Send and Receive Your First Fax via ATA

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You can send and receive your first fax through an ATA with ICTFax and your existing fax machine. Create an extension in ICTFax, register the ATA to it, forward a DID to the extension, and dial out from the fax machine. This quick start covers the six steps. For every setting in detail, see the full ATA guide.

Before you start

You need a working ICTFax Community Edition server (see the installation guide), an active provider under Administration > Providers / Trunks, one DID, and an ATA with your fax machine plugged into its phone port.

Six steps to your first fax

  1. Set the server address. In /usr/ictcore/etc/ictcore.conf, set host under [provisioning] to your server’s public IP or hostname. The default, localhost, won’t work for devices.
  2. Open the firewall. Allow 5060 UDP and TCP for SIP, plus the RTP range: 16384-32768 UDP on a normal install, or 16384-16484 UDP in the Docker image.
  3. Create the extension. As admin, go to Administration > Extensions and add one. Fill in Username, Password and Phone (the caller ID it’ll show), make sure it’s Active, and save. Note the username and password.
  4. Configure the ATA. Set the SIP server to your ICTFax host on port 5060, the User ID and Auth ID to the extension username, and the password to the extension password. Turn registration on. For fax, enable T.38 with G.711 fallback, and turn off echo cancellation and silence suppression. Check it worked with fs_cli -x "sofia status profile ictcore reg" on the server.
  5. Receive a fax. Go to My DIDs, click Forward on your number, choose Forward to Extension and pick the extension. Send a fax to that DID and the machine prints it. These faxes go straight to the device, so they won’t appear under Receive Fax.
  6. Send a fax. On the fax machine, dial the destination starting with +, 00, 011, 01 or 0. ICTFax strips that prefix and sends the call through your provider, applying the provider’s Prefix rules.

If something doesn’t work

  • 403 Forbidden on register: check the username, password and Active flag. Older installs also need the one-time registration fix in the full ATA guide.
  • Connects but the fax fails: usually RTP ports or NAT, or ATA fax settings. Try pass-through instead of T.38, and set the fax machine to 9600 bps.
  • Nothing happens when you dial out: check you have an active provider and that its Prefix rule matches.

Still stuck? Open a support ticket with your ATA model.