Distinctive Ring Aware Modems And GNU/Linux?

toughguy asks: "I've got a single phone line with three numbers attached to it. The three numbers make three different rings when they are called ("Distinctive Ring Service"). I'm trying to get a Linux machine (RedHat) to answer only on one of the distinctive rings so that it can receive faxes on that line. So far I haven't had any luck. I'm wondering if anyone has been able to get a Linux machine answering distinctive rings. If so, what modem hardware were you using and what software package as well?"

Comments

The AT Command

[waldoj]

AT-SDR=4

Sending that command to your modem (presumably as part of the init. string) will tell your modem only to answer on a triple ring. It will report this as "RING 3." If you wanted it only to work for the single rings, you'd use AT-SDR=1 ("RING 1") and for dual rings, AT-SDR=2 ("RING 2".) Some modems will send "RING A," "RING B," etc. -- I gather that there's no such thing as a standard message for this.

Some of the places that I gathered this from include Motorola, FaxTalk, Fosh Australia and Dell Europe. This google was the most useful one.

Good luck -- you should have pretty much all of the info that you need at this point, I hope.

-Waldo

AT Settings

[waldoj]

It's been a while since I ran my BBS (ObReminisce: Aahhh, yes...those were the days), but lemme see if I can think my way through this one.

If you're using one of many modems that supporting distinctive ring (that feature was quite common Back In The Day, I can only assume that it still is), then you should be able to use AT settings, if such things still exist, to echo something aside from "RING" when the phone rings. "RING 0," "RING 1," etc. When mgetty is looking for activity, I think it just looks for "RING" and answers. You should be able to modify mgetty to only answer upon seeing "RING 0".

It ain't a link to an RPM, but it's something. :)

-Waldo

Hardware solution

[Snowfox]

There are many hardware solutions available which only route a ring signal to a phone jack if the appropriate ring style is detected.

Re:Hardware solution

[toughguy]

I hate feeding the trolls, but seeing as how I asked this question I feel I should defend my position.

In this case, the links suggested by the poster are for the wrong type of product. Those products are phone switches which you attach separate physical devices to each output line for each distinctive ring line. That is not what I want to do. I want one physical device (my GNU/Linux machine) to be able to handle the various types of distinctive rings.

So, just to be clear this isn't "another gay-ass Ask Slashdot that could've been answered in 5 seconds if the poster had figured out how to use Google".

Possible help

[mjisgod]

this person uses mgetty http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/2001/06 /27/0023.html

I know its not directly for Linux, but this piece of mail may you give you some help or direction.
You may even get useful info from the author of the mail if you ask nicely.

Re:What exactly is it that you want again?

[toughguy]

To be clear, I want, ideally, to have one computer with Linux, with one modem and have the modem and software be able to handle the various rings (which mean various things) in various ways. So, for example the normal ring should be directed to voicemail software, distinct ring #1 should be directed to fax software, and distinct ring #2 should be able to be directed to a different voicemail box. All of this is done on one computer, with one physical phone line with distincitive rings enabled on it by the phone company and one modem.

The reason for this Ask Slashdot then is that there is a certain co-dependency between the hardware and the software such that the hardware has to be able to recognize the distinctive ring and pass the apporpriate notification to the software. As yet I have not been able to get this to work, and so, I'm wondering what solutions you fine people may have come up with.