Hylafax Server Installation

mike-h30 wrote on Saturday, March 15, 2008:

I am getting ready to install Hylafax server for use with OpenEMR-2.8.3 and have some questions.  I have MySQL5, Apache2, and PHP5 install on my machine.

1.  I am running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 - SP1 and was wondering if I should install from an RPM or
    install from YAST ( with a OpenSUSE 10.1 package repository)?  Hylafax.org has a SLES10 RPM available.  
    I have not installed anything outside of YAST thus far and it was recommended to me to install software
    packages via YAST when possible.

2.  What client do others prefer for use with Hylafax server?

Thanks.

-Mike

andres_paglayan wrote on Sunday, March 16, 2008:

I will suggest either of two approaches,

1./ use the native package your distro provides, less likely to have problems, more likely to be security-updated.

2./ use hylafax+ instead, it’s a much active and reacher fork of hylafax, Lee Horvard main developer and also founder of hylafax is extremely active on the forums, and often resolves complex issues in matter of minutes. For some strange reason, possibly historically, most distros still ship hylafax (sensa +)

there’s probably suse packages ready as well, and they release much often and fix bugs as priority.

mike-h30 wrote on Sunday, March 16, 2008:

Andres,

Thanks for your input.  I never heard of Hylafax+ until now.  I will give it a try!

mike-h30 wrote on Sunday, March 16, 2008:

Andres,

I was able to add Hylafax+ to my distro ( SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 - SP1).  I have it installed and verified that it is running. I also added and configured my modem with faxsetup and faxaddmodem.   In the OpenEMR globals file I uncommented the code for Hylafax support as follows:

$GLOBALS[‘hylafax_server’]   = ‘localhost’;
$GLOBALS[‘hylafax_basedir’]  = ‘/var/spool/hylafax’;
$GLOBALS[‘hylafax_enscript’] = ‘enscript -M Letter -B -e^ --margins=36:36:36:36’;

Now  I am stuck on what to do next.

1.  How is faxing a patient document achieved in OpenEMR?  Can OpenEMR be used as a fax client or do I need to download one?

-Mike

penguin8r wrote on Monday, March 17, 2008:

I would be most interested in this as well, it would be great if anyone who has any notes/guidelines/documentation/how-tos about setting up fax services in OpenEMR could share them.  I have successfully set up faxing within OpenEMR using HylaFax on Ubuntu, but I get the feeling that there’s probably a lot more to it then what I managed to get working just by trying things out.  Maybe several of us could contribute to a how-to for faxing & get it included in the documentation with OpenEMR?

mike-h30 wrote on Monday, March 17, 2008:

Penguin8R,

I would be glad to document my OpenEMR Hylafax+ set up for SUSE server environments.

What client are you using for Hylafax?  I just installed GFax and I am trying to figure out how to tie the client to the server.  The GFax client resides on a desktop on the network.  I have not installed any client software on the physical box that Hylafax server resides.

Thanks.

-Mike

andres_paglayan wrote on Tuesday, March 18, 2008:

find this on includes/config.php

// only works with hylafax sendfax client, and sendfax must be in PATH
// assign ‘sendfax’ to turn fax sending on
$GLOBALS[‘oer_config’][‘prescriptions’][‘sendfax’] = ‘’;

and change it to

$GLOBALS[‘oer_config’][‘prescriptions’][‘sendfax’] = ‘sendfax’;

make sure you have sendfax on your system,
(most likely yes if you have hylafax)

mike-h30 wrote on Tuesday, March 18, 2008:

Andres,

I made the change as you recommended.

$GLOBALS[‘oer_config’][‘prescriptions’][‘sendfax’] = ‘sendfax’;

I verified that I have sendfax and faxgetty.  I used the "whereis" command for each and then found their respective directory.  I just attempted to fax a test prescription and found this message:

I am in these groups: www
Cannot open /var/spool/hylafax/sendq/q1

Please advise.

-Mike

mike-h30 wrote on Tuesday, March 18, 2008:

Andres,

What settings should hosts.hfaxd have?  The values I have are:

localhost
127.0.0.1

Also, the man pages for hosts.hfaxd says “Note also that this file must be readable only by the ``fax’’ user; i.e. it should have mode 600 and be owned by ``fax’’.”

I do not have a user "fax."  Instead the owner of hosts.hfaxd is "uucp - Unix to Unix Copy System"  It is mode 600.

I am spinning my wheels here and not sure what to do to get a test fax out.  I know that Hylafax is running and I changed the OpenEMR config file as you described earlier.  The Hylafax+ directions are not too helpful once the software is installed.

Thanks.

-Mike

andres_paglayan wrote on Tuesday, March 18, 2008:

first make sure you can send a fax from the command line,
like

sendfax -n -d 5555555 /some/text/file

add the user to fax group,

and since hylafax is a complex beast,
the best resource will be subscribing to their user list,
and posting the question there,
chances are you get the answer within the hour.

http://www.hylafax.org/content/Mailing_Lists

make sure to describe your environment,
like OS running,
hylafax version, and how you installed it,

mike-h30 wrote on Wednesday, March 19, 2008:

Thanks for the tip on the Hylafax user mailing lists.  I just subscribed.  By the way, did you mean to add a user "fax" to the group "fax group"?  Do I do this via "faxadduser"?  I have not created a fax group yet either.

voipbound wrote on Tuesday, September 02, 2008:

How are U doing with this problem?  Did you ever got the openemr server to talk to the Faxserver on a different machine?

mike-h30 wrote on Tuesday, September 02, 2008:

I do not have OpenEMR integrated with Hylafax directly.  I have installed Hylafax+ 5.2.3 and I am currently using AvantFax 3.1.0 ( web based ) as our client.   Hylafax, AvantFax, and OpenEMR all reside on the same box in our office. I am not sure about the particulars of integrating a web application with Hylafax on separate servers.

-Mike

voipbound wrote on Thursday, September 04, 2008:

With Hylafax on the same server as openemr can you see the inbox, outbox of hylafax within openemr and so you have any problem importing faxes into openemr and parse to the appropriate patient?  Finally, can you fax from within the emr or need to do it thru Avantfax?

xiaoanri wrote on Sunday, March 28, 2010:

Hi, everyone,

I  have set up a fax server with hylafax and avantfax on a dedicated box running ubuntu 9.10 server.  I would like to  have this integrated to the OpenEMR running on a different box within the same LAN.  I wonder how the integration between hylafx and openemr is done, or do we have to fax the document from Avantfax?   

Another question is Avantfax only takes a few file formats, including ps, pdf, tiff and txt.  How can I have a page from openemr, such as the 4 pane prescription, which is a HTML file, faxed via Avantfax?

Thank you,

hui

lamspc wrote on Friday, January 18, 2013:

Hello,

Does anyone have an answer to this post - I have an identical setup - how do you setup openemr to work with hylafax.  It is not as simple as checking the box under Administration>Globals>miscellaneous.

Brady - any thoughts on this problem.  I have spent weeks trying to figure this out without luck