[olug] hacking fax hardware to make compatible with AsterFax.sf.net

[Rob Townley]

On 7/31/06, Daniel Linder <dan at linder.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, July 31, 2006 10:22, Rob Townley wrote:
> > I am hoping to get a sub $1000.00 multi function fax, copier, scanner
> > (does not need to be a printer) that could handle the following
> > scenario.  It may have to be hacked, so if anyone has pointers to open
> > source firmware hacks to a multifunction fax, please let me know.
>
> I'm not clear, are you looking for an all-in-one solution that is also
> hackable?  Or are you looking at piecing something together to achieve the
> same functions?
>

It has to be very very simple .... so the user thinks she is using a
normal everyday fax machine.  Something Grandmas can use.  The
frustrating thing to me is that the foundation for all of it has been
in sub $1000.00 multifunction fax, printer, scanner machines for at
least 3 years if not more.  I just spent hours on the phone with a HP
rep.  He agreed with me that ALL networkable multifunction machines
have scan-to-email capability.  All that needs to be added is an
option that when the fax send button is pressed and the user enters a
telephone number, the "fax" is emailed to our asterfax email to fax
gateway.  So if the user enters 4025551234 as the fax number, the
machine automatically emails the document to 4025551234 at asterfax.
Asterfax decodes the email, picks up the analog line and sends the fax
to 4025551234.

http://www.mfpa.org/board.html indicates that Okidata and Richoh may
be good bets.  i will email these guys and let you know what i find.

IETF standards for sending faxes over the internet have been around
for close to a decade, so i suspect these companies want to leave this
feature for their several thousand dollar machines because they could
provide it now in a few lines of code.  So i am hoping one of our
multifunctions break down again so i can risk destroying it.

Details on t.37 at cisco
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/788/voip/T37-store-forward-fax.html#intro


RFCs 2301 to 2305 are old
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2301.txt



- Show quoted text -

>
> > How:  The physical paper fax machine would have an option to hardcode
> > an email address to forward ALL outgoing faxes to, say
> > faxqueue at asterfax on the internal local area network.  The subject of
> > the email would contain the outgoing fax #.   Asterfax's email to fax
> > gateway would take care of the rest by decoding the fax # and actually
> > dialing a number to send out the fax.  All i need is the hardware and
> > firmware.  HP and Brother both have had inexpensive multifunction
> > machines for a few years that have the foundations for this, but i am
> > not aware of any that have this exact solution of eliminating the need
> > for the analog phone line except in the server room.
>
> I would think that an old Pentium computer with a flat-bed scanner and
> attached printer could be the basis for this solution.
>
> Since you don't mention being able to see the scanned image at the FAX
> machine, you can do all of this in text mode so using something like Perl
> or BASH/ZSH/ASH/etc would be easy enough.
>
> My steps...
> 1: Install text-based scanning software (SANE @
> http://www.sane-project.org) and use "scanimage" to grab pages from the
> scanner.  For the multi-page example you'll want to make sure the scanner
> is one with supported ADF (automatic document feed).
> 2: Once you're scanning via command line, e-mail those to the Asterfax
> gateway.  The Perl SMTP modules might be just what you need here without
> setting up more complex mail handling pieces.
> 3: For printing in-bound faxes, you'll need to setup a local printer and
> print daemon, then have the script monitor a spooling directory (local or
> remote) for new files to print.
>
> You might want to check out HylaFAX
> (http://www.hylafax.org/content/Main_Page).  It's an open-source FAX
> server, and it might be able to perform both ends for you (remote
> scanning/printing station, and centralized send/receive).


i came across some information that HylaFAX can also act as a email to
fax gateway now, so there are at least two foss solutions.



> > How:  The physical paper fax machine would have an option to hardcode
> > an email address to forward ALL outgoing faxes to, say
> > faxqueue at asterfax on the internal local area network.  The subject of
> > the email would contain the outgoing fax #.   Asterfax's email to fax
> > gateway would take care of the rest by decoding the fax # and actually
> > dialing a number to send out the fax.  All i need is the hardware and
> > firmware.  HP and Brother both have had inexpensive multifunction
> > machines for a few years that have the foundations for this, but i am
> > not aware of any that have this exact solution of eliminating the need
> > for the analog phone line except in the server room.
>
> I would think that an old Pentium computer with a flat-bed scanner and
> attached printer could be the basis for this solution.
>
> Since you don't mention being able to see the scanned image at the FAX
> machine, you can do all of this in text mode so using something like Perl
> or BASH/ZSH/ASH/etc would be easy enough.
>
> My steps...
> 1: Install text-based scanning software (SANE @
> http://www.sane-project.org) and use "scanimage" to grab pages from the
> scanner.  For the multi-page example you'll want to make sure the scanner
> is one with supported ADF (automatic document feed).
> 2: Once you're scanning via command line, e-mail those to the Asterfax
> gateway.  The Perl SMTP modules might be just what you need here without
> setting up more complex mail handling pieces.
> 3: For printing in-bound faxes, you'll need to setup a local printer and
> print daemon, then have the script monitor a spooling directory (local or
> remote) for new files to print.
>
> You might want to check out HylaFAX
> (http://www.hylafax.org/content/Main_Page).  It's an open-source FAX
> server, and it might be able to perform both ends for you (remote
> scanning/printing station, and centralized send/receive).
>
> Dan
>
> - - - -
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>
>