From: fitz@frc.ri.cmu.edu (Kerien Fitzpatrick)
Subject: Re: NetFax 2.1 help
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 00:07:52 GMT
Organization: Field Robotics Ceneter
Reply-To: fitz@frc.ri.cmu.edu

In article 15904@noose.ecn.purdue.edu, moyman@ecn.purdue.edu (Mike Moya) writes:
>Two questions:
>1) Is it a no-no to set up the modem (EverFax 24/96D) to a DB9 Sun4/390 
>serial port? Any body using that type of serial for NetFax?
>
>2) What is the "correct" port set-up. I currently have it like:
>ttyb    "/usr/etc/getty std.2400"       unknown         on  local secure
>
>Currently the daemon is not recognizing spooled jobs and sending them,
>I think the above could be significant. Of course no error are logged so 
>any help would be appreciated...
>
>
>On another note, is there significant interest in getting a mailing list 
>going for NetFax users? Send me a note if you are interested.
>--moya (moyman@ecn.purdue.edu)

We are using NetFax (kind of) and would be interested in a mailing list.

I don't know the answer to 1, but we have (actually had....updated to 4.1.2
and we are having a few problems again) successfully run it from a SPARC 1+.
I must admit our knowledge on certain levels is minimal, but the NetFax docs
left a bit to be desired (no modem setup info, etc)

Two items that we believed to be errors originally -> maybe they aren't, but
the changes brought the system online except for a couple nagging problems.

1:  in the libfax directory...class2protocol.o is truncated by ar when
building the libfax library.  Changed all references to class2proto.

2:  in libfax/ttyio.c they initially set up the port to 19200 -> we noticed
problems in the Xon/Xoff so reduced this to 9600.  Theoretically with the
modem and Sun set up correctly the serial port should be able to be configured
at a higher baudrate and the modem should issue xon/xoff??? is this correct.

* Use Ghostscript 2.4 -> earlier version result in problems with non-fixed
width fonts, justified lines, etc.

** it looks as if the rudimentary flow control in the faxsend executable gets
out of sync on occasion resulting in the software hanging.  If the modem is
not configured correctly the line is never dropped.  We managed to get the
modem to drop the line, but the software still doesn't recover.

*** we are clueless on what is the appropriate ttysoftcar setting.  We have it
set to "y" and files are processed/sent.  Setting to "n" results in the Sun
not knowing that the modem is hooked up.

**** we set the eeprom values for ttyb such that rts-dtr-off is true and ignore-cd
is false.

***** entry in ttytab is standard and off.

****** modem settings (really a bunch of guesses)
&C1 - only indicate carrier if one is actually present
&D[0,2] we've tried both 0 & 2 settings...

******* How things work currently  *********
We can send and receive faxes.  Receiving (only tried a couple of times) seemed to
work flawlessly.  Lots of Xon/Xoff are sent -> received documents of more than
20 pages without an error.

Sometimes faxes are sent without a hitch.  Xon/Xoff seems to work, but very
few are required.  On the next fax it may hang waiting for Xon after the 
first Xoff.  As mentioned earlier, our best guess is a sync problem.....

We haven't had much time to work with this so our understanding is minimal.
If your daemon is not recognizing the faxes - check ttysoftcar and make
sure you are running faxspooler -d to get all the debugging info.  If
anyone can provide more insight I would be extremely happy to hear about
better fixes.  We may get some more time in mid to late May, but not before
then due to research deliverables coming up.


---
Kerien Fitzpatrick			Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Field Robotics Center			(412)268-6564
The Robotics Institute			Internet: fitz@frc.ri.cmu.edu
Carnegie Mellon University