Release notes for AsterFax version 1.0
beta 7
AsterFax provides an
Email to Fax gateway for the transmission of faxes using Asterisk.
Asterisk
is an
Open Source PBX (or PABX)
integrating PSTN telephone lines and VOIP into a single solution,
providing all of the functionality
of a high end PBX; and best of all its
free!
AsterFax builds on the services provided by Asterisk to provide a full
fledged email based Fax Gateway.
What that means is that with AsterFax and Asterisk you can
send faxes from your desktop using your standard
email client without have to install any software on your desktop.
AsterFax can translate a normal email message into a fax
message. You simply enter the destination phone
number in the 'To' address, compose your email message and click send.
Its that easy.
For more formal correspondence AsterFax also supports a
growing number of file formats such as PDF, Tiff,
Postscript, MS-Word and OpenOffice Writer. You can either
attach the file to your email message or for
applications such as MS-Word and OpenOffice you can fax directly from
the applications by using the 'Send
Email' option. The resulting email is sent as a fax message.
Beta 7 does not conform to the original roadmap. It has been release to
address a number of issues identified in beta 6b,
there was also sufficient functionality added that a release appeared
warranted.
The
functionality included in beta 7 does not quite rate as a 'feature set'
but
is more in the way of addressing specific usage scenarios that have
become obvious from user feedback.
AsterFax home page (http://asterfax.sourceforge.net).
This upgraded is strongly recommended for all users.
Multiple Attachments
AsterFax
will now automatically fax multiple attachments. In previous versions
of AsterFax only the first supported attachment was faxed (only with
the cover sheet).
AsterFax now faxes all supported attachments.
Apart from the cover sheet which is always sent first the order in
which attachments are sent is not defined.
It
is likely that attachments will be sent in the order that you add them
to the email but this behaviour is dependant on you email client.
Hang
on Shut-down
When attempting to shut-down AsterFax it would display the Shut-down
message and then hang.
This problem would only occur when self diagnosis was turned on.
The problem was caused by a ManagerReader thread not being shutdown.
This problem has been resolved.
Self Diagnosis improvements.
The Self Diagnosis code now attempts to validate that the outbound mail
smtp settings
are correct.
Documentation
Improved documentation on Ghostscript
Removed spelling mistakes :)
Split the documentation across a number of pages to make it easier to
navigate.
NullPointerException
A null pointer exception was being thrown when either of the following
occured:
1. an attachment didn't have a filename
2. The body was passed as an attachment and it didn't contain a
filename.
This happend most often when the body of an email was composed using
HTML.
The problem has been resolved.
Audit Log Improved
The Audit log now displays the number of pages contained in the fax.
The format of the log file has been modified to improve its parsability
(is that a word?).
Execute Permissions
Unzipping the release now automatically sets the execute bit on all
scripts.
The script install.sh no longer needs to be run and has been removed
from the release.
FaxHeader
Added support to display a fax header on each page. The content of the
fax header
can be controlled via the <FaxHeader> element in AsterFax.xml.
Note: whist the FaxHeader can be specified it still is not being
displayed on the actual fax.
See the 'Configuring AsterFax' page for details on specifying the fax
header.
PageSize
The PageSize of the render tiff file can now be customized via the
<PageSize> element
in AsterFax.xml.
The default has been changed from A4 to Letter. A link to the set
of support page sizes can be found
on the Configuring AsterFax Page.
TempFolder
A new element has been added to specify the location where temp files
are stored.
The default directory is /usr/lib/asterfax/tmp which is automatically
created when
the relase zip file is unzipped.
Default Spool folder moved
The default spool folder has been moved to a subdirectory of asterfax
(/usr/lib/asterfax/spool).
This was done to simplify installs as the action of unzipping the
release now automatically
creates the spool directory.
Install.sh removed
The script install.sh has been removed from the distribution as it is
nolonger required.
Restart new requeues unsent faxes
If AsterFax is stopped and restarted any unsent faxes are now requeued
for transmission.
Previously any unset faxes would be ignored.
AsterFax shuts down if run in
background
AsterFax can now either be run in the forground or in the background
using the
nohup option described on the page 'Running Asterfax'.
Previously AsterFax would shutdown as soon as it was put into the
background.
Multipage Faxes not compressed
Multipage
faxes which where created as a result of merging a cover page with an
attachment where not being compressed. The results was that two 10K
files where being merged into a 1MB file.
Compression is now set correctly for multipage files.
Web2Fax
An
alpha release of Web2Fax has been included in this distribution.
Contributed by Alex Gerelli, Web2Fax allows a user to send a fax from a
Web Browser using AsterFax as the engine.
Known Issues
- Some
users have reported that the second and subsquent pages of a fax are
being squished horizontally. The problem is currently under review and
a fix should be issued shortly.
- Restarts for a fax with multiple recipients will resend the fax
to all recipients.
- Faxes with multiple recipients are sent via a single channel
rather than utilizing all available channels.
- Configuration notes for sendmail/procmail are still not available
(any one care to donate a set?).
**Upgrade Instructions
Note: The AsterFax.xml configuration file has changed considerably and
you will need to
replace your existing file.
Remember to copy across any settings that you manually did to the prior
version.
- Shut-down the AsterFax daemon.
- Backup your existing AsterFax install directory.
- Unzip the release files into /usr/lib/asterfax.
- Reapply any changes you made to config/AsterFax.xml.
- Check the 'Configuring AsterFax' page for additional notes on
configuring AsterFax.xml
- Restart the AsterFax daemon.
- Run the test suite as per the standard installation instructions.