The problem

In my last post about Linux at command I talked about notifications on my mobile.

In most of my automation scripts I prefer notifications to come to my mobile instead of via email or SMS (really? in 2015?) because:

  • it is always with me
  • I check it thousands times a day (I know you too ;-) )
  • it is a preferred channel - a specific app just for that

The automation

There are many notification services available today for free or minimal cost. When I needed it, after evaluating a few solutions, I chose Pushover .

Main advantages of Pushover:

For bash scripts I call a Python script sendpush.py:

# !/usr/bin/python
''' last change: 20151203 notify to pushover '''
import commands import httplib, urllib import sys

def sendPush(messageText):
        conn = httplib.HTTPSConnection("api.pushover.net:443")
        conn.request("POST", "/1/messages.json",
        urllib.urlencode({
                "token": "REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_TOKEN",
                "user": "REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_USER",
                "message": messageText,
        }), { "Content-type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" })
        conn.getresponse()

def main():
        sendPush(sys.argv[1])

main()

Usually I set a notification when the script starts, ends and a final one with a check of the expected output.

I had positive experiences with Pushover so far, messages always arrived on time and never got lost in the path so I’m not actively looking for a replacement (not very Kaizen …) but suggestions are welcome.