HYLAFAX(1)
NAME
HylaFAX - introduction to HylaFAX client applications and
usage
SYNOPSIS
sendfax [options] [files...]
sendpage [options] [message...]
faxstat [options]
faxrm [options]
faxalter [options] jobid...
fax2ps [options] [files...]
DESCRIPTION
HylaFAX is a telecommunication system for UNIX systems.
Among the features of HylaFAX are:
+o HylaFAX runs as a network service; this means a modem
may be effectively shared by a large number of users.
+o HylaFAX can be configured to work with a wide variety
of modems on a wide variety of systems.
+o Access to the system can be restricted by the adminis-
trator to selected hosts and/or users.
+o Transmission requests may be processed immediately
(default) or queued for processing at a later time, in
the manner of the at(1) command.
+o Remote facsimile machines may be polled to retrieve
publicly available documents.
+o POSTSCRIPT 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 opera-
tion ASCII-text, troff(1) output, and Silicon Graphics
images are automatically converted. Additional file
formats can be added; see typerules(5F).
+o The faxcover(1) program can be automatically invoked to
create a cover page for each facsimile, using informa-
tion deduced by the sendfax command. Alternatively,
users may supply their own cover pages using their pre-
ferred tools.
+o 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 speci-
fied with a -s option to all HylaFAX 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 permissi-
ble to image into the full page area; the guaranteed
reproducible area for a page is typically smaller.
Also, note that while arbitrary page sizes can be spec-
ified, only a limited number of page dimensions are
supported by the 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.
+o 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.
+o Users are notified by electronic mail if a job can not
be transmitted. It is also possible to receive notifi-
cation by mail when a job has been completed success-
fully 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.
+o Support is provided for broadcasting facsimile. The
HylaFAX server software optimizes preparation of broad-
cast documents and the client applications support the
notion of a job group which permits a group of jobs to
be manipulated together.
+o Support is provided for transmitting alpha-numeric mes-
sages to pager devices or GSM mobiles using the Simple
Network Paging Protocol (SNPP) and the IXO or UCP pro-
tocol (for message delivery).
The HylaFAX software is divided into two packages: soft-
ware used on client machines and software used on machines
where one or more modems reside. Client software
includes:
+o sendfax, a program to submit outgoing facsimile;
+o sendpage, a program to submit alpha-numeric messages to
SNPP servers;
+o faxstat, a program obtain status information about
HylaFAX servers;
+o faxrm, a program to remove jobs and documents;
+o faxalter, a program to change parameters of queued
jobs; and
+o 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 (this pro-
gram is actually part of the companion TIFF distribu-
tion that is used by HylaFAX).
Many systems also support submission of outgoing facsimile
by electronic mail and/or graphical interfaces to the
sendfax program. Such facilities are site-dependent; con-
sult local documentation for more information.
GETTING STARTED
To use the HylaFAX client software on your machine you
need to either load the appropriate software on your
machine, or you need to locate a machine that already has
the client software installed and setup symbolic links to
the appropriate directories. If you choose the latter,
then beware that you need links to three directories: the
directory where client applications reside,
/usr/local/bin, the directory where the client application
database files reside, /usr/local/lib/fax, and the direc-
tory where document conversion programs reside,
/usr/local/sbin (the last two directories may be the same
on your system).
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: the SNPPSERVER environment variable is used instead
of FAXSERVER by the sendpage program; consult send-
page(8C) for more information.)
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 ``530 User %s access denied.''
if access to your server is controlled and you are not
properly registered or you may be prompted for a password
and then denied service with ``530 Login incorrect.''.
DIAL STRINGS
A dial string specifies how to dial the telephone in order
to reach a destination facsimile machine. HylaFAX permits
arbitrary strings to be passed to the facsimile server so
that users can specify credit card information, PBX rout-
ing information, etc. Alphabetic characters are automati-
cally mapped to their numeric key equivalents (e.g.
``1800GotMilk'' becomes ``18004686455''). Other charac-
ters can be included for readability; anything that must
be stripped will be removed by the server before the dial-
ing string is passed to the fax modem. Private informa-
tion such as credit card access codes are withheld from
status messages and publicly accessible log files (with
proper configuration). Facsimile servers also automati-
cally insert any leading dialing prefixing strings that
are required to place outgoing phone calls; e.g. dialing
``9'' to get an outside line. Additionally, if a phone
number is fully specified with the international direct
dialing digits (IDDD), then any prefixing long distance or
international dialing codes that are required to place the
call will be inserted in the dial string by the server.
For example, ``+31.77.594.131'' is a phone number in the
Netherlands; it would be converted to ``0113177594131'' if
the call is placed in the United States. The number
``+14159657824'' is a phone number in California; if this
number is called from within the 415 area code in the
United States, then the server would automatically convert
this to ``9657824'' because in the San Francisco Bay Area,
local phone calls must not include the area code and long
distance prefixing code.
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
The sendfax program can automatically generate a cover
page for each outgoing facsimile. Such cover pages are
actually created by the faxcover(1) program by using
information that is deduced by sendfax and information
that is supplied on the command line invocation of send-
fax. Users may also request that sendfax not supply a
cover page and then provide their own cover page as part
of the data that is to be transmitted.
Automatically-generated cover pages may include the fol-
lowing information:
+o the sender's name, affiliation, geographic location,
fax number, and voice telephone number;
+o the recipient's name, affiliation, geographic location,
fax number, and voice telephone number;
+o text explaining what this fax is ``regarding'';
+o text commentary;
+o the local date and time that the job was submitted;
+o 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 hierar-
chy 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 auto-
mated mechanisms. As a result it is being replaced by
other, more straightforward databases that are managed by
programs that front-end the sendfax program.
CONFIGURATION FILES
HylaFAX client applications can be tailored on a per-user
and per-site basis through configuration files. Per-site
controls are placed in the file
/usr/local/lib/fax/hyla.conf, while per-user controls go
in ~/.hylarc. In addition a few programs that have many
parameters that are specific to their operation support an
additional configuration file; these files are identified
in their manual pages.
Configuration files have a simple format and are entirely
ASCII. A configuration parameter is of the form
tag: value
where a tag identifies a parameter and a value is either a
string, number, or boolean value. Comments are introduced
by the ``#'' character and extend to the end of the line.
String values start at the first non-blank character after
the ``:'' and continue to the first non-whitespace charac-
ter or, if whitespace is to be included, may be enclosed
in quote marks (``"''). String values enclosed in quote
marks may also use the standard C programming conventions
for specifying escape codes; e.g. ``\n'' for a newline
character and ``\xxx'' for an octal value. Numeric values
are specified according to the C programming conventions
(leading ``0x'' for hex, leading ``0'' for octal, other-
wise decimal). Boolean values are case insensitive. For
a true value, either ``Yes'' or ``On'' should be used.
For a false value, use ``No'' or ``Off''.
RECEIVED FACSIMILE
Incoming facsimile are received by facsimile servers and
deposited in a receive queue directory on the server
machine. Depending on the server's configuration, files
in this directory may or may not be readable by normal
users. The faxstat program can be used to view the con-
tents of the receive queue directory:
hyla% faxstat -r
HylaFAX scheduler on hyla.chez.sgi.com: Running
Modem ttyf2 (+1 510 999-0123): Running and idle
Protect Page Owner Sender/TSI Recvd@ Filename
-rw-r-- 9 fax 1 510 5268781 05Jan96 fax00005.tif
-rw-r-- 8 fax 1 510 5268781 07Jan96 fax00009.tif
-rw-r-- 2 fax 1 510 5268781 07Jan96 fax00010.tif
-rw-r-- 3 fax +14159657824 08Jan96 fax00011.tif
-rw-r-- 2 fax +14159657824 08Jan96 fax00012.tif
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 or CCITT T.6 encoding algorithms. 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 viewfax(1) (public domain),
faxview(1) (another public domain TIFF viewer program),
xv(1) (shareware and/or public domain), or xtiff(1) (a
program included in the public domain TIFF software dis-
tribution). Consult your local resources to figure out
what tools are available for viewing and printing received
facsimile.
CLIENT-SERVER PROTOCOL
HylaFAX client applications communicate with servers using
either a special-purpose communications protocol that is
modeled after the Internet File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
or, when submitting alpha-numeric pages, the Simple Net-
work Paging Protocol (SNPP), specified in RFC 1861. All
client programs support a -v option that can be used to
observe the protocol message exchanges. In some situa-
tions it may be more effective to communicate directly
with a HylaFAX server using the client-server protocol.
This can be accomplished with an FTP or Telnet client
application; though an FTP client is recommended because
it implements the protocol needed to obtain server status
information. For information on the server-side support
provided with HylaFAX consult hfaxd(8C). For documenta-
tion on the client-server fax protocol consult RFC XXXX
(to be filled in).
EXAMPLES
This section gives several examples of command line usage;
consult the manual pages for the individual commands for
information on the options and program operation.
The following command queues the file zall.ps for trans-
mission 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" -m -d "John Doe@1.123.456.7890"
zall.ps
(the leading ``1.'' is supplied to dial area code ``123''
in the United States.)
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 -s
The following command displays the status of the facsimile
server and any documents waiting in the receive queue on
the server machine:
faxstat -r
The following command shows how to use an FTP client pro-
gram to communicate directly with a HylaFAX server:
hyla% ftp localhost hylafax
Connected to localhost.
220 hyla.chez.sgi.com server (HylaFAX (tm) Version 4.0beta005) ready.
Name (localhost:sam):
230 User sam logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> dir sendq
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening new data connection for "sendq".
208 126 S sam 5268781 0:3 1:12 16:54 No local dialtone
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quote jkill 208
200 Job 208 killed.
ftp> dir doneq
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening new data connection for "doneq".
208 126 D sam 5268781 0:3 1:12 No local dialtone
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quote jdele 208
200 Job 208 deleted; current job: (default).
ftp> dir docq
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening new data connection for "docq".
-rw---- 1 sam 11093 Jan 21 16:48 doc9.ps
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> dele docq/doc9.ps
250 DELE command successful.
ftp> dir recvq
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening new data connection for "recvq".
-rw-r-- 4 fax 1 510 5268781 30Sep95 faxAAAa006uh
-rw-r-- 9 fax +14159657824 11Nov95 faxAAAa006nC
-rw---- 25 fax +14159657824 Fri08PM fax00016.tif
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.
The following command shows how to use a Telnet client
program to communicate directly with an SNPP server:
hyla% telnet melange.esd 444
Trying 192.111.25.40...
Connected to melange.esd.sgi.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 melange.esd.sgi.com SNPP server (HylaFAX (tm) Version 4.0beta010) ready.
login sam
230 User sam logged in.
help
214 The following commands are recognized (* =>'s unimplemented).
214 2WAY* ALER* DATA HOLD LOGI MSTA* PING RTYP* STAT
214 ABOR CALL* EXPT* KTAG* MCRE* NOQU* QUIT SEND SUBJ
214 ACKR* COVE* HELP LEVE MESS PAGE RESE SITE
250 Direct comments to FaxMaster@melange.esd.sgi.com.
page 5551212
250 Pager ID accepted; provider: 1800SkyTel pin: 5551212 jobid: 276.
send
250 Message processing completed.
quit
221 Goodbye.
Connection closed by foreign host.
FILES
/usr/local/bin/sendfax for sending facsimile
/usr/local/bin/sendpage for sending alpha-numeric pages
/usr/local/bin/fax2ps for converting facsimile to POSTSCRIPT
/usr/local/bin/faxalter for altering queued jobs
/usr/local/bin/faxcover for generating cover sheets
/usr/local/bin/faxmail for converting email to POSTSCRIPT
/usr/local/bin/faxrm for removing queued jobs
/usr/local/bin/faxstat for facsimile server status
/usr/local/sbin/sgi2fax SGI image file converter
/usr/local/sbin/textfmt ASCII text converter
/usr/local/lib/fax/typerules file type and conversion rules
/usr/local/lib/fax/pagesizes page size database
/usr/local/lib/fax/faxcover.ps prototype cover page
/usr/local/lib/fax/dialrules optional client dialstring rules
/usr/tmp/sndfaxXXXXXX temporary files
SEE ALSO
at(1) fax2ps(1) faxalter(1) faxcover(1) faxmail(1)
faxrm(1) faxstat(1) sgi2fax(1) faxq(8C) viewfax(1)
hylafax(5F) dialrules(5F) pagesizes(5F) typerules(5F)
services(4)