Elastix Hylafax can't exceed 255 virtual devices

Question

If anyone has noticed, you can not create more than 255 virtual fax devices on Elastix. When you exceed 255, they will no longer work.

I have found where the bug is, but need help figuring out a solution.

What happens is that in /etc/inittab, where the ttyIAX lines are, the first field which is the id starts with fx then the number of the device.

i.e:

  fx1:2345:respawn:/usr/sbin/faxgetty ttyIAX1
  fx2:2345:respawn:/usr/sbin/faxgetty ttyIAX2
  etc....

Now when this reached ttyIAX 256, this is what you get:

  fx100:2345:respawn:/usr/sbin/faxgetty ttyIAX256

And here, the id which is fx100 exceeds 4 characters, and it will no longer work. Also anything after ttyIAX256, will not work as well because the id will always be more than 4 characters: fx101 - fx102 - fx103... etc.. and this field should be 4 characters or less.

Now, I think making this field read more than 4 characters is a bit difficult or can not be achieved, as this is the way the operating system is built.

However, perhaps we can prefix the id with only f instead of fx and this way we would add a much higher capacity of ttyIAX devices that should suite everyone.

If you know where to change this, please advise or recommend a different approach if you have any.

Your time is much appreciated.

Answer 1

I found the solution and I thought I'd post it here for others.

You will need to edit the following file to change the id initialization in the inittab.

/usr/share/elastix/privileged/faxconfig

Note: There is two occurrences.

Answer 2

Identificator doesn't metter.

You can try do

fa1:2345:respawn:/usr/sbin/faxgetty ttyIAX1

fa99:2345:respawn:/usr/sbin/faxgetty ttyIAX1

fb1:2345:respawn:/usr/sbin/faxgetty ttyIAX1

fb99:2345:respawn:/usr/sbin/faxgetty ttyIAX1

But i am afraid inittab not designed to run alot of scripts.

Note, kernel also can have issues becuase of multiple scripts running.

Best solution - use spandsp app_fax.so, but that require rewrite of hylafax.