Receive faxes using a non-Apple modem

Dec 28, '04 09:45:00AM

Contributed by: nobody

Apple's fax tool will only use /dev/cu.modem and /dev/tty.modem. If you use some other kind of device, like an external modem, Bluetooth modem, etc, (in my case a Hermstedt ISDN Webshuttle II), your device name is different, and Apple's software will ignore it for receiving. The Print & Fax preferences pane is missing an option box where you could specify your custom device.

To work around this, first find your device (in case of Hermstedt, it's /dev/tty.ws_iiFAX). Then, remove the /dev/cu.modem and /dev/tty.modem (in case you have a built-in modem) and make a soft link from your device to the device the Apple fax software uses (you must use sudo or the root account to do this):

# first remove an device pointing to the built in modem 
rm -f /dev/cu.modem 
rm -f /dev/tty.modem 
#now, link the hermstedt device to the ones used by the fax software 
ln -s /dev/cu.ws_iiFAX /dev/cu.modem 
ln -s /dev/tty.ws_iiFAX /dev/tty.modem  
Stop and restart the receiving of faxes in the Print & Fax preferences panel. Done. Happy receiving! Note that you must do the above on every startup, since the /dev filesystem is created by the system. To automate this, put it in a suitable startup script under /Library/StartupScripts. I tested this with my Hermstedt USB ISDN adapter, but it should work with other modems.

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