FAXSTATE(8)

💖 FAXSTATE — it's giving modem vibes 💖

okay bestie, welcome to faxstate(8), a page from the System Manager's Manual — yes, section 8, the big-girl system admin section, we love her 💅

✨ NAME ✨

faxstate — control the ``modem state'' of a device used by HylaFAX 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

/usr/sbin/faxstate [ -q queue-dir ] [ -s state ] [ -n ] modem

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so here's the tea, fr fr 🍓 — faxstate sends a message to the HylaFAX faxgetty(8) process that's servicing your modem, telling it to use the specified state when it notifies the HylaFAX scheduler that a modem is ready and available for use. iconic behaviour, no cap ✨

and like, why do we care? because it lets you control the outbound use of a modem! by marking a modem's state as busy or down, the HylaFAX scheduler literally will not assign any outbound jobs to that modem. she's booked. she's unavailable. she said not today 💀

the modem you specify can be either:

• the name — typically the last component of the terminal port the modem is attached to, or
• the full name of the associated FIFO named pipe file, e.g. `FIFO.ttym2` 👑

if you pass the -n option, faxstate emulates what faxgetty would do — it sends a message directly to the faxq process marking the specified modem down, busy, or ready. this interface is useful for send-only environments in which faxgetty processes are not used 🧚

⚠️ heads up bestie: modems manipulated in this way must previously have been configured with the faxmodem(8) program. don't skip that step, i'm literally begging 🙈

✨ OPTIONS ✨

the following options are supported:

• -n — contact faxq directly instead of faxgetty. going straight to the source, main character energy 👑
• -q dir — use a spooling area other than /var/spool/hylafax. live somewhere else if you want 🎀
• -s state — specify the state to send the faxq process each time the modem becomes ready for use; one of `busy`, `down`, and `ready`. the default state to use is ready. periodt 🌸

✨ FILES ✨

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

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

hylafax-server(5), faxgetty(8) 💖

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this one is dated July 17, 1995 — a vintage icon, honestly, the way she's been serving modem control since the nineties 🫶 lowkey legendary. slay 💅✨