This chapter describes how to configure the support for transmitting messages to alpha-numberic pager devices using the IXO/TAP protocol. This facility is implemented with the sendpage(1) client program, the hfaxd(1M) server program that implements the Simple Network Pager Protocol (SNPP), and the pagesend(1M) server program that does the actual delivery.
Alpha-numeric pages are transmitted by contacting a server machine that speaks SNPP and requesting that one or more messages be delivered to one or more paging terminals. HylaFAX implements SNPP within the framework of the hfaxd client-server protocol process (SNPP is one of several protocols it supports). Pager messages submitted through hfaxd result in jobs being submitted to the HylaFAX scheduler process and these jobs are in turn handed to the pagesend program for delivery by placing a phone call to a pager service provider and communicating the requests using the IXO/TAP protocol.
Note that by using SNPP to communicate between client and server,
client applications other than sendpage can be used to
submit pager messages. There supposedly are several client
applications for Mac and Windows-based systems that use SNPP to
submit pages and a growing number of pager service providers are
providing on-line SNPP services via the Internet.
Setting up SNPP
sendpage normally tries to contact an hfaxd server process at port
444 on a HylaFAX server machine.
To enable this service hfaxd must be started with a -s
option when run standalone or with a -S option when started
by the inetd process.
For example, as a standalone server hfaxd might be started by:
One of the tasks that hfaxd does in implementing SNPP is to map client-specified Pager Identifier Numbers (PINs) to a dialstring to use in contacting the service provider. This work is done using rules specified in a pagermap(4F) file. For example, the following pagermap file would accept only PINs with a leading ``Sky'' followed by a number and pass the number through as the PIN:
|
If hfaxd does not have a pagermap file then it will reject all requests to submit pager messages. |
Each page request received by hfaxd causes a
job to be submitted to the HylaFAX scheduler process.
The scheduling parameters for these jobs are defined by the
service level specified with the SNPP LEVE
request (typically through the -l option to sendpage).
hfaxd uses the service level to set a job's scheduling priority,
expiration time, and the time to delay in between retrying calls
to the service provider based on three maps that can
be specified with hfaxd configuration parameters.
The parameters are: PriorityMap, KillTimeMap,
and RetryTimeMap, respectively.
Consult the
hfaxd(1M)
manual page for complete information on these parameters.
Setting up Pagesend
There are several configuration parameters associated with the
IXO/TAP support.
The most important parameter is PagerSetupCmds which is
a set of commands to send to the modem to configure it for a call
to the pager service provider.
This command should usually be defined to constrain the modem to
connect at 1200 baud using V.22 (and no error correction protocol).
Other configuration parameters exist to control
esoteric aspects of the IXO protocol implementation
and should not need to be changed;
consult
config(4F)
for full details.
Besides the per-modem configuration parameters described above, the only other pager-related information that may need to be setup is information in the info(4F) database to constrain the maximum length of an alpha-numeric pager message, any password string that must be sent to the service provider during the initial login sequence, and any non-standard parity setting to use in communication. For example,
The most common problems are not setting up the PagerSetupCmds properly for the modem and service provider and service providers that do not implement the IXO protocol according to the specification; usually by using odd instead of even parity.
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