AsterFax the Email to Fax Gateway for Asterisk.

--------------- We have moved -----------------

AsterFax and Asterisk IT have both been renamed.

Asterfax is now known as Noojee Fax

Asterisk IT is now known as Noojee Telephony Solutions.

Noojee Fax documentation and support can now be obtained via:
http://www.noojee.com.au/Page/NoojeeFax
https://wiki.noojee.com.au/Noojee_Fax
http://forums.noojee.com.au

--------------- We have moved -----------------

Asterisk IT is the primary developer and sponsor of AsterFax the Open Source Email to Fax Gateway for Asterisk.
Asterisk I.T. offer a range of support options for AsterFax as well as general Asterisk consulting services. Contact sales@asteriskit.com.au for more information.
You can also receive support from the Asterfax and Asterisk communities by by posting at the relevant forum.

AsterFax™ - Asterisk Fax

FAQ

Q. What hardware do I need to send a fax?

A. AsterFax does NOT require a Fax Modem to send faxes. AsterFax is able to send a fax using a standard Digium Digtial or Analog Interface Card.
AsterFax can also send faxes over a VOIP link providing conditions are perfect and a non-compression codec such as ulaw or alaw is used.
We have tested AsterFax on the following:

Wildcard TE110P
Wildcard TDM400P

It is also likely to work on all other Digital and Analog cards which work with Asterisk. We will post more information as it comes to hand.

Q. When I start AsterFax I get a BindException

A. You are either running another copy of AsterFax or more likely you are running sendmail on the same IP address/Port pair. You can start AsterFax on a different IP address by using the command line option as follows: java -jar AsterFax.jar x.x.x.x
You can shut sendmail down by running the following command
service sendmail stop

Q. How do I tell where Ghostscript is looking for fonts

A. To determine where Ghostscript is currently looking for fonts run
gs --help

Q. Ghostscript Error: invalidfont in findfont

A. Ghostscript's fonts has not been configured properly.
Ghostscript has not been configured properly and cannot find the required font files or the fonts where not installed correctly on your system.

The specific error reported in the AsterFax.log is similar to the following: note the names of the font file may be different.
input> Can't find (or can't open) font file n022003l.pfb.
input> Can't find (or can't open) font file NimbusMonL-Regu.
.....
input> Error: /invalidfont in findfont
......
input> Last OS error: 2
output> AFPL Ghostscript 8.53: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

Note: the dots ('.....') represent delete log information.

Solution
Ghostscript has not been configured properly and cannot find the required font files or the fonts where not installed correctly on your system.

Start by reviewing the ghostscript installation notes and consider re-installing ghostscript.

if that doesn't work the following may help.

In the above case the missing font file is n0220031.pfb which contains the NimbusMonL-Regu font (which is an alias for Courier).

Check that you should find the following fonts on your system. (the directory name may vary on your system).

Times-Roman /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n021003l.pfb
Times-Italic /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n021023l.pfb
Times-Bold /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n021004l.pfb
Times-BoldItalic /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n021024l.pfb
Helvetica /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019003l.pfb
Helvetica-Oblique /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019023l.pfb
Helvetica-Bold /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019004l.pfb
Helvetica-BoldOblique /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n019024l.pfb
Courier /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n022003l.pfb
Courier-Oblique /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n022023l.pfb
Courier-Bold /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n022004l.pfb
Courier-BoldOblique /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/n022024l.pfb
Symbol /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/s050000l.pfb
ZapfDingbats /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/d050000l.pfb

Ghostscript uses the following environment variables to locate the font files:
GS_FONTPATH and GS_LIB.

The Aladdin site (authors of ghostscript) provides documentation for ghostscript at:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/index.htm

a comprehensive description of how Ghostscript searches for fonts:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/8.5.0/Use.htm#Font_lookup

details on how ghostscript uses fonts:

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/cvs/Fonts.htm

details on how to use Ghostscript.
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/8.5.0/Use.htm

Q. What's the SpanDSP patch all about? How do I install it?

A. SpanDSP provides fax functionality for Asterisk through the TxFax and Rxfax applications. As of Version 1 beta 8 of AsterFax the TxFax application provided no notification of faxing events. AsterFax must at least be notified when a fax is successfully transmitted. For thsi reason TxFax (for versions of SpanDSP 0.0.2x) has been modified to send event notifications.

AsterFax ships with a script that can be run to patch TxFax. The script assumes the Asterisk source and binary files are in the default locations (/usr/src/asterisk and /usr/lib/asterisk respectively) and it assumes SpanDSP is installed. Run the modules/install.sh script in your AsterFax intall directory to apply the patch.

Errors in the patching process are usually caused by the Asterisk files not being located in the expected locations.

Q. I've installed the JRE but AsterFax install still says it needs the JRE. What's going on?

A. First be sure you have installed the JRE and that it is a java 5 JRE. Do this by typing java -version at the command prompt. If you get a response on the command line that includes version numbers looking something like 1.5.0_06 (or at least starting with 1.5) then all is well with the JRE install.

If you have a JDK installed you will get similar complaints when installing from the RPM. Use this work around in this case also.

If a Java 5 JRE is installed correctly then use the --nodeps switch when isntalling the AsterFax RPM. Please be sure that all other dependencies have been satisfied before restorting to using this switch.

Q. What might cause some pages to be cut short?

A. One likely cause is frame slipping caused by unsynchronised clocks. This occurs when the communication end-point clocks are not synchronised. Faxing is very sensitive to frame slipping. One good way to synchronise the clocks is to synchronise to the PSTN. See spandsp author Steve Underwood's discussion of this. AsterFax relies on the spandsp TxFax application to submit faxes. See the discussion at the VOIP wiki for details on synchronising Zap hardware to the PSTN.

Home
Downloads
Support
Licensing
News
FAQ
RoadMap
AsterFax UserGuide
Configuring Email Clients
Supported File Formats
Installing AsterFax
Configuring AsterFax
Testing AsterFax
Trouble Shooting AsterFax
Running AsterFax
Configuring SendMail
Configuring GhostScript
Configuring OpenOffice
SpanDSP
Add your own File format
Web2Fax

AsterFax is Sponsored by Asterisk I.T.
©2006 Asterisk I.T. all rights reserved. Some parts of this site may be the copyright of other authors. If you want to copy parts of this page you may do so provided you have gained permission from Asterisk I.T. first. Email asterfax@asteriskit.com.au
AsterFax™ is a trade mark of Asterisk I.T..
I'm not a great believer in Trade Marking Open Source software but unfortunately someone has been running a scam to redirect traffic to a bogus AsterFax web site. As such I've trade marked AsterFax's name to provide protection from such people.