IFax2Hyla is an application designed to sit between IFax (T.37) compliant devices and a Hylafax Server. It receives Outbound Faxes from the devices as TIFF images per the IFax (T.37) spec and forwards them through the Hylafax server to the appropriate PSTN (regular phone) fax destination.
For project status, or to get involved, please visit the SourceForge Project Page
Internet Faxing, also known as IFax, is a system allowing Fax documents to be sent over the Internet over the standard (SMTP) mail system. The standard for Internet Fax was originally defined by the ITU as T.37, and later accepted by the IETF in a series of RFCs defined by the Internet Fax Working Group.
Internet Faxing is now available on many consumer electronics devices including copiers, fax machines, and dedicated fax machine converters. This site will eventually host a list of IFax (T.37) devices that are known to work with IFax2Hyla. If you have a device that you are working with, please contact us through sf.net to have it added.
The basic method for sending Faxes over the internet is quite
simple: sending devices or applications format the document image
according to a subset of the TIFF standard (TIFF-F), and then email
the document to a specially formatted email address that embeds the
fax number of final destination (such as
"FAX=+1234567890@faxserver.domain.tld").
The IFax standard defines an application component known as an "Offramp" responsible for accepting emailed faxes and sending them over the standard phone system (PSTN) to the target fax number. The goal of the IFax2Hyla application is to allow a Hylafax server to act as a IFax-compliant Offramp.
Hylafax is an outstanding fax solution originally developed by developers working at SGI, and available under and Open Source license at http://www.hylafax.org. In development since 1990, it provides a stable, robust and highly reliable fax platform for enterprises of all sizes.
While Hylafax can be invoked via many methods (client-server programs, a custom on-the-wire protocol, an email-to-fax gateway, and several third-party APIs just to name a few), it cannot currently accept input from T.37 Internet Fax (IFax) devices without custom scripting.
IFax2Hyla integrates with a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) such as Sendmail, Postfix, Exim, or QMail and accepts requests from IFax devices that include TIFF-F Fax Images. IFax2Hyla submits those images (in the appropriate format) to the Hylafax software through its client program, sendfax for transmission. IFax2Hyla then accepts any response from the Hylafax server (confirmations, failure notices), and reformats them into the formats defined in the IFax standards and relays them back to the sender.
Currently, IFax2Hyla is in early development. A prototype has been developed in PHP that is specific to the Postfix MTA and leaves notification to the Hylafax server. While not IFax compliant, it has proven the viability of the concept and is in production at an insurance agency with over 200 faxes/day on average.
If you wish to get involved with the project at any level, please contact us through SourceForge