Click2Fax

Overview

Click2Fax is an App written in PHP that allows anyone to send faxes using the UnifiedAPI. It uses the Fax resource exposed by Unified API and the following request:

•  Create Faxes - Send fax to any number without need of approval

Installation

In order to be able to use the Click2Fax App, your system must be compliant with the requirement below:

• Your system needs to have PHP 5.3 installed or higher.
• Your VoipNow server must be at least version 3.0
• The extension should be able to send faxes.

Setup

STEP 1: Switch to the directory that can be accessed over web (e.g /var/www/html) and download the files.

STEP 2: Proceed to allowing permissions and ownership rights.

You also need to give proper permissions and ownership to the files of the plugin - the plugin needs to be owned by the web server user and group. For example, if we use httpd as a webserver:

chmod -R 755 <PATH_TO_Click2Fax>

chown -R httpd:httpd <PATH_TO_Click2Fax>

STEP 3: Configure the App.

In order to use the App, you must configure it. To do so, you must open the file config.php in the <PATH_TO_Click2FAX>/config/config.php and change the following settings:

STEP 4: Setup the system.

You also need to make sure the VoipNow system is setup to receive faxes.

Behaviour

User Interface

As soon as the setup process is complete, you can access the interface at https://<IP>/<PATH_TO_CLICK2FAX>/. The page displays a single button that the user can click in order to send the faxes. Once the button is clicked the following form appears:

To send the fax a user must enter the information in the form fields as described below:

After the form is correctly filled, the user must click the Send fax button to send the fax.

Internal Flow

When the Send Fax button is pressed the scripts makes a Create Faxes request to the VoipNow server using UnifiedAPI. It uses the extension defined in the global variable VN_EXTENSION as the source of the fax call.

First it sets the HTTP headers and the Request body accordingly:

// Fetch token
$token = getToken();
$headers = array(
   'Authorization' => $token
);
 
$request = new cURLRequest();
				
//Fax Create uses POST
$request->setMethod(cURLRequest::METHOD_POST);
$request->setHeaders($headers);
$request->setBody(array('recipients' => array($_POST['to'])), cURLRequest::ENCODER_JSON); 

The HTTP Request made by the App looks like this:

POST /uapi/faxes/@me/0003*210 HTTP/1.1
HOST x.x.x.x
Authorization: <OAUTH_ACCESS_TOKEN>
Content-Length:469
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=------------325343636
------------325343636-------- 
Content-Disposition:form-data; name="files"; filename="/path/to/file/file.ext"
Content-Type;application/octet-stream
  
This is my fax
------------325343636
Content-Disposition:form-data; name="request";
{
  "recipients":[<FAX_EXTENSION_TO>]
}
------------325343636

Then sets the files which have been uploaded through the browser:

$numberOfFiles = count($_FILES['attachments']['name']);
$files = array();
				
for($i = 0; $i < $numberOfFiles; $i++) {
	if($_FILES['attachments']['error'][$i] > 0) {
		continue;
	}
					
	//Renaming the file including the extension
	$fileext = pathinfo($_FILES['attachments']['name'][$i], PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
	move_uploaded_file($_FILES['attachments']['tmp_name'][$i], $_FILES['attachments']['tmp_name'][$i].'.'.$fileext);
					
	$files[] = array($_FILES['attachments']['name'][$i] => '@'.$_FILES['attachments']['tmp_name'][$i].'.'.$fileext);
	}
				
$request->setFiles($files);

Any errors will be displayed on the browser.