Advice needed on setup with Hylafax fax server

Hi All,

I have a query and hope that you will be able to advise.

We currently use the hylafax fax server software running on a RHEL4 physical box. The server has two modems connected to it via serial. We are planning to virtualize this RHEL4 server onto VMware ESX. As part of this, we need to identify a way to ‘virtualize’ the physical modem connections on to the server.

I became aware of the PortServer TS family of products. The plan would be to hook up the two modems to the PortServer, and install RealPort on the RHEL4 box to talk to the modems over TCP/IP. So, in other words:

RHEL4 Hylafax server ----(use RealPort to talk to PortServer TS)----->> PortServer TS with the two modems attached sends out faxes.

Questions:

  1. Is the above scenario a viable one? Has anyone else implemented something similar?
  2. Any experiences installing RealPort on a RHEL4 box?
  3. Any links to related information on setting this up?

Advice/suggestions? Thanks for your help in advance.

regards

Hi All,

I have a query and hope that you will be able to advise.

We currently use the hylafax fax server software running on a RHEL4 physical box. The server has two modems connected to it via serial. We are planning to virtualize this RHEL4 server onto VMware ESX. As part of this, we need to identify a way to ‘virtualize’ the physical modem connections on to the server.

I became aware of the PortServer TS family of products. The plan would be to hook up the two modems to the PortServer, and install RealPort on the RHEL4 box to talk to the modems over TCP/IP. So, in other words:

RHEL4 Hylafax server ----(use RealPort to talk to PortServer TS)----->> PortServer TS with the two modems attached sends out faxes.

Questions:

  1. Is the above scenario a viable one? Has anyone else implemented something similar?
  2. Any experiences installing RealPort on a RHEL4 box?
  3. Any links to related information on setting this up?

Advice/suggestions? Thanks for your help in advance.

regards

Gents,

I found some related infomation here:

which is basically what i am trying to achieve.

A question:

In the above link, the author used the ‘Etherlite’ family of products, however as far as i can see, the ‘PortServer TS’ could do the same thing? What is the difference between these two products for my situation? Could they not achieve the same thing for me?

I`m located in Australia and the pricing for this region i can see is:

Etherlite 8 port ~ $AUD1700
PortServer TS4 (4 port) ~AUD700

We are looking at getting at least a 4 port device, and the Etherlite comes only with 2/8/16/32 port options.

many thanks,

The PortServer TS 4 will behave the same way when used with the RealPort driver. The primary differences betwee the 2 products is the EtherLite can only be used with the RealPort driver (not as a standalone terminal server) and cabling.

Here is a link to the driver installation instructions:

http://www.digi.com/support/kbase/kbaseresultdetl.jsp?id=170