RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
I haven't used the iaxmodem / hylafax combo for sending, only for receiving. However my experience is that it is 99% reliable. I am using a Dell PowerEdge 850 with a Pentium 2.8Ghz and 512mb ram. I think it is the Pentium D but could be the dual core, not sure, whatever the base cpu was at the time of order. Running FC4, Asterisk 1.2.16, Hylafax and IAXmodem. Hardware is TE205p with 50 channels active. This combination quite happily receives 50 concurrent faxes without breaking a sweat. Takes roughly 3000 faxes per day. I have another 5 servers similar hardware scattered around the place doing smaller amounts of inbound faxing again with 99% reliability. This same machine also handles inbound voicemail, IVR and converts received tiffs to PDF. Craig -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Totaro Sent: Tuesday, 29 May 2007 9:32 AM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:asterisk-users- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jon Pounder Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 9:10 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception Quoting Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If you are a junk spam faxer then it should suit your needs. If you occasionally send faxes and if you do not receive one or the other party does not receive one or it spits out junk but that is OK, then it should fit your needs. If you are faxing contracts or other important documents that are worth something, then go for a more reliable solution. On a 3ghz HP DL320 with a gig of RAM, each fax took about 5% indicated by top. I would not want to go above ten simultaneous faxes so I setup ten IAX Modems (50% in top). Even at that rate, there were a lot of failures. I did not bother to figure out why because these were legal contracts, in bulk, amounting to big dollars. anyone have a comparison with a multicpu machine with the same or lower clock rate ? Let me further qualify my results. This was done with whatever the current stable versions of Asterisk, Hylafax, and IAXmodem were available in January of this year. The faxes were outbound. PDFs put into a Samba share and a cron job moving them over to the Hylafax monitored directory. Thanks, Steve Totaro www.asteriskhelpdesk.com The variables are very simple for any of these kind of decisions. Don't think about savings, think about costs. Costs of equipment Costs of time (resources) implementing Costs of maintenance Costs of losing data (faxes in this case) Costs of going back and doing it the right way if you find the above costs are higher than another solution. Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com KB3OPB ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
Please qualify your usage. A couple faxes a day, a couple hundred, a couple thousand, or a couple hundred thousand? Are you running asterisk and hylafax on the same machine? What is your TDM connectivity? Hylafax uses quite a lot of CPU juice. Anyone ever scale up a quad T1/E1 server for faxing using asterisk and hylafax? Must be a heck of a server! Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,37/ KB3OPB _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Greg Kennedy Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 4:02 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception I gave up on the rxfax business as it never worked for me. I use iaxmodem and hylafax and it works perfectly, every single time i use it. inbound or outbound doesnt matter. I have not read about anyone using iaxmodem and hylafax having any issues. and its fairly easy to setup. Took me about 1 hour total to get everything installed and configured. Message: 3 Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 08:20:22 -0700 From: shadowym [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Anybody?? -Original Message- From: shadowym [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:35 AM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception So what is the bottom line? Does it work or not. I've heard stories it works, it doesn't work, it kinda sorta works when it's not raining out side. Everything under the rainbow. What's the bottom line with recent updates on 1.2.x? Is it production ready for fax? By production ready I mean that it just works all the time and doesn't need any babysitting. Do I have to worry about dropped lines, sometimes not detecting incoming fax toneyada yada. I know I don't have to use fax on Asterisk but I really want to for various reasons. Mostly incoming but outgoing is a nice to have. Should I use an addon package and if so which one? Any help would be appreciated. Message: 6 Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 11:38:01 -0400 From: Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] .com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Someone already answered this question. The answer is no, it does not work by your definition of production ready. Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com KB3OPB ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
Quoting Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Please qualify your usage. A couple faxes a day, a couple hundred, a couple thousand, or a couple hundred thousand? well what is your usage where it doesn't work ? I would like to know where it does and doesn't work as well but so far various groups have conflicting opinions. Are you running asterisk and hylafax on the same machine? What is your TDM connectivity? Hylafax uses quite a lot of CPU juice. Anyone ever scale up a quad T1/E1 server for faxing using asterisk and hylafax? Must be a heck of a server! Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,37/ KB3OPB _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Greg Kennedy Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 4:02 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception I gave up on the rxfax business as it never worked for me. I use iaxmodem and hylafax and it works perfectly, every single time i use it. inbound or outbound doesnt matter. I have not read about anyone using iaxmodem and hylafax having any issues. and its fairly easy to setup. Took me about 1 hour total to get everything installed and configured. Message: 3 Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 08:20:22 -0700 From: shadowym [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Anybody?? -Original Message- From: shadowym [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:35 AM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception So what is the bottom line? Does it work or not. I've heard stories it works, it doesn't work, it kinda sorta works when it's not raining out side. Everything under the rainbow. What's the bottom line with recent updates on 1.2.x? Is it production ready for fax? By production ready I mean that it just works all the time and doesn't need any babysitting. Do I have to worry about dropped lines, sometimes not detecting incoming fax toneyada yada. I know I don't have to use fax on Asterisk but I really want to for various reasons. Mostly incoming but outgoing is a nice to have. Should I use an addon package and if so which one? Any help would be appreciated. Message: 6 Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 11:38:01 -0400 From: Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] .com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Someone already answered this question. The answer is no, it does not work by your definition of production ready. Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com KB3OPB Jon Pounder _/_/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ Inline Internet Systems Inc. Thorold, Ontario, Canada Tools to Power Your e-Business Solutions www.inline.net www.ihtml.com www.ihtmlmerchant.com www.opayc.com This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
Steve Totaro wrote: Please qualify your usage. A couple faxes a day, a couple hundred, a couple thousand, or a couple hundred thousand? Couple hundred thousand per month - at least on one installation. Are you running asterisk and hylafax on the same machine? What is your TDM connectivity? Yes, same machine, TDM is PRI, usually... at least it is on the installation I am mentioning. Hylafax uses quite a lot of CPU juice. Huh? Certainly much, much less than Asterisk. Anyone ever scale up a quad T1/E1 server for faxing using asterisk and hylafax? Must be a heck of a server! It's okay. :-) Lee. ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
Greg Kennedy wrote: I gave up on the rxfax business as it never worked for me. I use iaxmodem and hylafax and it works perfectly, every single time i use it. inbound or outbound doesnt matter. I have not read about anyone using iaxmodem and hylafax having any issues. and its fairly easy to setup. Took me about 1 hour total to get everything installed and configured. Where is a how to on this and does it pass thru to a fax machine? I've been fighting with getting faxing to work on my home asterisk machine and have given up. But if you say it works well and reliably on large volume I'd be willing to try again on my home machine. We get a quite low volume of faxes 10 or less per week. But they are how my wifes family communicates and when our fax does work we start to loose contact with them, so she would argue that we should go back to plain old telephones. ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
Tim Litwiller wrote: Greg Kennedy wrote: I gave up on the rxfax business as it never worked for me. I use iaxmodem and hylafax and it works perfectly, every single time i use it. inbound or outbound doesnt matter. I have not read about anyone using iaxmodem and hylafax having any issues. and its fairly easy to setup. Took me about 1 hour total to get everything installed and configured. Where is a how to on this and does it pass thru to a fax machine? I've been fighting with getting faxing to work on my home asterisk machine and have given up. But if you say it works well and reliably on large volume I'd be willing to try again on my home machine. We get a quite low volume of faxes 10 or less per week. But they are how my wifes family communicates and when our fax does work we start to loose contact with them, so she would argue that we should go back to plain old telephones. Fax reception does work reliably IF (big IF) you are faxing using a transport media that is conducive to faxing. The internet is not a transport method that will result in 100% reliable connectivity. If you're on a reasonably good internet connection with low-latency and jitter between you and your voip service AND you are using ulaw, you should get acceptable results for residential purposes. I've connected my Brother MFC to a Digium TDM400 card and successfully sent and received faxes over the internet in the past. I've also had my share of failures with the same connection when a large file was being downloaded, even with traffic shaping enabled. People need to be VERY clear about this when they say they are faxing successfully through Asterisk. Lee has all sorts of ammunition why you shouldn't even try it over IP, at least not in a business setting. Darrick -- Darrick Hartman DJH Solutions, LLC http://www.djhsolutions.com ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
If you are a junk spam faxer then it should suit your needs. If you occasionally send faxes and if you do not receive one or the other party does not receive one or it spits out junk but that is OK, then it should fit your needs. If you are faxing contracts or other important documents that are worth something, then go for a more reliable solution. On a 3ghz HP DL320 with a gig of RAM, each fax took about 5% indicated by top. I would not want to go above ten simultaneous faxes so I setup ten IAX Modems (50% in top). Even at that rate, there were a lot of failures. I did not bother to figure out why because these were legal contracts, in bulk, amounting to big dollars. The variables are very simple for any of these kind of decisions. Don't think about savings, think about costs. Costs of equipment Costs of time (resources) implementing Costs of maintenance Costs of losing data (faxes in this case) Costs of going back and doing it the right way if you find the above costs are higher than another solution. Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com KB3OPB -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:asterisk-users- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jon Pounder Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 4:54 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception Quoting Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Please qualify your usage. A couple faxes a day, a couple hundred, a couple thousand, or a couple hundred thousand? well what is your usage where it doesn't work ? I would like to know where it does and doesn't work as well but so far various groups have conflicting opinions. Are you running asterisk and hylafax on the same machine? What is your TDM connectivity? Hylafax uses quite a lot of CPU juice. Anyone ever scale up a quad T1/E1 server for faxing using asterisk and hylafax? Must be a heck of a server! Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,37/ KB3OPB _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Greg Kennedy Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 4:02 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception I gave up on the rxfax business as it never worked for me. I use iaxmodem and hylafax and it works perfectly, every single time i use it. inbound or outbound doesnt matter. I have not read about anyone using iaxmodem and hylafax having any issues. and its fairly easy to setup. Took me about 1 hour total to get everything installed and configured. Message: 3 Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 08:20:22 -0700 From: shadowym [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Anybody?? -Original Message- From: shadowym [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:35 AM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception So what is the bottom line? Does it work or not. I've heard stories it works, it doesn't work, it kinda sorta works when it's not raining out side. Everything under the rainbow. What's the bottom line with recent updates on 1.2.x? Is it production ready for fax? By production ready I mean that it just works all the time and doesn't need any babysitting. Do I have to worry about dropped lines, sometimes not detecting incoming fax toneyada yada. I know I don't have to use fax on Asterisk but I really want to for various reasons. Mostly incoming but outgoing is a nice to have. Should I use an addon package and if so which one? Any help would be appreciated. Message: 6 Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 11:38:01 -0400 From: Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] .com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Someone already answered this question. The answer is no, it does not work by your definition of production ready. Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com KB3OPB Jon Pounder _/_/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ Inline Internet Systems Inc. Thorold, Ontario, Canada Tools to Power Your e-Business Solutions www.inline.net www.ihtml.com www.ihtmlmerchant.com www.opayc.com
RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
Quoting Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If you are a junk spam faxer then it should suit your needs. If you occasionally send faxes and if you do not receive one or the other party does not receive one or it spits out junk but that is OK, then it should fit your needs. If you are faxing contracts or other important documents that are worth something, then go for a more reliable solution. On a 3ghz HP DL320 with a gig of RAM, each fax took about 5% indicated by top. I would not want to go above ten simultaneous faxes so I setup ten IAX Modems (50% in top). Even at that rate, there were a lot of failures. I did not bother to figure out why because these were legal contracts, in bulk, amounting to big dollars. anyone have a comparison with a multicpu machine with the same or lower clock rate ? The variables are very simple for any of these kind of decisions. Don't think about savings, think about costs. Costs of equipment Costs of time (resources) implementing Costs of maintenance Costs of losing data (faxes in this case) Costs of going back and doing it the right way if you find the above costs are higher than another solution. Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com KB3OPB -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:asterisk-users- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jon Pounder Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 4:54 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception Quoting Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Please qualify your usage. A couple faxes a day, a couple hundred, a couple thousand, or a couple hundred thousand? well what is your usage where it doesn't work ? I would like to know where it does and doesn't work as well but so far various groups have conflicting opinions. Are you running asterisk and hylafax on the same machine? What is your TDM connectivity? Hylafax uses quite a lot of CPU juice. Anyone ever scale up a quad T1/E1 server for faxing using asterisk and hylafax? Must be a heck of a server! Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,37/ KB3OPB _ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Greg Kennedy Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 4:02 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception I gave up on the rxfax business as it never worked for me. I use iaxmodem and hylafax and it works perfectly, every single time i use it. inbound or outbound doesnt matter. I have not read about anyone using iaxmodem and hylafax having any issues. and its fairly easy to setup. Took me about 1 hour total to get everything installed and configured. Message: 3 Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 08:20:22 -0700 From: shadowym [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Anybody?? -Original Message- From: shadowym [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:35 AM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception So what is the bottom line? Does it work or not. I've heard stories it works, it doesn't work, it kinda sorta works when it's not raining out side. Everything under the rainbow. What's the bottom line with recent updates on 1.2.x? Is it production ready for fax? By production ready I mean that it just works all the time and doesn't need any babysitting. Do I have to worry about dropped lines, sometimes not detecting incoming fax toneyada yada. I know I don't have to use fax on Asterisk but I really want to for various reasons. Mostly incoming but outgoing is a nice to have. Should I use an addon package and if so which one? Any help would be appreciated. Message: 6 Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 11:38:01 -0400 From: Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Bottom line on fax reception To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] .com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Someone already answered this question. The answer is no, it does not work by your definition of production ready. Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com KB3OPB Jon Pounder _/_/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ Inline Internet Systems Inc. Thorold, Ontario, Canada Tools to Power Your e-Business Solutions www.inline.net www.ihtml.com www.ihtmlmerchant.com www.opayc.com
RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:asterisk-users- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jon Pounder Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 9:10 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception Quoting Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If you are a junk spam faxer then it should suit your needs. If you occasionally send faxes and if you do not receive one or the other party does not receive one or it spits out junk but that is OK, then it should fit your needs. If you are faxing contracts or other important documents that are worth something, then go for a more reliable solution. On a 3ghz HP DL320 with a gig of RAM, each fax took about 5% indicated by top. I would not want to go above ten simultaneous faxes so I setup ten IAX Modems (50% in top). Even at that rate, there were a lot of failures. I did not bother to figure out why because these were legal contracts, in bulk, amounting to big dollars. anyone have a comparison with a multicpu machine with the same or lower clock rate ? Let me further qualify my results. This was done with whatever the current stable versions of Asterisk, Hylafax, and IAXmodem were available in January of this year. The faxes were outbound. PDFs put into a Samba share and a cron job moving them over to the Hylafax monitored directory. Thanks, Steve Totaro www.asteriskhelpdesk.com The variables are very simple for any of these kind of decisions. Don't think about savings, think about costs. Costs of equipment Costs of time (resources) implementing Costs of maintenance Costs of losing data (faxes in this case) Costs of going back and doing it the right way if you find the above costs are higher than another solution. Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com KB3OPB ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
Quoting Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED]: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:asterisk-users- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jon Pounder Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 9:10 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception Quoting Steve Totaro [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If you are a junk spam faxer then it should suit your needs. If you occasionally send faxes and if you do not receive one or the other party does not receive one or it spits out junk but that is OK, then it should fit your needs. If you are faxing contracts or other important documents that are worth something, then go for a more reliable solution. On a 3ghz HP DL320 with a gig of RAM, each fax took about 5% indicated by top. I would not want to go above ten simultaneous faxes so I setup ten IAX Modems (50% in top). Even at that rate, there were a lot of failures. I did not bother to figure out why because these were legal contracts, in bulk, amounting to big dollars. anyone have a comparison with a multicpu machine with the same or lower clock rate ? Let me further qualify my results. This was done with whatever the current stable versions of Asterisk, Hylafax, and IAXmodem were available in January of this year. The faxes were outbound. PDFs put into a Samba share and a cron job moving them over to the Hylafax monitored directory. for my application I am more concerned with inbound working, outbound is just a bonus if it works. one of the big points is when you have a distributed workforce conventional fax machines don't work out since you get a paper result in one place and the recipient in another. Hylafax output can easily be redirected from a general delivery mailbox, or people can have their own fax extensions or DID to automate delivery even more. In my application voip itself really doesn't factor in either, the fax setup is on the same box the analog lines physically terminate at. I have had pretty good luck with an old slow machine, ancient asterisk, low quality channel bank, and a physical fax modem on the same box as asterisk running hylafax, analog line in - pbx - analog line out - faxmodem, occasionally I get errors on faxes, and rarely someone can't get a fax through, but giving them the extension of a physical fax machine always works. So I am not convinced that problem is purely to blame on anything other than the far end station. What I would like to eliminate is the fxs port and physical faxmodem from the setup and use iaxmodem instead (frees up a port, plus doesn't need faxmodem at all, and less complicated) it sounds like this sort of configuration works pretty well according to most of the posters. I know there are some issues with fax autodetection, but normally the sender fax is programmed to retry a few times, and failing that, your answer message could include a message to hit start on the fax machine if it does not start automatically, or dial an extension manually to start it. another thing I like to do is if I scribble something down on a piece of paper, I just drop it in the fax machine and send it to the fax modem by calling its extension, I get a nicely scanned pdf in the mail that I can then forward to anyone without knowing their fax number or paying for a fax call, great for emailing diagrams of things without taking the time to draw them on the computer. Thanks, Steve Totaro www.asteriskhelpdesk.com The variables are very simple for any of these kind of decisions. Don't think about savings, think about costs. Costs of equipment Costs of time (resources) implementing Costs of maintenance Costs of losing data (faxes in this case) Costs of going back and doing it the right way if you find the above costs are higher than another solution. Thanks, Steve Totaro http://www.asteriskhelpdesk.com KB3OPB ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users Jon Pounder _/_/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ Inline Internet Systems Inc. Thorold, Ontario, Canada Tools to Power Your e-Business Solutions www.inline.net www.ihtml.com www.ihtmlmerchant.com www.opayc.com This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [asterisk-users] RE: Bottom line on fax reception
Let me further qualify my results. This was done with whatever the current stable versions of Asterisk, Hylafax, and IAXmodem were available in January of this year. The faxes were outbound. PDFs put into a Samba share and a cron job moving them over to the Hylafax monitored directory. for my application I am more concerned with inbound working, outbound is just a bonus if it works. one of the big points is when you have a distributed workforce conventional fax machines don't work out since you get a paper result in one place and the recipient in another. Hylafax output can easily be redirected from a general delivery mailbox, or people can have their own fax extensions or DID to automate delivery even more. In my application voip itself really doesn't factor in either, the fax setup is on the same box the analog lines physically terminate at. I have had pretty good luck with an old slow machine, ancient asterisk, low quality channel bank, and a physical fax modem on the same box as asterisk running hylafax, analog line in - pbx - analog line out - faxmodem, occasionally I get errors on faxes, and rarely someone can't get a fax through, but giving them the extension of a physical fax machine always works. So I am not convinced that problem is purely to blame on anything other than the far end station. What I would like to eliminate is the fxs port and physical faxmodem from the setup and use iaxmodem instead (frees up a port, plus doesn't need faxmodem at all, and less complicated) it sounds like this sort of configuration works pretty well according to most of the posters. I know there are some issues with fax autodetection, but normally the sender fax is programmed to retry a few times, and failing that, your answer message could include a message to hit start on the fax machine if it does not start automatically, or dial an extension manually to start it. another thing I like to do is if I scribble something down on a piece of paper, I just drop it in the fax machine and send it to the fax modem by calling its extension, I get a nicely scanned pdf in the mail that I can then forward to anyone without knowing their fax number or paying for a fax call, great for emailing diagrams of things without taking the time to draw them on the computer. Yes, I suppose the thread title is reception. I am pretty sure the PDF decoding or encoding is what eats up the processor cycles, tiff would probably be much less processing. The poor man's scanner option is also pretty nice. Depending on the fax machine, it could be on par with a Panafax which is a costly little and awesome piece of equipment. Thanks, Steve ___ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
