FLEXFAX

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

1)

FlexFAX runs as a network service; this means a faxmodem may be effectively shared by a large number of users.

2)

FlexFAX can be configured to work with a wide variety of fax modems on a wide variety of systems.

3)

Access to the system can be restricted by the administrator to selected hosts and/or users.

4)

Transmission requests may be processed immediately (default) or queued for processing at a later time, in the manner of the at(1) command.

5)

Remote facsimile machines may be polled to retrieve publicly available documents.

6)

POSTSCRIPTtm and TIFF Class F documents are passed directly to the fax server for transmission; the system attempts to convert other file formats to either POSTSCRIPT or TIFF through the use of an extensible file typing and conversion facility. In normal operation ASCII-text, troff(1) output, and Silicon Graphics images are automatically converted. Additional file formats can be added; see typerules(4F).

7)

The faxcover(1) program can be automatically invoked to create a cover page for each facsimile, using information deduced by the sendfax command. Alternatively, users may supply their own cover pages using their preferred tools.

8)

Facsimile are normally imaged in a system-default page size (usually letter-size pages, 8.5" by 11", for sites in North America). Alternate page sizes can be specified with a -s option to all FlexFAX programs. Well known page sizes include: ISO A3, ISO A4, ISO A5, ISO A6, ISO B4, North American Letter, American Legal, American Ledger, American Executive, Japanese Letter, and Japanese Legal. Note that it may not be permissible to image into the full page area; the guaranteed reproduceable area for a page is typically smaller. Also, note that while arbitrary page sizes can be specified, only a limited number of page dimensions are supported by the Group 3 facsimile protocol. Thus if an odd-size facsimile is submitted for transmission it may not be possible to determine if it can be sent until the fax server establishes communication with the remote facsimile machine.

9)

Facsimile can be sent at low resolution (98 lines/inch) or medium resolution (196 lines/inch)---often called fine mode. Documents with mixed resolution pages are handled correctly.

10)

Users are notified by electronic mail if a job can not be transmitted. It is also possible to receive notification by mail when a job has been completed successfully and each time that the job is requeued for retransmission. Any untransmitted documents are returned to the sender by electronic mail in a form suitable for resubmission.

The FlexFAX software is divided into two packages: software used on client machines and software used on machines where one or more fax modems reside. Client software includes:

*

sendfax, a program to submit outgoing facsimile;

*

faxstat, a program obtain status information about facsimile servers and jobs;

*

faxrm, a program to remove queued jobs;

*

faxalter, a program to change parameters of queued jobs; and

*

fax2ps, a program that converts facsimile documents to POSTSCRIPT so that they may be viewed with a POSTSCRIPT previewer or printed on a POSTSCRIPT printer.

Many systems also support submission of outgoing facsimile by electronic mail and/or graphical interfaces to the sendfax program. Such facilities are site-dependent; consult local documentation for more information.  

GETTING STARTED

Once the software is setup on your machine you need to locate a host that has a facsimile server that you can use. The host, and possibly the modem on the host, should be defined in your environment in the FAXSERVER variable. For example, for csh users,

setenv FAXSERVER flake.asd

or for ksh or sh users,

FAXSERVER=flake.asd; export FAXSERVER

If there are multiple modems on your server then you may be assigned to use a specific modem. For example, if you are to use the modem attached to the ttym2 port on the server machine, then the FAXSERVER variable should be setup as

FAXSERVER=ttym2@flake.asd; export FAXSERVER

Note also, that before you can submit outgoing facsimile jobs the administrator for the facsimile server may need to register your identity in an access control list. You will encounter the message ``Your host does not have permission to use the fax server'' if access is controlled to your server and you are not properly registered.  

DIAL STRINGS

The general rule in crafting dial strings is to specify exactly what you would dial on your telephone; and, in addition, the actual phone number can be specified in a location-independent manner by using the IDD syntax of ``+country-code local-part''.  

COVER PAGES

Automatically-generated cover pages may include the following information:

*

the sender's name, affiliation, geographic location, fax number, and voice telephone number;

*

the recipient's name, affiliation, geographic location, fax number, and voice telephone number;

*

text explaining what this fax is ``regarding'';

*

text commentary;

*

the local date and time that the job was submitted;

*

the number of pages to be transmitted.

Certain of this information is currently obtained from a user's personal facsimile database file; ~/.faxdb. Note that this file is deprecated; it is described here only because it is still supported for compatiblity with older versions of the software.

The .faxdb file is an ASCII file with entries of the form

keyword : value

where keyword includes:

Name

a name associated with destination fax machine;

Company

a company name;

Location

in-company locational information, e.g. a building#;

FAX-Number

phone number of fax machine;

Voice-Number

voice telephone number.

Data is free format. Whitespace (blank, tab, newline) can be freely interspersed with tokens. If tokens include whitespace, they must be encloseed in quote marks (``"''). The ``#'' character introduces a comment---everything to the end of the line is discarded.

Entries are collected into aggregate records by enclosing them in ``[]''. Records can be nested to create a hierarchy that that supports the inheritance of information---unspecified information is inherited from parent aggregate records.

For example, a sample file might be:

[   Company:    "Silicon Graphics, Inc."
    Location:   "Mountain View, California"
    [ Name: "Sam Leffler"       FAX-Number: +1.415.965.7824 ]
]

which could be extended to include another person at Silicon Graphics with the following:

[   Company:    "Silicon Graphics, Inc."
    Location:   "Mountain View, California"
    [ Name: "Sam Leffler"       FAX-Number: +1.415.965.7824 ]
    [ Name: "Paul Haeberli"     FAX-Number: +1.415.965.7824 ]
]

Experience indicates that the hierarchical nature of this database format makes it difficult to maintain with automated mechanisms. As a result it is being replaced by other, more straightforward databases that are managed by programs that front-end the sendfax program.  

RECEIVED FACSIMILE

flake% faxstat -r
Server on localhost:ttym2 for +1.415.965.7824: Running and idle.

Sender         Received At           Pages Quality 
+15105268781   13:04 1993:05:14   1 NA-LET normal  
               18:03 1993:05:12   1        fine    
               12:29 1993:05:12   1        fine    
+15105268781   11:16 1993:05:12   5        normal  
+15105268781   14:12 1993:05:11   4 NA-LET normal  
+15105268781   14:02 1993:05:11   4 NA-LET fine    
+15105268781   13:43 1993:05:11   4        normal  

Consult the faxstat manual page for a more detailed description of this information.

Received facsimile are stored as TIFF Class F files. These files are bilevel images that are encoded using the CCITT T.4 encoding algorithm. The fax2ps(1) program can be used to view and print these files. A file can be viewed by converting it to POSTSCRIPT and then viewing it with a suitable POSTSCRIPT previewing program, such as xpsview(1) (Adobe's Display PostScript-based viewer), ghostview(1) (a public domain previewer), or image viewer programs such as xv(1) (shareware and/or public domain), xtiff(1) (a program included in the public domain TIFF software distribution), or, on Silicon Graphics machines, faxview(1). Consult your local resources to figure out what tools are available for viewing and printing received facsimile.  

EXAMPLES

The following command queues the file zall.ps for transmission to John Doe at the number (123)456-7890 using fine mode; the server will attempt to send it at 4:30 A.M.:

sendfax -a "0430" -d "John Doe@123.456.7890" -m zall.ps

The following command generates a one-page facsimile that is just a cover page:

faxcover -t "John Doe" -n "(123)456-7890" 
    -c "Sorry John, I forgot the meeting..." |
    sendfax -n -d "(123)456-7890"

(note that the line was broken into several lines solely for presentation.)

The following command displays the status of the facsimile server and any jobs queued for transmission:

faxstat -a

The following command displays the status of the facsimile server and any documents waiting in the receive queue on the server machine:

faxstat -r

FILES

${BIN}/sendfax                for sending facsimile
${BIN}/fax2ps                 for converting facsimile to PostScript
${BIN}/faxalter               for altering queued jobs
${BIN}/faxcover               for generating cover sheets
${BIN}/faxmail                for converting email to PostScript
${BIN}/faxrm                  for removing queued jobs
${BIN}/faxstat                for facsimile server status
${LIBEXEC}/sgi2fax            SGI image file converter
${LIBEXEC}/textfmt            ASCII text converter
${LIBDATA}/typerules          file type and conversion rules
${LIBDATA}/pagesizes          page size database
${LIBDATA}/faxcover.ps        prototype cover page
${LIBDATA}/dialrules          optional client dialstring rules
/usr/tmp/sndfaxXXXXXX         temporary files

SEE ALSO

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

GETTING STARTED

DIAL STRINGS

COVER PAGES

RECEIVED FACSIMILE

EXAMPLES

FILES

SEE ALSO