Re: flexfax: Basic Linux information needed?

[Phil Watkinson <pkw@elgro.co.uk>]

At 19:14 25/05/99 -0400, Tommy Malloy <tjm1@thorn.net> wrote:
>I have recently setup hylafax on my Gnu/Linux box. I believe that I have
>followed the instructions correctly, but hylafax is not working. I am
>using the same modem to make my ppp internet connection, and have seen
>messages about hylafax's inability to create a lock file on /dev/ttyS1.

Perhaps you are worried about a message like this in your logs? :

May  6 15:06:00 gateway FaxGetty[198]: ANSWER: Can not lock modem device

It is not an error, nor a warning; just a statement of fact from faxgetty
when it sees the modem handshake with faxsend for an outbound job. You can
ignore it.
    
 
>My first questions are pretty basic.  What information do I need to
>gather in order to ask an intelligent question here, And What steps do I
>need to take to obtain that information and to determine the cause of
>Hylafax's  failure to work properly ?  Thank you
>

Here is a sort of troubleshooting checklist to follow, including the 
information needed to mention to this list if you get stuck:-

1. Tell us your OS (and distribution if Linux), whether you have compiled
   from source or used a binary package, and the version of same.

2. Modem manufacturer and model, and which class you are trying to use it
   in.

3. Tell us that after installing HylaFAX you have run faxsetup, following
   through to faxaddmodem without errors (ignoring vgetty and egetty of
   course).

4. Prove to us that the hylafax processes are running on your system, eg:
   [root /root]# ps ax |grep fax
       350  ?  S    0:03 /usr/local/sbin/faxq
       352  ?  S    0:01 /usr/local/sbin/hfaxd -i hylafax
     20705  ?  S    0:00 /usr/local/sbin/faxgetty ttyS1

5. Show us the current state of the fax queuer, eg:
   [root /root]# faxstat
    HylaFAX scheduler on derrick.elgro.co.uk: Running
    Modem ttyS1 (01205725015): Running and idle

6. Tell us how you have tested HylaFAX, eg the old faithful :
   [root /root]# sendfax -n -d 725015 /etc/hosts

7. And then tell us the messages in the system log (/var/log/messages
   or /var/log/syslog) or the session log (/var/spool/fax/log/c00001234).

8. You can do some research yourself by looking through the html 
   documentation (both troubleshooting.html and setup-advanced.html are
   very good) and search the mailing-list archives at :
          http://www.hylafax.org/archive/index.html
   for further information about your problem and possible solutions.


Hope this helps,
Phil Watkinson,
Boston, UK.