[Gllug] Fax server software

[Philip Hands]

Alain Williams wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I spent a frustrating day trying to get a fax server working for a customer.
> Someone had selected GFI Faxmaker ( http://www.gfi.com/faxmaker/ ) on Win2K
> because it integrated nicely with MS Exchange. Many hours on the help desk
> (they really were helpful) and many BSODs and it still isn't working.
> 
> I have convinced them to look at the options again. There are Linux boxes
> that this could run on.
> 
> What would you suggest ? The requirements are:

Hi Alain,

Hylafax gets good press, although I've never used it.

I always used to deploy mgetty+sendfax, mostly because I was familiar with 
the code, but I seem to remember that Hylafax had some sort of 'doze pop-up 
thingy -- not that you're interested in that, with your email approach.

There are scripts that allow one to print to a samba printer (called "Fax" 
say) that you set up as a postscript printer, and print a fax containing 
the text "Fax-No: 123456789" and it'll pick the fax number out of the 
postscript and fax it for you.  You might want to look into that, although 
last time I looked, this approach didn't handle mailshots too well, since 
it would send the whole mailshot to the first victim on the list ;-)

Modems?  Get a decent external Class 2.0 modem.  My knowledge of what's 
available is about 5 years our of date, but things like USR courier modems, 
and Zyxel kit were great.  The more expensive modems tend to have a spare 
processor that notices when the main one locks up and does a reboot for 
you, whereas the cheap ones don't (that's the main difference between USR 
Couriers & Sportsters).  Of course USR don't exist any more *shrug*

External modems generally a good idea, because when (not if) they lock up, 
you don't need to power off the server to get the modem back up.  Since you 
have multiple lines, it will just slow down a bit if you lose a modem, and 
you can monitor the logs and send the admin an email telling them which one 
to power-cycle.

Alternatively, you could consider using ISDN cards that are capable of 
CAPI, and hence capable of Faxing, since that would only require 2 cards, 
and you can do MSN (or DDI if you use point-to-point), so have multiple 
numbers which might aid routing, but I've no idea which cards actually work 
in practice.  You'd need to do some research --- I happen to have a pile of 
passive ISDN cards, but I don't think they can do fax --- I use Asterisk as 
my PBX-come-VoIP with a couple of ISDN cards, so if you wanted somewhere to 
test stuff I could probably oblige.  On the whole probably easier to stick 
to fax modems though.

Cheers, Phil.
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