Introducing Incredible Fax 2020 for Raspberry Pi

Incredible Fax 2020 for the Raspberry Pi was the final missing piece in our 2020 rollout, and today we’re pleased to introduce it. Incredible Fax 2020 provides fax detection on incoming calls, email deliveries of incoming faxes in PDF format, and the ability to send faxes with attachments from the convenience of your favorite web browser. And, as with every Incredible PBX 2020 platform, all of the software is FREE.

Installation of Incredible Fax 2020 on the Raspbian platform is pretty simple. Just issue the following commands to put all the pieces in place and run the HylaFax and AvantFax installers. Before faxes can actually be delivered in PDF format, you obviously need outbound emails working on your Raspberry Pi. We’ll cover that in the next section. Before incoming faxes can be detected on Inbound Routes for your trunks, you’ll need to set that up in FreePBX®. We’ll cover that below as well.

cd /root
rm -f incrediblefax*
wget http://incrediblepbx.com/incrediblefax2020-raspi.tar.gz
tar zxvf incrediblefax2020-raspi.tar.gz
rm -f incrediblefax2020-raspi.tar.gz
./incrediblefax2020-raspi.sh
fwconsole ma downloadinstall fax
fwconsole reload

Once the HylaFax/AvantFax install begins, press the ENTER key about a dozen times to accept all of the defaults during the install procedure. Then reboot your server.

Most Raspberry Pi implementations will be on networks managed by companies like Comcast, Spectrum, and AT&T that block downstream mail servers (that’s you) from sending email. The solution is to use Gmail or your local ISP as a smart relay host to send mail from your server. You’ll need this to deliver voicemails and faxes via email. Here’s how to set it up using a Gmail account without two-step authentication. Log into your server as root and run dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config. Choose "mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail." Accept all the defaults until you get to Outgoing Smarthost prompt. Enter: smtp.gmail.com::587. At the following prompts, choose NO, NO, mbox, and NO. When the setup completes, edit /etc/exim4/passwd.client and insert the following line using your Gmail AcctName and AcctPW. NOTE: If you are using a Gmail account with 2-step verification enabled, you MUST use a Gmail App Key instead of your Gmail account password. You also must enable Less Secure Apps access to your Gmail account.

smtp.gmail.com:AcctName@gmail.com:AcctPW

Save the file and then issue the following commands to complete the setup:

update-exim4.conf
systemctl restart exim4
exim4 -qff

Now send yourself a test email message to make sure things are working properly:

echo "test" | mail -s testmessage yourname@yourmailprovider.com

Not all VoIP trunks support fax transmission, e.g. Vitelity. Assuming yours do and you’ll only know by trial and error, here’s how to configure FreePBX to automatically detect incoming faxes and process them for PDF delivery by email.

Edit each of your Inbound Routes. Under the Fax tab, enter the following settings:

Detect Faxes: YES
Fax Detection Type: SIP
Fax Ring: YES
Fax Detect Time: 4
Fax Destination: Custom Destinations -> Fax (Hylafax)

You can manage your incoming and outgoing faxes using AvantFax. Click on the AvantFax tab in FreePBX to access it. The default credentials are admin:password. When you first access AvantFax with a browser, you may get a missing page error. Just press the back arrow key in your browser and the AvantFax main page will appear.

If you want to change the admin password for AvantFax, log into your server as root with SSH/Putty and issue the command: /root/avantfax-pw-change.

Send yourself a fax at no cost in the United States from FaxZero. Enjoy!

Originally published: Tuesday, February 25, 2020

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Special Thanks to Vitelity. Vitelity is now Voyant Communications and has halted new registrations for the time being. Our special thanks to Vitelity for their unwavering financial support over many years and to the many Nerd Vittles readers who continue to enjoy the benefits of their service offerings. We will keep everyone posted on further developments.