Subject: Fax-Sendmail

From: Monica Merlotti <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001 16:56:03 +0100

Hallo,
I need some help.
I would like to send a fax to the address: /dd.fax=number@mydomain, but
the sendmail (Berkely 8.11),
 answers to me with the following error msg "550 5.7.1
/dd.fax=number@mydomain.. Cannot mail directly to files".

Which configuration option or something like this I have to add to my
sendmail to accept msg to /dd.fax=......

Many thanks.
Monica Merlotti

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From: "George Pajari" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 11:16:08 -0800

> sendmail to accept msg to /dd.fax=......

Unless sendmail has been configured (in sendmail.cf) to recognise the
'/dd.fax' pattern in the local-part of the address it will think you are
trying to email to a filename.

Of course, not only do you have to configure sendmail.cf to recognise a fax
address, you need to provide a delivery agent that will accept the message
from sendmail and attempt to deliver it by fax.

Sendmail does not come with such a delivery agent but there are commercial
(such as ours) and open-source solutions to accomplish this.

If you wish to "roll your own" then an excellent place to start is with
O'Reilly's definitive book on sendmail
(http://www.ora.com/catalog/sendmail2/) which will explain how to configure
sendmail to recognise special email addresses and how to interface delivery
agents.

George Pajari
Faximum Software

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From: Claudio Allocchio <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 10:07:50 +0100

> trying to email to a filename.

There is also something else, which is fundamentally wrong in the approach:

/dd.fax= is NOT the correct syntax for a "GSTN address in e-mail" (this 
is its official name, including fax numbers, of course). It resembles one 
of the early stages proposals (also one of my very old s/w prototypes was 
using it).

The correct standard syntax for it is

    fax=faxnumber@faxgateway-domain

where for example:

    fax=[email-masked]

is an example, provided that "faxgw.something.org" is an "internet fax 
machine" following the ietf-fax standards.

> from sendmail and attempt to deliver it by fax.

... If I remember correctly sendmail.cf rules, the "standard address" 
fax=fanumeber@faxgateway-domain does not even require any special rule to 
be recognised.

> (such as ours) and open-source solutions to accomplish this.

Correct!

> sendmail to recognise special email addresses and how to interface delivery

exactly. I only add the suggestion to choose an ietf-fax standard 
compliant agent, if you really wish to deliver a global interworking 
service to your customers.

Regards,
Claudio Allocchio

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From: "George Pajari" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 02:11:56 -0800

Claudio:

Thank you so much for the clarification.

> fax=fanumeber@faxgateway-domain does not even require any special rule to

Sorry if I did not make it clear. If faxgateway-domain is NOT running
sendmail and presumably knows how to handle addresses of the above form then
you are correct. Sendmail servers intermediate between the user and the
faxgateway-domain do not need any special rules.

If, on the other hand, faxgateway-domain is running sendmail then that
sendmail needs to be configured so that it knows the message is to be
delivered by a fax delivery agent (which will interprete the fax=faxnumber
part) and not to try to deliver it to a local user called "fax=faxnumber".

> > (such as ours) and open-source solutions to accomplish this.
....
> .... I only add the suggestion to choose an ietf-fax standard

We try, Claudio, we try.

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From: Claudio Allocchio <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 11:22:47 +0100

> part) and not to try to deliver it to a local user called "fax=faxnumber".

Exactly, George! it is a configuration needed only on the offramp gateway, 
"faxgateway-domain", if it runs sendmail plus the special handling delivery 
agent for i-fax (or an equivalent stuff for any other MTA type, handling 
i-fax).

:-)

Claudio

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From: Masahiko Kimoto <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 20:55:06 +0900

> (such as ours) and open-source solutions to accomplish this.

# Sorry, but I don't have so much experiences on sendmail.

But, as far as I know, "qmail" can accept such addresses easily.

Write the following lines in /var/qmail/users/assign

+fax=:ifax:60:60:/home/ifax:-:offramp:
.

and run qmail-newu, /var/qmail/users/cdb will be updated.
Then, qmail passes all mails which is sent TO fax=*****@this_server
to ~ifax/.qmail-offramp.
You can write script name in .qmail-offramp. In the script, just
pick up To: header and destination phone number, and process it.

This is another solution I think.

Regards,

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Masahiko KIMOTO   <[email-masked]> -- http://www.ohnolab.org/~kimoto
WIDE Project.
Tokyo Institute of Technology.