InfoMagic Internet Tools 1995 April/Internet Tools.iso/fax/leffler/contrib/bobs-faxmailer/README

Text File | 1995-01-23 | 6.2 KB | 128 lines

Last updated: January 23, 1995 [e-mail]

This is my entry into the e-mail to fax gateway arena. The details
below work for me; your milage may vary.

First, the standard disclaimer. The University of Illinois, and the University
of Illinois Board of Trustees are not liable for any damage which may result
from use or abuse of this software. Use it at your own risk.

Second, some thanks. These files are based on Dirk Husemann's mail-to-fax
gateway. The faxmailer-agent perl script is basically his. I've cleaned it
up a bit, removed some extra functionality (which we, at UIC, will not use),
and added better header parsing for incoming mail. Thanks Dirk! You'll need
Dirk's package, also available from sgi.com. Follow the instructions for
installation in his instructions. The below is IN ADDITION TO Dirk's package.

    That said...

"How to set up an e-mial to fax gateway" or
"Finally Figure Out That E-mail Gateway Stuff"

At UIC, we use the e-mail format [e-mail] for faxes.
This format lets us send faxes to [e-mail] and
[e-mail]. The reasoning behind this is historical at UIC. In
any case, the following instructions will allow you to send e-mail to
[e-mail] and have FlexFax (or any other fax package,
I assume) queue the file for transmission. For below, replace "fax.uic.edu"
with whatever you want your fax desination to be called, like "fax.blah.edu".


1. Edit the /etc/sendmail.cf file. There are two lines you must add. First,
define a fax mailer, called fax, with the line

Mfax, P=/usr/local/bin/faxmailer, F=SmsDFMuL, S=16, R=26, E=\r\n,
    A=faxmailer $h $u

This is also documented in Dirk's documentation. The S flag means to run the
mailer program as the root user. This is needed for one reason. If mail comes
in via SMTP, the faxmailer script is run as user daemon. If the mail originates
on the same machine that your MX points to, then the script is run as the
user submitting the fax via mail. If this happens, I get a Perl "Insecure
Dependancy Error" which I don't try to understand, but never the less, it
doesn't work. If you won't have users on the same machine
submitting faxes, then you can do without the S flag, and the processes will
be run as daemon. The E=\r\n must be there so that the perl script knows when
the end of header has been reached.

One change from Dirk's code here is that faxmailer.c (for me anyway) did not
work as supplied. I had to change the setruid() call to setuid(). The way
it's distributed, I get a mailer configuration error.

Second, add this entry to rule set 0. It's best to be the first rule in
S0, since it'll be evaluated first, without any name changes.

R$+ < @ fax.uic.edu. >    $#fax$@fax$:$1

sendmail 8.6.9 requires the trailing dot. Other sendmails may vary. This
command tells sendmail that when it sees mail destined for fax.uic.edu to
route the mail to the 'fax' mailer defined above.

Note: If you're using the .mc config files in Berkeley sendmail, you can use

LOCAL_RULE_0
R$+ < @ fax.uic.edu. >    $#fax$@fax$:$1

2. Have your namserver person add an MX entry for your fax domain.  NOTE:
This entry MUST be an MX record; it can NOT be a CNAME. It just won't work.

3. Copy parser.pl to /usr/local/lib/perl . perser.pl is a Perl library to
handle RFC822 header parsing, so that you don't need to tell people to use
66834/TO=[e-mail]. With mine, you can use the standard
"Bob Jackiewicz" <[e-mail]> and it'll parse out the name and phone
number. If the name doesn't exist, it'll use the phone number as the To:
on the cover sheet. So, if you can't make a To: field like above, you can
use  <[e-mail]> and that will make a nicer To: field
than just a phone number.

Explaination here. Dirk suggests that you make faxmailer set-uid to uucp. I
couldn't get this to work, so my faxmailer program is not setuid, but is
run as root because of the S flag in the mailer definition. Therefore,
the two ids need to be members of those groups in order to be able to send
back the ORIGINAL text found in the orig directory. If you don't want this
feature, you don't have to do steps 4, 5, and 6.

4. Create directory /var/spool/fax/orig with permissions 770, owner uucp.staff.
I made this directory so that the original text can be sent back to the
client when the fax dies, for some reason. Telling people to "uudecode, untar,
and resubmit with sendfax..." doesn't go over well for e-mail gateway users
on various types of architectures, with various degrees of expertise.

5. Replace /var/spool/fax/bin/notify.awk with the one which comes with this
package. This notify.awk will erase the files in the orig directory when done.

6. Make uucp and daemon members of group staff.  This group stuff may
need to be modified to your system's preference. You may want to create a
new group, called efax which can handle all the permissions for the orig
files. It's up to you. But if things don't work, check your group set.

That's basically it!

I also added the ability to send PostScript files through mail and have
them be recognized as such, and sent out. The mail file must start with
%! as the first non-blank line after the header in order for it to be
recognized as a PS file. Also, some mailers might chop records at 80 columns,
so you should tell your users that they should (if possible) create PS files
with lines <= 80 characters. I also do a check of the top of the body for
any lines which might begin with PostScript-like code.

I also added phone number canonicalization in faxmailer-agent as the
one built in to FlexFax seems a bit flakey (read: I didn't bother
trying to figure it out :-) ). You can keep it or dispose of it as you see
fit. I assume it's also easier to add restrictions for 900 and 976 numbers
in the US (in the US, those numbers cost lots of money just for connecting).



   I am running this on an RS/6000, with AIX 3.2.5, and sendmail 8.6.9, and
it works.

I put this down from my head, so it may not be complete. There's some
debugging left in, which you can take out. It's simple prints as well as
some mail which is sent to my account. Change the $human variable.
If you have any questions, feel free to send me mail. I'll try to help you as
best I can. I can be reached at [e-mail].

        Good luck!
            Bob Jackiewicz