Re: [iaxmodem-users] Sending problem with iaxmodem + efax

[Scott M. <sco...@gm...>]

Hi Lee

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Lee Howard <fa...@ho...> wrote:

> Scott McNab wrote:
>
>> I am trying to send a fax from one iaxmodem to another using the command
>> line efax tool on a CentOS 5 machine (
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efax_%28software%29 ). The intention is to
>> use this simple non-queued fax sending command in a script to perform some
>> automated testing of my Hylafax/iaxmodem server.
>>
>
> Bizarre.  You want to test HylaFAX by banging on it with efax?  Isn't that
> a bit like testing out a new Ferrari by driving it alongside a Ford Pinto?
>

Haha I like your analogy!

Seriously though, I want to be able to quickly spawn a number of fax sends
from a range of different host machines simultaneously, and efax just seemed
like a lighter-weight non-intrusive way of doing this. i.e. without having
to setup and administer a full Hylafax instance on each host.

It was surprising for me to discover that there appears to be no Class-1
capable fax sending utilities on Linux other than efax and hylafax
(mgetty+sendfax is only Class-2).



> Why not test-out HylaFAX against another HylaFAX?


Yep thats what I've resorted to doing now. Not quite as simple to implement
and monitor in terms of controlling the exact number of transmissions in
parallel - a bunch of blocking ssh "efax sends" would have done this nicely!

Actually, do you know if its possible to do a "blocking send" using Hylafax?
i.e. is it possible to run the "sendfax" command and have it immediately
connect to an iaxmodem and do the transmission, thereby bypassing the job
queuing mechanism? That would be really useful, and basically achieve what I
was trying to do with efax anyway.


 efax: Wed Jun  8 17:30:07 2011 efax v 0.9 Copyright 1999 Ed Casas
>

Woohoo!  Yay for 1999.


Hehe well I don't suspect Class 1 faxing has changed a whole heap since then
anyway ;-)


>
>
>  efax: 30:23 command  "+FTM=145"
>> efax: 30:23 waiting 3.1 s
>> efax: 30:23 .198 [<CR><LF>CONNECT<CR><LF>]
>> efax: 30:23 response "CONNECT"
>> efax: 30:23 waiting 30.0 s
>> efax: 30:53 Error: timed out after waiting
>> efax: 30:53 sent TCF - channel check of 2700 bytes
>>
>
> Looks like an efax bug to me (no surprise there).  It seems to be
> deliberately waiting 30 seconds there before sending TCF data after the
> modem has responded with CONNECT.  efax is broken here.  Everything
> afterwards was in consequence to this fault.
>
>
OK thanks for diagnosing that for me - I'm not at all familiar with the
serial communications for fax transmission. Strange that it apparently works
with hardware modems though. Sending Hylafax to Hylafax is definitely no
problem for me (as you would know!).

On that note: I wonder if there is something in the iaxmodem AT
initialisation string that is missing or incorrect that is causing efax to
fail? For example, when I tested sending from Windows Fax + iaxmodem (via
com2com) I found that fax transmissions would fail using the standard
windows modem driver, but worked correctly when using the iaxmodem.inf
provided in the source. (Do you know what the main difference is between the
windows "standard modem" driver config and iaxmodem.inf?)

FWIW I might also try using efax+iaxmodem again to send to a physical fax
machine and see if I get the same result.

Thanks again for your help
Scott