This document provides steps for diagnosis of issues with the Hylafax system. The statements Collect/Examine are given to indicate the reader should either Collect this information to send to an engineer for diagnosis or Examine directly for issues.

Examine Configuration

Locate the configuration files, typically stored in /var/spool/fax/etc/ or /var/spool/hylafax/etc/. Collect/Examine all of these files.

cd /var/spool/fax/etc
tar -cz -f /tmp/fax-etc.tgz .

Examine Hylafax Directory

In the Hylafax directory Collect/Examine information about the contents.

cd /var/spool/fax
find . | tee /tmp/fax-directory.txt

Create Verbose Logs

Look at the LogFacility to determine log destination, syslog configuration may need to be examined. ServerTracing is sent to syslog, SessionTracing to a c########## file.

# /var/spool/fax/etc/config
LogFacility:    local1
ServerTracing:  35105
SessionTracing: 35105

The logs of the Hylafax system are stored per fax, look in /var/spool/fax/log for files names after each job. Files will be named with a pattern similar to: /c\d{10}/, the file seqf indicates the next job number. These files will be more verbose if Hylafax logging is increased, which is a good idea during troubleshooting.

Monitor Hylafax Internals

The tool faxwatch should be used to collect information from text transmission or reception.

faxwatch 'J*' >/tmp/faxwatch-j.txt 2>&1 &
faxwatch 'M*' >/tmp/faxwatch-m.txt 2>&1 &
faxwatch 'R*' >/tmp/faxwatch-r.txt 2>&1 &
faxwatch 'S*' >/tmp/faxwatch-s.txt 2>&1 &

While faxwatch is running in the background, perform send and recieve tests. When finished stop the faxwatch processes.

kill $(pidof faxwatch)

Examine Logs

The collected files in /tmp will be used by an engineer, local or remote, to diagnose issues.

This information is also useful when posting to the Hylafax mailing list. It's considered polite to send a link to a pastebin (or similar) for these large documents rather than inline of a message.

See Also