mgetty
mgetty+sendfax Version 1.1.23 August 2000 Gert Doering gert@greenie.muc.de gert@space.net
mgetty allows you to make optimum use of your modem or fax modem in
a unix environment. mgetty handles incoming calls without
interfering with outgoing calls. If the modem can do fax class 2 or 2.0,
mgetty can also receive faxes.
sendfax is a standalone backend program to send fax files.
This manual explains how to configure and install the package on various operating systems and modems, and how to use those programs.
WARNING: This package is still BETA software. Use it at your own risk, there is no warranty. If it erases all the data on your hard disk, damages your hardware, or kills your dog, that is entirely your problem. Anyway, the program works for me and quite a lot of other people.
The mgetty+sendfax package is Copyright (C) 1993-2000
Gert Doering, Klaus Weidner, Marc Eberhard, Marc Schaefer, and others.
It is distributed on terms of the GNU General Public License, which you can find in the main mgetty directory in the file `COPYING'.
If you want to redistribute mgetty+sendfax under a different
license (like in "selling it to your customers"), contact me, and we
will work something out.
mgetty and sendfax
This package contains two major programs, mgetty and
sendfax.
This is what you can do with sendfax if you have a standard
class 2 fax modem:
mgetty allows you to use a single modem line for receiving
calls and dialing out.
mgetty knows about "smart" modems, and will make sure that the
modem is always in a defined state (specific modem initialization possible)
RING
-> ATA -> CONNECT) instead of using auto-answer
(`ATS0=1'), this way the modem won't pick up the phone when the
machine is down or logins are not allowed.
mgetty incorporates all features of uugetty: it honours `LCK.*'
files created by uucico and other comm programs, this way it will
prevent dial-outs while a caller is online and it won't be confused if
other programs use the modem.
mgetty can receive faxes (if your modem supports fax class 2 or 2.0).
mgetty knows about incoming FidoNet calls.
mgetty has extensive logging / debugging features
mgetty can selectively refuse calls based upon CallerID, if your
modem supports it, and you're subscribed to the service.
CallerID is also logged.
mgetty has facilities to allow you to refuse incoming FAXes when
available disk space is low.
If you have any bug reports, suggestions, please report them to gert@greenie.muc.de (or, if [and only if!] that doesn't work, to gert@space.net).
Also, I have created a mgetty mailing list, for discussion of problems and suggestions. You can subscribe by sending a request to mgetty-request@muc.de (forwarded to Crynwr.com for precessing) and you can send articles to the list by sending them to mgetty@muc.de. Please make sure that the mail address you send me is valid - I'm quite sick of getting all list mails bounced back to me because one of the addresses doesn't work.
The mailing list is currently gated bidirectionally into the newsgroup de.alt.comm.mgetty. In spite of being in the German language hierarchy, the language in the group is English. Posts in German should be ignored.
The mailing list is archived on a WWW site, look at `http://www.elilabs.com/mgarc/index.html' (many thanks to Robert J. Brown, rj@eli.elilabs.com). It's also archived by Marc Schaefer, on `http://www-internal.alphanet.ch/recherche_ml.html'. The latter search engine indexes somewhat more than only the mgetty list, so you might want to add 'mgetty' to your query to restrict it.
Mgetty has been successfully installed and run on the following systems:
SCO Unix 3.2.1 (ODT 1.0) (well tested)
SCO Unix 3.2.4 (ODT 2.0 + 3.0) (very well tested)
SCO Open Server 5.0 (well tested)
Linux (everything from 0.99pl1 up) (very well tested)
ISC Unix 3.0 (tested)
SVR4 Unix (well tested)
SVR4.2 Unix (needs more testing)
AT&T 3B1 3.51m (well tested)
HP-UX 8.x and 9.x (well tested)
AIX 3.2.5, 4.1 and 4.2 (very well tested)
SunOS 4 (well tested)
Solaris 2.x (well tested)
NetBSD / FreeBSD (all versions) (very well tested)
It should be possible to run mgetty on any other Unix with `termio.h'
or `termios.h'. For best results, use of the library functions
select(S) or poll(S) is recommended, but there's a workaround
if your system hasn't either. (Warning: for Unix SVR3.1 or earlier,
do not use poll(), it will not
work on tty devices.)
Up to now, it has been successfully used with the following modems (no exhaustive list) in fax mode:
ZyXEL U1496 (various ROM releases)
(very well tested, a couple of problems remain, depending on the
ROM release)
ZyXEL 2864/2864I (various ROM releases)
(very well tested, some firmware versions have problems)
USR Courier/Sportster series
(well tested, Couriers work great, Sportsters are ok)
MultiTech (various models)
(tested, works very well, very good fax implementation)
SupraFAX v32bis
(tested, works well, no fax polling available)
GVC FM144/+
(tested, works well, no fax polling available)
TKR DM-24VF+ (Deltafax)
(tested, works quite well)
Zoom V.FAST 24K/28K
(tested, works, some problems with fax/data distinction)
It should work with all class 2 faxmodems. Maybe the DC2 character sent at the beginning of a page by `faxrec.c' must be changed to XON, for old class 2 modems (implementing very old drafts of the standard). See section Modems.
In Data mode, it will work with every Hayes-compatible modem.
Compiling of the package should be quite straightforward. You have to copy `policy.h-dist' to `policy.h' and edit it to set some local policy options, see the comments in that file.
Then, edit the `Makefile', to specify installation paths, some system defines and some system dependent libraries (explained there).
After that, a `make' should build the programs, and `make
install' should install them.
If your compiler complains about the #ident lines I use for
`RCS', please run make noident, that will take care of those
lines.
If you get an error message about "unresolved symbols" when linking, you
may have to tell the package whether you have the select(S) or poll(S)
system calls, by defining -DUSE_SELECT or -DUSE_POLL flags in
the `Makefile' (If you don't know it, try both, until the error goes
away). If it's not related to select or poll, please check
the systems man pages which libraries to link, and add appropriate
-l<library> statements to LIBS.
If your system has neither the select(S) call nor the poll(S) call, mgetty is not fully operational--these functions are the only way to prevent mgetty from eating up characters when some other process is trying to dial out.
You can use mgetty anyway, by specifying -DUSE_READ in the
Makefile, but beware: with this, mgetty will eat up at least one
character of the modem response when another program is dialing out.
That may lead to disastrous results if e.g. the `CONNECT' string
is thus corrupted, but most of the time, the character that `mgetty'
eats away will be an cr or nl or part of the command
that the modem echoes back.
If you have any problems compiling mgetty and sendfax (on a Unix-like system--I do not support MS-DOS or Windows!), please contact me. But make sure that you have read the documentation!
If mgetty or sendfax are run "as is", they will use their
compiled-in defaults from `policy.h'.
If the configuration files `mgetty.config' (see section Runtime configuration for mgetty: `mgetty.config') and `sendfax.config' (see section Runtime configuration for sendfax: `sendfax.config') exist (and are readable), both programs will get their run-time configuration from there. Items not specified there will still be taken from the compiled-in defaults. Command line switches will always override those settings. The configuration files are usually located in `/etc/mgetty+sendfax/'.
If you specify command line arguments (see the mgetty(1) and sendfax(8) man pages for details), this will override both compiled-in and config file defaults.
mgetty
You can't simply call mgetty from a shell script (like `/etc/rc')
or interactively, because login is not possible unless mgetty is called
directly by the init process. The next sections explain how to do this.
mgetty worksTo help you understand how mgetty works, here is an example of what happens in various circumstances when you use it to control a modem connected to a serial line, e.g. `/dev/tty2a'.
When the computer is booted, the operating system starts the init
process, which is responsible for making sure that gettys are running on
the appropiate i/o devices, e.g. virtual terminals, serial lines and
modems. init reads its configuration file, `/etc/inittab' (on
System V), which tells it that the line `/dev/tty2a' should be
controlled by mgetty. It then creates an entry in `/etc/utmp'
(login needs this, that's why you can't log in if you try to start
mgetty by hand), and forks a new mgetty process, using the command
line specified.
When mgetty is started, it first checks if a valid lock file held by another process exists. If it does, this means that the port is in use, and mgetty will wait until the lock file goes away. Invalid lock files, e.g. for nonexistent processes ("stale" locks), are ignored.
Once the port is free, mgetty creates its own lockfile, initializes the
modem and removes its lock file again. Then it waits for something to
happen on the port. Note that it does not read any characters, it
just checks if there are any available for reading by using poll()
or select().
There are two possibilities once characters arrive, either a different
program (e.g. uucico) has started dialing out or a `RING' was
sent by the modem. In the first case, mgetty should leave the port
alone. This is easy if the program dialing out has created a valid
lock file: mgetty will find it, wait for it to go away and then exit (which
will cause init to start a fresh mgetty process, which will
then wait for the next call).
In the second case, when there is no lock file, mgetty assumes that
the phone is ringing, creates a lock file and reads the characters
available. If it finds a `RING', it picks up the phone by sending
`ATA' and waits for the `CONNECT' message. If the caller is
a fax machine, it saves the fax in the directory `FAX_SPOOL_IN'
(usually `/var/spool/fax/incoming') and exits. If it is a modem,
it prints `/etc/issue' and displays a login prompt. Once it has
received a login string, it calls /bin/login and lets it handle
things from here. login will read the password and will then
start the user's login shell, uucico, a dialup SLIP link or
whatever, but mgetty doesn't care about that. The lock file remains so
that no other programs will try to use the modem while somebody is logged in.
(If the `login.config' configuration file is used, mgetty can also call
other login programs than /bin/login. See below for more details)
Once mgetty has terminated for whatever reason, init might
reinitialize the port (this is why mgetty waits for lock files to go
away instead of quitting immediately) and will then start a new
mgetty process, which will remove lock files left over from the
last login.
The lock file handling is tricky, but very important. It is essential that all programs that use the modem agree on one locking protocol, otherwise one program might not know that the modem is in use and will try to dial out anyway. A typical lock file is a file called `/var/lock/LCK..ttyxx', containing the process ID (PID) of the process currently using the modem. Other processes can read it and tell if the lock file belongs to an existing process or if it is "stale" and can be removed. This will obviously not work if the processes look for lock files in different places, or if one of them writes its PID in ASCII and another one tries to read it as a binary number (while mgetty and sendfax do not care whether foreign lock files are written in binary or ascii format, other programs do! mgetty can sometimes detect this problem, and will then log a warning).
An typical `inittab' entry for mgetty looks like this (on
SystemV-style OSes):
<tt>:rlevel:<respawn|off>:/usr/sbin/mgetty [options] <device>
where `tt' is a short form of the `device' name, used by
init and who for internal purposes. Usually this is
something like `S0' or `2A' or so.
`rlevel' specifies the runlevel that the command in the fourth field
is run at, this may be `23' or `56' or so, look at man
init and the existing `/etc/inittab' on your system.
The next field tells init whether that entry is active
(respawn) or not (off), and the fourth field specifies the
full path of the program to run.
The following options are available for mgetty:
`-x <level>' sets the debugging level. This is very important
for diagnosing problems, as with higher levels, mgetty will write
very detailed informations about its internal workings to its log file.
`-s <speed>' sets the port speed. If not specified, the default
from `policy.h', (definition DEFAULT_PORTSPEED) will be used.
`-k <space>' sets the minimum number of kbytes required on the incoming FAX spool directory. If there isn't this much space in the spool directory, the connection is terminated. The default is 1 megabyte.
`-m 'expect send ...'' sets the modem initialization sequence. `-r' for direct lines (no modem chats are done)
`-p <login prompt>' sets the login prompt (various escapes are allowed)
`-n <rings>' sets the number of RING messages to expect
before sending ATA to answer the phone. Default is one RING.
`-R <sec>' tells mgetty to enable "ring-back" or "ring-twice" mode. This means that mgetty won't pick up a call immediately, but the caller has to hang up after the first ring, and call again in the next <sec> seconds.
`-i `/etc/issue'' specifies the issue file to display before prompting for login.
`-S `<fax_document>'' specifies the document(s) to send to
polling fax machines (full path required). `<fax_document>' has to be
in G3 format (as for sendfax), or a text file listing G3 fax files
(one file per line).
A sample entry in `/etc/inittab' might look like this:
F1a:23:respawn:/usr/sbin/mgetty -x 3 tty2a
For a more detailed explanation of all the options, please look into the `mgetty(1)' man page.
Some operating systems provide two separate devices for each serial
line, one of which is intended especially for gettys. This is
NOT a good idea, because it won't work with mgetty. It is
meant for modems used in auto-answer mode.
mgetty picks up the phone by hand, this will only work properly
if you use the same device you would use for dialing out. (Some
people like to create a symlink `/dev/modem' for this, but you
have to be consistent and use this for all comm programs if you
do - otherwise you'll run into problems with the lock file names).
Here are some examples for different systems:
ttyF01 etc., (minor number 80+(port number). Do not
use ttyFMxxx---mgetty will open the device anyway, but then an
open to the "normal" port (without carrier detect) will block.
tty2A), not tty2a, because
hardware flow control and carrier detection do not work on "lowercase"
tty devices.
The same holds for "smart" serial boards, as specialix, digiboard,
..., because they mimic the behaviour of SCO's sio driver.
man zs man page).
mgetty will normally write all actions into a logfile, named
`LOG_PATH.<device>' (LOG_PATH is defined `policy.h'),
e.g. `/var/log/mgetty.log.ttyxx', so you can easily see what's happening in your
system. (If a fatal error
occurs, the error message is also written to the console, and if that
is not possible, mailed to `ADMIN'). The name of the log file can be
changed in `policy.h'.
If mgetty is compiled with -DSYSLOG, auditing and error log
messages will also go to syslog (if your system supports it).
If you want to prevent mgetty from accepting calls, you can do so by
creating a file called `/etc/nologin.<device>'
(e.g. `/etc/nologin.tty2a'). If mgetty detects an incoming call, and
sees this file, it will NOT answer the phone. This way the caller
does not lose money for a useless call when logins are not allowed
anyway. (You can change the filename that is checked by changing
NOLOGIN_FILE in `policy.h')
This can be used for quite sophisticated scheduling purposes - imagine a
modem attached to a line used for voice during the daytime. So, you want
the modem only to answer the phone during 9 pm and 7 am. What you do is to
have cron create a `/etc/nologin.device' file at 7 am (so
the modem won't answer the call during the day) and remove it at 9 pm (so
the modem can answer the phone at night).
Naturally, this can be easily extended - e.g., answer the phone only on weekends (similar cron job), don't answer the phone if there are less than 5 Mbyte free on disk (have a process check for free disk space regularily and create `/etc/nologin.*' file(s) accordingly), ...
If you have a direct serial line between two unix machines, or a unix machine and something else, and want to run a getty program on the unix side that should not interfere with outgoing traffic (e.g.: two unix machines, both sides running gettys, both sides able to initiate an uucp connection), you can also use mgetty. Start it with the `-r' flag (as with uugetty), and it will not try to initialize the modem or wait for RINGs. It will just sit silently on the port and wait... You won't see `/etc/issue' on the other side until mgetty gets at least one character, this prevents two mgettys from talking to each other.
This may be valid for leased lines with modems in leased line mode as well, but that may depend on your modem setup.
mgetty and other programs
Normally, after a caller enters his login name, mgetty calls
/bin/login to do the password checking and system login.
In some special cases, you may want to call other programs instead of
/bin/login. For example, you could want to call
/usr/lib/uucp/uucico -L <username> for all login names starting with
`U*' (to have uucico do the authentication, works only with
taylor uucp 1.05 or taylor uucp 1.04 with my patch in
`patches/taylor.p1'), or /usr/lib/fnet/ifcico for incoming
FidoNet calls (using ifcico from Eugene Crosser's `ifmail'
package).
mgetty can do all this. It's controlled by a configuration file
`login.config', normally located in
`/etc/mgetty+sendfax/' (definition LOGIN_CFG_FILE in
`policy.h'). I have provided a sample file with lots of comments,
please look into that file for the syntax to use. To make mgetty
understand incoming fido calls, you have to compile it with -DFIDO.
If you are worrying about security, you can also use this mechanism: just
call /bin/login only for trusted, known users, and /bin/false
for every other login name - so, only those listed in `login.config'
will be able to log in.
Some telephone companies provide a service to the subscriber, called "Caller ID", where the phone number of the caller is transmitted while your phone is ringing. Not all providers support it, and you'll have to ask for it.
If your modem is able to retrieve callerid information, and mgetty
is compiled with CNDFILE defined in `policy.h', mgetty
can check the caller's number before answering the phone. (Right now, I
know that it works for ZyXELs. I've implemented it for Rockwell, but didn't
get feedback yet. Volunteers?). If CNDFILE is undefined, or if that
file does not exist, all calls will be allowed.
One important thing: for most analog modems, you must set the number of RINGs to wait for to two (2) or higher (set `rings 2' in `mgetty.config'), because the ID code is sent between the first and the second RING. If mgetty picks up the phone too soon, the modem can't get this information.
Whether a call is accepted or denied is controlled by a configuration file,
set with CNDFILE in `policy.h'. Usual default is
`/etc/mgetty+sendfax/dialin.config' (a sample file is installed per default).
That file contains a series of tokens separated by newlines, commas, tabs and spaces. The callerid number is compared with each token in turn, until a match occurs. A match occurs when the token compares equally to the callerid information up to the length of the token. If the token is prefixed with a "!", a match means "do not answer the phone". The token "all" matches any telephone number, and will terminate scanning of the cndfile. If no callerid number is present, it is assumed to have the value "none". A line starting with "#" is a comment. There is an implicit "all" at the end of the file. For example:
# list of my friends' data lines
3433535, 7445343, 5551212
# dad's fax
4164646777
# disallow [other] calls from numbers matching the following prefix:
!416
# disallow that speed dialer that keeps hitting my machine
!3444444
# allow all calls with the following prefixes
832, 555
# don't allow calls when there's no callerid:
!none
# It's okay to accept calls from out of area
# ("OUT_OF_AREA" token seems ZyXEL specific)
OUT_OF_AREA
# disallow all other calls
!all
For the future, Chris Lewis is planning on adding special modem initialization strings (e.g., 2400 bps only, fax-only, ...) dependant on the caller number.
For most applications, this kind of static configuration is enough. If
you have special needs, you can choose to run an external program to
decide this. The program name is configured with the cnd-program
statement in `mgetty.config'. Its command line arguments are:
<program> <tty> <CallerID> <Name> <dist-ring-nr.> <Called Nr.>
CallerID is the number of the caller, if known, or `none', if
not. Name is the name of the caller, or empty (") if unknown.
dist-ring-nr. is the RING type, if you have "distinctive
RING" on your telephone line and your modem supports this, or "0"
for an unidentified call. Called Nr. is the number that was called
(this is only meaningful if you have ISDN, and your modem signals the
complete number called to the host - e.g. ELSA or ZyXEL 2864I do that).
For example, a call from 12345 to 56789, using ISDN, coming in on ttyS3, could lead to a program called like this:
check.cnd ttyS3 12345 '' 0 56789
The program return value decides whether the call should be accepted. Currently, the following values are defined:
0 - accept call, no specific preferences 1 - reject call
Future versions will allow external selection of the way mgetty/vgetty is supposed to answer the call (data/voice/fax/...), but that's not implemented yet.
Note: this can not only be used to decide whether to accept a call or not. You could as well use it to display the caller ID on an external LCD screen, in an X11 window, print it, initiate a D-Channel Callback, or do whatever you want that needs the Caller ID data.
Note2: be careful what kind of programs you call! They run with user id 0 (root), so that could easily be a security risk if you're not careful.
Mgetty works quite well with the compiled-in defaults (it has been
the only way to configure it for a long time), but that's quite unflexible,
and especially if you use different modem types, it's extremely unhandy.
The built-in defaults can be modified by command line options, but that's
not perfect either, because it makes `/etc/inittab' entries very long
and difficult to read.
If compiled with config file support (define MGETTY_CONFIG in
`policy.h'), mgetty can use a configuration file, quite similar
to those which "Taylor UUCP" uses, which make dynamic setup far easier.
The config file is usually located in `/etc/mgetty+sendfax/' and named `mgetty.config'. Its format is very simple. Each line contains one keyword, and possibly arguments for it, separated by whitespace. Empty lines, and comment lines (lines starting with `#') are allowed.
The config file is grouped into port-specific sections, separated by
port <tty-name> lines. Everything before the first port
line specifies global defaults, everything between two port
statements specifies configuration items valid only for exactly this
device. Let me show you an example:
# global defaults: # fax station id is always the same fax-id ++49-89-1234 # per port stuff port tty1a # This modem can't fax modem-type data port tty2a # more verbose logging for this modem debug 9
The data part of each line, following the keyword, can be a string (in most cases), a chat sequence (a series of strings, separated by whitespace, that specify the "modem talk" to do. It starts with "expect" string, then "send", then "expect" again, and so on), an integer (interpreted as decimal, octal or hexadecimal, depending on the leading character [1-9/0/0x]), or boolean (`y(es)' or `t(rue)' vs. `n(o)' or `f(alse)'). If no argument is specified, this will be considered "value not set" (if allowed) or "error" (if value is mandatory), except for boolean values. In that case, it's interpreted as `true'.
Many of those configuration items can be overriden from the command line. In that case, command line options take precedence over configuration file settings (and those take precedence over built-in defaults). In many cases, the built-in defaults can be set in `policy.h'.
The available configuration items are (command line options, if available, given in brackets):
speed [-s] port speed
Specify, as integer value, the port speed to use. Default is
DEFAULT_PORTSPEED. If the given speed is not valid, mgetty
complains loudly and exits.
switchbd fax recv. speed
Some modems, mainly Rockwell chipsets, switch to 19200 bps when entering
fax mode. Others may need other speed switches (but I know none). If your
modem is Rockwell based, try switchbd 19200 if fax reception doesn't
work. (Warning: if this is set wrongly, fax reception will
definitely fail. For most sane modems, you do not need this.).
Default is FAX_RECV_SWITCHBD.
direct yes/no [-r]
Tells mgetty that it is running on a direct line. Mgetty won't try to
initialize any modem, nor will it wait for `RING'. It will just wait
for any character, and then output the issue file and login prompt. This
option is used if you want to connect to machines via nullmodem cable.
Default is no, since mgetty is designed for modems...
blocking yes/no [-b]
Tells mgetty to open the device in `blocking' mode, that is, the
open() system call won't succeed until carrier detect is set. This
is set if mgetty is called as getty. I'm not sure whether
it's very useful, but I include it for completeness. Default is no.
port-owner username/userid
If set, mgetty will chown the tty line to the given username (you
can specify a string or an integer uid, but the integer must be valid).
This is highly recommended for security purposes: only give port access to
those users you trust not to misuse your modem lines! Default is
PORT_OWNER.
port-group groupname/gid
If set, mgetty will chgrp the tty line to this group id (which can
be given as group name, or as integer gid). If it's not given, or not
valid, the primary group id of `port-owner' will be used. Default is
PORT_GROUP.
port-mode permissons
Specifies the permissions to chmod the device to. Never
make a modem device world-accessible, better use `0660' or even
`0600'. Default is PORT_MODE.
toggle-dtr yes/no
Tells mgetty whether it should lower the DTR line upon startup to reset
modem. Default is `yes', but some (few) modems react allergic to that
and crash.
toggle-dtr-waittime msecs
Specifies the time to hold the DTR line low. Default is 500 milliseconds.
data-only yes/no [-D]
Tells mgetty to forget about faxing and only use the data part of
the modem. Default is `false'. You need this if your modem can't
distinguish incoming fax and data calls.
fax-only yes/no [-F]
Tells mgetty to put the modem in fax-only mode. You need this if
your modem can't distinguish incoming fax and data calls, but you need fax
more important than data; and you need it if you want to disable data calls
for security reasons (this could be achieved via `login.config' as well)
Watch out: if you have setup some unusual answer-chat, incoming
calls might still come through. So check your setup!
modem-type [-C] mtype
Specifies the kind of modem connected to the port. Default is
DEFAULT_MODEMTYPE. Valid options are:
ATI command to find out the modem type, and select the proper
fax class accordingly. If that fails (unknown modem type), mgetty will
try class 2.0 and then class 2.
modem-quirks 02)
fax-only true statement
for that.
modem-quirks bitmask
Some modems have a very peculiar interpretation of the fax standards.
Some of the internal operations of mgetty+sendfax can be adapted
to that. The argument is a number, constructed from valies in
`fax_lib.h', one bit per "quirk". Usually you won't need this
option, because those modems really needing it are auto-detected and
handled properly anyway.
Right now, the following quirks are defined:
0x01 leave the modem in class 2 mode instead of switching
to class 0 before sending ATA (you might try this if
adaptive fax/data answer doesn't work).
0x02 class 2 bit order is correct (MultiTech) - unimplemented
0x04 do not trust +FPTS:x,lc,blc values
0x08 do not wait for XON character when sending pages
0x20 AT+FCC/+FMINSP bug workaround for (very) old USR Courier V.32
0x40 display incoming informations about 'non standard frames' - this
might be necessary on some USR modems to work around logic bugs
init-chat [-m] expect send expect send ...
Tells mgetty the chat sequence to use for initializing the modem.
Warning: the sequence starts with expect, which will in
most cases be `""' (nothing). This ordering was chosen because UUCP
does it this way, and I wanted to avoid confusion here.
Example:
init-chat "" ATQ0E1V1H0 OK ATL0M0S0=0 OK AT&K3 OK
force-init-chat expect send expect send ...
In some cases, the modem can get stuck in a mode where it won't react to a
simple AT command. Usually this happens because the modem is set to
ignore a DTR drop and still has a data connection to the other side. If
you use a voice modem, it could be stuck in voice mode.
In these situations, the normal init-chat will time out, because
the modem won't send the proper responses back.
To get the modem back into a sane state, you can use the
force-init-chat chat sequence. The default setup will send
the DLE ETX characters, to get voice modems back to life, and then the
(pause)+++(pause)ATH0 sequence to get the modem back from data
mode to command mode.
You could prepend this sequence to init-chat (it wouldn't harm),
but especially the pauses around the +++ sequence makes this undesirable
slow.
post-init-chat expect send expect send ...
Some modems forget parts of their settings when going from data to fax
mode and back during modem initialization. For example, some USR models
forget the settings of "Caller ID delivery" (AT#CID=1), and some ELSA
modems forget their current DTE port speed when going from voice to data
mode, thus leading to RING messages being delivered with the wrong baud
rate.
For those modems, you can use this command to set up some AT commands that
are executed after all other fax and voice initialization has been done.
Be careful with what you do! If you send an ATZ (modem reset) or
something similar here, all your fax/voice settings will be lost!
modem-check-time seconds
Some modems have the nasty tendency to crash silently. With this option,
you tell mgetty to check every seconds seconds with a simple
`AT...OK' sequence whether the modem still reacts. If not,
mgetty will restart itself and do a full modem reset. Default is MODEM_CHECK_TIME
rings [-n] nnn
Sets the number of RING messages to wait for, before mgetty picks up
the phone. Default is 1. Warning: if your modem auto-answers, for
whatever reason, set this to something different than the value
set with ATS0=mmm, otherwise the modems autoanswer and mgettys
manual answer will collide (most modems hang up if a command is received
during auto-answer)
msn-list msn1 msn2 msn3...
If you have an ISDN modem that signals the called party number (MSN) to
the host, you can use this statement to map the MSN numbers to distictive
RINGs. The MSN called will be compared the list, and the first match is
used for the distinctive RING number. The list is searched from left to
right.
This is known to work with ELSA and ZyXEL ISDN terminal adaptors.
get-cnd-chat chat sequence
This is needed if you have a modem that supports "caller ID" detection,
but needs a special command to get the CID information. Right now, this is
only needed for some ELINK ISDN adaptors (see section Elink ISDN Terminal Adaptors 293, 310, 393 with X.75 and V.110), most other
CID-capable modems send the CID on their own and don't need this.
Don't forget to set rings to at least 2, otherwise the CID grabbing
code won't work.
cnd-program pathname
Specify a program to be run before answering an incoming call. Use this
if the static Caller ID selection in CNDFILE (policy.h) is not sufficient,
or if you want to use the Caller ID data for other purposes (displaying,
for example). See section Using Caller-ID to selectively accept or reject calls.
answer-chat chat sequence
This is the command sequence that is used to answer a phone call. Usually
you can leave it at the default ` "" ATA CONNECT \c \r ', but for
some modems you need `ATS0=1' in place of `ATA' (ATA not
allowed). The extra `\r' expect string is needed that the code can
grab the full CONNECT xyz\r string. It will work without the \r,
but then the logging information will be less detailed. Right now,
\r won't work at all, it's not implemented yet. Don't use it.
answer-chat-timeout secs
During the answer-chat, each "expect" string must be seen in the time
specified here. Default is 80 seconds. This time should be at least some 5
seconds longer than the time set with the ATS7=... modem setup
command.
autobauding yes/no [-a]
Some modems switch their DTE line speed to the communication line speed
after connecting, e.g., after sending `CONNECT 2400', the modem
switches to 2400 bps. Newer modems usually have a switch to "lock" a DTE
baud rate, which is strongly recommended. If your modem insists on doing
this speed switch, setting autobauding to true will make
mgetty behave accordingly.
ringback yes/no [-R]
If you have to put your modem and your telephone on the same phone line,
you can switch on "ringback" or "ring-twice". This means, mgetty won't
answer the phone on the first call, but remember the call, and pick up on
the second call (if it comes in the time specified by ringback-time).
ringback-time secs
This setting specifies how much time may pass between the first and the
second call if "ringback" is active. Default is 30 seconds.
ignore-carrier
If your Modem does not assert the DCD (carrier detect) line, or the
serial port or cable or serial driver is broken, it is possible that
mgetty or login will block after a successful CONNECT
(that means: everything seems to work, but suddenly nothing is sent
to the port anymore. Depending on the operating system used, this can
be before printing the `/etc/issue' file or not before printing
the `password:' prompt.
To work around this, you can switch off the carrier detection in the
kernel: set ignore-carrier true. Default is false.
WARNING: If you use this, your system won't be able to detect
when a caller just hangs up instead of cleanly logging out. This may
result in hanging modems, etc.
issue-file [-i] file
This is the file printed before the login prompt. Default is
`/etc/issue'. Some special characters are substituted by connect
speed, date, etc. - see below (login-prompt) for a list.
prompt-waittime msecs
This specifies how long mgetty will wait for modem and line to
settle down before printing issue file and login prompt. Default is 500
milliseconds.
login-prompt [-p] prompt
This specifies the login prompt that mgetty will output. Some special
characters in this string (and in the issue file, btw) are recognized and
replaced by something else:
login-time secs
This specifies the maximum time the user can take to log in. If no login
has occured after that time, mgetty will hang up. Default is
MAX_LOGIN_TIME from `policy.h'.
fido-send-emsi yes/no
Only relevant when mgetty was compiled with -DFIDO. Controls
whether mgetty should send a FidoNET style "EMSI_REQA77E" packet before
prompting for login. Default is on. Switch this off if you have FIDO
support compiled in but experience weird problems with some PPP clients
(or users!) being confused by that string.
login-conf-file pathname
Specifies the path and filename of the 'login.config' file that tells
mgetty which program to call for login. See the example login.config
file to get some ideas what to do with it.
The file name given will be ignored for security reasons if the file is
not owned by 'root', or is readable or writeable by anybody else than
'root' (that is, it must be mode 0600 or 0200).
fax-id [-I] local fax number
This sets the fax station ID used in fax mode to identify your site to the
caller (usually this is simply your fax phone number). Default is
FAX_STATION_ID.
fax-server-file [-S] poll control file
Specifies the fax file(s) that is to be sent if someone else calls your
modem in fax polling mode, that is, the caller receives a
document.
Normally, the file given is a text file, containing the list of G3 files to
send to the calling machine, one file per line. Comment lines (starting
with "#") are ignored. For backward compatibility, mgetty does
check whether the named file is a G3 file itself, in which case this file
is sent directly (but then, you can only send one page).
Not all modems support fax poll server mode, I know that the ZyXEL
and MultiTech do, and USR does not.
diskspace [-k] kbytes
This setting tells mgetty the minimum amount of disk space that has to be
available in the fax spool directory for fax reception to be allowed.
Default is 1 Mbyte.
notify mail address
This is the address that will get mails if a fax is received. Not fully
tested.
fax-owner username/uid
fax-group groupname/gid
fax-mode perms
Similar to port-owner/group/mode, these settings specify the owner,
group and file mode mgetty will use for incoming faxes. Defaults are taken
from FAX_IN_OWNER, FAX_IN_GROUP, and
FAX_FILE_MODE.
fax-spool-in dir1:dir2:dirn
Specifies a directory, or list of directories, where incoming faxes are
saved. Multiple directories are tried in order until, the first one
that has enough disk space and is writeable is used.
The default setting is taken from FAX_SPOOL_IN in the Makefile
usually /var/spool/fax/incoming:/tmp (/tmp is used as fallback).
debug [-x] debug level
This sets the amount of logging mgetty will do. A good value is
4, more details are seen with 5, and 9 is really noisy.
Try it! The log data is written to the file specified by LOG_PATH in
`policy.h', usually this is something like `/var/log/mgetty.log.ttyxx'.
gettydefs gd tag
If you use the gettdefs feature of mgetty -- which is not
recommended! -- this specifies the gettydefs tag to use for the given line.
See man gettydefs, man mgettydefs.
term terminal type
If you are on Linux or similar OSes that have getty set the
TERM=xxx terminal type variable, and have no other method to set it
(e.g. from `/etc/profile' or `$HOME/.profile'), mgetty can
do it for you. Just specify `term vt100' or so. I don't think
it's a good idea to specify the terminal type on a per line base (what if
all your callers use different terminal types?), so the default is
unset.
Both mgetty and sendfax deal exclusively with raw "g3" fax files ("g3" stands for "group 3", which is the CCITT standard for encoding images for fax transmission). You will have to use external programs to create, view or print these.
There are two kinds of g3 files, the high resolution type with 204x196 dpi and the low ("normal") resolution ones with 204x98 dpi. If you mix up the two, the recipient will get a fax page that is either twice or half the proper length. You have been warned.
The width of a fax page is always 1728 pixels, the length is arbitrary (though there are some plain paper fax machines out there that limit the page length to A4 paper). A typical full page has a length around 2100 pixels in high-resolution mode.
I recommend getting the `pbmplus' package written by Jeff Poskanzer,
which includes lots of small programs to convert various bitmap formats
into a portable intermediate format (pbm) that can easily be
converted to fax format with the pbm2g3 program. Further, it comes
with lots of tools to scale, flip, and otherwise manipulate the pbm
bitmaps. Be warned: it includes its own version of G3 conversion programs
(pbmtog3 and g3topbm), so be careful which one you use.
The programs in the mgetty package (pbm2g3 and
g32pbm) behave slightly different (that is, they work!), and are
significantly faster. Note that the pbmplus package does not
include a graphical front end.
The `pbmplus' package can be found on most major FTP sites, e.g. on ftp.x.org in the `/contrib' directory. See section How to get the mentioned software by FTP?.
If you want to view the images using X11, you should get one of the many image viewers, like `xview', `xloadimage' or `xv'. See section Additional tools for working with g3 files. A simple, but very fast fax viewer can be found in `mgetty/frontends/X11/'.
Here are some examples for viewing fax files using g32pbm:
cat $faxfile | g32pbm | pnmtops -noturn | lp -dest postscript
cat $file | g32pbm | pnmscale -xscale 1.76 -yscale 0.92 |\
pgmtopbm | pbmtodot -360x180| lp -o epson -
$ viewfax -v $file $ cat $file | g32pbm >/tmp/fax.pbm ; xloadimage /tmp/fax.pbm $ g32pbm $file | xv -
There are three easy ways to create g3 fax files, either use pbm2g3
(included in this package. Do not use pbmtog3 from the pbmplus
toolkit. See section pbmtog3.), use GhostScript (GNU Software, can be found on
prep.ai.mit.edu) which contains a "digifax" driver that will produce the
required format, or try Chris Lewis' `hp2pbm' package which will
convert HP Laserjet print files into g3 fax files (hp2hig3
program).
Once you have the right tools, there are lots of ways to create fax files for a wide variety of applications. Here are some examples:
gs -sDEVICE=dfaxhigh -sOutputFile=/tmp/fax.g3.%d yourdocument.psDo not use the "tiffg3" or similar drivers, they will create output files with headers that sendfax does not understand, thus causing the receiving fax machine to reject the data (it will assume that the transmitted headers are garbled data). If you use Ghostscript version 3.01 and up, you can use the `faxg3' driver as well, its output is identical to the output of the `dfaxhigh' driver except for the 64 byte header. Besides this, there should not be any difference. I have observed that with Ghostscript 5.01, the output of the `faxg3' driver is rendered better than that of the `dfaxhigh' driver. In addition, the former is compiled-in by default, while the latter is not. Thus, the default driver used by
faxspool is now (starting with 1.1.7)
the `faxg3' driver.
pbm2g3 at the
end.
epsf macros to include
encapsulated PostScript files, e.g. a scanned signature.
faxdvi
package, found at
`ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/unix/networking/mgetty/faxdvi-1.1.tar.gz'. Don't
ask me about, ask him!
hp2hig3 that will read
HP-Laserjet `PCL4' files and produce G3 output.
Warning: the G3 files that hp2hig3 emits lack the leading EOL
code, thus causing sendfax to complain and possibly fail. As a quick
fix, you can pipe those files through g3cat, it will fix the data.
A rather crude sample conversion program (faxcvt) is provided in
the fax directory.
Better conversion, including guessing of the format of the input files,
is done by the faxspool program, also provided in the fax
directory. See section Automated fax queuing.
If everything has been set up properly, faxes will be received
automatically. Obviously, mgetty has to be listening to the proper modem
line. Then, if a fax arrives, mgetty will store it in the directory
FAX_SPOOL_IN (or the directory configured in `mgetty.config',
see section Runtime configuration for mgetty: `mgetty.config') and send a mail to MAIL_TO (defined
in `policy.h').
The file name format is somewhat tricky (the reason behind it is that I
have to create something unique without using mktemp(), because that
would make it impossible to find out which pages belong to which fax). It
is:
f<res><seq><line>[-<remote id>].<pagenr>
<res> is n or f, depending on the resolution of the
fax. <seq> is a sequence number, 7 digits wide, somewhat related to
the reception time. <line> are the last two letters of the tty
device, e.g. `S1'. If the sending side specified a fax station id,
it comes next, after a leading dash (all blanks are replaced by dashes).
Finally, after a dot, you'll see the page number.
If you want to process incoming faxes automatically, for example, print them, re-send them to another fax, send them by mail to you when you're on vacation, you could use what I call "notify programs":
If you define FAX_NOTIFY_PROGRAM in `policy.h', mgetty
will call this program (or shell script) when a fax has been completely
received. It will be called with the following command line arguments:
FAX_NOTIFY_PROGRAM <hangup code> '<sender id>' <nr of pages> \
<file name page 1> <file name page 2> ...
<hangup code> is 0 if the receive was successful, non-zero otherwise. <sender id> is the fax identification string received from the other side. <file name page (i)> is the full path name for each received page.
A sample command line might look like this:
/usr/bin/new_fax 0 "+49 89 3243328" 1 /var/spool/fax/ff-01.a123
Such a "notify program" could print out the fax, convert it into a MIME metamail and send it away, display it in an X window (this a little bit tricky), or whatever. (A friend of mine uses it on his Linux box to call a program that will make the keyboard LEDs blink when a fax has arrived -- as you can see, maximum flexibility is possible).
I provide a few examples (printing on HP laserjet, mailing as gzip'ed, uuencoded pbm file, ...) in `samples/new_fax.*'
If you have the dialog shell tool, you can use the faxv
program ("faxview") that I provide in `frontends/dialog/faxv' to
browse through all faxes in the incoming spool directory, view them, print
them, rename and move them, .... `faxv' is really more a sample
program to show you how to do it, and you have to configure the X11 viewer
and the printing program in the source code, but I use it for my faxes, and
it works. Because of limitations on some operating systems, the list of
faxes displayed is limited to the last 50 faxes received.
sendfax usageSendfax is very primitive--no spool management, no format conversion, etc. It is designed to be able to send exactly one fax (consisting of multiple pages) to exactly one fax machine, but it is usable from within shell scripts. Its input are pages in "g3" format, either created with ghostscript or with pbm2g3.
It is called like this:
sendfax [-v] [-n] <phone-number> <fax page(s)>
e.g.
sendfax 0893243328 /tmp/to_gert_1.g3 /var/spool/fax/outgoing/picture.g3
It will then attempt to open the fax device and send all the pages to the remote fax machine, in the given order.
It will print little or nothing to stdout or stderr, except if it cannot find or open one of the named files, or if some transmission errors occur.
(There are a few stubs in the code to put headers on the pages at run-time,
but since most class 2 faxmodems do not implement the command set properly,
putting a header on a page does not work with them - because of that, I had
to disable the corresponding code. faxspool works around this
problem by using g3cat (see section Additional tools for working with g3 files) to "paste" a header
line on top of each page)
If you specify `-v', sendfax will output more verbose progress messages.
If you specify `-n', it will try to send the fax data in normal resolution, default is fine resolution. (No conversion is done, so make sure that your input data is already in the proper format.)
Detailed reports can be found in the log file (usually `/var/log/sendfax.log') -- but they may be of little more than technical interest since virtually all conversation with the fax modem is logged. (Nevertheless, if you send me any bug report, please include all log files)
Warning: Watch sendfax closely when sending the first few faxes. I had it abort a transfer a couple of times, not being able to recover and not hanging up the modem (the modem was completely locked up, with the phone line off-hook)! In my case, it was a problem of the modem that went away when I upgraded the firmware. Very old ZyXEL releases sometimes stopped the DTE and forgot to re-start it again.
The return codes of the sendfax program were chosen to make it easy for external programs (i.e. faxrunq) to decide whether to try again or not:
0: all pages transmitted successful
1: error on command line
2: cannot open fax device (typically happens if fax device is
locked, but could also be a permission problem)
3: error initializing the modem
4: dial failed, "BUSY"
5: dial failed, "NO DIALTONE"
10: dial failed, "ERROR" or "NO CARRIER"
11: waiting for XON failed (should never be seen)
12: transmitting page(s) failed (or polling failed)
15: some catastrophe hit (termination signal or blocked modem)
If the error code is less than 10, the attempt didn't cost anything, so an
external program should try again to send the files. If it is 10 or higher,
the failed attempt probably cost something, and the program should decide
whether to try again (thus expending more money) or mail the operator and
tell him something went wrong. My faxrunq program will suspend the
job after five unsuccessful tries with error codes >= 10.
sendfaxSendfax can also be used for fax polling (that is, you call someone and initiate a fax connection, and then receive a document. Don't confuse it with fax-on-demand, this is something different), the syntax is:
sendfax -p <fax-number>
or for sending a fax and then switch to polling:
sendfax -p <fax-number> <send-documents>
(in this case <send-documents> are sent, and then the documents from the other modem are polled, if there are any)
the received pages are written to the current directory, so make sure you have write access...
Warning: Fax polling does not work with ZyXEL Modems with ROM releases before 6.00 - with the 6.01 and 6.10 Eproms it works, but 6.11a is broken again. 6.12 and 6.13 work fine.
It definitely doesn't work with some Rockwell-based Faxmodems (Supra), since many versions of this chipset does not support polling. Some work, though, so you simply have to try it.
Could anybody try this with an Everex Faxmodem?
For fax spooling and processing the queue, four additional utility programs are provided:
faxspool will spool a number of files (accepting various formats)
and put them into the fax spool directory. Its syntax is:
faxspool [options] phone-number input-file(s)`phone-number' can be an alias, in this case the private and global alias files `$HOME/.faxnrs' and `/etc/mgetty+sendfax/faxaliases' will be searched for a line starting with this alias. The remainder of this line will then be used as fax number.
faxspool interacts with the file program and
`/etc/magic' to determine the file type of the input files. If your
`/etc/magic' lacks entries for the various bitmap files, take a look
at `fax/etc-magic', it contains the most important magic numbers.
faxspool reads the text to put on top of each fax page from a text
file, `faxheader', located in `/etc/mgetty+sendfax/'. This file must
contain pure ASCII text. Some tokens are replaced by the actual values:
@T@ becomes the destination phone number, @P@ becomes the actual and
@M@ the total page number, and @U@ is replaced by the user name. If
your fax modem cuts of a few lines on top of each page, it may be a good
idea to put a blank line before the header line itself, and it is also a
good idea to indent the line about 5 spaces.
For the available options, please read the `faxspool.1' man page.
faxrunq will read this directory and try to send all the faxes
queued there (time scheduling is available, but primitive). If faxrunq
succeeds, the fax is deleted and the sender is mailed. If it does not
succeed after five tries (`BUSY' or a locked fax modem do
not count for this) it will send a mail and not try any further
to send this fax. (This should prevent your faxmodem from making you
bancrupt...).
faxrunq should be called at regular intervals from cron to
process the queued jobs. It should only be executed by root, to
make sure that all the files in the fax spool directory are read- and
writeable.
faxq will display all entries in the fax queue. If called with
the `-o' parameter, it will also display completed, but not yet
deleted jobs (JOB.done files). If called with the `-v' parameter, the
output will be more verbose.
Jobs that are just being sent are not shown (faxq doesn't see locked
jobs)
faxrm can be used to remove fax jobs from the queue. It is called
with the job ids of the to-be-removed faxes as command line argument. The
job ids are those that faxq returns.
These utilities do still have some rough edges, but I think they are fairly usable by now.
Earlier variants of those utilities had to be configured in the source
code, from release 0.20 on, this is done by make. Please check the
scripts nevertheless, whether all directories and files are set up
properly.
Some additional tools are provided for manipulating G3 fax files:
g3cat (in the `g3/' directory) concatenates multiple G3
fax files. It accepts "raw" g3 files and digifax files and outputs a
"raw" g3 file without headers. Its syntax is analogous to
cat, except that you have to specify `-' to read
from `stdin'.
g3cat recognizes two flags: -l, to separate the fax files
with a thin black line, and -a to byte-align the end-of-line
codes in the file (Warning: some modems do not like this).
pbm) format, you can use the g32pbm program that is
also provided in `g3/'. It's advantages over Jef's
g3topbm program are that it's approximately five times faster
and takes only one eigth as much virtual memory (on machines with low
virtual memory, it can thus be up to 100 times faster!). Its disadvantage
is that it produces only "raw" (i.e., binary) `pbm' files; and
it's not as stable when handling erroneous `g3' data (means that
if one line is severly corrupted, it can happen that the next line
will not be decoded properly. The rest of the file will then be OK
again).
Syntax:
g32pbm [-r] [-s] [-l] [-d <dpi>] [g3-file]If no g3 file is specified, standard input is used. The
-s(tretch) option causes g32pbm to double each row of
the g3 file. You can use this to adjust the aspect ratio of a "normal"
resolution fax file to match that of a "fine" resolution fax. Of course
you can use other pbmplus tools for this instead, but
-s is sure to be faster.
If you have a HP Laserjet printer, you can make g32pbm output HP
LJ data with the -l switch. The desired resolution is chosen with
the -d 75|150|300 switch.
pbm2g3 program that will
convert Jef Poskanzer's Portable BitMap format into G3 fax data suitable
for faxing with sendfax. The `pbm' files can be produced by
various sources, e.g. drawing programs (xpaint), bitmap manipulation
programs (xv), or simply be converted from other file formats by
means of the `pbmplus' tools.
As above, my variant is a lot faster than Jef's, and unlike his, it
produces g3 data that adheres to the T.4 standard (if you don't fiddle too
much with the options...), so you don't have to apply any patches to make
it work together with sendfax.
Syntax:
pbm2g3 [-r] [-a] [-w page with] [-h blank lines] [pbm-file]if no pbm file is specified, standard input is used. For a detailed description, see the `pbm2g3(1)' man page.
viewfax. To view G3 data files under X11, Frank D. Cringle has
written a very nice and fast tool that will display the files on screen,
turn them, zoom them in and out, ...
The source code can be found in the `mgetty/frontends/X11' directory.
It's not (yet) built and installed by default, but it's straightforward.
For a detailed description, see the `README' and `viewfax.man'
files in that directory.
g3toxwd program, found in the
`contrib/' directory.
g3tolj program (also in the
`contrib/' directory), or you use my g32pbm program with the
-l option, which will make it output LJ data.
It is possible to tell mgetty to answer the phone even if it is not
ringing (I call this "virtual rings"). Just send mgetty a signal
SIGUSR1, this is usually done with `kill -USR1
<mgetty-pid>'. Mgetty will then pick up the phone and try to make a
connection.
If you have a normal fax machine connected to the fax modem, it should be possible to have that fax machine dial any digit (to turn off the dial tone), and then have mgetty answer the phone to receive the "incoming" fax, thus using the fax machine as scanner without paying for a call. For a description of an sample setup (thanks, caz!), please see `doc/scanner.txt'.
Whether it works may depend on your phone company's setup, but it should.
If you have a modem that has a `data/voice' button, it should also be possible to hit that button to make the modem pick up the phone. Mgetty will automatically notice that and handle it properly. (I've tested this only with ZyXELs - could somebody else please test this with other modem types and send me a logfile? Thanks)
Basically, sendfax can work very well with the compiled-in defaults
(from `policy.h'), sometimes slightly modified by command line
options.
If you use more than one fax modem, possibly of different type, this is very awkward, because the command line will get very long. For that reason, there is a configuration file which will control nearly every detail of sendfax' behaviour.
It is usually named `/etc/mgetty+sendfax/sendfax.config'.
The config file consists of multiple sections, separated from each other by the keyword `port'. All configuration options given before the first `port' statement specify global options, and everything between two `port' statements applies only for the device with the given name (`port' takes an argument). Let me show you an example:
# global defaults: # fax station id is always the same fax-id ++49-89-1234 # always have the speaker on modem-init ATM1L3 # port specific: for /dev/tty1a, switch the speaker off port tty1a modem-init ATM0L0 # port specific: for ttyS1, use another fax station id port ttyS1 fax-id ++1234567
As you can see, empty lines and comment lines (starting with "#") are allowed.
Every line in the config file that is not a comment - or empty - starts with a keyword (listed in detail below), followed by a "data" field. In the example above, `fax-id' is the keyword, `++49-89-1234' is the corresponding data, the fax ID for the sending machine. Most data fields are strings, but there are a few boolean and integer items.
The available keywords are (if it's possible to set this item from the command line, the flag is given in brackets).
fax-devices [-l] ttys
Sets the fax modems to use, e.g. `tty1a:tty2a'. Default is
FAX_MODEM_TTYS from `policy.h'. The device names given here are
used to look up the corresponding port section later. Watch out for
upper-/lowercase.
It is not very useful to specify this in the per-port section, so it is
ignored if met there.
modem-init [-m] command
Specifies an `AT...' command that is to be sent to the modem right at
the beginning of all modem talk (even before setting the modem
into fax mode, so this could be an `ATZ' if you want to reset the
modem).
modem-handshake command
Specifies an `AT...' command that will be sent to the modem at the
end of the modem initialization, right before dialing. Do
not use ATZ or such here, since resetting the modem will switch off fax
mode. Default is FAX_MODEM_HANDSHAKE.
modem-type [-C] type
Force the modem command set to use. Default is `auto' (auto-detect,
which may not work on very cheap modems), possible other values are
`cls2', for "class 2 only" modems, and `c2.0' for "class 2.0"
faxmodems. Default is DEFAULT_MODEMTYPE. See section Runtime configuration for mgetty: `mgetty.config'.
modem-quirks bitmask
Same as in mgetty, this can be used to adapt sendfax to
some peculiarities in certain modems. See section Runtime configuration for mgetty: `mgetty.config'.
max-tries nnn
Specify the maximum number of tries per page if the receiving end reports
reception errors. If nnn tries do not suffice to successfully
transmit a page, sendfax will give up or simply go on, depending on
the setting of max-tries-continue (see below). If this is set to
`0', sendfax will ignore retransmission requests and simply go
on. Default is FAX_SEND_MAX_TRIES.
max-tries-continue y|n
After the maximum number of tries for one page are reached, sendfax
can report an error and abort (max-tries-continue no), or go
on with the next page (yes).
For "mission critical" faxes, I'd set it to no, but since the page
quality is most often quite good even if reported as "page bad", the
default is yes.
speed baudrate
Set the port speed to use for fax send operations. Usually, `38400' is
a good choice, but a few dumb modems (for example, some based on rockwell
chipsets) need `19200' or even `9600'. A few modems can go
higher, but sendfax may not support it, and it may not always work.
Default is FAX_SEND_BAUD.
switchbd baudrate
On some (very few) modems it is necessary to start with baudrate "A" and
switch to baudrate "B" after sending the `AT+FCLASS=2' command. If you
specify this, sendfax will switch from speed to
switchbd right after setting the modem to class 2/2.0. Default is
FAX_SEND_SWITCHBD, I'd recommend not using it unless you're
sure that you need it.
open-delay msec
A few modems respond to raising the DTR line (when opening the device)
with `OK'. This can confuse sendfax, because it will see
this OK as response to the next command. In the log file, you can see if
your modem exhibits this problem if the echo of each AT command
can be seen when waiting for the response to the next AT
command. With open-delay you can give a number of milliseconds to
wait after the device is active until sendfax flushes all incoming
responses and goes ahead.
The only modems that need this so far are an ELSA 33.6 and an ELSA
MicroLink 56k, and delaying for about 1500 ms cured the problem.
ignore-carrier y|n
Some misbehaving modems lower the DCD (carrier detect) line briefly
between sending multiple pages. Depending on the operating system used,
this may cause all subsequent port accesses on this serial port to fail.
You'll recognize it if you get a "weird-looking" sendfax log file that works
fine up to the end of the first page, and then aborts with `I/O
error' or so.
In earlier versions, you could achieve this by setting
FAX_SEND_IGNORE_CARRIER in `policy.h', but this has been
removed. Use the config file instead.
Modems where this is known to be necessary include all USR modems
(Courier and Sportsters), some ZyXEL 1496 EG(+), and some GVC models.
The default is ignore-carrier yes, as there are just too many users
out there to read documentation, and it does less harm that way.
dial-prefix command
This is the command used for dialing out. Usually this will be something
simple, as `ATD' or `ATDP', but if you have an unusual setup, it
could also be something like `ATX0DP0;X4DT' (meaning: switch off
dial-tone detection, pulse-dial `0', back to command mode, switch on
dial-tone detection, and go ahead dialing with touch tones). The phone
number will be sent right after the dial-prefix. Default is
FAX_DIAL_PREFIX.
fax-id [-I] your fax phone
specifies the "fax station id" used to identify your fax machine to the
receiving end. Usually this is the telephone number of your own fax
machine, but if you want to (and if your modem support it), you can put up
to 20 alphanumeric characters here, e.g. +1-11-222 Fred. Default is
FAX_STATION_ID.
Watch out: the faxspool program only uses the global
definition from sendfax' config file, so the fax id it puts on the header
might not be the same as the one transmitted by sendfax, if you use port
specific settings for fax-id in `sendfax.config' (Paul Sands).
poll-dir [-d] full path
This is used to specify a directory where polled faxes (wheather maps and
such) are to be saved into. Default is the current directory.
normal-res y|n [-n]
If set to `yes' or `true' (boolean), sendfax won't attempt
to make a fax connection in "fine resolution" mode. Normally you won't need
to use that option, since faxrunq will set the -n switch if
needed. Default is `no'
fax-min-speed speed
Sets the lowest transmission speed that the modem will negotiate with
the receiving modem. (Not implemented yet).
fax-max-speed speed [-M]
Sets the maximum transmission speed that the modem will negotiate with the
fax receiver. Usually, you don't need this, as decent modems will pick
the best speed automtically, but sometimes (e.g. for the USR Courier
series) this doesn't always works, and transmission fails with +FHS:25.
If you see that error, you might want to try fax-max-speed 7200.
verbose y|n [-v]
If set to `yes' or `true', sendfax will output progress
reports on stdout, if set to `no', sendfax will only print
error and warning messages. Default is `no'.
debug [-x] nn
controls the amount of information written into the fax log file
(FAX_LOG in `policy.h'). `0' means "totally silent" (not
even errors are written), `9' is really noisy. I usually use `3'
or `4' in normal use, and `6' for debugging. Default is
LOG_LEVEL.
page-header [-h] file
Yet unused (because of implementation shortcomings in all tested modems)
To show you how it will look like, I have included a sample `sendfax.config' file below. Three modem lines exist on my system, all modems have different initialization and flow control commands, and on one line I have to tell the modem to use pulse dial because the PBX is too old.
# # sample configuration file for sendfax # # global settings verbose y # the modems are attached to the following ports: fax-devices tty1a:tty2a:tty4c # this is my fax number fax-id +49-89-xxxxxx # generic defaults modem-init ATL3M1 dial-prefix ATD debug 4 # port specific overrides # Zoom 28K8 port tty1a modem-handshake AT&K4 # MultiTech port tty2a dial-prefix ATDP modem-handshake # ^^^ this means "no extra command to set modem handshake" debug 9 # ZyXEL port tty4c modem-init ATM1L2 modem-handshake AT&H3
This chapter explains how you can use mgetty to implement an answering machine if you have a modem that understands the voice command set (i.e. the ZyXEL).
The first version of these extentions was written by Klaus Weidner.
Since February 1995 these extentions are now developed and maintained by Marc Eberhard (Marc.Eberhard@Poseidon.ThPhy.Uni-Duesseldorf.DE). Since late 1998, Marc Schaefer (schaefer@alphanet.ch) took over vgetty development. Please see http://www-internal.alphanet.ch/~schaefer/vgetty.html for vgetty specific information, patches and releases, and please send email about the voice features to him, not to me.
I have removed the whole chapter from the documentation for now, as the voice stuff has changed too much, but the docs were not updated accordingly. Please see the programs and examples in the `voice' subdirectory for ideas how to get it going. Configuration is explained in `voice.conf'.
The `voice' subtree is NOT included in the official release 1.0, because of the lack of documentation, and because Marc thinks it's not stable enough yet. It is included in the 0.99 and 1.1 beta development trees, so if you want to play with it, get one of those version. BUT keep in mind what "beta" means: lacking documentation, problems, crashes, whatever.
This chapter tries to describe some known problems that can occur when installing or using this package. Don't worry, most of these have been solved.
This section describes problems that can occur when using various types of modems. Unfortunately, the class 2 fax implementations vary quite a bit between different manufacturers.
Many of the instructions for certain modem types below still refer to
changing #defines in `policy.h' instead of listing the
appropriate `mgetty.config'/`sendfax.config' lines, mainly
because I haven't had the time to figure it out myself and didn't get
enough feedback from config file users yet.
ATS0=0), because it will interfere
with the manual answer done by mgetty. If you have to use
auto-answer, set the mgetty ring-counter (-n <i>) high enough
that mgetty will never try to answer the phone manually.
ATV1. Otherwise, the modem won't return `CONNECT'
or `RING' but `1' or `2' as result code, and mgetty
definitely doesn't understand that. By default, mgetty sets
ATV1 automatically, but if you change the init sequence, watch out
for this.
ATT&W
for touch-tone, ATP&W for pulse dialing) -- sendfax uses
ATD... to dial out, assuming that the modem knows which dialing
method to use. Alternatively, set FAX_DIAL_PREFIX in `policy.h'
or dial-prefix in `sendfax.config' accordingly.
ATZ (modem reset).
These settings ought to work with most modems:
ATS0=0: do not auto-answer, E1: echo on, Q0: send
modem responses, &D3: reset on DTR->low.
The following, for example, are ZyXEL specific things:
&H3: set handshake to RTS+CTS,
&N0: "multi-auto" connect, accept all known protocols,
&K4: enable v42bis/mnp5 compression.
Naturally, you can use any init string you want (but the modem has to
return OK) -- check with your modem manual.
RING messages
are not recognized, and mgetty complains about `junk on the line'.
In all those cases, it were baud rate problems. The modem was initialized
with an init-sequence of "" ATZ OK only. Problem with this is,
after ATZ, the modem changes to the DTE baud rate that the last AT&W
command was sent with. If that baud rate differs from the mgetty
port speed, a RING won't be detected. Fix is easy: send another
AT command after the ATZ. For example, make the init
sequence "" ATZ OK AT OK. The second AT command will
set the modem back to the mgetty port speed.
char *def_init_chat_seq[] =
{ "", "\\d\\d\\d+++\\d\\d\\d\r\\dATQ0V1H0", "OK",
to
char *def_init_chat_seq[] =
{ "", "\\d\\d\\d\\d\\d\\d+++\\d\\d\\d\r\\dATQ0V1H0", "OK",
^^^^^^^^^ additional delays here
Or, if you don't want to modify the code, just set the init-chat
sequence in `mgetty.config' accordingly.
Alternatively, you can just switch off the toggling of DTR
(since the HUPCL flag is set, it should work as well) by setting
toggle-dtr no in `mgetty.config'.
DO_CHAT_SEND_DELAY and FAX_COMMAND_DELAY in
`policy.h'.
sendfax normally runs
carrier-sensitive, and will then get a lot error messages in the
read and write calls, logging them as I/O Error or
something similar when sending the first or second page. To work around
this, set ignore-carrier true in `sendfax.config'.
If you run into this problem, sendfax will complain about
`Error +FHNG:-5 (Unexpected hangup / read() error / write() error)'
and abort.
ATH0, responding with `ERROR' to
that. Just modify the init-chat setting in `mgetty.config' to
send ATH instead of ATH0. This will fix it.
pbm2g3 program, or an old copy of hp2hig3, it will
cause bad G3 files.
Recently, a new problem appeared for postscript files created by certain
programs that insist on setting their ideas of the page size (some
versions of WinWord, FrameMaker, and dvipsk). If used together with
ghostscript 3.*, the resulting G3 file's width isn't correct. For a
fix, try creating the postscript file with a different program, use a
newer version of ghostscript, or an older one (2.62 is fine). Quite often
it helps to add -sPAPERSIZE=a4 to Ghostscript's command line (in
faxspool).
With a mgetty version later than June 1996, the g3cat
program should take care of this problem, fixing the line width
on-the-fly. It will print a warning, to tell you about the problem,
though. So if you get this warning, faxing should work, but you'd better
check all your programs anyway.
data-only keyword in
the configuration file, and Fax-Only with the fax-only keyword.
In some cases, those problems may be caused by the modem forgetting the
AT+FAA=1 command if it receives any other command after it. To fix
it, it may help to change the "answer chat command" in the config file to
answer-chat "" AT+FAA=1;A CONNECT \c \rif this helps for your modem, please tell me so, and I'll include it into the documentation. Some other modems can distinguish the different call types most of the time, but some 2400 bps modems mysteriously fail. That may be caused by some -- strange -- modems sending a certain tone when calling the other side, and the receiving end mistaking that for the fax calling tone. Arne Marschall said about that: "...Or try calling your modem with your phone and whistle. If it says "+fcon" it is one one those which can't deal with modems using a calling tone" - try it. Another, quite simplistic approach of some modem manufacturers is that they distinguish Fax by waiting until the time specified in register
S7 (time to carrier) runs out, and then switching from data to
fax carrier. That normally works quite well - if the other side is patient
enough to wait that long .... For example, if the modem
switches to fax after 60 seconds have passed, and the caller has a timeout
of 50 seconds, it will definitely fail. If in doubt, try setting
ATS7=30 (but only if all else fails - and don't ask me why it
doesn't work...)
fax_wait_for(OK). Most likely, the
FAX_RECEIVE_SWITCHBD (`policy.h') resp. switchbd
(`mgetty.config') speed is set wrongly. Nearly all cheapo modems
(e.g. Rockwell-Chip based ones) step to 19200 bps upon fax reception, and
setting this option to `19200' will tell mgetty about it. Better
modems have no need for that, so if you have defined it and your modem
does *not* change bit rates, it won't work either.
If you have this problem, your log file for an incoming fax call will look
like this:
09/21 09:55:48 yS1 waiting for ``RING'' 09/21 09:55:48 yS1 got: [0d][0a]RING ** found ** 09/21 09:55:48 yS1 send: ATA[0d] 09/21 09:55:48 yS1 waiting for ``CONNECT'' 09/21 09:55:48 yS1 got: [0d][0a]ATA[0d][0d][0a]FAX 09/21 09:55:50 yS1 found action string: ``FAX'' 09/21 09:55:50 yS1 start fax receiver... 09/21 09:55:50 yS1 fax receiver: entry 09/21 09:55:50 yS1 fax_wait_for(OK) 09/21 09:55:56 yS1 fax_wait_for: string '+FCON' 09/21 09:57:50 yS1 Warning: got alarm signal! 09/21 09:57:50 yS1 fax_read_byte: read returned -1: Interrupted system call 09/21 09:57:50 yS1 fax_get_line: cannot read byte, return: Interrupted system call
mgetty has done its work), for example, /bin/login blocks
infinitely, the caller is thrown out immediately again, or the shell won't
notice a logout, etc.
Quite often, this is caused by a modem not setting the data carrier detect
(DCD) line properly (properly meaning here "reflecting the actual line
conditions"). On most modems this is done with the AT&C1 command.
Another possibility are too long or otherwise broken modem cables that
corrupt the signals, and introduce noise on the modem control lines. Flat
cables are famous for this, use round, shielded modem cables, no longer
than necessary.
mgetty will complain loudly if you switch off your modem.
Well, what should I say, this is a feature :-) -- I think that mgetty
should detect and complain if a modem is not working, and if you switch it
off, it is most definitely not working.
Others argue about power consumption, noise, lights, and everything -- but
I refuse to make mgetty less noisy in case of a powered-off modem. But, as
usual, there is a way around this (which is what came out of a discussion
with Rolf Ade recently). You just create a file, `/etc/nomodem.ttyS1',
or however you want to name it, when you intend to switch off your modem.
Instead of running mgetty from `/etc/inittab', you run a
"wrapper" script that will wait until the nomodem file disappears,
and then starts mgetty. That way, you can just prevent
mgetty from starting when you don't want it to.
The wrapper is easy:
#!/bin/sh # while test -f /etc/nologin.ttyS1 do sleep 60 done exec /usr/local/sbin/mgetty ttyS1A more advanced wrapper program could, for example, check the status of the DSR line to determine whether the modem is active, but as so many systems have flakey DSR detection (Solaris, AIX), I didn't bother to invest much time into this only to find that it isn't working reliably anyway. It's not difficult, though.
First of all, yes, ZyXELs tend to somewhat non-deterministic behaviour -
most modems work perfectly with mgetty+sendfax, a few don't, and I
do not always find out what's wrong.
If it works first, and then suddenly stops working, it does quite often help do to a full modem reset, that is, switch it off, press the DATA/VOICE key, switch it on again and hold the key for about 20 Seconds. (That's for the 1496E and E+, for other models, it works differently, check you manual). That cured the problems in many cases.
The same holds true after a firmware change: always do a full modem reset in case you change the ROM version!
Do not use non-plus ZyXELs (the "slower" ones) for faxing with DTE speeds above 38400 bps, I got a report that it won't work.
Do not use the S18 register, set it to 0. Its purpose is for dumb
getty programs where the modem has to change its baud rate back to a
certain value if some other program has modified it. Since mgetty
will reinitialize the modem anyway if another program has dialed out, the
S18 register cannot improve anything, it can only harm (e.g., if it
is set to 3, the modem will send any RING with 19200 bps ---
imagine what happens if mgetty sets the port to 38400 ...)
If you want to use Caller ID (and have subscribed to it), add S40.2=1 to the modem initialization string [For the ZyXEL 2864, this might be S84.4=0, but check with your modem manual!].
Warning: If you use a very old ZyXEL and try to send some complex graphics (the "tiger.ps" example file in the GhostScript package is known to produce this), it may lock up. This is because the old ZyXEL firmware had lots of bugs concerning hardware flow control--sometimes the ZyXEL just forgot to raise CTS when it can accept data again. The symptoms are that the transmission hangs, no modem LEDs are flashing any more, the logfile won't grow any more and the receiving machines hangs up after printing a partial page.
This bug has been fixed in ROM release 6.01, so you should consider upgrading your eproms if you run into this. With ROM release 6.01 and 6.11a, it works correctly (a hundred-odd faxes sent without problems).
Rom releases I've never been able to make sendfax work reliably are
6.00 and 6.10 (6.10a works), and various 5.0x releases.
Fax polling (both server and client side) is broken in ROM 6.11a.
The very latest ROM releases, 6.12, 6.13 and 6.15, work perfectly in every possible aspect. I tried fax sending, receiving, polling, data calls, ... - and everything simply works!
The latest ZyXEL roms can normally be found on ftp.zyxel.com, in `/pub/other/zyxel/r*'.
Some models, seemingly only the `EG+' (german telekom approved),
toggle the DCD line during the pre-page handshake, thus causing
sendfax to abort (with a "I/O error" during read/write
operations). You can work around this by defining
ignore-carrier true in `sendfax.config'.
ZyXEL modems can do security callback (AT*Gi with i > 0).
With ROM releases up to 6.11a, this doesn't interact very well with
mgetty. If you want to use it anyway, send me a note and I'll describe
what to change (but be warned, mgetty operation will become somewhat
unreliable by those changes!). With 6.12, it works very good.
Oh, one additional note: ZyXELs can do voice recording and playback. Klaus Weidner and Marc Eberhard have written voice handling tools, to turn your modem into a sophisticated answering machine. Yo can finde this tools in the `voice' subdirectory. (NOTE: In version 1.0, I haven't included the stuff, because the docs are heavily lacking and Marc thinks it's not ready yet. Get 0.99 or 1.1-betas to play with voice).
Josef Wolf (jw@raven.inka.de) has added some comments about the ZyXEL Eproms (I don't know whether it's true or not, ask him or support@zyxel.com):
Most EPROMs require /PGM and Vpp to be Vcc while in ROM-Mode. On ZyXELs these two pins are removed in the socket so the pins are _floating_. This treatment is out of spec for any EPROM. The TI-Types originally used by ZyXEL seem to tolarate this treatment. But most other EPROMS won't work properly. There are two solutions to this problem:
1.) use the types which zyxel used. (could be troublesome to find some)
2.) take two sockets, solder jumpers between pins 1, 31 and 32 (these are /PGM, Vpp and Vcc) and place them into the original sockets before inserting the EPROMs.
NEWS: ZyXEL has a new modem line out in the market, the ZyXEL COMET 336 modem. This is a fairly standard Rockwell-based junk modem. It can't do class 2 or class 2.0 fax. Don't buy it.
Thanks to friendly support by MVS, Germany, I got a Telelink IMS 08 modem
for testing and was able to adapt mgetty accordingly.
The modems factory defaults are very good, so it's sufficient for
mgetty operations to set init-chat (in `mgetty.config')
to ATQ0V1E0 OK AT&F2S0=0&D3X6&K3 OK, and switchbd to
19200 (yep, it switches baud rate. Stupid, but true). After that,
receiving fax + data calls works fine.
Fax sending is not that trivial. Basically, it works after setting
modem-handshake to AT&K3. FAX_SEND_FLOW (in
`policy.h') can be anything that the host machine supports (because
the modem does both Xon/Xoff and RTS/CTS handshake simultaneously).
Unfortunately, a few problems remain:
-- faxing multi-page faxes to ZyXELs with ROM release 6.11a doesn't work (fails on the receiving end with +FHNG:100 and on the sending side with +FHNG:50).
-- faxing to some paper fax machines fails completely, for others, "only"
complex graphics (like the Ghostscript-"tiger.ps") fail. This one can be
partially cured by adding lots of padding zeroes into the fax data
(g3cat -p 24) - but that's unelegant, not complying to class 2
specs, and not supported (besides, it still doesn't work all the
time). Maybe later versions of sendfax will do the padding
automatically.
I recommend against using this modem with sendfax. In addition to the technical problems, their customer support (at least, that of the german distributor MVS) is basically non-existant. (I wrote them four times describing my problems with the modem, and never got an answer).
As far as I know, sending or receiving are no problem (although you have to
use 19200 baud when in class 2 faxmode - set speed to 19200
in `sendfax.config', and set switchbd to 19200 in
`mgetty.config'. Remember to change the modem initialization strings
to the proper values for your modem, that is, ATQ0V1E0 OK AT&K3S0=0 OK.
Especially for the `SupraFax' modem, I've been told that you have to
set modem-handshake to AT&K3 and initialize the modem with
AT&S0&D2&K3. Since the modem does not like being reset with DTR->low
(do not use &D3!), an ATZ in the first
initizalization string in `mgetty.c', to reset the modem into a known
state, is a good idea, too.
(Thanks to Christof Junge, chris@cj.in-berlin.de, for trying out several weeks until everything worked!)
Some other SupraFAX Rom releases seem to forget that they are set to use
RTS/CTS handshake if a +FCLASS=0 is sent to them. I think it should
help to store the AT&K3 into NVRAM, but maybe you have to patch
`mgetty.c'. See `contrib/readme.supra' for details.
Fax polling does not work because the Rockwell chipset does not support it.
NEWS: Most recent Rockwell 33.600 modems do not support any
decent fax operation anymore -- they added "simultaneous Voice over Data"
(SVD) to their modem firmware, and because the Eproms are not large
enough, they threw out their class 2 firmware. Don't buy such a modem,
it won't work properly with mgetty+sendfax.
If you buy a Rockwell-based modem (they are usually quite cheap), make sure that you get one that can do class 2 or (better) class 2.0. Even if it's written on the box, some recent models just can't do it!
Together with vgetty, many Rockwell modems can distinguish between
different types of incoming "RING" tones (usually called "distinguished
RING" by the local Telco). Use the command AT#SDR=n (n between 0
and 7) to enable this feature. If in doubt, check with your modem
manual whether your modem can do this at all.
For the Zoom V.FAST 24,000 modem, you should change init-chat to
ATE1Q0V1 OK AT&FS0=0&C1&D2W1 OK (see the manual for the meaning of
the commands). After that, everything should work. (I got very euphoric
reports).
My own experience with my Zoom VFX 28.800 is also quite good, but it doesn't seem to like automatic fax/data distinction too much, that is, some data calls are "recognized" as fax and fail miserably. Dunno how to fix it, I run my Zoom as data-only.
Fax polling doesn't work.
Works quite well. Use FLOW_HARD for all flow control settings (in
`policy.h', use 19200 bps for sending and receiving. Set
modem-init to ATE1Q0V1 OK ATS7=60&D3\\Q3%C1\\N7 OK
(`mgetty.config'), and modem-handshake to AT\\Q3&S0
(`sendfax.config').
After that it should work. Kudos to Sami Koskinen (tossu@krk.fi).
Basically, the modem is similar to the SupraFax modem.
Change speed in `mgetty.config' and `sendfax.config'
to 19200 and set modem-handshake to AT&K4.
Further, if your model toggles DCD betwen fax pages (sendfax fails
mysteriously between pages), ignore-carrier true in
`sendfax.config'.
After that, it should work.
Note: If your modem doesn't properly distinguish incoming fax from data calls (i.e., a 2400 bps caller is repeatedly "identified" as fax caller), upgrade your firmware. I've been told (thanks to John Watson, watson%carssdf@rutgers.edu) that a new firmware release, v1.69 exists that will fix those problems.
For the new CREATIX modem, use the following settings in `mgetty.config' (thanks to Jens Hektor, jens@physiology.rwth-aachen.de):
speed 38400 init-chat "" ATE1Q0V1 OK ATS0=0&D3&K3
and modem-handshake AT&K3 in `sendfax.config'.
The modem has a voice mode, too, and it should work with vgetty by
now. As the docs for vgetty are out-of-date, I don't really know how to
get it to work, though.
(GM-144VBIS+ RC9696/14 (?))
This modem does not(!) use Xon/Xoff flow control. Further, the default modem profile sets `&S1', which makes the modem disable DSR all the time. On systems using the FAS serial driver, this will disable CTS flow control!
So, #define FAX_MODEM_HANDSHAKE "AT\\Q3&S0" in `policy.h', do not
define FLOW_SOFT for flow control, and fax sending should work. (It
does for me!) Changing FAX_SEND_BAUD to B19200 is not
necessary, it works with B38400.
Fax receiving... I did not fully test it. It's somewhat difficult since
that modem insists on using auto-answer, but it should be possible to let
it auto-answer if you set mgetty's ring counter high enough. Or, you can
trick the modem, by changing mgetty's answer command (ATA) into
ATS0=1 -- upon the next RING, the modem will "auto-answer".
Change FAX_SEND_BAUD and DEFAULT_PORTSPEED to
B19200, change all occurances of `AT&H3' to `AT&K5', remove
`AT&N0' and `&K4' in `policy.h'.
All I programmed is strictly to everex specs, thus, it should work. Most likely, some fiddling with the initialization strings is necessary. (If you have an Everex modem, please report to me what you did change).
This modem needs two stop bits (when sending), so you have to add
CSTOPB to tio.c_cflag = ... in `tio.c'
/ tio_mode_sane().
Also, use #define FAX_SEND_BAUD B19200 and, for fax reception,
#define DEFAULT_PORTSPEED B19200.
Further, the modem is a little bit timing critical - please insert
delay(500) calls at the end of fax_open_device()
(`sendfax.c', line 122) and before sending the page punctuation
(fax_command("+FET=...") in `sendfax.c', main(), around
line 540).
Also, for at least one Exar 9624 (built into a Compaq notebook), it's been
necessary to add two delays (\\d\\d) before the AT+FCLASS=0
initialization string in `mgetty.c'.
Here is a suggested setting for the default profile for these modems. See section Problems common to many modem types.
For Lightspeed store profile:
at&f at&c1 at&d3 ats0=0 at%c2 atw1 at&w
and for tornado store profile:
at&f at&d3 ats0=0 at&w
Then just initialize the modem with init-chat set to
"" ATZ OK.
This modem is also Rockwell-based, so don't expect anything unusual... - it works quite well, both fax sending and fax/data answering. You should use the following settings in `policy.h' (suggested by las@io.org, Laszlo Herczeg)
#define DATA_FLOW FLOW_HARD #define FAXREC_FLOW FLOW_SOFT #define FAXSEND_FLOW FLOW_SOFT #define FAX_SEND_BAUD B38400 #define FAX_MODEM_HANDSHAKE "AT&K3" #define MODEM_INIT_STRING "ATS0=0V1Q0&D3&K3%C1W1"
In some circumstances, sending of large graphics files (the well-known `tiger.ps') may fail.
First of all, I want to thank MultiTech Munich for their support (borrowing me two test modems w/o charge).
Second, I can only strongly recommend these modems, they are great
(but expensive). Got it, unpacked it, switched it on, set mgetty's init
string (MODEM_INIT) to ATS0=0&S1 -- and everything simply
worked. Flawlessly. (Warning: usually I recommend AT&S0 to force the
DSR line high -- needed, because otherwise some O/Ses won't do hardware
flow control -- but that doesn't seem to work on my model. AT&S1 means that
H/W flow control only works when a carrier is present, but then, who needs
flow control in command mode?)
The modems do very reliably distinguish incoming fax and data calls, and outgoing fax works also very good (unfortunately, it's limited to 9600 bps fax rate, but that's no big problem).
The only problem I've seen is that those modem do the fax bit order on
reception right (everybody else does it wrong, to be compatible
with Rockwell, who botched it in the first place). Thus, g32pbm
won't be able to decode the data, unless you call it as g32pbm -r.
(You can see if the bit order is wrong if g32pbm complains in every single
line). I'll work something out for one of the next releases to work around
this (modem-quirks 02).
BUT: There seems to be a way to tell the modem to behave like a Rockwell one and use the "wrong" byte order. Carlos Fonseca found the following text on ftp.multitech.com:
Function Command Description
PROCESS +FRBOR Maintaining compatibility with
DATA IN Rockwell Class 2 chip set for fax data
DIRECT OR reception .
REVERSE ORDER FRBOR=0 - Process received fax data in
direct order.
FRBOR=1 - Process received fax data in
reverse order.
so, with AT+FRBOR=1 added to the modem initialization string, it should be possible to get fax reception on the MultiTechs going without tricks.
Glenn Thobe suggested the following definitions for `policy.h' (which mostly are factory defaults anyway, but it wouldn't harm to set them)
#define MODEM_INIT_STRING "ATS0=0Q0&D3&E1&E4&E13&E15" #define FAX_MODEM_HANDSHAKE "AT&E4"
My `mgetty.config' for those modems looks like this (everything not mentioned is set to the defaults I ship in `policy.h').
# MultiTech MT1432BG port <whatever1> init-chat "" \d\d\d+++\d\d\dATE0E1V1H0 OK ATL0M0S0=0 OK modem-type cls2 # MultiTech MT2834BG port <whatever2> init-chat "" \d\d\d+++\d\d\dATH0&F OK ATX4&D3 OK ATQ0L0M0S0=0 OK modem-type cls2
Some of the newer 56k-capable MultiTech modems have voice functionality, but some firmware versions are very much broken. Others seem to work more or less. So make sure you can return your modem to the dealer if it doesn't work - and if the dealer isn't willing to do this, get a different modem. Russell King told me that the firmware version 0316D should be working ok, but I got some negative reports as well. Hmmm.
ELSA makes a nice series of Data/Fax/Voice products, both for POTS
lines and for ISDN. In general, all of them are supported fairly well by
mgetty+sendfax (fax works, fax polling works(!), voice works), but
here are a couple of notes for different products:
AT\Q3 instead of AT+IFC=2,2) so you'll see some errors in
the voice log files. Don't worry about that.
If you have any problems with ELSA modems and mgetty concerning fax/voice support, report them to me first, and let me report them to ELSA - I'm actively working together with them to iron out bugs, and it's easier if all the reports come from only one contact person (me).
There are a number of major lines of 3com/US Robotics modems:
ATI7 modem command. The
`Supervisor rev' version listed should be at least `6.5.3',
better `7.1.8' (this is the `X.2 upgrade').
Fax polling still doesn't work, and if you send faxes to a modem that can
only accept fax with 7200 bps, it will fail with +FHS:25 unless you
specify sendfax -M 7200.
The Courier series does not have voice features.
ATI7 does not list `V34' in the
`Options' line, you might try the FAX_USRobotics option in
`policy.h'. Maybe it helps. But don't expect too much.
Some older USR firmware versions had severe bugs when doing RTS/CTS (that is, hardware) flow control. Occasionally, a byte got lost, and sometimes this confuses the modem enough to abort transmission with the error message
Transmission error: +FHNG:44 (Unrecognized Transparent data command)
Sam Leffler recommends using Xon/Xoff flow control for both fax sending and
fax receiving (#define FAX_SEND_FLOW FLOW_SOFT and #define
FAX_REC_FLOW FLOW_SOFT in `policy.h').
Some day in the future, I'll make those "quirks" configurable from the config file, but until then, you'll have to live with recompiling. Sorry. (Upgrade your firmware!).
Fax polling with the USRs is not working, even though the modem claims so. It will work half-way through, but fail miserably later.
When sending faxes with an USR faxmodem, set ignore-carrier yes in
`sendfax.config'. Otherwise it will fail after the first page with a
read error and error code -5. (But that is default anyway, if you use
mgetty 1.1.16 and up).
For some fax receivers, a problem remains: the USR modems do not want
to negotiate 7200 bps transmission speed. If the receiving modem won't
accept 9600 bps, transmission will fail after sending three DCS frames,
with the error code +FHS:25. In that case, try setting
fax-max-speed 7200 in `sendfax.config'.
The USR modems support Caller ID delivery (both the I-Modem series and the
analog ones). Switch it on with AT#CID=1 and mgetty should
automatically be able to recognize the incoming caller ID. If not, show
me a detailed log file...
Firmware upgrades and documentation are available on ftp.usr.de
in the directory `/pub/USRobotics/modem/...'.
The TA's are connected to national German ISDN (1TR6) or Euro-ISDN. The host side is a standard serial port with an AT-command set, letting them look like a conventional modem. Therefore they are often (wrongly) called 'ISDN modems'.
It is strongly recommended to feed them with 115k2 bps, else only V.110 (38k4 bps) is available. Configuration may differ slightly, depending on which of those Elinks is used, wether it is connected to Euro-ISDN or 1TR6 and last but not least they are still under developement, so you're on your own with that.
ISDN generally supports two nice features: first it is now possible to
check callers number, which may be used to identify callers, second ist
the charge service, where it is possible to request the amount of charge
units for the call. For mgetty the second one is only from minor interest,
but the first one is. The opposite phone number will be shown with the
command AT\O. If a call comes in, AT\OA will answer the
call, display caller's id in a 'digit only' (e.g. `04419808550') form
and then print out the CONNECT-String.
To enable mgetty to utilize this, the "get caller ID" sequence must be set up accordingly and the `CND' feature must be enabled:
Use get-cnd-chat "" AT\\O OK in `mgetty.config', and make
sure that #define CNDFILE ".../dialin.config" at the
end of `policy.h' is enabled.
If you only want to grab the phone
number and not check it against `dialin.config', you can try playing
with something like answer-chat "" AT\\OA CONNECT \c \r
in `mgetty.config'.
Having a glance at the output of AT I4-output of the Elink, it looks
as if it is able to support Fax-Service too, but there is no hint in the
manual. So mgetty will likely put itself into data-only mode. (I got some
information from the Elink people that some of the Elinks have a data/fax
analog modem built in, which should work nicely with the fax part of
mgetty, but I didn't try yet.)
(Thanks to Ulrich Tieman, lord@olis.north.de, for this section. Don't ask me, ask him if you use an ELINK)
These do not work. They are not going to be supported (class 1 faxing is a mess, and the timing is extremely critical--nearly impossible in a unix environment--read the comments to the FlexFax package for details).
This section describes problems that have occured while porting the package to various operating systems.
If your system is not in the list, that doesn't mean it won't work. It just means that I didn't get a report (or a port) for that system yet.
mgetty+sendfax should work on most unixoid operating systems, as long as
they provide SysV termio or POSIX termios call for tty
management. BSD sgtty support isn't finished yet.
For best results, your system should have select(S) or
poll(S), but if both functions are not available or don't work on
ttys (poll(S) is known to do this on SVR3.1 and earlier), you can
use a kludge, -DUSE_READ.
Besides that, you'll need some fiddling with the header files to get all defines and prototypes right.
Further, you'll have to check `tio.c', function
tio_set_flow_control(), whether the way hardware flow control is
activated works on your system. Most likely, it won't -- that's one of the
major portability problems. If you change something and get it to work,
please send me patches. (You're welcome to do so anyway).
There are a few things that can go wrong on all supported operating systems. This section is meant to give a few hints how to find them.
mgetty is correctly set up in `/etc/inittab', but ps
doesn't list mgetty anyway.
This is usually caused by not notifying the init of your changes to
`/etc/inittab' (or `/etc/ttytab' on BSD). You have to signal
init with a HUP signal (kill -1 1) that it should re-read this
file.
mgetty is setup correctly, runs a while, then stops being listed by
ps, and init complains something like `respawning to
fast, disabling ...'.
This means, there is an error in the mgetty set up. If the mgetty
process quits too fast (because of an error), and too often in a row,
init will assume that something is going crazy, and disable the
process. You can re-enable it with kill -1 1, but you should check
the mgetty log file (!!!!!) before, to find out why it failed in
the first place
No major twiddling needs to be done. If your select() refuses to
sleep less than one second, use poll(S) instead (set -DUSE_POLL in
the CFLAGS section of `Makefile').
Use the modem-control devices for mgetty and dial-outs (e.g. `/dev/tty2A'), or (far better), use FAS with minor number of 80+port, using full RTS + CTS handshake, and non-blocking opens (`/dev/ttyF01') - the original SCO serial driver is slow, unreliable and doesn't do proper hardware flow control. See section SCO Unix 3.2.4 (ODT 2.0 and ODT 3.0).
Ignore all the warnings about "passing arg 2 of signal from incompatible pointer type". They are caused because the SCO 3.2.2 development system header files are somewhat unusual.
If it doesn't work, or some weird things happen on login (e.g., zmodem downloads do not work), try compiling with -DSYSV_TERMIO. I had some problems with Posix termios on SCO ODT 1.0.
I'm using mgetty on SCO 3.2v4(.2) (in fact, developing it there), so be assured: it works.
I consider the way that hardware flow control is handled on SCO to be
broken, so I strongly recommend using the FAS serial driver
(version 2.11 or higher, earlier versions may crash the system), to be
found on your nearest comp.sources.unix archive. With fas, use the
devices with a minor number of `80+port number' for best results. Make
sure that your modem enables the `DSR' line, because otherwise,
FAS won't do hardware handshake.
If you don't use fas, I've been told that you have to use the
`modem control' lines, that is, the "uppercase" lines, e.g.
`/dev/tty1A', because SCO's serial driver won't do any hardware flow
control at all on the "lowercase" lines. Be warned, the driver will also
disable hardware flow control if you use Xon/Xoff flow control (no way to
use both). Since I do not have a SCO system without fas, I'd like to
hear very much about results on one.
Also, you've to define LOCKS_LOWERCASE, since that's the convention
on SCO Unix and most other programs expect it.
If mgetty works only partially, but hangs the moment `/etc/issue' is printed, before the `system!login:' prompt is output, you may have to change the following line of `mgetty.c' (around line 780):
/* honor carrier now: terminate if modem hangs up prematurely
*/
tio_carrier( &tio, TRUE );
to:
tio_carrier( &tio, FALSE );
But before you do this, make sure that your modem enables the CD line
while a carrier is present (Hayes modems: `AT&C1') and also enables
the DSR line (otherwise the port will block once CLOCAL is
removed).
This could have been a problem specific to Uwe's dumb AST-compatible fourport card, but I do not think so.
Compilation issues:
Ignore warnings about `struct utimbuf' and `struct timeb', they are caused by improper include files. On SCO 3.2v4.2, ignore the warnings about the getopt() prototype, or change prototype or include files.
Installation:
SCO provides two utilities to manipulate `/etc/inittab',
enable and disable. Those tools work only if you have
specified a gettydefs tag on the mgetty command line, otherwise
they will complain about "not a valid tty". So, either append the
gettydefs tag (mgetty will ignore it if not compiled with
USE_GETTYDEFS) or change `/etc/inittab' manually.
In current stable kernels (i.e. the latest 2.0.xx release or even one of the 1.2.xx series) and current shared libraries (libc version 5.x) there should be no bug to interfere with this software.
If you have a really old Linux system, notice that Linux kernel versions prior to 0.99pl15 have a bug in the serial handshake code, that is, if the `CRTSCTS' flag is set, software flow control (XON/XOFF) won't work. The alarm() call is broken in 4.1 and 4.4.2 libraries, which sometimes results in aborting the fax receiving.
On very recent systems using the GNU Libc, you must use mgetty 1.1.10 or higher, as the timeout handling on all previous versions doesn't work under glibc. Unfortunately, this means that the version of mgetty shipped with RedHat 5.0 (1.1.9) won't work. Upgrade!
Hardware handshake (RTS+CTS) on Linux works flawlessly (but only if mgetty
is compiled with POSIX_TERMIOS, but that is default on Linux
anyway). Nevertheless, the scrts.c program in `contrib/' is
still provided, it has some other uses, too.
Linux has no poll(S), so, don't #define USE_POLL, and the default,
USE_SELECT, will be used.
Important note: Use the `/dev/ttyS*' devices for getty and
for dial-out (that is, for kermit, uucico, cu, seyon, ...) - never
use `/dev/cua*'. Dialing out on `/dev/cua*' will result in the
error message "device busy". (There are reasons why mgetty cannot
use the "`ttyS*' vs. `cua*' kernel locking mechanism", see
below). If all programs agree on using `/dev/cua*' only,
it will work, too - but they have to agree on one variant.
For some background about `ttyS' vs. `cua', you might want to read a mail from the author of the Linux serial drivers, Ted Ts'o, posted to the Linux-PPP mailing list. I have included it in `doc/ttyS-cua.txt'.
Some guys seemingly can't resist posting misinformation to the net all the
time, don't believe 'em. The `/dev/cua*' devices are not
different from the `/dev/ttyS*' devices concerning data flow or modem
control lines. The only difference is how the device reacts if you do an
open(): Opening `/dev/ttyS*' normally blocks until the "carrier
detect" line goes active (unless open() is called with the
O_NDELAY flag; mgetty and all dial-out programs do that), and
opening `/dev/cua*' will return an error message (errno=EBUSY)
if another process has the device already open, thus preventing
dial-out on `/dev/cua*' if mgetty is active on
`/dev/ttyS*'.
We use `/dev/ttyS*' all the time for dial-in and for dial-out, and believe me, it works, and it's the only combination that will work properly. The kernel locking mechanism only works if you use modem auto-answer (the getty process sleeps until the modem gets a carrier), and mgetty uses manual answer (it waits for the RING message from the modem), which will save your callers a lot of grief because their calls will only be answered if your computer is ready to receive a call. Part of the motivation for writing mgetty was being tired of losing lots of money for useless calls to a hung machine.
I'd recommend against using `/dev/modem' as a link to the real
device, but if you do that, make it a hard link to the
appropriate `/dev/ttyS*'. A soft link will cause problems with the
device ownership because of a peculiarity in the linux chown()
implementation (that I refuse to work around).
If you get into trouble with write permissions on ttySx, you may add
a new group `dialout' to `/etc/group', then
chown .dialout /dev/ttySx your device, and add your users to
the dialout group. Don't forget to add the system user `uucp' to
that group (UUCP needs to have modem access), and make sure,
port-group in mgetty's configuration file is set up correctly.
The concept of such a dialout group is already used in most Linux
distributions today.
There are various different init and last programs out there,
some work with mgetty, some don't. If you get some strange output from
who or last and are using a different init program
than the sysv init, try to define -DNO_SYSVINIT. That should
help.
I've been told that it's necessary to do that if you use the
simple-init.
Anyway, I can only strongly recommend to switch over to
SysVinit if you use simple init, since the latter seems to
be severely broken regarding utmp and controlling tty handling.
If you have problems because of an uninitialized TERM environment
variable (which really isn't getty's job, but getty_ps insists on
doing it, and people rely on it), use the term ... config file
option to set it according to your needs.
If you're experiencing problems with hanging /bin/login processes,
See section mgetty works, /bin/login hangs.
Recently, I have received a number of bug reports concerning operation in systems using one or more Cyclades serial boards. There is some incompatibility between the standard Cyclades driver and the GNU CC 2.7.2, which can result in system lockups. Upgrade to the very latest Linux driver, which can be found on ftp.cyclades.com. I have received reports that the driver version 2.1 works fine (85 modems on one system, connected to 3 Cyclom Ye boards!).
The ISC port has been done by Russell Brown, russell@lutton.lls.com. Thanks!
First of all, define -DISC in the Makefile. This will take care
of some minor problems. Then, link with -linet -lpt.
If you have a ISC Unix 4.0, you may have to define -D_POSIX_SOURCE
to get around some include file problems and link -lcposix.
If you have problems with the AWK programs in the `fax/' shell
scripts, try defining AWK=nawk in the `Makefile'. That should
take care of those problems.
Again, for best results I recommend using the FAS serial driver, and using a port with a minor number of 80+portno (ttyF01 etc.)
If you use a Digiboard smart serial cart (e.g. the digiboard pc/8e), use the `/dev/ttyi*' devices instead of `/dev/cui*', becaus only the former ones honour carrier drops (If you use `cui*', your processes won't die if the modem unexpectedly hangs up)
mgetty has been ported to SVR4 now (many thanks to Bodo Bauer, <bodo@hal.nbg.sub.org>, Martin Husemann, <martin@bi-link.owl.de> and Marc Boucher <marc@cam.org>).
As far as I know, it's sufficient to add `-DSVR4' to the CFLAGS in Makefile. If you have any problems or suggestions, please report them also to the people above, since I do not have a SVR4-System to run tests on.
If you use the SAS serial driver (streams-version of FAS) and
want to force sas to use hardware-handshake all the time, use a
device with a minor device number of 80+port number (see the
sas manual for explantations). If you use a port with a minor device
number of 7*16+i, mgetty is able to switch hardware handshake
on and off according to the flags set in policy.h, using
`sys/termiox.h'. (Well, it works - but apparently fax reception
doesn't work with this minor device number. Symptom: only one byte is
received during fax reception (0x00). Anybody any clue?).
If you use FAS, use the devices with a minor device number of
80+port number (as usual).
Basically, SVR4.2 is quite similar to SVR4, but you have to watch out for
some details (defining -DSVR42 in the Makefile will do it for you).
Most important, the termiox interface via the TCGETX /
TCSETX ioctl()s does not seem to work any longer - the calls
return an error, and the port behaves strangely. If you're experiencing
this, please try commenting out the corresponding code in `tio.c',
funtion tio_set_flow_control() and mail me whether that make it
work.
Further, ussing USE_POLL or USE_READ, won't work. The default
of USE_SELECT is OK.
To enable hardware handshake, use the tty device with the trailing "h", e.g. `tty01h'. On the other one (`tty01'), the driver won't do H/W handshake.
Depending on the configuration, parallel dial-out with Taylor-UUCP may fail
(uucico complaining that it cannot set CLOCAL), in that case, you've
to recompile Taylor with different settings for the termio selection
(POSIX vs. SYSV).
Many thanks to Joerg Weber (joerg@interface-business.de) for finding all those problems.
Ed Hall (edhall@rand.org) found another major glitch on UnixWare 4.2: if
you run sendfax without setting
ignore-carrier true in `sendfax.config', and sendfax
switches off carrier detection at the end of the very last page, the
kernel code messes up something and bytes get lost. The modem then returns
funny error codes, like, for example,
Transmission error: +FHNG:44 (Unrecognized Transparent data command)
If you're experiencing this, just set ignore-carrier true
and everything should work just fine (please tell me in any case whether
it was necessary, because if it happens for other people as well, I'll
make this permanent on SVR42).
See section Solaris 2.3 and up.
A port to 386BSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD has been done by Martin Husemann, martin@bi-link.owl.de, and Gunther Shadow, gusw@fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de.
I think it works quite well, except that the VTIME mechanism to
timeout read() calls doesn't work in older *BSD versions. If
mgetty hangs, with the last line in the log file being something
like "waiting for line to clear", upgrade your kernel, or, if you can't
do that, compile mgetty with -DBROKEN_VTIME (in that case,
select() will be used).
For older versions of BSD Unix that do not have `termios.h', you'll have to complete the unfinished support for `sgtty.h' in `tio.c' and `tio.h'.
Generally, BSD Unices do not have a `/etc/inittab' as system V has. Instead, they have `/etc/ttytab'. Thus, you have to enter a line like
cua0 "/usr/sbin/mgetty -x 3 cua0" vt100
or
cua00 "/usr/sbin/mgetty -x 3" vt100 on insecure
there. See the corresponding manpage for an exect description of the files format on your system. Don't forget to remove (or comment out) the original getty on the corresponding `/dev/tty*' line.
Chris Lewis, Harald Milz and Michael Staats have done excellent work on
porting mgetty to AIX. Since then, I have taken over and actively
use mgetty+sendfax on AIX for customer systems, and everything is very
well tested now.
On AIX, many people do not want to manipulate `/etc/inittab' directly,
instead, use some system administration tools (like 'smit'). To ease
mgetty installation on AIX, Michael Staats has provided a small
shell script, inittab.aix, that will help you setup your
`inittab' after you've run make install. Just call it with the
name of the tty you're modem is connected to, e.g.
./inittab.aix tty0.
I have received a couple of problem reports on AIX 4.1 where "suddenly"
the modem line stopped working and all mgetty reported were error
messages. If that happens to you, set toggle-dtr no in
`mgetty.config'. AIX 4.1 doesn't seem to like programs that fiddle
with the modem control lines.
Christoph Brinck (cb@medat.de) has also reported that it's necessary to enable the "dtropen line discipline" for the serial line you're using (whatever that may mean). This is done with the command:
chdev -l 'tty1' -a flow_disp='rts' chdev -l 'tty1' -a open_disp='dtropen'
or via the `chgtty' part of SMIT (but I think that's the
default setting for new ttys anyway).
Hardware and Software flow control work fine on AIX 3.x and AIX 4.x now.
mgetty has been ported to SunOS, and seems to work quite well. If you use SunOS, please send me a brief report about your results.
Thanks to Earl Hartwig, earl@fozzi.ocunix.on.ca, for the initial port.
For compilation, please define -Dsunos4.
In `policy.h', you've to adapt the location of the LOCK files.
In the Makefile, set ECHO='...' to
/usr/5bin/echo, because the standard one doesn't
support escape codes like `\n' or `\c'. Alternatively, if you
don't have the System5 options installed, use mg.echo.
If a fax reception hangs shortly after the `+FCON' is seen, please try
setting FAXREC_FLOW to Xon/Xoff (FLOW_SOFT). Hardware
handshake has problems on SunOS versions without the "Jumbo TTY" patch.
If fax sending hangs mysteriously between the first and the second page,
you're likely to have a modem that drops DCD during pages. As SunOS'
serial drivers are dumb, reception of data will fail if DCD is low and
handshake is set to RTS/CTS. So, set ignore-carrier yes in
`sendfax.config' and #define FAXSEND_FLOW FLOW_SOFT
in `policy.h' and fax sending should work.
Please use the "outgoing" devices (`/dev/cua*') for mgetty and dial-outs, using the "incoming" devices (`/dev/tty*') will make dialout impossible. Further, carrier detect (DCD) is only honoured on the `cua*' lines.
It is very strongly recommended that you install the "jumbo tty patch" (patch number 100513-05 for 4.1.2 or .3, patch number 101621-01 for 4.1.3_u1 and up) because it will fix a lot misbehaviour of the serial line drivers.
Please read also the generic BSD section.
mgetty runs successfully and without trouble under Solaris 2.3, 2.4 and
2.5.1 (later versions should also work, but I didn't get any report so far).
For compilation use -Dsolaris2. With Solaris 2.3 it's recommended to use
GNU gcc, but with Solaris 2.4 it compiles fine with the SPARCompiler C 3.0.1.
Define CC=cc.
In `policy.h' you have to define `term/a' or `term/b' as
FAX_MODEM_TTYS. Don't use the outgoing devices `/dev/cua/*'!!
As DEVICE_GROUP you should configure `uucp'. If you want allow
to normal users to dial out, add all users allowed to do that, to the group
`uucp'. Then it's important to change the permissions of
`/var/spool/locks' from the default permissions `drwxr-xr-x' to
`drwxrwsr-x'. Make sure that it's owned by `uucp.uucp'.
Otherwise no one wanting to dial out is able to create a lock file. The
FILE_MODE in `policy.h' must be `0660' as well.
If you don't want allow anyone to dial out you should set FILE_MODE
to `0640' or `0600'.
For the "notify mail" message to look best, define MAILER in
`policy.h' to /usr/lib/sendmail and define
NEED_MAIL_HEADERS. So a proper subject header is created.
Nevertheless, /usr/bin/mailx works, as it is the default for SVR4.
If everything compiled well and you did make install, you have to
add an entry to `/etc/inittab' like the following:
ya:234:respawn:/usr/local/sbin/mgetty -s 38400 -x 3 term/a
Don't use the Solaris admintool to create any port monitoring
entries in `/etc/saf/_sactab' and `/etc/saf/zsmon/_pmtab'.
Many thanks to Stefan Muehlenweg (muehlenw@samhh.hanse.DE) for this section.
Solaris (as all Sun operating systems) seems to be somewhat weird
concerning its handling of the RTS line. I have received two reports that
'sometimes' a modem hangs during initialization, and won't talk to mgetty
anymore. In these cases, the problem went away when the modem (an USR
Sportster) was set to AT&R1, which means 'ignore RTS line'. Thanks
to Valerio Di Giampietro for detailing this.
Glenn Thobe and Chris Lewis have ported mgetty+sendfax to AT&T's 3B1 machines, it should compile without changes to the source (but define -D_3B1_ in the Makefile).
These ports are to two different environments:
Glenn's port was with GCC (ANSI C) and an add-on select() library routines. Chris's port was with stock 3b1 C, without select(). Both seem reliable.
Some further hints concerning a select() library and the pbmplus tools can be found in the file `contrib/3b1' which are the notes from Glenn's port.
Chris's port relies simply on the suggested definitions (especially
-DUSE_READ) in the Makefile. Chris suggests that you use select()
if you already have it for some other reason, but that it seems to work
just fine without it.
Right now, I think mgetty won't compile with the standard C compiler (it will with gcc), because the stuff I do in the `conf_*.c' source files is a little bit too hard for it. I'll work on it.
mgetty runs on HP-UX, but that's very much all I can say about it (I
don't know anything about HPs, except that they are somewhat strange).
Currently, documentation for HP-UX is a bit lacking - if you know
something about mgetty on HP-UX, please contribute.
NEXTSTEP is lacking quite a few commands used by mgetty and its tools: Luckily, they are available from the GNU project (please mail me if I forgot any), e.g. gawk, cut (from textutils), id and logname (from sh-utils). All of them can be compiled for NEXTSTEP without problems, and it's certainly a good idea to install them anyway. ghostscript needs some fiddling for NEXTSTEP, but it's available precompiled on the arcives as GSPrintFilter. If you don't intend to use faxspool and friends, you may succeed without installing the forementioned utilities.
Having said this, there are two different ways to compile mgetty
for NEXTSTEP, each with their pros and contras:
mgetty's termios interface (the
default), you have to link against NEXTSTEP's buggy POSIX library.
In the Makefile, add "-posix -DBSD" to CFLAGS and LDFLAGS.
Drawbacks: The log file will be corrupted due to an append bug in libposix.
Use this only if you want to try vgetty. In all other cases it's probably
better to choose the second variant:
mgetty port using the BSD sgtty style interface
to the serial ports. This port doesn't need the POSIX library.
In the Makefile, add "-DNEXTSGTTY -DBSD".
This port has been tested with m68k and i386 machines.
For i386 machines, you may want to use the /bin/login replacement
`modem-login' in mgetty's contrib directory. NEXTSTEP's login
has problems with 8-bit logins. I've got one report from Ben Stuyts,
though, that `modem-login' does fix problems on "Black NeXT"s as
well. Just try it.
Drawback: You can't compile vgetty with sgtty support yet! If you want to use
vgetty with NEXTSTEP, you'll have to stick with the termios port. There are
problems with the LNOHANG bit not being acknowledged
correctly, therefore hanging the modem when the caller hangs up.
For i386 machines, it's wise to use the /dev/cudfX (hardware flow control,...) devices. I'm using them with NeXT's most recent serial port driver, Mark Salyzyn's Mux driver also supports them.
For m68k machines, you have to stick with /dev/cufa.
This are the settings I use in the Makefile:
CC=cc CFLAGS=-DNEXTSGTTY -DBSD -O2 (-posix -DBSD for termios port) INSTALL=install -c -o root -g wheel spool=/usr/spool SBINDIR=$(prefix)/etc ECHO="mg.echo" INSTALL_MECHO=mg.echo AWK=gawk
Furthermore, you should define binary lock files, in policy.h:
#define LOCKS_BINARY 1
Finally, when using NEXTSTEP's cc, you need to run "make noident" in the first place to remove the #ident directives from the source files.
If you have questions, comments or suggestions regarding mgetty with
NEXTSTEP, feel free to contact Gregor Hoffleit
`flight@mathi.uni-heidelberg.de' or Ben Stuyts
`benst@stuyts.nl'.
mgetty to send faxes via the NEXTSTEP fax panel
(using Kevin Peckover's ps2g3 package, available as
`ftp://peanuts.leo.org/pub/next/Tools/postscript/ps2g3.s.tar.gz').
mgetty to spool received faxes in the NEXTSTEP
fax system.
The pbmtog3 program from the `pbmplus' distribution produces G3
data that does not adhere to the T.4 standard. The initial EOL code is
missing, and the lines are not always 1728 pixels wide. So, some fax
machines won't accept the output at all (not printing even one line), and
others will complain.
A fix for this problem is available: I have included a patch for pbmtog3,
called `patches/pbmtog3.p1', that will fix the problems. (Oh, by the
way, if you try to send a fax generated with an unpatched pbmtog3, sendfax
will complain that it doesn't like the file ... I've added a small
sanity check to spare me the time browsing through the logfiles guessing
why sendfax failed (won't work if the file has been processed by
g3cat, though!)). If you use the pbm2g3 program that is
shipped with mgetty, there is no need to patch anything.
Basically, there is no need at all to use `pbmplus'' pbmtog3
program any more, since mgetty includes an own copy. I just wanted
to warn you.
Anyway, my program is lots faster ....
Kermit et.al. cannot dial out while mgetty is running (modem responses are eaten by mgetty)---what's wrong?
Most propably, you have not configured the LOCK and
LOCKS_BINARY defines in `policy.h' properly. Make sure that
the lockfiles kermit (or cu, pcomm, seyon,...) expect are in the
path specified in LOCK and set LOCKS_BINARY to 1 if they do
not write the PID of the locking process in ascii (10 bytes) to the lock
file but as a 4-byte integer instead. Mgetty and Sendfax will understand
both types of lock files, but if LOCKS_BINARY is not set properly,
other programs may not understand the lock file.
Also, make sure that both processes use the same name for the device. (i.e., mgetty locking `/dev/ttyS0' and kermit locking `/dev/modem' will definitely fail.)
A problem seen fairly often on directly connected serial lines
(mgetty -r), and seldomly on modem lines, is that mgetty
works flawlessly, but /bin/login just hangs instead of prompting for
the user password.
The reason for this is that many login programs reopen
`/dev/tty' (the controlling tty of a process) to make sure they have
full control over the password entered by the user (for example, to prevent
snooping). This will block on some systems if the DCD (carrier detect) line
coming from the modem or the other machine is low. Notably those systems
are those that have callin/callout device pairs for one serial device, e.g.
Linux, SunOS, SCO/FAS, etc.
The fix is easy: make sure that the DCD line is high.
If you use a modem, the command to do this is usually AT&C1 (but
check with your modem manual).
If you're using a direct null-modem connection to another host, the recommended solution is to wire DCD on your side to the DTR line on the other side and vice versa. That way, when the remote machine "hangs up" (calling program exits and DTR drops), your host will get notified as well. This is what a properly wired (!) "null-modem cable" does anyway.
If you don't have free lines in your serial cable (classic three-wire
approach), wire DCD to the DTR line on your own host, and make sure that
mgetty won't toggle DTR upon startup (causing a hangup signal!), e.g. by
setting toggle-dtr no in `mgetty.config'.
ECU releases 3.20 and earlier had a severe bug in the utmp handling that prevented dialing out on a port that mgetty uses. It has been fixed in ECU 3.27. If you run into that problem, please get a newer release. Alternatively, you can use the patch that Uwe Fuerst provided, it can be found in `patches/ecu320.p1'.
Both mgetty and sendfax can provide logfiles that can be very helpful for
debugging and accounting purposes. The amount that is logged is controlled
with the default set in `policy.h' and the command line argument
-x <level>. Higher numbers give more details.
At this place, I want to show you some typical cases, so you can compare your log files to those given here and check what is different.
(Note: naturally all the modem initializations, and also some of the modem responses, vary between modem brands!)
All the mgetty log files have been done with log level L_MESG, that is,
-x 4. The sendfax log file was done with L_NOISE, -x 5.
This is a log file of a typical data connection, ZyXEL-to-ZyXEL modems,
connect with 19200 bps on a port speed of 38400, login as "Uartinet", the
login program called is /usr/lib/uucp/uucico (controlled by
`LOGIN_CFG_FILE', which directs all login names starting with "U" to
uucico)
03/03 22:40:15 check for lockfiles 03/03 22:40:15 locking the line 03/03 22:40:16 lowering DTR to reset Modem 03/03 22:40:16 send: \d\d\d+++\d\d\d[0d]\dATQ0V1H0[0d] 03/03 22:40:20 waiting for ``OK'' ** found ** 03/03 22:40:20 send: ATS0=0Q0&D3&H3&N0&K4[0d] 03/03 22:40:20 waiting for ``OK'' ** found ** 03/03 22:40:20 send: AT+FCLASS=0[0d] 03/03 22:40:20 waiting for ``OK'' ** found ** 03/03 22:40:20 send: AT+FAA=1;+FBOR=0;+FCR=1[0d] 03/03 22:40:20 waiting for ``OK'' ** found ** 03/03 22:40:20 send: AT+FLID="49 89 3243328"[0d] 03/03 22:40:20 waiting for ``OK'' ** found ** 03/03 22:40:20 send: AT+FDCC=1,5,0,2,0,0,0[0d] 03/03 22:40:20 waiting for ``OK'' ** found ** 03/03 22:40:20 fax_command: send 'AT+FLPL=1' 03/03 22:40:20 fax_wait_for(OK)** found ** 03/03 22:40:21 waiting... 03/03 22:41:28 waiting for ``RING'' ** found ** 03/03 22:41:28 send: ATA[0d] 03/03 22:41:28 waiting for ``CONNECT'' ** found ** 03/03 22:41:42 send: 03/03 22:41:42 waiting for `` '' ** found ** 03/03 22:41:43 ##### data dev=tty4c, pid=6470, caller=none, conn='38400/ZyX 16800/V42b', name='', cmd='/usr/lib/uucp/uucico', user='Uartinet'
This is a log file of a fax call I got today. It was a fax call with 14400 bps (actually, the call came from another faxmodem, but you won't see that in the log file), using high resolution. One page was received, the connection time was 33 seconds. No errors occured.
(All the stuff up to "waiting..." is identical to the example above, so I don't list it again)
[...] 03/03 21:39:32 waiting... 03/03 21:46:22 waiting for ``RING'' ** found ** 03/03 21:46:22 send: ATA[0d] 03/03 21:46:22 waiting for ``CONNECT'' 03/03 21:46:32 found action string: ``+FCON'' 03/03 21:46:32 action is A_FAX, start fax receiver... 03/03 21:46:32 fax_wait_for(OK) 03/03 21:46:36 fax_id: '+FTSI:+31 20 6147110 ' 03/03 21:46:36 transmission par.: '+FDCS:1,5,0,2,0,0,0,0'** found ** 03/03 21:46:36 fax_command: send 'AT+FDR' 03/03 21:46:36 fax_wait_for(CONNECT) 03/03 21:46:37 fax_id: '+FTSI:+31 20 6147110 ' 03/03 21:46:37 transmission par.: '+FDCS:1,5,0,2,0,0,0,0'** found ** 03/03 21:46:38 fax_get_page_data: receiving /usr/spool/fax/incoming/ffd764c9e4d-+31-20-6147110.01... 03/03 21:46:51 fax_get_page_data: page end, bytes received: 24933 03/03 21:46:51 fax_wait_for(OK) 03/03 21:46:51 page status: +FPTS:1** found ** 03/03 21:46:53 fax_wait_for(CONNECT) 03/03 21:46:55 connection hangup: '+FHNG:000'** found ** 03/03 21:46:56 ##### fax dev=tty4d, pid=4807, caller=none, name='', id='+31 20 6147110 ', +FHNG=000, pages=1, time=00:00:33
If your system has a syslogd and the syslog() C function,
mgetty can send parts of its log files to the `syslog' (For details,
see comments in `policy.h'). Not all the information from the log file
is logged here (to avoid clobbering the syslog), just errors and so-called
"audit" messages (seen in the log file as lines with "####" at the
beginning). These have a fixed format, and could easily be parsed by a
program. Let me list a few, and then comment them.
Mar 3 18:36:16 greenie mgetty[673]: failed A_FAIL dev=tty4d, pid=673, caller=none, conn='', name='' Mar 3 18:41:56 greenie mgetty[1866]: fax dev=tty4d, pid=1866, caller=none, name='', id='49 89 3243328 ', +FHNG=100, pages=1, time=00:00:29 Mar 3 21:46:56 greenie mgetty[4807]: fax dev=tty4d, pid=4807, caller=none, name='', id='+31 20 6147110 ', +FHNG=000, pages=1, time=00:00:33 Mar 3 20:45:59 greenie mgetty[4038]: data dev=tty4d, pid=4038, caller=none, conn='38400/V.32 9600/MNP5', name='', cmd='/bin/login', user='mbox' Mar 3 22:41:43 greenie mgetty[6470]: data dev=tty4c, pid=6470, caller=none, conn='38400/ZyX 16800/V42b', name='', cmd='/usr/lib/uucp/uucico', user='Uartinet'
Those five lines are one failed call, two fax calls, one of them failed and one successful, and two data calls, one of a human caller, loggin into the BBS system, and one of a calling uucico.
It looks very confusing until you understand the system behind it. The first fields specify date and time, originating host (greenie is my machine) and program (mgetty). The next field specifies the type of the connection made: `fax', `data' or `failed' - the latter one usually means failure to initialize the modem or failure to connect to a calling modem, resulting in the well-known `NO CARRIER' message...
The `dev' and `pid' fields specify the line and process ID of the mgetty process writing that line.
The `caller' and `name' fields give caller ID information - if none is available (as it is here in Germany), or if your modem doesn't handle it, it will list `none' and `"', respectively.
For fax calls, additional informations given are the remote station ID (`id='...''), the hangup code (`+FHNG=...', 0 means "ok"), the number of pages and the connection time.
For data calls, the string that the modem returned after `CONNECT' is
listed as `conn='...''. The string that was entered at the login
prompt is listed as `user='...'', and the program that is called
to do the login is given as `cmd='...''. Usually this will be
/bin/login unless you have some special system setup for fido or
uucp callers - as I have here, as you can see above.
This is a simple one-page fax that I sent some days ago. Just a single page, f1.g3, to the phone number 2710834. No errors of any kind occured.
02/18 11:10:05 sending fax to 2710834
02/18 11:10:06 checking f1.g3
02/18 11:10:06 makelock(tty4c) called
02/18 11:10:06 do_makelock: lock='/usr/spool/uucp/LCK..tty4c'
02/18 11:10:06 lock made
02/18 11:10:06 fax_open_device succeeded, tty4c -> 4
02/18 11:10:06 fax_command: send 'AT'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for(OK)
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'AT'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'OK'** found **
02/18 11:10:06 fax_command: send 'AT+FCLASS=2'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for(OK)
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'AT+FCLASS=2'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'OK'** found **
02/18 11:10:06 fax_command: send 'AT+FLID="49 89 3243328"'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for(OK)
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'AT+FLID="49 89 3243328"'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'OK'** found **
02/18 11:10:06 fax_command: send 'ATL7M1'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for(OK)
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'ATL7M1'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'OK'** found **
02/18 11:10:06 fax_command: send 'AT+FDCC=1,5,0,2,0,0,0,0'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for(OK)
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'AT+FDCC=1,5,0,2,0,0,0,0'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'OK'** found **
02/18 11:10:06 fax_command: send 'AT+FBOR=0'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for(OK)
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'AT+FBOR=0'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for: string 'OK'** found **
02/18 11:10:06 fax_command: send 'AT&H3D2710834'
02/18 11:10:06 fax_wait_for(OK)
02/18 11:10:07 fax_wait_for: string 'AT&H3D2710834'
02/18 11:10:39 fax_wait_for: string '+FCON'
02/18 11:10:39 fax_wait_for: string '+FNSF:00 00 00 00 '
02/18 11:10:39 fax_wait_for: string '+FCSI: 49 89 2710834 '
02/18 11:10:39 fax_id: '+FCSI: 49 89 2710834 '
02/18 11:10:39 fax_wait_for: string '+FDIS:1,3,0,2,0,0,0,4'
02/18 11:10:39 fax_wait_for: string 'OK'** found **
02/18 11:10:39 fax_send_page("f1.g3") started...
02/18 11:10:39 fax_command: send 'AT+FDT'
02/18 11:10:39 fax_wait_for(CONNECT)
02/18 11:10:39 fax_wait_for: string 'AT+FDT'
02/18 11:10:45 fax_wait_for: string '+FDCS:1,3,0,2,0,0,0,4'
02/18 11:10:45 transmission par.: '+FDCS:1,3,0,2,0,0,0,4'
02/18 11:10:45 fax_wait_for: string 'CONNECT'** found **
02/18 11:10:45 waiting for XON, got:[0a][11]
02/18 11:10:45 sending f1.g3...
02/18 11:11:03 sending DLE ETX...
02/18 11:11:03 fax_wait_for(OK)
02/18 11:11:16 fax_wait_for: string 'OK'** found **
02/18 11:11:16 fax_command: send 'AT+FET=2'
02/18 11:11:16 fax_wait_for(OK)
02/18 11:11:16 fax_wait_for: string 'AT+FET=2'
02/18 11:11:25 fax_wait_for: string '+FPTS:1'
02/18 11:11:25 page status: +FPTS:1
02/18 11:11:26 fax_wait_for: string '+FHNG:00'
02/18 11:11:26 connection hangup: '+FHNG:00'
02/18 11:11:26 (Normal and proper end of connection)
02/18 11:11:26 fax_wait_for: string 'OK'** found **
02/18 11:11:26 fax_send: 'AT+FCLASS=0^M'
02/18 11:11:26 removing lock file
Most of the software mentioned in this document should be available on most major ftp sites. Nevertheless, I've got so many questions about the software that I'll list some ftp sites here.
Furthermore, I'll list some other software that may be interesting if you
plan to use mgetty+sendfax in different environments than I do.
mgetty+sendfax
The current release can usually be found at:
sunsite.unc.edu:`/pub/Linux/system/serial/getty/mgetty+sendfax*'
tsx-11.mit.edu:`/pub/linux/sources/sbin/mgetty+sendfax*'
alpha.greenie.net:`/pub/mgetty/source/*'
ftp.leo.org:`/pub/comp/os/unix/networking/mgetty/*'
ftp.mathematik.th-darmstadt.de:`/pub/linux/mirrors/misc/mgetty/*'
linux.nrao.edu:`/pub/src/mgetty/*'
ftp.chem.tue.nl:`/pub/mgetty/*'
http://linux.mit-lab.co.kr/mgetty/*
ftp.uvt.ro:`/pub/mgetty/*'
... and on all sites that mirror SunSITE.unc.edu or tsx-11.
The most recent beta release is always placed in the listed directories
on alpha.greenie.net, ftp.leo.org and their mirrors on th-darmstadt.de
and linux.nrao.edu.
On SunSITE and TSX-11, you'll only find "stable" releases (even
version numbers, no date stamp in the file name).
Use betas on your own risk!
pbmplus
I found the pbmplus package (bitmap manipulation tools) at the following
places (most other sites mirroring X11 should also have them):
src.doc.ic.ak.uk:`/computing/graphics/pbmplus10dec91.tar.Z'
wuarchive.wustl.edu:`/packages/X11R5/contrib-pub/pbmplus10dec91.tar.Z'
ftp.germany.eu.net:`/X11/contrib/pbmplus10dec91.tar.Z'
ftp.leo.org:`/pub/comp/os/unix/networking/mgetty/'
The pbmplus package has been superceded by the NetPBM
package which has some more conversion tools (but also some more bugs). It
should be available on the same sites. You could also check:
wuarchive.wstl.edu:`/graphics/graphics/packages/NetPBM'
ftp.rahul.net:`/pub/davidsen/source'
ftp.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de:`/???'
The pbmtodot program mentioned in the "fax" chapter can be found,
if nowhere else, in the `mgetty' directory on ftp.leo.org (see above).
FAS
Some sites carrying the fas serial driver for SCO Unix, ISC, ...:
ftp.fu-berlin.de:`/pub/unix/driver/fas/fas-2.11.tar.gz'
ftp.germany.eu.net:`/pub/newsarchive/comp.sources.unix/volume27/fas-2.11.0/*'
src.doc.ic.ac.uk:`/usenet/comp.sources.unix/volume27/fas-2.11.0/*'
As far as I know, the current version is 2.12, but you should find 2.12 at
the same places as 2.11. I never upgraded, 2.11 works very fine for me :)
GhostScript
The GNU GhostScript postscript interpreter can be found at all sites
carrying GNU Software. The "main" GNU site is prep.ai.mit.edu.
The new version 3.x isn't GNU software anymore, but uses a special
license. You can find it in `/pub/ghost/aladdin' on
ftp.cs.wisc.edu, and on various other mirror sites (e.g. ftp.leo.org).
hp2pbm
GhostScript is huge and slow... if you don't need it for other purposes,
you could use Chris Lewis' hp2pbm package, placed at
ftp.leo.org as `hp2pbm*' (in the mgetty directory mentioned above).
This package contains all you need to convert ASCII or LJ PCL4 -> PBM, G3,
PS, X windows, Epson 24 pin. Coupled with mgetty's g32pbm, it's all
you need to send ASCII or HP LJ via FAX, and display/print FAXes on X, PS,
LJ, Epson, or via PBM utilities
It performs better than most of the equivalent PBMPLUS utilities. Indeed,
if your application can generate both LJ and PS, generating LJ and
converting to G3 via hp2pbm is *much* faster than generating PS and
converting via GhostScript.
[Citing Chris: Incidentally, "g32pbm" plus my "pbm2lj" is much faster
than g3tolj. Am not entirely sure why yet. May have something to do
with scaling, which g32pbm and pbm2lj don't do.]
psroff
ftp.uunet.ca:`/distrib/chris_lewis/psroff3.0pl17/*'
[Chris: It should be ...psroff/*, but they never answer when I ask them to
fix my symlink]
Contains all you need to generate PS, LJ, or ditroff from ditroff or CAT
troff or groff. Together with hp2pbm, you can generate FAXes. Contains
quite a number of LJ fonts, font manipulation, and font scaling utilities.
With the last two tools, you can send, receive, and print FAXes using
_just_ mgetty and hp2pbm (and a Laserjet printer ;-), without needing
pbmplus or GhostScript or anything else.
Ifmail
Ifmail is Eugene Crosser's FidoNet (tm) compatible mailer + gateway
software for Unix and Linux. Together with mgetty, it provides the
perfect modem solution, allowing incoming Fido calls as well as Unix-Login
and fax. It can be found on:
tsx-11.mit.edu:`/pub/linux/sources/usr.bin/ifmail*'
sunsite.unc.edu:`/pub/Linux/system/Fido/ifmail*'
dialog
Dialog is a very nice shell tool to simplify input/output functions in
shell scripts. All the programs in `mgetty/frontends/dialog/' rely on
it. It runs on most operating systems (except FreeBSD), as long as they
have a curses library. The source can be found on
sunsite.unc.edu:`/pub/Linux/utils/shell/dialog*'
ps2g3
is a small package to integrate mgetty+sendfax into the NeXTStep
operating system. It can be found on ftp.leo.org in the directory
`/pub/comp/platforms/next/Tools/postscript/ps2g3.s.tar.gz'.
dvips5.47
Dvips 5.x and up create a strange kind of postscript that, when converted
with Ghostscript 3.x, produces Fax files that can not be faxed to paper
fax machines (modems work fine) because the line width isn't exactly 1728
pixels. Dvips 5.47 doesn't do this. It can be found on:
`ftp.leo.org:/pub/comp/os/unix/networking/mgetty/dvips*'
`midway.uchicago.edu:pub/tex/dvips/dvips547.tar.Z'
g3vga
Is a nice, fast G3 viewer for Linux and SVGALIB (standard console mode, no
X11). You can find it in `.../apps/graphics/viewers' on all mirrors
of SunSITE.unc.edu.
For those of you that do not have FTP access: all the software mentioned in the last section can also be found on the following UUCP sites:
Many thanks to (in no special order):
vgetty.
faxrunqd
daemon.
pbmscale, g3toxwd and
g3tolj programs.
newslock.c program
I use in faxrunq.
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