a "shut" and "no shut" on the cellular interface does not fix it. Resetting the 3G modem does.

* most of our sites are on pipelines in the middle of nowhere and generally 3G reception is poor. If your sites are located in towns or cities you may may not have these transient outages and so you can reduce or eliminate the tracking delays.

[ashkentapa]

A little tweak to this configuration:

event manager applet RESET-3G

event track 200 state down maxrun 180

action 1.0 cli command "enable"

action 2.0 cli command "test cellular 0 modem-power-cycle"

action 3.0 syslog msg "EEM SCRIPT - 3G modem power cycled"

We need the “maxrun 180” option on the event tracking statement since by default EEM will only allow a script to run for 20 seconds. Scripts that run longer will be terminated. This can cause problems because it can take more than 20 seconds to power cycle the modem. If this happens the script will be terminated before it can log to syslog and a “sh event manager history events” will show a status of “Abort”. The modem will get power cycled but it will appear that the script is not working.

[chathuragune]

If you would want to send a free SMS to reset route use it.