[hylafax-users] Error notification on hylafax/cups? How?

["Peter Tirrell" <ptirrell@xxxxxxxxx>]

Today we had a problem that happened for the second time, and
unfortunately it went unnoticed for some time.

We are running Hylafax on a Fedora Core 7 workstation that prints
across the network to an HP LaserJet printer. This was all set up
previously by an employee who no longer works here. We run a Windows
network (SBS 2003), but this linux server has for the most part run
flawlessly basically just receiving faxes, copying them to a network
location, and then printing them to the network printer with CUPS. I
have some basic experience with linux, am looking to learn more, but
most of what I've played with is on Ubuntu. I'm not as familiar with
the Redhat/Fedora distros.

Twice now, though, something has happened and the printer has become
"disabled". Faxes have continued to be received, but they don't print.
We have to either go via the command line or log into the GUI and
"enable" the printer; it has become disabled somehow. We don't have
any notification or anything and haven't realized it until someone
notices that the fax load has been slow lately, and we look into it.

In the /var/log/cups error log I found this:

I [28/Sep/2007:10:52:24 -0400] Started backend
/usr/lib/cups/backend/socket (PID 22486) for job 10208.
E [28/Sep/2007:10:52:24 -0400] PID 22486
(/usr/lib/cups/backend/socket) crashed on signal 11!
I [28/Sep/2007:10:52:24 -0400] Hint: Try setting the LogLevel to
"debug" to find out more.
I [28/Sep/2007:10:52:26 -0400] [Job 10208] Backend returned status -11 (crashed)
I [28/Sep/2007:10:52:26 -0400] Saving printers.conf...

I played around with it some more and came up with *sort of* a
solution, but not really. I can do this:

grep -A 3 -B 3 -E "^E" /var/log/cups/error_log

and it will give me output if an error occurred. I could put this line
in crontab on a schedule, and I think that would send out notices if
it found an error. But I think that would also keep sending out the
same message until the error fell out of the grepped log file. I
want/need it to just send out one error notification when it comes
across one, and not send another until it sends detects another error.

How do you usually keep tabs on Hylafax and the related processes, and
get notified if there's a problem?  Ideally we'd like an email
notification send if there's a problem with Hylafax (or in this case
CUPS).  Any help would be great appreciated - thanks!


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