[clue-tech] HylaFAX + mgetty + WHFC

[Kevin Cullis]

Matt,

Can mgetty tell the difference between a normal phone call and a fax? 
Or do you have to have a seperate line for it?

Rather than sending a fax to someone, I would like to send a fax
(graphic) of the file as an email attachment.  Since my 56k modem is
much faster than receiving a 14.4 fax, it's much quicker and I can print
out as many as I need.  Lynn pointed out how I could do some of it, but
what are your thoughts.

Kevin

Matt Durell wrote:
> 
> I have had a few days off of work and I managed to get a few things done on
> the Linux server (at home) that I have been wanting to do.  I will explain
> what I have done and ask advice for a problem I am having.
> 
> I setup (about 3 years ago) mgetty+sendfax with my USR Sportster 56k.  It
> works great.  I have it printing a fax when one arrives.  I had tried to get
> it to email a fax as an attachment (it comes with a module that converts
> each page to postscript) but did not have a windows viewer that was good
> enough (I tried Ghost View and found it too slow).
> 
> If anyone is using mgetty to receive faxes, let me know if you want this
> module.  It attaches to the new_fax feature of the fax side of mgetty and is
> configured through the faxlist file.  I also have a module that takes all of
> the fax pages and tars them into an archive directory.
> 
> Mgetty can figure out (with a decent modem) the difference between a data
> call and a fax call.  If it is a data call it can be configured to check to
> see if the connection is a PPP or FidoNET (remember that?) before it
> displays a login prompt.  Very slick.
> 
> Yesterday I managed to modify that module to convert an incoming fax into
> PDF format.  It's not perfect (the image scaling is off--everything through
> PDF is about 75% of what it is supposed to be) but it works pretty well!
> 
> Now, I could receive faxes but I never found a decent way to send them
> (excepting a large, bulky fax machine from the 70s--I'm to cheap to buy
> one).
> 
> After looking around I could find no decent solution using the sendfax
> portion of mgetty+sendfax.  I opted for another approach.
> 
> There is a product (GPL too!) called HylaFAX.  HylaFAX knows how to talk to
> your fax modem and send faxes (much like sendfax).  Moreover, it has a
> daemon that listens on a TCP port and acts as a server.  In other words, a
> client can connect to the fax server, send it a document, tell it where to
> send it (phone number) and the server will do just that!  There are many
> clients for UNIX and a few for Macs.  There are a few for Windows.
> 
> HylaFAX also has the ability to receive incoming faxes as well.  The
> integration is quite nice with the rest of the package.  I decided to keep
> mgetty because the faxgetty included with HylaFAX does not handle data
> connections of any type.  I need this feature quite a bit to gain access to
> my LAN while I am on the road.
> 
> One of the Windows clients is called WHFC (Windows HylaFAX Client) and runs
> on 9x/NT/2000. It comes with a printer device driver and accepts postscript
> data.  All one needs to do is simply install a printer using the HP LJ 4/4M
> Postscript driver and instead of pointing to LPT1:, you point to the WHFC
> device!  To send a fax you simply print to that printer and it prompts you
> for the fax information.  It also has the ability to keep a phone book or
> access one through ODBC.
> 
> I installed this on my W2K box and it worked like a champ.  However, my
> wife's 98 box wasn't so lucky.  It started to work find but now, right after
> it connects to the server, it just hangs.  I am using the latest stable
> version of everything.  I have even tried to upgrade her client to a beta
> version with no luck.
> 
> Anyone seen this behavior?  It was reported many years ago and it was an
> issue with DLL files.  Since then the distribution has been statically
> linked to avoid these types of problems.  The only other reported issue
> revolves around incorrect network routes.  In this case, there is only one
> and it is configured correctly.
> 
> -- Matt Durell
> 
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