- G N O K I I -
(C) 1999 - 2003 Hugh Blemings & Pavel Janík ml.
(C) 2001 - 2003 Pawe³ Kot
Last update 8 November 2003 Version 0.5.6
- Contents -
1.0 Introduction
2.0 About the applications
3.0 Notes for specific model phones
4.0 Installation from source
5.0 Installation of pre-built binaries
6.0 Configuration
7.0 Known Bugs
8.0 Gnokii and Perl
9.0 How to help
10.0 gnokii by CVS
11.0 Protocol Details
12.0 References
13.0 Handsets/Networks tested
14.0 Credits
15.0 Release Notes
- 1.0 Introduction -
This is version 0.5.6 of gnokii, a Linux/Unix tool suite and modem
driver for Nokia mobile phones, released under the GPL. Please
see COPYING for more details on license/copying issues, the lack of
warranty and where to send a postcard if you like gnokii :).
gnokii supports most phones from the 3110/3180, 5110/6110, 7110/6210
and 6510/6310 series, details including bugs specific to each series
appear in the files README-3810, README-6110, README-7110 and README-6510
respectively. Also all AT compatible phones are supported.
In the early stages of the project there were indications that
Nokia would provide some support for the project. Regrettably, these
negotiations stalled over the issue of binary versus open source
releases and the project has proceeded without official or unofficial
assistance.
We have a web site at http://www.gnokii.org/ which amongst other things
gives information on how to join the gnokii mailing list, retrieving
bleeding edge releases through CVS and more!
- 2.0 About the applications -
gnokii now consists of three main executables and a fourth "helper"
application that is run suid root. To get the most from gnokii it
is worth understanding the details of them and how they interact.
It is important to note that at present you cannot run more than
one of gnokii, xgnokii or gnokiid at a time.
The first application, gnokii, is a command line utility that was
originally provided to assist developers and interested users in
working with the low level API functions that were being developed.
From these rather humble beginnings, it has evolved into a the main
command line tool of the suite. Many people now use it for
reading/writing phone book entries, sending and receiving SMS messages
etc. Ultimately it is intended that it will become a utility that
communicates with gnokiid to provide a command line interface to
the functionality provided by the gnokiid daemon.
The second application provided is xgnokii which as the name suggests is a
X Window System based application that provides a graphical interface to
your phone. Amongst other things, xgnokii allows you to read and write
phone book entries, read, write and send SMS messages, monitor battery and
received signal strength.
At present xgnokii works directly with the phone, however in the
future it will more likely use the "side" interface of gnokiid.
The third part of the suite is gnokiid. gnokiid provides a
virtual modem interface, /dev/gnokii that looks like a regular
Hayes-AT compatible modem with the ETSI defined extensions for
GSM phones. What this means in practical terms is that you can
treat the /dev/gnokii device like an ordinary modem and use it
to make data calls from pppd or a terminal application like
minicom.
gnokiid is still under development, it's ultimate aim being to
act as a "master" daemon that interfaces with your phone on one
side and gnokii or xgnokii on the other. This "side" code is still
under discussion, particularly with respect to the most appropriate
choice of communication method (IPC, TCP/IP etc.)
The last application provided with the suite is mgnokiidev which is
used by gnokiid to create on demand a symbolic link between
/dev/gnokii and the pseudo tty used by gnokiid for the virtual
modem interface. It's operation is transparent under normal
usage as gnokiid takes care of calling it when required.
- 3.0 Notes for specific model phones -
Please see the README-3810 file for notes specific to the 3810/8110 series,
README-6110 for notes on the 5110/6110 series, README-2110 for notes on the
2110 series (which is at the moment deprecated), README-7110 for notes on
7110/6210 series and README-6510 for notes on the 6510/6310 series.
- 4.0 Installation from source -
gnokii makes use of autoconf/automake which allows you to configure
the source tree for your system by typing
./configure
You can also run the script with the --help flag to get a list of
available options. There are about a dozen or so that are specific
to gnokii.
Once you've run ./configure successfully, you should be able to
simply do a make and make install to compile and install your
binaries respectively.
make
make install
With this done you've built and installed your binaries, and
should proceed to the configuration section below.
- 5.0 Installation of pre-built binaries -
If you downloaded gnokii as a pre-built binary you should install
it in the conventional manner for the package type in question.
For example if you downloaded a .rpm file you can install it by
running the following as root.
rpm -i gnokii-0.5.6-i386.rpm
If you are using a Debian based system, you can use dpackage
to do the installation. On Slackware you use installpkg or pkgtool.
- 6.0 Configuration -
Once you have installed the binaries, you should copy the
sample/gnokiirc file from the Docs directory to your home
directory and name it .gnokiirc Using your favorite editor
ensure that the settings are correct for your system, the sample
file has details of the various options available.
If you used a pre-built version of gnokii (.rpm, .deb etc) it
may have installed a /etc/gnokiirc file. If it has, the
settings in this file will be used in the absence of a
.gnokiirc file in your home directory.
Note that you will need read/write permissions on whatever
serial port you specify in .gnokiirc. You can now use gnokii
and xgnokii.
Review the notes specific to your model of phone in the
appropriate README file. These files also provide information
about what functionality is available for each model.
In order to make use of the AT emulator provided by gnokiid
through /dev/gnokii, you must read the documentation file
DataCalls-QuickStart.
A simple test to confirm that your cable/IR link is working
is to run gnokii with the --monitor flag e.g.
foobar$ gnokii --monitor
This will attempt to connect to your phone and display
information such as signal strength, battery level etc.
If you get an error along the lines of
Telephone interface init failed: [...]. Quitting.
this indicates that gnokii could not communicate with your phone
for some reason and you will need to do some troubleshooting.
As the other test you may try:
foobar$ gnokii --identify
which should show you the base information on your phone.
- 7.0 Known Bugs -
Review the bugs section in the README for your series of phone.
Note the possible security hole in mgnokiidev discussed above.
- 8.0 Gnokii and Perl -
There is a perlmodule available for gnokii. It gives access to all
the routines that are defined in gsm-common.h from a perl-program. It
is intended for application developers who want to use their favorite
language in interfacing the phone data with databases, ldap-directories
and (in the future) different calendar applications. It is written by
Konstantin Agouros (konstantin@agouros.de) and support starts with
revision 0.2.6-pre3 of gnokii.
The homepage of this module is http://www.agouros.de/gnokii
- 9.0 How to help -
There are a number of ways you can help out.
Code specific to each model is contained within common/phones/*.c and
include/phones/*.h files. All command handlers will dump information
to stderr when they encounter a message they don't understand. If this
happens to you, try and work out what is going on. When gnokii receives
the frame with the unknown meaning it stores the frame and the triggering
frame to $HOME/.gnokii-errors file. Report it!
Suggestions on changes to the code are welcome, the preference is that
they be aired on the mailing list so that a consensus can be reached
when appropriate. This is particularly important if you intend making
large changes and/or submitting big patches.
- 10.0 gnokii by CVS -
The source of gnokii aplications is in the CVS server. The server's
address is subversions.gnu.org. If you are already familiar with CVS,
set the CVSROOT to
:pserver:anoncvs@subversions.gnu.org:/cvsroot/gnokii
and use the empty password for checking out the repository with the name
gnokii.
If you are not familiar with cvs, don't worry. It's very simple.
Just install the cvs package for your distribution and follow these steps:
1. set your environmental variable CVSROOT. If you have bash (Bourne
Again Shell):
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anoncvs@subversions.gnu.org:/cvsroot/gnokii
If you have different shell, use different command (e.g. setenv).
2. Log in to the CVS server as anonymous reader by typing
cvs login
Use the empty password.
3. If you are logged in you are ready to checkout the latest sources:
cvs co gnokii
If you prefer, there is a WWW interface to the CVS server at
http://savannah.nongnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gnokii/
Once you have the sources, you will need to run the following commands
gettextize
aclocal
autoheader
autoconf
./configure
make
or just issue
sh autogen.sh
make
to build the sources.
Now you are on your own - you have the current sources on your disk
in the directory gnokii. If you are going to make substantial changes
and feel that they should be included into gnokii please mention it
on the list first to avoid duplicated effort.
If you would like to receive email when updates are made to the CVS
repository, subscribe to gnokii-commit mailing list at
http://mail.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnokii-commit.
Our thanks go to the Czech Linux Users Group for hosting the original
CVS repository at cvs.linux.cz and then to the Samba Team who kept hosting
our CVS for the several years at cvs.samba.org.
- 11.0 Protocol Details -
You'll find the detailed protocol description in Docs/protocol/ directory.
- 12.0 References -
The web site for this project is at;
Project page on savannah is at
The mailing list devoted to the gnokii project is
You can subscribe at
The serial programming how-to was valuable in cobbling together
serial code for both monitoring and the tools themselves.
- 13.0 Handsets tested -
Nokia 3810 Series
+ 3110
+ 3810
+ 8110
+ 8110i
Nokia 6110 Series
+ 3210
+ 3310
+ 3330
+ 3360
+ 3390
+ 3410
+ 5110
+ 5130
+ 5190
+ 6110
+ 6130
+ 6150
+ 6190
+ 8210
+ 8250
+ 8290
Nokia 7110 Series
+ 6210
+ 6250
+ 7110
+ 7190
Nokia 6510 Series
+ 5100
+ 6100
+ 6310
+ 6310i
+ 6360
+ 6510
+ 6610
+ 8310
Nokia 2110 Series
- deprecated
Nokia 6160 Series (limited functionality)
+ 5120
+ 6160
Nokia 640 Series
- deprecated
AT series
+ Bosch 908/909
+ Motorola Timeport P7389i (L series)
+ Nokia 6210/7110/8210/6310/6510
+ Siemens S25/SL45i
+ Sony Ericsson T68i
- 14.0 Credits -
Please take a moment to read the CREDITS file which endeavors
to recognise those who have helped so far!
- 15.0 Release Notes -
20031108 Version 0.5.6
Many bugfixes. Ringtone editor in xgnokii is fully functional. Ringtone
support is enhanced in the nk6100 and nk6510 drivers. A lot of datacall
related updates (RLP bugfixes, AT emulator enhanced). vCard and LDIF
addressbook export is working again.
20031008 Version 0.5.5
Bugfix release, focus mainly on the ringtone features. Some new functions
added wrt ringtones.
20030922 Version 0.5.4
Win32 port update and other small bugfixes.
20030921 Version 0.5.3
Many bugfixes. Added missing manual pages. Updates to nk3110, nk6100 and
nk6510 drivers. New functionality: possibility to exchange addressbook in
the LDIF format (used by Mozilla Mail), playringtone.
20030613 Version 0.5.2
Few more bugfixes. French translation. Updates to nk3110 and nk6100 drivers
functionality.
20030529 Version 0.5.1
This is mainly maintanance release fixing few bugs found.
20030512 Version 0.5.0
The external API was rewritten. Now it should be easier to write any
external application using libgnokii. Many bugfixes and code cleanups.
Improved build system. Better portability to *BSD, MacOSX and Windows. Allow
to use multiple phones. Bluetooth support. New helper applications:
ppm2nokia. Much improved nk3110, nk6510 and AT support.
20020805 Version 0.4.3
Many functional updates. They touch mainly nk6510 and nk6110 drivers
functionality, also updates in nk7110 driver. Add new functionality to
gnokii/xgnokii (TODO list). More phone models are known to work. SMSD should
work with the drivers supporting SMS folders.
20020722 Version 0.4.2
Minor updates. Mainly fixes and updates in nk6510 driver: sms sending and
reading, dlr3p cable support. sendsms can recognize messages not written in
the default alphabet and automatically sends them in unicode. Also many
reported nasty bugs fixed.
20020714 Version 0.4.1
Minor but valuable updates. Many improvments in nk6310 driver (Nokia 6310,
6510 and 8310), small improvements in nk6160 and nk7110 drivers, more
verbose output for gnokii command line output, documentation updates
containing FAQ updates, SMS sending timeout is now configurable, flex will
not be required to build gnokii from the tarball and other minor fixes.
20020710 Version 0.4.0
Major rewrite. Internal API completly changed. Added support fot the new
phones, maily Nokia 6210, Nokia 7110, Nokia 6310, Nokia 6510 and AT
compatible not-only-Nokia phones. We got new libgnokii, that can be used for
creating any user application, smsd -- sms handling daemon, libsms -- first
step to extract a middle layer, many new options to command line gnokii and
many others. Refer to the ChangeLog for the detailes (unfortunately it
starts with 0.4.0pre9 version)
20010627 Version 0.3.3
Many 6110 series updates: mainly in SMS, bitmaps and ringtones handling.
Better localization. Integrated xlogos with xgnokii. Documentation updates.
Probably the last 0.3 series release.
20000520 Version 0.3.2
We have data calls and autoconf. Nuff said :)
19991222 Version 0.3.1
Interim release to bring released code into line with latest CVS
offerings.
19990824 Version 0.3.0
6110 functionality has increased again, details of which are
in the 6110 specific readme. Few minor tweaks on the 3810
side but we've just about run out of things the 3810 can do
(data and fax calls aside of course!)
This release is the first to include xgnokii - an X based
interface to your phone and gnokiid - the makings of a
virtual modem/AT emulator interface. Details of these
two apps appear above.
19990519 Version 0.2.5
Little has changed on the 3810 side - mostly adding stub functions
to stay current with the 6110 code. A no-brainer bug was found in
the SMS send routines which is now corrected - could have caused
multiple messages to be sent.
6110 support has moved ahead in leaps and bounds, SMS sending is
now in there along with many other new function.
19990328 Version 0.2.4
Largely a synchronisation release to incorporate Pavel's numerous
patches for 6110 support and internationalisation (such a long
word, i18n is better :-).
Added SMS delete function for 3810 series.
19990305 Version 0.2.3
Added gsm-api.c/.h and gsm-common.h as a standard interface and
set of datatypes that can be used across multiple models. This
API is still a work in progress.
Changed references to "handset" to "phone" to ensure a consistent
nomenclature.
Phonebook is now dumped with words int or sim for memory type
rather than a numeric value.
19990219 Version 0.2.2
Fixed bug and added support to display bytes returned when
the link is initialised. If you see something other than the
values noted in fbus.c, please let me know and include
your phone type and software version.
Added initial cut of SMS send capability. Caveats are
discussed above.
Added two different default values for length of phonebook
name and numbers. These are selected according to whether
internal or SIM memory is specified.
Fixed bugs reported in 0.2.1 (errno.h and reversal of message
center and sender fields)
19990216 Version 0.2.1
Fixed bug that caused phone book entries containing spaces to be
mangled. Added retrieve SMS message function.
19990213 Version 0.2.0
First version that looks more like the finished product - supports
command line options etc.
19990126 Version 0.1.0
Initial release of monitoring tool - first rough incarnation of
gnokii - what will ultimately be the monitoring and programming tool.