Re: flexfax: samba en flexfax

[Shuvam Misra <shuvam@spacenetindia.com>]

| One approach I had heard of (and am thinking of implementing when I
| have time) is to write a program that runs on the PC.  It will
| listen on a particular TCP port.  The user sends the FAX to a samba
| defined printer.  In the samba config, it is possible to run a
| program when a print is received for a particular printer.  This
| program can determine the IP address of the print sender.  So, the
| program running on the samba server can make a TCP connection back
| to the server on the PC, start a 'phone book' application, and have
| the user decide at that point who to send the FAX to.
| 
| I think this could work pretty well.  It's not a clean as doing a
| Windows Printer driver, but doing a printer driver implies buying
| some sort of kit from Microsoft, and I'm guessing that the
| resultant code would not be modifyable by anyone unless they also
| had purchased the kit.

Good idea. But like most good ideas, it has already been implemented. :)
Look at my post earlier today giving the URL of the Website that carries
the full package to do this thing. I've also described what needs to be
done to get it going with Hylafax (it's currently oriented to
mgetty+sendfax.).

And the reason to go for this approach is not just to get out of
Microsoft source restrictions, but to get a more stable implementation
of the MS side of the code. You should see what the author of WHFC had
to say about the instability of a printer spooler handler on Win95.

Shuvam