AsterFax - Asterisk Email to Fax Gateway / News: Recent posts

On May 21st 2008 AsterFax 2.0 will be released along with a new name 'Noojee Fax'.

The commercial version of Noojee Fax Version 2.0 will for the first time incorporate commercial fax drivers which will allow Noojee Fax to reliably support all digium hardware.

More announcements will come as we approach the release date along with an updated feature list.

The Noojee Fax Team :)

We've released a configuration web application designed specifically to run on a trixbox. This is a first step in an effort to make configuring AsterFax a little easier.

This is an early development release. Please try it and let us know how you go.

To run it on a trixbox do the following:

1. Download AsterFaxUI.tar.gz

2. Create a directory under /var/www/html, e.g. mkdir /var/www/html/asterfax.

3. Unpack AsterFaxUI.tar.gz into the new directory. e.g. cd /var/www/html/asterfax; tar xzf AsterFaxUI.tar.gz.... read more

Version 1.1 beta 3 includes an enhancement that allows the header and footer to vary with the destination fax number. A different company name and header and footer format can be used for each destination fax number.

We have also added a new ReturnFaxNumber property which is included in the header and footer with a %R parameter.

There is no need to change any configuration files to use beta 3 but AsterFax.xml must be modified according to the release notes to make use of the feature.... read more

Official support for AsterFax has moved to http://forums.asteriskit.com.au.

In an effort to improve AsterFax support, all support forums have been moved to the Asterisk IT web site.

The new site (based on SMF) gives us far greater control over the forums through use of such features as sticky topics which we believe (hope :) will enable us to provide better support.

The AsterFax Team.

We've released 1.1 beta 2 which includes a few bug fixes and a couple of feature enhancements.

The PDF converter now includes all pages of the fax so you can use AttachAsPdf.

A JPEG converter has been added to AsterFax.xml. The spec for this converter has been on the Help forum for some time but we've added it with some tweaks to ensure it works for arbitrary image sizes.

We've added the ability to use a hosted mail account for AsterFax. So you can send a mail to some arbitrary mail account and point AsterFax at that mail account, even to a specific folder in the mail account, and AsterFax will process emails from there. The fax numbers in this case are expected to be in a space separated list in the Subject of the e-mail. Add the word "Subject:" followed by the text you want as the subject of the fax to the end of the subject line.... read more

AsterFax version 1.1 beta 1 has been released.

In this release:

1. The latest snapshot of spandsp (the faxing subsystem) available prior to this release. This improves the reliability of fax transmission and reception.

2. The distortion of fax transmissions has been addresses.

3. Handle mime type application/octet-stream and multipart/alternative correctly.

4. On RPM based systems only the RPM is required to install AsterFax, i.e. rpm -i asterfax-1.1-free.i386.rpm will install AsterFax.... read more

Version 1.0 is here!

This release is the culmination of months of effort and includes a number of bug fixes and some new features.

Most notably this is the first release of AsterFax Free Edition. The free edition has all the features of any other edition but only allows a single fax to be transmitted at any given time.

Thanks to everyone that has helped make this product what it is today.

Release candidate 5 is mainly a maintenance release and includes a number of bug fixes.

The format of the AsterFax.xml config file has changed incompatibly with that of rc4b. If you need to keep your current configuration please make a backup copy of the file and then manually apply the changes to the new AsterFax.xml file.

We are also making a configure.sh script available to take a lot of the hard work out of editing the AsterFax.xml file. You should really only have to change the Channel configuration in AsterFax.xml if you use the configure script.... read more

Version 1 rc 4 of AsterFax has been released. This release includes some important enhancements and a number of bug fixes.

One enhancement is the inclusion of installation and configurations scripts. When downloading the rc4a RPM get install.sh and configure.sh as well.

The scripts have been tested on trixbox and non-trixbox CentOS. The installation script makes installing AsterFax a cinch. It takes care of all the nasties required to get you faxing as quickly as possible.... read more

We are pleased to announce the release of AsterFax 1.0 rc3.

AsterFax provides an Email to Fax gateway for the transmission of faxes using Asterisk.

Asterisk is an Open Source PBX (or PABX) integrating PSTN telephone lines and VoIP into a single solution, providing all of the functionality of a high end PBX; and best of all its free!

AsterFax builds on the services provided by Asterisk to provide a full fledged email based Fax Gateway. ... read more

The AsterFax team is currently working with Andrew Gills of Trixbox (formerly Asterisk @ Home) to include AsterFax as an optional component in Trixbox.
There is still a bit of work to do but we are hoping to get it included in the next release.

We are pleased to announce the release of AsterFax 1.0 rc2.

AsterFax provides an Email to Fax gateway for the transmission of faxes using Asterisk.

Asterisk is an Open Source PBX (or PABX) integrating PSTN telephone lines and VoIP into a single solution, providing all of the functionality of a high end PBX; and best of all its free!

AsterFax builds on the services provided by Asterisk to provide a full fledged email based Fax Gateway. ... read more

AsterFax's popularity continues to increase; during April 2006 AsterFax was ranked in the top 150 sourceforge projects.

Given that sourceforge host over 100,000 projects and that AsterFax is only 6 months old our socks have been blown completely off.

While our ranking will continue to go up and down the trend is ever upward. There is still a lot of hardwork to be done but AsterFax is shaping up to be a huge success, in no small part thanks to the effort of the community that continues to give us feed back on how to improve the product.... read more

Version 1 RC 1 has been released as an RPM in addition to the ZIP that was previously released.

After downloading the RPM use the RPM package manager to install AsterFax by typing rpm -i asterfax-1.0-rc1.i386.rpm.

This will check that all the required software has been installed and then install AsterFax to /usr/lib/asterfax.

Once this is done a patch to the Asterisk txfax application is required. The patch allows AsterFax to track the status of outgoing faxes. To install the patch go to /usr/lib/asterfax/modules and type ./install.sh. This will replace the source file for app_txfax.c in /usr/src/asterisk and recompile the applications.... read more

Release candidate 1 of version 1 has been released.

This release includes a number of bug fixes and enhancements.

Among the enhancements is an improved txfax patching script. The script has now makes some attempt to determine the version of spandsp installed and copy the appropriate txfax source file.

Bug fixes include header and footers on every page and fix for the compression error on some attachments.... read more

Release notes for AsterFax version 1.0 beta 8

AsterFax provides an Email to Fax gateway for the transmission of faxes using Asterisk.

Asterisk is an Open Source PBX (or PABX) integrating PSTN telephone lines and VOIP into a single solution, providing all of the functionality of a high end PBX; and best of all its free!
AsterFax builds on the services provided by Asterisk to provide a full fledged email based Fax Gateway.... read more

Support of AsterFax is being moved to Asterisk I.T. Asterisk I.T. is a sister company of Noojee I.T. which has been set up to provide sales, support and consultancy for all things Asterisk.
The Asterisk I.T. site is still a work in progress but it will be updated in the forth comming weeks with more details on support as well as general information on AsterFax activity.

http://www.asteriskit.com.au

The AsterFax source has now been uploaded to a subversion repostory.
Contributions and developers are welcomed with open arms.

Regards,
S. Brett Sutton
Please note: support of AsterFax is being moved to Asterisk I.T. (a sister company of Noojee I.T.)
http://www.asteriskit.com.au

After much delay and a great amount of navel gazing the source to AsterFax has finally be released.

Enjoy.

Release notes for AsterFax version 1.0 beta 7

AsterFax provides an Email to Fax gateway for the transmission of faxes using Asterisk.

Asterisk is an Open Source PBX (or PABX) integrating PSTN telephone lines and VOIP into a single solution, providing all of the functionality of a high end PBX; and best of all its free!
AsterFax builds on the services provided by Asterisk to provide a full fledged email based Fax Gateway.... read more

AsterFax is an email to Fax gateway for Asterisk.

You can download AsterFax at: http://asterfax.sourceforge.net

The newly released Beta 6 introduces a host of new features including:

Cover Page
The body of an email is now used as a cover page to any file attachments.

Self Diagnosis
AsterFax now attempts to identify any configuration problems and provide a plain english explaination on how to fix them.... read more

AsterFax provides an email based Fax gateway for the transmission of faxes using Asterisk.

You can download AsterFax at: http://asterfax.sourceforge.net

The newly released Beta 5 introduces two new features and a number improvements to the configuration of AsterFax.

New Features:
Integration with SendMail/Postfix/Exchange Server etc via procmail.
With the release of Beta 5 AsterFax now has two modes of accepting emails for faxing. The exiting mode where AsterFax acts as an SMTP gateway plus a new mode where AsterFax can be configured to monitor a directory where Mime encoded mail files are placed for AsterFax to process. The recommended method is to use procmail to extract the mail messages out of the mail server pipeline. ... read more

AsterFax is an email to fax gateway for Asterisk.
Beta 4c has been released to correct a problem some users are experiencing with the fax call being terminated prematurly due to a low WaitTime value
being passed to txfax.

For me Beta 4 is a milestone release as AsterFax now has a truly useful set of functionality and most of the big bugs have been removed. Beta 4 introduces support for MS-Word and Open Office Writer attachments as well as resolving issues with PDF and Postscript attachments. The documentation has also been improved to provide more detailed installation instructions. Beta 4 also introduces support for multiple channels along with priorities for those channels so you can setup preferences as to which channel should be used first.
As always I'm keen to get any feed back on bugs or enhancement suggestions which you can post through the AsterFax sourceforge forums.... read more

As of Beta 4 (due mid dec 05) you will be able to fax directly from Microsoft Office and Open Office.
Just use the 'Send as Email' option in either product to send a fax via AsterFax.