Re: Fax-Sendmail

[Claudio Allocchio <Claudio.Allocchio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > 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@xxxxxxxxxx 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=......
> 
> 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.

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=+390403758565@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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

> 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.

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

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

Correct!

> 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.

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