Fax through email, email through scanner, with Exim

Just to share, and to write down a note for further reference.

The good:

  • I’ve a fax/scanner/printer that’s able to directly send via email what you scan
  • I’ve a email to fax service

The bad:

  • the only way you can write the email address on the printer is with an alphanumeric keyboard, like the one of a mobile phone
  • the destination address is in the form of
    NUMBER@my.verylongdomain.com
    so sending faxes is very slow

I needed to make that address shorter.

Thanks to Exim (the internal smtp server we use), I was able to map a shorter form of the previous address with the original.

On Debian lenny, I’ve added the file /etc/exim4/conf.d/router/050_exim4-config_forward_domain

forwarddomain:
driver = redirect
domains = f
data = $local_part@my.verylongdomain.com

Now my co workers can send emails to NUMBER@f and Exim will remap them to NUMBER@my.verylongdomain.com

HTH

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