MaxDials and MaxTries

If you want to reduce the number of attempts that HylaFAX will make to dial a number that you have successfully dialed to before, then you'll want to tweak the MaxDials and MaxTries parameters. However, if you want to reduce the number of attempts that HylaFAX will make to dial an incorrect number (ie. a voice line), it would be best to use the JobRetryNoCarrier and JobRetryNoAnswer parameters instead. These parameters are used only when the destination number has not been successfully dialed before.

MaxDials specifies the number of times to redial a number if the number was busy or no answer, etc, and should not be set too low. The default of 12 is reasonable, but some people lower it to 8 or 6.

MaxTries specifies the number of attempts to communicate with a remote site and generally should be left as the default of 3 attempts. Please note that the Brooktrout will count a call against MaxTries as long as the call was answered while other modems will count against MaxTries only if carrier was established (ie. a fax machine answered the call).

There is no default value for JobRetryNoCarrier and JobRetryNoAnswer, but users typically set them to 3 in order to avoid dialing voice lines 12 times.

I believe voice destinations are most frequently classified as No Carrier. You can test the No Carrier settings by faxing your cell phone number, answering, and talking to your fax server when it calls.

Please note that MaxDials and MaxTries should be configured only in /var/spool/hylafax/etc/config while the JobRetry* parameters should be placed in /var/spool/hylafax/etc/CONFIG/boston

If you update the per-device configuration files (including Appliance users), execute the following to gracefully restart the devices:

for i in /var/spool/hylafax/FIFO.*; do echo Q > $i; done

The "echo Q" will restart them gracefully, meaning that if they are receiving a fax, they will restart only after they're done.

Setting these in Job Control

MaxDials and MaxTries can be set dynamically in Job Control, but you need the "SetJobParam" function for it to fly. (See the page on Job Control for more detail.) AND you need to specify them as lower case, i.e., not "MaxDials" but "maxdials"! See below:

DEST=$(GetJobParam number) case "$DEST" in

    *6102469672) SetJobParam maxdials 3; SetJobParam maxtries 1;;

esac

Text

And a few timers - how long do we wait after a try

In man hylafax-config there are a few other timers that default to five minutes (300 seconds), and you can set these in the individual config.bostonXX files:

JobReqNoAnswer: 120 JobReqNoCarrier: 120 JobReqOther: 120 JobReqError: 120