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Distinctive Ring Aware Modems And GNU/Linux?

Posted by timothy on from the ring-ring-ringringring-ring dept.

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?"

3 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. The AT Command by waldoj · · Score: 4

    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

  2. AT Settings by waldoj · · Score: 5

    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

  3. Re:Hardware solution by toughguy · · Score: 4

    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".