Why TC65 SMS OTAP software update is great
March 28, 2009 — Florent ClairambaultUpdate anything
Cinterion gives specifications on how to send SMS messages to launch a remote Over The Air Provisionning (OTAP) operation.
Recently, someone asked me : We have a little program on some TC65 chips that only send SMS, we would like to connect it to the software that you built. What would we have to do. Well that where the magic comes. You don’t have to touch any of the hardware. The only concrete thing you might have to do is enable GPRS on the sim cards of your M2M fleet.
Let’s say the current little program’s name is “little.jar” (+ its “little.jad”). You have to build a program called “little.jad” that :
- Change the name of the starting program from a:/little.jad to a:/m2msoft.jad
- launches a local OTAP operation (with the “AT^SJOTAP” command)
Then you publish it on your HTTP server, send an SMS to every TC65 chip with the address of your HTTP server, and HERE IT IS ! Your whole M2M equipments fleet is updated with your brand new software.
Note on the SMS
According to Cinterion’s specifications, it’s pretty easy to send the software update SMS. But, when the time comes where you actually have to do it, you might get stuck, because it has to be precisely forged. I built a little (english+french) program that enables me to send SMS update to any TC65 ship I like.
It looks like that :
I updated the program. More details here.
A little bit deeper
You should remember that whatever parameter is sent by SMS, it is overridden by the “AT^SJOTAP” setting. The only way to have a remote complete control over the chip is to send the “AT^SJOTAP=” command.
That means that if you want to just put your chips where they have to act and then do a little OTAP to install the first program on it, you have to set :
- AT^SJOTAP
- AT^SCFG=”Userware/Autostart”,”",”1″
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March 29, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Bonjour,
Je suis dans mes premiers pas pour télécharger un TC65 par les procedures OTAP. En passant les paramètres à la main (AT^SJOTAP=… suivi de AT^SJOTAP), ça marche.
Maintenant, je ne sais pas comment envoyer le SMS de déclenchement… Je fais les mêmes inits du TC65 à la main, puis j’envoie depuis un portable un SMS contenant:
OTAP_IMPNGSTART
mais rien ne se passe.
Pouvez-vous m’aider pour la composition du sms et son envoi ?
Short translation :
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March 29, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Personnelement, j’envoi tous les paramètres comme dans les exemples de la documentation Cinterion. Ca permet de garantir que l’on transmet les bons paramètres à l’équipement, car des paramètres comme l’adresse du serveur peuvent avoir changé entre le moment où l’a configuré et le moment où on lance l’installation. Mais, ce n’est effectivement pas obligatoire. Les seules lignes à envoyer sont les suivantes :
OTAP_IMPNGSTART:install
Par ailleurs, l’envoi depuis un portable n’aboutira pas : “An OTAP control SM must use a Submit PDU with Class1, PID $7d and 8 bit encoding. As a fallback for unusual network infrastructures the SM can also be of Class0 and/or PID $00.”. Il faut donc posséder un logiciel qui permette d’envoyer les SMS en format brut, c’est à dire en mode PDU. Dans ce mode là chaque bit du SMS sont décrits. Je suppose que ce type de logiciel doit exister. Comme je n’ai pas trouvé de solution simple, j’ai réalisé moi même un logiciel qui permet de le faire.
Pour tester ce qui se passe sur la puce pendant la réception des SMS, il faut activer les Trace/Syslog comme lorsqu’on fait de l’OTAP en commande AT :
AT^SCFG="Trace/Syslog/OTAP","1"Short translation :
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March 29, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Thank you for the answer. Sorry if I did not write the previous message in english.
I suspected that my problem was on sending the SM, and was searching a way to send the SM as written in the socumentation “Submit PDU with Class1, PID $7d and 8 bit encoding”. I am afraid that this sentence is the one in the documentation I do not understand and I was seeking information on this when I found this page on Internet.
My problem: how to send the SM either from a cellphone or from a computer (running Windows)…
Michel.
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March 29, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Ok, you can download the program here : SMSOTAP
The serial sending functionnality isn’t finished yet, you must send the SMS using a terminal and copy/paste the commands. Program will expire in 2 months, I intend to build an other version.
If you could contact me to tell me how works the program and what do you use it for, it would be great.
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April 3, 2009 at 8:59 am
Hello,
I was very busy and did not check your software immediately.
It seems to work well. Except, maybe the strange character at the end of the content of the sms in place of the ^z. It works for me with PID=0, class=0. I suppose Orange blocks the PID=$7D sms.
About the infrastructure to send the sms, this means you have to connect a GSM modem (with a sim). Did you hear of a gateway that wouls be accessible via internet and able to send the sms?
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April 3, 2009 at 12:54 pm
This strange character should be the CTRL+Z, it will be used when I will take the time to manage the serial communications.
I think these special gateways exist yes, but I couldn’t find any service that suited my needs.
But, you don’t necessarily need a gateway. When I want to send this special SMS to an equipment, I send a network message to an other equipment (that is used in production) with the content of the PDU message, and then this one sends the SMS.
This look like that :
[Server] — (TCP/GPRS : “Send this PDU SMS”) — [TC65 A] — (special SMS) — [TC65 B].
Note that this functionnality is only useful when you lost control of your equipment or when you want to switch from an existing software to yours. You should always prefer an SMS or network software managed update process (using AT^SJOTAP). So you shouldn’t really need it for every day usage.
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April 27, 2009 at 8:29 pm
[...] I told you in the comment where I released this TC65 SMS OTAP program, it didn’t support serial communication. Well, I [...]