Re: [hylafax-users] Can hylafax `proxy' to another hylafax server?

[Lee Howard <faxguy@howardsilvan.com>]

On 2002.09.25 20:48 B. Watson wrote:
> 
> Hi. I'm setting up a send-only hylafax server, with 4 modems,
> eventually
> to be upgraded to 8 if all goes well. This will be a pretty busy
> server,
> with hundreds of outgoing faxes/day.
> 
> I've been reading over the FAQ and HOWTO, and am slowly picking my way
> through the mailing list archives. So far I haven't found an answer to
> this question, hopefully it isn't a dumb question:
> 
> Can Hylafax use another Hylafax server to send faxes?

Yes, but not well and not "as designed" or "out of the box".

> Here's the situation: I have a fully-functional Hylafax server with
> 4 modems, and a spare PC I can attach 2 more modems to (or 4, for the
> price of an add-in ISA card (probably free, if I look through my parts
> bin)). I'd like to have the existing server send its excess traffic to
> the second server, which will then use its locally-attached modems to
> send out those faxes.

You'd have to write a faxsend wrapper that did all of the dirty work 
for you and then either called on faxsend.orig to send the faxes 
locally or on 'sendfax -h' to send them remotely.  Ultimately it 
wouldn't be a very pretty arrangement because you'd probably have to 
play a million tricks to keep faxq happy and notify sensible.

> I realize there would be the issue of error reporting (if server #2
> can't send the fax, it should really have a way to let server #1 know,
> so all the errors can be logged in one place).. but that concern
> aside,
> is what I want to do possible, perhaps with some clever scripting? Has
> anyone on the list ever done such a thing, or tried to?

It's been done before.  However, the better thing at the moment is to 
get your client to support muliple servers rather than trying to 
proxy-fy a HylaFAX server.

> Basically I'm trying to recycle existing equipment (the old PC in the
> corner) instead of having to buy a multi-port serial card with 6 or
> 8 ports.

The multiport is the way to go, though. ;-)

> I've also thought of running a daemon on the second server that
> listens
> on a TCP port and acts as a TCP <=> serial port pass-through. On the
> first server, I would have a client for this that listens on a FIFO,
> and configure the FIFO as a `modem' for Hylafax to use. In this case,
> there wouldn't need to be a Hylafax server running on the second box
> at
> all. Has anyone had any experience with a setup like this? (I realize
> it's a dirty hack, but it should be at least possible, right?)

This would be a very cool arrangement... if it worked.  What package 
would do the TCP <=> serial port pass-through?

Lee.

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