Kamex SMS Gateway

Modern, high-performance SMS gateway with built-in admin panel. Supports SMPP, EMI/UCP, HTTP, and GSM modems.

Kamex is a maintained fork of Kannel with new features and active development. Original Kannel code remains under its original license (see LICENSE.kannel). Configuration files are compatible with Kannel.

What's New in Kamex

• Prometheus Metrics - Native /metrics endpoint for Prometheus/Grafana monitoring
• Async Logging - Non-blocking logging with dedicated writer thread (~10x throughput)
• JSON Logs - Structured JSON logging for ELK, Loki, Splunk integration
• Web Admin Panel - Built-in dashboard at / with real-time monitoring
• JSON API - Modern /status.json and /api/sendsms endpoints
• Health Checks - /health endpoint for load balancers and Kubernetes
• Environment Variables - Use ${VAR} in config for Docker/K8s secrets
• Redis/Valkey - Native support for DLR and message store
• Reproducible Builds - Enterprise-grade build verification with SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
• SBOM - CycloneDX 1.7 Software Bill of Materials for supply chain compliance
• Config Validation - bearerbox -t config.conf to validate without starting
• Alpine Support - Lightweight ~20MB Docker image alongside UBI
• Removed Legacy - Dropped RADIUS, WAP, libxml2, and dead SMSC protocols

Features

• Multi-protocol support: SMPP 3.3/3.4/5.0, EMI/UCP, HTTP, AT modems
• High performance: 16,000+ messages/sec on commodity hardware
• HTTP API: Simple REST-like interface for sending/receiving SMS
• Web Admin Panel: Real-time dashboard, SMSC control, message queue viewer
• Delivery reports: Configurable DLR with multiple storage backends
• Database support: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite3, Redis/Valkey, Cassandra, Oracle, MSSQL
• Health check endpoint: /health for load balancers and Kubernetes
• Prometheus metrics: /metrics endpoint for monitoring with Prometheus/Grafana
• Config hot-reload: SIGHUP reloads config, adds/removes SMSCs without restart
• Production ready: Powers SENDER.GE in production

Installation

1. Install Dependencies

sudo dnf install epel-release
sudo crb enable
sudo dnf install gcc make autoconf automake libtool \
    openssl-devel pkgconfig mariadb-devel libpq-devel \
    libsqlite3x-devel hiredis-devel gettext-devel

sudo dnf install gcc make autoconf automake libtool \
    openssl-devel pkgconfig mariadb-devel libpq-devel \
    libsqlite3x-devel hiredis-devel gettext-devel

sudo apt install build-essential autotools-dev autoconf automake \
    libtool libssl-dev pkg-config \
    libmysqlclient-dev libpq-dev libsqlite3-dev libhiredis-dev

sudo pacman -S base-devel autoconf automake libtool openssl \
    mariadb-libs postgresql-libs sqlite hiredis

2. Build and Install

autoreconf -fi
./configure --enable-ssl --with-mysql --with-pgsql --with-sqlite3 --with-redis
make
sudo make install-strip

3. Configure and Run

# Configure
sudo mkdir -p /etc/kamex
sudo cp doc/examples/kannel.conf /etc/kamex/kamex.conf
# Edit /etc/kamex/kamex.conf with your SMSC details

# Run
bearerbox /etc/kamex/kamex.conf &
smsbox /etc/kamex/kamex.conf &

# Open admin panel
open http://localhost:13000/

# Test SMS sending (classic)
curl "http://localhost:13013/cgi-bin/sendsms?user=tester&pass=foobar&from=Kamex&to=+1234567890&text=Hello"

# Test SMS sending (JSON API)
curl -X POST http://localhost:13013/cgi-bin/sendsms \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-api-token" \
  -d '{"from":"Kamex","to":"+1234567890","text":"Hello"}'

Admin Panel

Access the built-in admin panel at http://localhost:13000/

• Dashboard: SMS/DLR traffic, SMSC status, connected boxes
• Queue: View pending messages in store
• Send SMS: Test SMS sending
• Controls: Gateway management (suspend/resume/shutdown)

Use admin-password for full control, status-password for view-only access.

Documentation

Supported SMSC Protocols

Note: Legacy protocols (CIMD, SMASI, OIS, SEMA, CGW, EMI/X.25) were removed in v1.7.5. These protocols have no active deployments. Use SMPP instead.

Architecture

+--------+     HTTP      +--------+    Internal     +-----------+     SMSC      +------+
|  App   | -----------> | SMSBox | --------------> | BearerBox | ------------> | SMSC |
+--------+   :13013      +--------+    Protocol     +-----------+   Protocol    +------+
                                                          |
                                                    Admin Panel
                                                      :13000

• BearerBox: Core daemon managing SMSC connections and message routing
• SMSBox: HTTP interface for applications to send/receive SMS

Performance

Benchmark results (Linux, Intel i5-13500):

Run your own benchmarks:

make ssl-certs  # Required for benchmarks
./benchmarks/run-benchmarks benchmarks/bench_http.sh benchmarks/bench_sms.sh

Docker

mkdir kamex && cd kamex
# Create docker-compose.yml and kamex.conf (see doc/docker.md)
docker compose up -d

See Docker Guide for full setup with Valkey for DLR storage.

systemd Integration

# Install systemd service files
sudo ./contrib/systemd/setup-kamex-user.sh
sudo systemctl enable kamex-bearerbox kamex-smsbox
sudo systemctl start kamex-bearerbox kamex-smsbox

Reproducible Builds

Kamex supports reproducible builds for enterprise verification and compliance.

# Build with fixed timestamp from git commit
export SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=$(git log -1 --format=%ct)
autoreconf -fi
./configure --enable-ssl --with-redis
make

# Verify reproducibility - all binaries have identical hashes
sha256sum gw/.libs/bearerbox gw/.libs/smsbox gwlib/.libs/libgwlib.so

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Run tests: make check
5. Submit a pull request

License

Kamex is dual-licensed:

• New code: MIT License (see LICENSE)
• Original Kannel code: Kannel Software License 1.0 (see LICENSE.kannel)

Links

• Website: kamex.dev
• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Documentation: doc/