1.4.0 and txfax/rxfax

Asterisk Asterisk Support
1

Has anyone successfully installed spandsp and rxfax and txfax applications on 1.4.0 release of Asterisk?

I tried the latest snapshot of spandsp, as well as couple other previous versions. I compiled it fine, downloaded the asterisk.patch, manually patched the asterisk files, run .configure, make clean, make menuselect and it shows app_txfax and app_rxfax as XX (unavailable).

Each time I made sure no other spandsp versions are installed and put the proper path in /etc/ld.so.conf and run ldconfig, prior to compiling Asterisk. Still no luck.

Any suggestions?

TIA,

Remzi Turer

2

Hi semsettin!
try make changes in next files:

…/build_tools/menuselect-deps
SPANDSP=1
…/makeopts
SPANDSP_LIB=-lspandsp

I wish good luck :smiley:

3

Thanks I’ll give it a shot.

4

I am now receiving:

[CC] app_rxfax.c -> app_rxfax.o
gcc: cannot specify -o with -c or -S and multiple compilations
make[1]: *** [app_rxfax.o] Error 1
make: *** [apps] Error 2

I am no expert in compling, so I looked at Google, but can’t find anything of use.

5

Good news. I solved the problem. I am running the Asterisk installation on a Xen environment. So I had compiled and installed Zaptel in the host OS, as guest uses kernel modules from host.

However, somehow rxfax and txfax was reliant on some Zaptel modules. So I went into zaptel source folder in guest, make clean, make menuselect, unselect all the kernel modules and save. Then run make and make install.

After that compiling worked just fine for rxfax and txfax.

6

Spoke too soon, I could have sworn it all compiled and installed fine, but it actually didn’t, I couldn’t see neither rxfax or txfax apps in CLI. I must have been daydreaming I guess.

In any case, last night I managed to compile rxfax fine. But now when a fax comes in, Asterisk goes down. :frowning:

7

Finally success, at least fax comes in and asterisk does not crash.

I first setup a test box, which had Asterisk 1.4 running already. I copied the spandsp and asterisk sources from my production box to the test server. Then I compiled spandsp (which was a fresh install), recompiled Asterisk, and voila it worked. Then I did the following on the production box. Keep in mind, I had applied the Asterisk patches manually, plus changes to makeopts.in and build_tools/menuselect-deps.in .

  1. Go to usr/src/spandsp_0.0.3 (I am using spandsp-20061206.tar.gz)
  2. make uninstall
  3. make clean
  4. autoconf
  5. ./configure
  6. make
  7. make install

Once it is installed, check location of libspandsp.la, if it is in /usr/local/lib, open /etc/ld.so.conf, add /usr/local/lib there, save and exit, run ldconfig

Then go to asterisk source folder

make clean
autoconf
./configure
make menuselect (select/remove any unwanted modules)
make
make install

Restart asterisk. Voila. Keep in mind, I am running Debian, so your locations might be different, and all was done as root.

Now, one small issue after rxfax, the dialplan does not continue, where I set it to convert the tiff to pdf, email and delete the tiff and pdf. Time to do more debugging :smile:

8

HI, i’d like you to give me a mini howto so that i will make work my fax too, like giving steps you did and links to tutos you followed if you don’t mind.

thanks

9

seriously ? are the steps already outlined not enough ?

10

look, if you are a pro on it, it’s good to you, i’m a newbe and i’m pretty in a hurry, this is for work. Nobody is obliged to help me…

so if you don’t mind… :angry:

11

Onix88, If I ever have some time, I’ll come up with some how-to, but right now, I can’t.

I believe the above steps are clear enough to get Asterisk 1.4, spandsp and rx/txfax apps ready. Then how you handle your faxes is up to you. You can leave them as tiff, convert to pdf, email them, store them to a web accessible folder. Also you can have direct fax extensions or use NVFaxDetect.

I suggest reading:

voip-info.org/wiki-NVFaxDetect

Voip-info wiki has plenty information. Plus Google is your friend.

12

[quote=“onix88”]look, if you are a pro on it, it’s good to you, i’m a newbe and i’m pretty in a hurry, this is for work. Nobody is obliged to help me…

so if you don’t mind… :angry:[/quote]
everyone starts out a newbie. it’s not as if you’re going to be shunned for it.

if this is that time-critical, why not employ someone to do it/show you how to do it ?

13

thanks for sugestions, i’ll do my best to achieve it my own with all those good advises. I’m not computer engineer by chance. I’ts just some difficult to pass from developper to neworking and so…

thanks again

14

[quote=“dnico”]Hi semsettin!
try make changes in next files:

…/build_tools/menuselect-deps
SPANDSP=1
…/makeopts
SPANDSP_LIB=-lspandsp

I wish good luck :smiley:[/quote]

Hi Dnico,

Should the mod to makeopts look like the following in order to get tiff support?

SPANDSP_LIB=-lspandsp -ltiff

eric

15

[quote=“semsettin”]Finally success, at least fax comes in and asterisk does not crash.

I first setup a test box, which had Asterisk 1.4 running already. I copied the spandsp and asterisk sources from my production box to the test server. Then I compiled spandsp (which was a fresh install), recompiled Asterisk, and voila it worked. Then I did the following on the production box. Keep in mind, I had applied the Asterisk patches manually, plus changes to makeopts.in and build_tools/menuselect-deps.in .

  1. Go to usr/src/spandsp_0.0.3 (I am using spandsp-20061206.tar.gz)
  2. make uninstall
  3. make clean
  4. autoconf
  5. ./configure
  6. make
  7. make install

Once it is installed, check location of libspandsp.la, if it is in /usr/local/lib, open /etc/ld.so.conf, add /usr/local/lib there, save and exit, run ldconfig

Then go to asterisk source folder

make clean
autoconf
./configure
make menuselect (select/remove any unwanted modules)
make
make install

Restart asterisk. Voila. Keep in mind, I am running Debian, so your locations might be different, and all was done as root.

Now, one small issue after rxfax, the dialplan does not continue, where I set it to convert the tiff to pdf, email and delete the tiff and pdf. Time to do more debugging :smile:[/quote]

semsettin,

I’m having the same problem you described early on, when a fax comes in and i call rxfax to handle it, Asterisk dies. I’ve employed every tip posted here, but still have not resolved the issue.

I’m unclear which version of spandsp you used. I don’t see a tar file with the date you mention on the softswitch website. Can you please clarify?

Also, did you have to modify the app_rxfax.c and app_txfax.x files in order to get them to compile properly with Asterisk 1.4? I found that it was necessary to update a couple of function calls. Now the files compile and appear in Asterisk as applications, but rxfax causes Asterisk to die when it is called. If you did make changes to app_rxfax.c could you post your changes?

many thanks!

16

i thought i would spend 5 minutes looking at RxFax/TxFax in 1.4 …

  1. uninstall any previous version of spandsp (make uninstall)

  2. download, untar, configure, make and make install soft-switch.org/downloads/spands … 3pre27.tgz

  3. download app_rxfax.c. and app_txfax.c from soft-switch.org/downloads/sn … erisk-1.4/ and copy them into your /usr/src//apps directory

  4. open the asterisk.patch file at soft-switch.org/downloads/sn … erisk-1.4/ and copy the lines prefixed with a “+” into the files indicated (they have “+++” at the start in your Asterisk source. just using patch -p0 is likely to fail as the patch is quite old now.

  5. change into your Asterisk source directory and run ./bootstrap.sh, then ./configure, then make menuselect (select the rxfax and txfax apps), then save (use “x” to exit) then run make followed by make install.

now at the CLI> you should be able to get output from “core show application RxFax”.

note, i haven’t tried sending/rec’ing a fax yet, but will later. there’s plenty of discussion around about the future of spandsp apps in Asterisk … some of it not very nice !!

it’s taken me longer to type this message than it took to do the changes !!

17

Thanks for the pointers.

Unfortunately, I’m still banging my head against the wall.

I was able to get to the same point as yourself, but when I receive a fax Asterisk crashes. I was using libtiff.so.3.8 but removed it and installed 3.7 - still no luck.

I’m wondering if this has something to do with linking to the spandsp and tiff libs that is not working correctly.

I’m curious, are yo able to receive faxes using rxfax?

I’m running kernel 2.6.19-1.2895.fc6 for what its worth.

18

Sorry for a late reply. My version of spandsp was from snapshots, soft-switch.org/downloads/sn … 206.tar.gz

I have simply downloaded rxfax and txfax.c from soft-switch.org/downloads/sn … erisk-1.4/ and did NOT touch them. The patch file does not patch them as well.

I am using

ii libtiff-tools 3.8.2-7 TIFF manipulation and conversion tools
ii libtiff4 3.8.2-7 Tag Image File Format (TIFF) library
ii libtiff4-dev 3.8.2-7 Tag Image File Format library (TIFF), development files
ii libtiffxx0c2 3.8.2-7 Tag Image File Format (TIFF) library – C++ interface

on a Debian, running 2.6.16 kernel. I also have made it to work with Xubuntu 6.10 and Kubuntu 6.06.

Also take look at my blog post at sems.org/entry.asp?ENTRY_ID=197, it might contain more clues for you.

As of now I can send and receive faxes, no errors. I was using 1.4 till last week, and now running 1.4.1 of asterisk. My whole setup is using SIP trunks, no IAX or ZAP.