Send Text/SMS Alerts Directly from Nagios
Turn your existing Nagios pager field into compliant text/SMS. No GSM modem, no rewrite of contacts.cfg.
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Reuse your existing Nagios pager field for text
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Works with your 10DLC business number
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Replies thread back to the admin’s inbox
Adding Modern Text Delivery on Top of Nagios Alerting
Nagios is the backbone of infrastructure monitoring for thousands of teams. TextBolt complements it by adding modern SMS delivery through the same email-based pager pattern your contacts.cfg already uses. Six common scenarios where sysadmins, NOC operators, IT Operations engineers, and infrastructure engineers reach for SMS alongside Nagios.
The Carrier Gateways Sysadmins Used Have Shut Down
Sysadmins running Nagios have for 20+ years written carrier gateway addresses ([phone]@vtext.com for Verizon, @txt.att.net for AT&T, @tmomail.net for T-Mobile) into the contacts.cfg pager field. AT&T retired txt.att.net in June 2025. T-Mobile took tmomail.net offline in December 2024. Verizon’s vtext.com shutdown completes by March 31, 2027. Existing Nagios SMS routing on this pattern is broken or breaking.
GSM Modems Excel in Air-Gapped and Sovereignty-Constrained Sites
Hardware GSM modems (SMSEagle, Multi-Tech iSMS, and similar) are purpose-built for on-premises SMS delivery in air-gapped networks, sovereignty-constrained data centers, and offline-first environments where cloud SMS isn’t an option. For multi-site or cloud-friendly Nagios deployments, TextBolt covers the same alert path through a managed cloud gateway, complementing the hardware route rather than overlapping with it.
The Twilio Plus wget Path Adds Script Maintenance
Twilio is a leading SMS API and AWS SNS is a powerful messaging service. Combined with Nagios via custom commands.cfg scripts piping printf through wget, this DIY path gives full programmability. Sysadmins looking for a no-script, single-tool path to SMS find that TextBolt removes the script-maintenance layer while keeping the same notification flow.
Sysadmins Want SMS Without Picking a Plugin to Maintain
Nagios Exchange has a healthy community of SMS notification plugins, each maintained by different authors with different scopes and carrier support. Evaluating a plugin, integrating it, and committing to its maintenance roadmap is overhead the sysadmin team didn’t sign up for. TextBolt skips the plugin layer entirely: the gateway address goes directly into the standard pager directive in the contacts.cfg Nagios already uses.
SMS from Nagios Has No 10DLC Compliance or Audit Trail
The FCC requires US business SMS to be registered through The Campaign Registry. Carrier gateways from Nagios offered no sender authentication, no consent record, no exportable audit trail. For regulated infrastructure (financial services, federal contractor, healthcare-adjacent IT, government) running Nagios, the carrier-gateway SMS path was audit-failing for years and now does not work at all.
On-Call Teams Want Two-Way SMS for Acknowledgments
Nagios’s notification system does an excellent job of pushing alerts out to email and pager addresses. Inbound replies on a one-way pager pattern were never part of the original SMS design, so acknowledging an alert traditionally meant logging into the Nagios web UI or calling another sysadmin. TextBolt routes recipient SMS replies back to the alert sender’s inbox, so “ack,” “rerouting to Sam,” or “investigating” lands as a threaded email the rotation can see.
How TextBolt Adds SMS to Nagios
TextBolt connects Nagios to a registered 10DLC business number through the same email-based pager pattern your contacts.cfg already knows. No GSM modem, no Twilio script, no plugin to evaluate.
SMS to Sysadmins and NOC Operators in Seconds
Each Nagios alert email becomes an SMS within seconds. Critical alerts (host down, service down, disk full, link down) reach the on-call sysadmin or NOC operator immediately, not buried in an inbox they check next morning.
Drop the Gateway Address Into contacts.cfg
Replace the dead carrier gateway value in your existing pager directive with +1[phone]@sendemailtotext.com. Same notify-host-by-email and notify-service-by-email commands, same notification policies, same alert rules. The integration is one config-file edit.
10DLC-Compliant Business Number
TextBolt registers your sender identity with The Campaign Registry during onboarding. SMS routes through carrier-approved 10DLC infrastructure with up to 98% delivery rate, a professional toll-free business number, and an exportable audit trail for federal-contractor, financial, and government Nagios installs.
Cloud-Based Across Every Nagios Poller
TextBolt is a managed cloud gateway. One account covers every Nagios poller in every region with no per-site hardware to deploy, no SIM cards to manage, and no rack space to allocate. Infrastructure engineers running multi-site or federated Nagios deployments route every poller’s SMS through one TextBolt account.
Replies Thread Back to the Admin Inbox
When a sysadmin or NOC operator replies “ack,” “rerouting,” or “investigating” by SMS, the reply lands as an email in the inbox of the alert sender. The whole rotation sees acknowledgments without logging into a separate IRM dashboard. Two-way SMS that Nagios never had natively.
Works With Nagios Core, Nagios XI, Icinga, Centreon, and OP5
The integration uses the standard email contact pattern that Nagios Core, Nagios XI, and the major Nagios forks (Icinga, Centreon, OP5) all share. If your monitoring stack can send an email alert, it can send SMS through TextBolt with no plugin install.
Performance Metrics
Up to 98%
SMS Delivery Rate
Two-Way
SMS Replies to Your Inbox
Carrier-Grade
Routes & Infrastructure
Up to 10
Team Members on Shared Account
Set Up Nagios SMS in About 30 Minutes
Hands-on setup takes around 30 minutes. TextBolt handles 10DLC business verification with The Campaign Registry on your behalf in parallel. No modem to install, no plugin to compile, no Twilio script to author.
01 Sign Up for TextBolt
Create your TextBolt account using your work email. Account creation takes about 2 minutes. The account ties to your domain so you can add coworkers later.
02 Choose a Toll-Free Business Number
Pick a dedicated toll-free number for outbound SMS. One-time $45/year setup fee. The number is the sender ID on every SMS Nagios sends through TextBolt.
03 TextBolt Handles 10DLC Business Verification
Provide your business details during TextBolt onboarding. TextBolt handles 10DLC business and campaign registration with The Campaign Registry on your behalf, so you don’t manage the registration process yourself. Once approved, your number is enabled for compliant business SMS.
04 Edit contacts.cfg, Set pager Value
Open contacts.cfg on your Nagios poller. In the contact’s pager directive, replace the dead carrier gateway with +15551234567@sendemailtotext.com (the sysadmin’s actual phone). Save and reload Nagios.
05 Run nagios -v and Trigger a Test Alert
Validate the config with nagios -v nagios.cfg. Force-recheck a host or service to fire a test alert. The SMS should land within seconds. Check the TextBolt delivery log to confirm and view the audit-trail entry.
06 Add Up to 10 Team Members
Invite the rest of your sysadmin and NOC rotation to the shared TextBolt account. Add each member’s phone in contacts.cfg with the TextBolt gateway address. Use Nagios contact groups to route alerts to different teams.
Three Ways to Send SMS from Nagios
1. Swap the Existing pager Address (Most Common)
If your contacts.cfg already had pager [phone]@vtext.com or another carrier gateway, replace just the domain part with +1[phone]@sendemailtotext.com. Existing notify-host-by-email and notify-service-by-email commands keep working untouched. One-line config change.
2. New contacts.cfg Entry from Scratch
For new Nagios deployments, add a contact whose email or pager directive points at +1[phone]@sendemailtotext.com. Use the standard notify-host-by-email command. Add the contact to the relevant contact group. Done.
3. Migrating From Twilio Plus wget Scripts
Replace your custom commands.cfg SMS command (the one piping printf through wget to Twilio, Clickatell, or AWS SNS) with the standard notify-host-by-email command pointing at the TextBolt gateway. Delete the script. Notification flow stays identical, but the Twilio account, API keys, and webhook handler all go away.
Nagios Monitoring Workflows That Use TextBolt SMS
Six common Nagios monitoring categories where SMS to the on-call sysadmin or NOC operator replaces a dead carrier gateway, an aging GSM modem, or a fragile commands.cfg script.
Server Monitoring
Host down, CPU saturation, memory pressure, and disk-full thresholds from check_disk, check_load, and check_procs. SMS the on-call sysadmin or NOC operator the moment a critical host crosses a threshold. Maps to /use-case/server-monitoring-alerts and /use-case/cpu-monitoring-alerts.
Network Monitoring
Link-down events, switch failures, packet loss thresholds, and bandwidth saturation from check_snmp, check_ping, and SNMP traps. NOC operators and network admins get SMS the moment a circuit, interface, or upstream provider degrades.
Infrastructure and System Downtime
Critical infrastructure alerts (UPS battery, environmental sensors, rack-temperature thresholds, power-supply failures) routed to infrastructure engineers and IT Operations on the rotation. The carrier-gateway shutdown hit this category hardest because data-center alerts often fire after-hours.
Application and Service Checks
HTTP checks, port checks, custom plugin checks (check_http, check_tcp, check_nrpe) for application services. Sysadmins running web tier, database tier, or middleware services get SMS the moment a service goes from OK to CRITICAL state.
Storage Monitoring
Filesystem fill rate, NFS export issues, SAN path failures, and storage-array alerts via check_disk, check_nfs, and vendor-specific Nagios plugins. Storage admins and sysadmins get SMS before a database write fails or a backup job aborts on full disk.
Multi-Site and Federated Nagios Deployments
Federated Nagios installations (multiple pollers across regions, Nagios XI federated mode, or Icinga/Centreon distributed setups) all share the same TextBolt gateway address. NOC operators monitoring a global fleet skip per-site GSM modems and route every poller’s SMS through one TextBolt account.
Built for Compliance and Security
10DLC Compliant
Carrier Approved
Complete Audit Trail
Three SMS Paths for Nagios
Three different SMS paths for Nagios, three different mental models. Carrier gateways were the historical default and are now shut down. GSM modems are industrial hardware for offline-first and air-gapped environments. TextBolt is a managed cloud gateway your existing contacts.cfg already knows how to email. Pick the one that matches your deployment.
Carrier Email-to-SMS Gateways
Free, but ending
The 20-year-old default: pager [phone]@vtext.com in contacts.cfg. AT&T and T-Mobile gone, Verizon ends in 2027. No compliance, unreliable replies, silent failures.
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AT&T txt.att.netretired June 2025
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T-Mobile tmomail.net offline
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Verizon vtext.com ends 2027
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No 10DLC, no audit trail
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Replies often dropped
Recommended
$49/month (Standard plan)
Managed cloud email-to-SMS gateway. Drop +1[phone]@sendemailtotext.com into your existing contacts.cfg pager field. Same notify-host-by-email command, same notification flow. Now compliant, audit-trailed, and two-way across every poller.
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Up to 98% delivery rate
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10DLC-compliant business number
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Cloud-based, covers every poller
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Multi-user access: up to 10 team members
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Replies in admin’s inbox
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Works with Nagios Core, XI, Icinga, Centreon, and OP5
GSM Modem Hardware
For air-gapped and on-prem
Industrial-grade SMS hardware (SMSEagle, Multi-Tech iSMS, generic GSM modems via smssend). Self-contained alerting that runs without internet connectivity. The right fit for air-gapped networks, sovereignty-constrained data centers, and offline-first environments where cloud SMS isn’t an option.
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Self-contained, no cloud dependency
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Runs in air-gapped environments
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SIM card per region for local routing
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Per-site hardware footprint
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Best for offline-first or sovereignty needs
How Teams Use TextBolt with Nagios
Three ways customers route SMS through Nagios with TextBolt: replacing dead carrier gateways with one config-line change, adding 10DLC compliance and audit trails, and unifying SMS across multi-site Nagios deployments.
Why Sysadmins and NOC Teams Pick TextBolt for Nagios
The numbers that matter when wiring SMS into a Nagios alerting stack.
Up to 98%
SMS Delivery Rate
30 min
End-to-End Setup
$49/mo
Standard Plan, 10 Users
4.4★
Workspace Marketplace (493 reviews)
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Nagios have native SMS support?
Not directly. Nagios sends notifications via configured commands. The historical SMS pattern was to email a carrier gateway address ([phone]@vtext.com) from the standard notify-host-by-email and notify-service-by-email commands. With carrier gateways shut down, sysadmins now route through a third-party email-to-SMS service (TextBolt), a custom commands.cfg script piping to Twilio, or a physical GSM modem. TextBolt is the no-script, no-hardware option.
What replaced carrier email-to-SMS gateways for Nagios sysadmins?
After AT&T retired txt.att.net in June 2025, T-Mobile took tmomail.net offline in December 2024, and Verizon’s vtext.com shutdown completes by March 2027, Nagios admins have three modern paths: a third-party email-to-SMS gateway like TextBolt (the closest one-line replacement for the old pager address), GSM modem hardware for air-gapped or on-prem environments, or a custom commands.cfg script calling Twilio or AWS SNS for fully programmable workflows. TextBolt preserves the original mental model: address-an-email-to-a-phone.
Do I need a GSM modem to send SMS from Nagios?
No. GSM modems (SMSEagle, Multi-Tech iSMS, and similar) are an excellent fit for air-gapped networks, sovereignty-constrained data centers, and offline-first environments where cloud SMS isn’t an option. For cloud-friendly or multi-site Nagios deployments, TextBolt is a managed cloud gateway: one shared account covers every Nagios poller in every region with no modem or SIM management. The two paths complement each other depending on your deployment requirements.
Can I use my existing pager directive in contacts.cfg?
Yes. The integration uses the standard pager (or email) directive with the TextBolt gateway address. Replace the dead carrier gateway value ([phone]@vtext.com) with +1[phone]@sendemailtotext.com. Your existing notify-host-by-email and notify-service-by-email commands work without changes. Notification policies, contact groups, and time periods all carry over.
How is this different from Twilio plus wget in commands.cfg?
Twilio is a leading SMS API and a custom commands.cfg entry that pipes printf through wget to Twilio is a powerful, fully programmable path. Sysadmins looking for a no-script, single-tool path find that TextBolt is email-only: drop the gateway address into pager and the standard notify-host-by-email command keeps working. The TextBolt account also covers up to 10 sysadmins on one shared business number with replies threading back to the alert sender’s inbox.
Is Nagios SMS via TextBolt 10DLC compliant?
Yes. TextBolt registers your sender identity with The Campaign Registry during onboarding so SMS sent through TextBolt routes through carrier-approved 10DLC infrastructure. This satisfies FCC business SMS requirements and produces the audit trail that financial-services, federal-contractor, healthcare-adjacent IT, and government Nagios installs need for compliance. TextBolt is not HIPAA compliant; healthcare-adjacent monitoring with PHI requirements should contact sales for Enterprise options.
Can sysadmins reply to acknowledge Nagios alerts via SMS?
Yes. When a sysadmin or NOC operator replies “ack,” “rerouting to Sam,” or any other text to a TextBolt-sent SMS, the reply lands as an email in the inbox of the alert sender. The whole rotation sees acknowledgments without logging into the Nagios web UI or a separate IRM dashboard. Two-way SMS is something the carrier-gateway path never reliably delivered.
Does this work with Nagios Core, Nagios XI, Icinga, Centreon, and OP5?
Yes. The integration uses the standard email contact pattern that Nagios Core, Nagios XI, and the major forks (Icinga, Centreon, OP5) all share. The TextBolt gateway address slots into contacts.cfg in Nagios Core, the GUI contact configuration in Nagios XI, or the equivalent contact-management interface in Icinga, Centreon, or OP5. No fork-specific plugin to install.
How much does it cost to send SMS from Nagios with TextBolt?
Basic plan starts at $29/month for 500 SMS credits and a single user. Standard plan is $49/month for 1,000 credits with multi-user access for up to 10 team members on a shared account. Professional plan is $99/month for 2,500 credits with the same 10-user shared access. Enterprise plans cover 5,000+ credits with custom team sizes. There is a one-time $45/year setup fee for the toll-free business number. Annual plans include a 20% discount.
How long does it take to set up Nagios-to-SMS with TextBolt?
About 30 minutes of hands-on configuration: account creation, toll-free business number selection, and editing contacts.cfg and reloading Nagios. TextBolt handles 10DLC business verification with The Campaign Registry on your behalf in parallel; once the carriers approve your number, trigger a test alert and the first SMS lands in seconds.
Reach Sysadmins and NOC Operators the Moment Hosts Go Critical
Send SMS from any Nagios alert in about 30 minutes. Drop the gateway address into contacts.cfg and your existing notification flow keeps running, now compliant and two-way.