Setting up a simple fax server

Itsdacraic

Hi,

As above, I'm wondering if anybody has any good guides on setting up a simple fax server. I have a couple of machines available to me that I could throw a linux distro onto if it would achieve my aims.

The location of the traditional fax machine here in the office is a bit of a bug bear with people (they have to go down stairs), so I am investigating if there is any way I could implement a desktop faxing solution for very little money (as in none!).

From the investigation I have been doing this morning I think something like Hylafax might suit my needs (but open to suggestions).
The two machines I have available are -

- An old windows machine with an external fax moden attached
- decent spec laptop running Ubuntu 10.04 which I think has an inbuilt fax modem (not sure how to check this in ubuntu )

Not looking for someone to guide me through it step by step or anything but if somebody could point me in the direction of some good documentation or had personal experience of setting something like this up then I would appreciate your input.

Thanks guys.

liamo

I set up Hylafax in work on an old desktop machine with an external fax-modem about a year ago and it's still going strong.

I used Debian and installed hylafax with apt-get.

There was obviously some setup involved. I can't remember (and didn't document) the setup steps but I simply Googled for the information.

I'm most definitely not a guru on Hylafax or on Linux in general so I reckon anyone with a reasonable familiarity with Linux should be able to do it.

Itsdacraic

liamo wrote: »

I set up Hylafax in work on an old desktop machine with an external fax-modem about a year ago and it's still going strong.

I used Debian and installed hylafax with apt-get.

There was obviously some setup involved. I can't remember (and didn't document) the setup steps but I simply Googled for the information.

I'm most definitely not a guru on Hylafax or on Linux in general so I reckon anyone with a reasonable familiarity with Linux should be able to do it.

Spot on Liamo. I'll probably go with Debian on the desktop box, as most of the documentation I've come across seems to be focus on the combo of debian/hylafax.

What kind of system did you put in place for fax retrieval? A central store with someone given responsibilty for checking?

liamo

Itsdacraic wrote: »

What kind of system did you put in place for fax retrieval? A central store with someone given responsibilty for checking?

I email an incoming fax as a PDF to a single company email address. This email address is a distribution address so any members of that distribution group gets a copy of the emailed PDF. Usually it's only one person but it's handy to have the email address abstracted from the point of view of maintenance. That person then forwards it to the addressee.

And I used the WinPrintHylafax client for sending faxes from Windows.

Regards

Liam