Switching to VoIP

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

Fax and Modems

|

335

This can happen any number of ways. You could create a simple web interface that

allows you to upload TIFF files to the server, or if you’ve got the right software, you

could just scan them directly using the Linux machine. I don’t recommend either of

these approaches, however, because neither of them provides a straightforward way

of telling Asterisk where to send the fax. Fortunately, the Hylafax package provides a

solution.

Project 14.2. Build an Inbound Fax-to-Email Gateway

What you need for this project:

• Asterisk running on Linux

• SpanDSP

• Sven Slezak’s LDAPGet module

• A T1 interface with an active PRI attached or multiple X100P cards with POTS

lines attached

In Project 14.1, we built a configuration to direct all incoming faxes from Zaptel

channels to a file, which, in turn, we could have automatically printed. But if the

server were working on behalf of many possible fax recipients, we would have to rely

on the incoming fax’s cover sheet to know which recipient it’s destined for. Worse

still, we’d have to go to the printer, pick up the fax, and hand-deliver it to the cor-

rect person.

There’s a better way, of course: email. It’s just as easy to email that TIFF file to some-

body’s inbox as it is to print it:

exten => fax,1,SetVar(TIFFILE=/var/spool/faxes/thisfax=${CALLERIDNUM}.tif) ...