FAXCRON(8)

✨ FAXCRON(8) ✨

okay bestie, buckle up — this is the faxcron page from the System Manager's Manual, and it's literally the HylaFAX routine maintenance script. Yes, a script. Yes, it's got main character energy. 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

faxcron — the HylaFAX routine maintenance script, aka your spooling directory's personal glam squad 🧹✨

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

/usr/sbin/faxcron [ -n ] [ -l lastrun ]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

faxcron is a command script that does the routine upkeep tasks in a HylaFAX spooling directory hierarchy. Think of it as the lil robot that keeps everything cute and tidy while you're not looking. 🫶

This script is meant to be invoked from cron(8) on behalf of the fax user (and ngl, the ``fax'' user is often uucp) once a day, with the standard output sent by mail to the HylaFAX administrator. Like, set it and forget it, periodt.

So for example, the following crontab might be set up for the fax user:

25   23    *    *    *   sh /usr/sbin/faxcron | mail FaxMaster

The faxcron script does the following work, and honestly? It's a lot. She's booked and busy. 🔥

• report statistics for facsimile transmitted since the last time faxcron was run.
• report statistics for facsimile transmitted in the past week.
• report statistics for facsimile received since the last time faxcron was run.
• report statistics for facsimile received in the past week.
• report any recent calls that failed suspiciously and return the associated trace log;
• purge data that is 30 days or older from the remote machine information directory;
• delete information that is 30 days or older from session trace log files;
• remove files from the tmp directory that are older than 1 day;
• remove files in the received facsimile queue that are 7 days or older;
• report sites that are currently having jobs rejected; and
• force all session log files to be owned by the fax user and kept with protection mode 644.

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -n — Forces faxcron to run without updating any files. A little dry run moment, if you will. 👀
• -l lastrun — Forces the notion of the last time that faxcron was run to be lastrun. The value of lastrun is a date and time string of the form MM/DD/YY HH:MM'' (which is the `date(1)` format string %D %H:%M''). Time travel, but make it cron. ⏰
• -info n — Set the expiration time for data in the info database to be n days.
• -log n — Set the expiration time for session log data to be n days.
• -rcv n — Set the expiration time for files in the received facsimile queue to be n days.
• -tmp n — Set the expiration time for files in the tmp directory to be n days.
• -mode m — Set the file protection mode for session logs to m (a command line argument to chmod(1)).

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🦋 NOTES 🦋

This script requires nawk(1) or gawk(1) and a date(1) program that supports the ``+format'' option. No awk, no vibes. 😭

If session logs are to be kept private this script must be modified to filter out sensitive information such as calling card numbers. (It should also be run with ``-mode 0600'' so that session log files are not publicly readable.) Fr fr, don't skip this one, bestie — that's your info out there. 🔒

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🌈 FILES 🌈

• /var/spool/hylafax — spooling area
• /var/spool/hylafax/status/lastrun — timestamp of last run
• /usr/sbin/xferfaxstats — for generating transmit statistics
• /usr/sbin/recvstats — for generating receive statistics
• /var/spool/hylafax/tmp/faxcronXXXX — temporary file for truncating session logs
• /var/spool/hylafax/tmp/faxlogXXXX — temporary file for logs of failed calls

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

cron(8), faxq(8), faxgetty(8), faxsend(8), xferfaxstats(8), recvstats(8), hylafax-server(5)

Go read the whole friend group, iykyk. 📚

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okay that's the whole page, you ate that 💅 this icon of a manpage is dated May 12, 1996 and lives in the System Manager's Manual — so yes, she's been slaying since '96 and she's still giving FAXCRON(8). 🎀✨