MMSC user settings?

MMSC user settings? SearchSearch
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dirk stein
New member
Username: Stone

Post Number: 1
Registered: 01-2010
Posted on Friday, January 22, 2010 - 08:57 pm:   

I had a question about setting up MMSC users:
- Is there a way to setup a number range with the same username and password?
- Do I actually have to use username and password for the MMSC user? I tried without and it wouldn’t work but since it was not a mandatory field in the user “add” menu I thought there may also be a way to get around having to use username and password? and what would be the MMS client gateway syntax on the device if I set it up witout user/password?
Thanks
Des - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Desosms

Post Number: 1699
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Friday, January 22, 2010 - 10:10 pm:   

Hi Dirk,

I'm not sure how to answer this, because it depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

If you are a mobile operator, then you do not want to manually provision users.

The following document provides more clarification on that type of environment:

http://nowsms.com/support/bulletins/tb-nowsms-002.htm

Basically, you need to understand that the MMS client does not identify itself with a phone number when it connects to the MMSC. This identification is performed by another layer in the operator network ... usually the WAP gateway/proxy ... which interfaces with the access server through a RADIUS accounting feed. The link above explains this ... but if you need any further clarification, please ask.

In that scenario, when user identification is provided by the network, there is no need to define users as they will be provisioned automatically. All MMS clients use the same URL (just http://server:mmscport/).

Specifying the username in the MMS Server URL is an alternate approach that is used primarily in testing environments. The NowSMS MMSC is widely used in mobile phone test labs ... but in a mobile operator configuration, you would not want to manually provision users in this way.

--
Des
NowSMS Support
dirk stein
New member
Username: Stone

Post Number: 2
Registered: 01-2010
Posted on Friday, January 22, 2010 - 10:48 pm:   

well, the setup is as following. I have nowsms as mmsc running pointing to our internal smsc (smpp)box. It's a local CDMA network. Also on the same server as the nowsms is the wapnow gw/proxy running. WAP and MMS work ok but so far I can only send and MMS (access the MMSC) successfully if I add a user in the MMSC and include password and user name. We have many devices which should be able to reach this server and I didn't want to configure ever phone with a individual password so I was hoping that I could setup a user range or apply for each user the same user/password (different MDN)? The datacall authentication is done on the packed data network. So if I read the above correctly in this case I should be able to just use http://server:mmscport/ instead of http://server:mmscport/user=password. The problem is that I tried that and sending MMS didn't work. But it worked fine if I add user=password? what am I missing? ALso forgive me but I am not a full wizard in MMS/WAP so bear with me. :-)
Des - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Desosms

Post Number: 1704
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Friday, January 22, 2010 - 11:02 pm:   

Hi Dirk,

You need to configure your access server (or you might have a separate RADIUS/Diameter server) to send a RADIUS accounting feed to NowWAP.

This is the only way that we can know the identity of a client that is submitting or retrieving a message (without requiring a unique URL which works for lab environments, but would not be recommended in a production environment for convenience/practicality and security reasons).

I'm not as familiar with the terminology used in CDMA environments, but basically the access server is the component that establishes the IP connection and assigns the client IP address.

NowWAP has an implementation of a RADIUS accounting server. You configure the access server to send RADIUS accounting (and optionally all RADIUS packets, if accounting cannot be separated) to NowWAP. This way, every time a device connects to your IP network, the access server notifies NowWAP using RADIUS accounting. NowWAP can then subsequently know the phone number associated with a connected IP address.

If you refer to http://nowsms.com/support/bulletins/tb-nowsms-002.htm ... logically (at least to me), the document is written backward.

If you are using NowWAP and NowSMS/MMS together, start with the second part titled "Configuring the NowWAP Proxy to Forward MSISDN".

Unfortunately, most of the configuration is done on the access server side, so this can vary based upon the equipment that you are using. So this makes it difficult to explain because we can explain our side that receives the feed, but different access server implementations tend to use different terminology.

It can be difficult to troubleshoot an initial setup of RADIUS because you can't really see it ... so here are a few tips that we've offered others in the past:

1.) When NowWAP receives RADIUS packets, it logs them to separate log files named RADIUS-yyyymmdd.LOG. If you don't see any log files matching this pattern (and you have enabled Radius Accounting in NowWAP), then this suggests that NowWAP is not seeing any RADIUS requests.

2.) Enabling the WAPDEBUG.LOG can also be helpful for troubleshooting. To enable this log, edit WAPGW.INI, and under the [WAPGW] header, add Debug=Yes. This log will show a hex dump of all received RADIUS packets.

3.) Verify that the NowWAP RADIUS server is listening on the expected port(s).

Stop the NowWAP service. From a command line, run "NETSTAT -a". In the UDP part of the list, you should NOT see "0.0.0.0:1813" listed (this assumes you are using the default RADIUS accounting port of 1813).

Start the NowWAP service and run "NETSTAT -a" again ... you should now see "0.0.0.0:1813" in the UDP ports list. This tells you that NowWAP is actively listening for RADIUS activity on this port.

4.) Disable the Windows firewall to see if this makes a difference.


--
Des
NowSMS Support