FAXQ(8)

💖 FAXQ(8) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the System Manager's Manual corner of the group chat, section 8, and today's main character is faxq 👑

✨ NAME ✨

faxq — the HylaFAX queue manager process 🎀

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

/usr/sbin/faxq [ -D ] [ -q queue-dir ]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so faxq is literally the central queueing agent for HylaFAX. One (and only one, no cap) faxq process is normally running at all times. She's responsible for scheduling, preparing, and initiating outbound facsimile jobs — and potentially other types of jobs too, she's versatile like that 💅

faxq can be run by herself to provide outbound-only services, or she can run together with one or more faxgetty(8) processes, in which case inbound services (e.g. receiving facsimile) get provided too. The way that when faxq runs by herself, the set of available modems must be specified using the faxmodem(8) command — yeah that's required, not optional. Every modem specified that way is assumed to exist and to be capable of use as a facsimile modem. But when faxq runs in conjunction with faxgetty processes, you do not need to use faxmodem to specify modems; instead the programs communicate information about the status and capabilities of each modem themselves. That latter setup is the more robust and powerful system and it's the intended way for the software to operate ⭐

faxq receives notification of outbound jobs to process from the hfaxd(8) process, which implements the server-side of the HylaFAX client-server protocol. Notification comes through messages sent to a FIFO special file that faxq listens to. That same file is also used by other administrative programs like faxquit(8) 🫶

Many aspects of faxq operation may be controlled through a configuration file. This file lives in the spooler hierarchy in the etc subdirectory and is named config (as opposed to the per-modem configuration files named config.devid) — go consult hylafax-config(5) for detailed info on this configuration file. Also note that faxq automatically re-reads her configuration file if it's been changed 👀 It's also possible to dynamically change configuration parameters in a running process with the faxconfig(8) program. But beware, bestie: parameters changed that way will be reset to the values specified in the configuration file if the file gets re-read. So that glow-up is temporary 😭

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -q dir — the specified directory gets treated as the spooling area. The default spooling area, /var/spool/hylafax, is defined at the time the software is built 🎀
• -D — this option forces faxq to stay attached to the controlling tty from which she was invoked. In normal operation faxq will fork(2) and disassociate herself from the controlling tty. This option is useful for debugging 🔥

🍓 FILES 🍓

• /var/spool/hylafax/FIFO — FIFO special file for submitting commands
• /var/spool/hylafax/etc/config — configuration file

Consult hylafax-server(5) for a complete discussion of the structure and content of the spooling area 💜

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

faxabort(8), faxconfig(8), faxmodem(8), faxquit(8), faxstate(8), getty(8), hylafax-server(5), hylafax-config(5).

and that's the whole vibe, fr fr — faxq(8) from the System Manager's Manual, dated October 27, 1995 (yes she's an icon from the nineties and she's still slaying 💅✨). mwah, go run your queue bestie 🫶🎀