FAX server in 10.5 server and across subnets

Question

We can use 10.5 Server as a FAX server. Since I got this working a while ago, it has run reliably.
This is how we are doing it. Hopefully this will help others get it working too.
Our server: 10.5.2, Pro Intel 2x2.8 quad with a USB Apple faxmodem attached to the front USB port plugged into a standard phone line. Print service is set up and running and happens to be serving printers for us. Once the FAX seemed to get confused and not receive or send. I unplugged the USB fax, plugged it back in and it was fine again.
At the server I opened a text edit document and told the server to fax from Print > PDF > Fax PDF. A fax printer was automatically created on the server. While the fax was printing I told the printer in the Dock to "keep in dock." Opened that fax printer, choose "info" icon in top of window and renamed the fax from "external modem" to a new name so that it would be easy for our staff to use and find it. The server now has a fax on it. As anyone who has tried this has found you CANNOT edit the FAX from ServerAdmin. You can now see it as a queue with the new name it was given but editing it not possible from SA.
At the server still in System Preferences > Fax and print > the new fax appears in the bottom of the printers list under "Faxes." Select the fax. Select "receive options" and set up how the fax is to receive and place received faxes. Ours go in to a folder in a share point which is available and automounted to everyone on our network so anyone, anywhere can get the incoming faxes. The next point assumes that you will do the same.
In 10.4 and once in 10.5 I had to delete the fax manually from System Preferences and recreate it as above when everything seemed to stop working and unplugging the modem and rebooting the server did not fix the stall. As long as everything is named exactly the same when you recreate the fax, no other changes or repeat of what is described below was needed.
For each of the users in our OD:
Tell them each to do the following: Open Applications > Applescript > Folder actions setup. Check off "enable folder actions," hit the + under the left box and select the folder in the share where the faxes are being received. Now select the fax folder in the left and hit the + under the right box and choose "add - new item alert." Save as necessary. The users who do this will now get notification when a new fax arrives and is deposited by the server in the Fax folder.
Now to get the fax to the clients to fax out on. The following will also get all of your shared printers onto any off server's subnet clients. For us the fax did not even show up in local subnet clients as printers usually do. So I kept working and eventually came up with the following:
Our network:
Main location 192.168.1.* server is here.
Remote locations connected via Verizon T1 and routers with no firewalling
192.168.2.*
192.168.3.*
Our client machines :
Intel white iMacs all running 10.5.2 with no special software for faxing. Our clients are bound to and controlled by our server.
I have been trying to get our server to serve the FAX across our 2 remote subnets since 10.3. With the newer CUPS coming with 10.5 and Apple now owning it I hoped that there would be an easy solution to get non local subnet computers the ability to see shared faxes and printers. Sent a forum question and got the following which was great news
Erich Wetzel wrote:
Can anyone advise, now that Apple owns CUPS, how to allow my other
two subnets to BrowsePoll our server for its printers?
The simplest way is to change the "Allow from @LOCAL" lines to be
"Allow from all".  You can also use the web interface and check the
"Allow printing from the Internet", which does the same.  If you
don't want to open up that much, just add "Allow from" lines for
each subnet.
Once you make this change, *do not* toggle the printer sharing box,
or you'll have to make the changes all over again.
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
Michael,
Thanks for the reply, sounds like you have my solution.  Small problem, upon selecting "allow printing from internet" in the web interface and committing the changes, the server restarts and the check box is empty again.  In quick tests, the other options can be turned on and off as you would expect.  Is there something particular to the Apple 10.5.1 install that would not permit internet printing or not permit this change?
I think the check box state in the web interface is a known bug in
CUPS 1.3.4.
I used the web interface for cups on the server and manually added the networks as described by Michael above. I don't know if it is required but I restarted the server. Open > Safari > browse to localhost:631 and you will get the CUPS web interface. The CUPS web interface is available on servers and clients. You can also browse to an IP or FDQN:631 to get the web interface from a receptive other machine.
The server was now supposedly ready to accept "browsepoll" requests from clients. I had played with this before so I was somewhat familiar with what to do next. Essentially each client needs to be told to contact the server and ask it for its printers. That is what browsepoll does in CUPS.
At the client, be logged in as an admin user OF THE CLIENT. Using Terminal and a text editor, edit as root /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
A few lines down look for:
# Show shared printers on the local network.
Browsing On
BrowseOrder allow,deny
BrowseAllow all
After that we added :
#*added by Erich*
BrowseProtocols all
BrowseRemoteProtocols all
BrowsePoll yourserver:631
BrowsePort 631
#*added by Erich*
where "yourserver" is either the IP address or FDQN of your server as seen by the client machine.
Save the file. Reboot the client. The CUPS system on the client will now ask your server CUPS system for its printers directly and repeatedly until it gets them. If it does not get any you will not be notified in anyway other than log messages on the client, see Console > /var/log > cups to review them, and the fact that you don't get your server's printers being available on the client.
This last piece came from a discussion started by Alessandro Dellavedova : check the starting post
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5702731&#5702731
If you go to Safari > Localhost:631 on the client, CUPS should now see both the printers and the fax which are being hosted by your server.
Here's the fun part for me, with no additional playing I was now able to see the fax we created long ago in the print dialog printer list. You do not have to go to Print > PDF > Fax PDF, you can but do not have to. Just select the fax from the printer list and the dialog changes to fax appropriate options. Now we were able to print any document to the fax directly.
Odd behavior I have yet to figure out. I do not see the fax in the System Preferences > print and fax pane on the client machines. However, I can now fax through our server from all of our clients no matter what subnet they are on.
Making the same additions to the cupsd.conf file on remote machines which VPN via the internet to your network will get them the printers and fax in the same way. I do this with a powerbook and Imac from home so i can print at and fax from work.
This is what I did to get it working for us. Hope this helps.
-Erich

Answer 1

This is Great! Thanks a lot, this was exactly what I was looking for!