GNU Netfax 3.2 hang problem
Antonson rightly suggested that I dump Gnu Netfax and go for another
freely available package called FlexFax instead. I have not had the time
try that yet. I hope to soon.
Here's the original question followed by the response.
> On Sun, 20 Feb 1994 16:53:39 +0200 (IST) Gautam Das wrote:
> From: Gautam Das
> Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 16:53:39 +0200 (IST)
> Subject: GNU Netfax 3.2 hang problem
> To: Sun Managers <sun-managers@eecs.nwu.edu>
> O ye wise ones!
>
> We are using GNU netfax-3.2 for outgoing faxes for more than 6 months now.
> We have not tried to use it for incoming faxes. Anyway it works quite
> well, except almost everyday we need to kill and restart the faxspooler
> process several times, because it gets hung somehow. There are times
> when that doesn't work either and we have to reboot the machine to
> fix the faxspooler hang.
>
> We have setup an hourly cronjob to detect this hang condition by using
> the faxq command. If a hang is detected it automatically tries to
> kill and restart the spooler. If that fails then it sends mail to the
> administrators to reboot the machine running the fax server. This solution
> sort of works but I looking for a better cure.
>
> Are any of you using Gnu Netfax 3.2 and have you experienced similar
> situations? If so I will appreciate if you can share your experiences
> and offer any other solutions.
From: "Todd S. Antonson" <antonson@umiacs.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: GNU Netfax 3.2 hang problem
>
> O ye wise ones!
Um. Don't speak too soon. :^)
> We are using GNU netfax-3.2 for outgoing faxes for more than 6 months now.
> We have not tried to use it for incoming faxes. Anyway it works quite
> well, except almost everyday we need to kill and restart the faxspooler
> process several times, because it gets hung somehow. There are times
> when that doesn't work either and we have to reboot the machine to
> fix the faxspooler hang.
A package that causes regular reboots of systems does not work (IMHO).
Anyway, I played with GNU fax for about a week quite some time ago and I
trashed it in favor of FlexFAX written by Sam Leffler. FlexFAX is free
and you can get it from sgi.com:sgi/fax.
There is an email mailing list set up for flexfax users as well so there
is some external support if you run into problems. FlexFAX is written in
C++ and can be compiled with GNU CC/C++.
Hope this helps!
--
- Todd S. Antonson (antonson@umiacs.umd.edu UUCP: uunet!umiacs!antonson)
- UMIACS, A.V. Williams Bldg., University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
