Disabling fax in FreePBX

FreePBX supports all sorts of features which are available for Asterisk.

Many of them are enabled by default, but working out how to turn some of them off if you don't happen to want them can be a challenge.

Fax, for example.

My opinion of fax in the 21^st century is that it is an obsolete technology which was neat in its day but has been so comprehensively overtaken by email that it's no longer worth consideration.

If you want to send someone a fax, create a PDF, attach it to an email, and send it to them. If they want the thing on paper, they can print it.

Advantages of email:

• Faster
• Cheaper
• More convenient
• Better quality
• Supports colour
• You can find it again 2 months later

Advantages of fax:

• Works if you don't have a computer but you still have a fax machine

No difference either way really:

• Can be secure, may not be
• Have to find out the recipient's address / number
• Sometimes doesn't work
• Requires connectivity to the Rest of the World

Anyway, all that aside, how do you turn off fax support in FreePBX?

Settings - Fax Configuration looks encouraging, but provides no way to turn it on or off - it just assumes you want it, and you can tell it what page size to use etc.

Admin, Applications and Connectivity have nothing about Fax.

It turns out that you need to select:

• Admin
• Module Admin
• Settings heading (not the tab at the top of the screen; the heading at the bottom of the list)
• Click on Fax Configuration Professional
• Select Disable
• Click on Process bottom right
• Click on Confirm
• Click on Return
• Return to the Settings heading
• Click on Fax Configuration
• Select Disable
• Click on Process bottom right
• Click on Confirm
• Click on Return

(Um, why can't you disable both modules at the same time? Well, because Fax Configuration Professional (which you probably haven't bought a licence for and therefore can't be used anyway) is enabled, and depends on Fax Configuration, and FreePBX won't let you disable a module which is being depended on by another module, even if you're disabling that one at the same time. Aaargh.)

Once you've done this, there is no longer a Fax tab under User Management or Group management.

Congratulations, you've just got rid of another bit of redundant technology and unnecessary complexity.

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