On 04/22/13 12:30, Peter Fraser wrote:
Several years ago I put an OpenBSD system in as a firewall and mail server at a
small charity that I volunteer at (kwaccessablility.ca)
that fixed nearly all the problems that they had with viruses, spam etc.
Last year I talked them in to switching to VOIP (on the OpenBSD server using
Asterisk). Their phone costs dropped from over $250
per month to less than $30 per month (I used the service from unlimitel.ca).
The change is costs per month made up for the costs
of the new telephone equipment within the year.
Nearly all their communication that was done by fax is now done by email,
except for one organization. That organization which is
run by the city supplies transportation for physically handicapped. That
organization is insisting on faxes. They will not take email.
The charity currently has an analog fax just for the purpose of arranging
transportation, and that line is costing over $60 per month.
I looked at email to fax services, but I believe those queue the faxes up and
send them as time is available. The charity and
the transportation organization need immediate sending and receiving. They
carry out a conversation with hand written
notes (requiring the charity to type the responses would not be a problem).
Asterisk has a fax service, so I thought I could use that. But the Asterisk fax
sending service requires TIFF in a directory
and receiving service puts a TIFF file in a directory.
The charity operates in a Windows environment. To the problem is: how does a
person (probably a volunteer)
on a Windows machine put a TIFF file into a directory on an OpenBSD, and in
addition send the information
as to where send the fax and get back a status on success or failure of sending
a fax.
I don't think receiving the fax will be that much of a problem; it should be
easy to take the fax out the directory
and send it as an email to a group mailbox.
What I don't have is a good to solution for is how the person sitting at the
Windows machine is to send a fax.
There are some commercial solutions for Linux, but I have no idea if they
operate OpenBSD.
The commercial solutions are generally of the format that an email gets sent
and fax is extracted from the text of the message.
I would like to know if anyone has done something similar or any good
suggestions on what I should do to
get faxing to work
Have you tried connecting your analog fax machine to an ATA (analog
telephone adapter) and then to your Asterisk box? It may not be what you
are looking for, but my fax machine works fine over my VoIP (Voipo is
the provider). I'm not using Asterisk, but if it's all SIP I wouldn't
think that would matter.
Corey
