---
name: "notify"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "hylafax-server"
version: "3:6.0.7-11.1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/notify/8"
---

# notify(8)

HylaFAX user notification script

## NAME

notify - *HylaFAX* user notification script

## SYNOPSIS

**/var/spool/hylafax/bin/notify** *qfile* *why* *jobtime* \[ *nextTry* \]

## DESCRIPTION

**bin/notify** is the command script invoked by the facsimile server to notify a user about the status of an outbound job. The default notification script sends the user electronic mail describing the event or action. The arguments are:

- **qfile**

  the pathname of the job description file.

- **why**

  a string that specifies why the user is being notified; one of:

  ```
  Why	Notes	Meaning
  done	¹	job was completed successfully
  failed	¹²	job was not completed
  rejected	¹	job was rejected for specified reasons
  requeued	²	job was not completed, but was requeued for retry
  removed	¹	job was deleted from the queue
  killed	¹	job was deleted from the queue
  timedout	¹	job could not be sent before kill time expired
  format_failed	¹	document conversion failed
  no_formatter	¹	the document conversion program was not found
  poll_rejected	¹²	a polling request was rejected by the remote side
  poll_no_document	¹²	a polling request failed because nothing was available
  poll_failed	¹²	a polling request failed for an unknown reason
  blocked	³	job is blocked by concurrent jobs

  ```

  ¹ A final job state\
   ² A transcript of the failed communication is returned to the sender.\
   ³ No emails are sent for the block state, the job has been neither requeued nor done, but remains waiting in the queue for the ability to be sent.

- **jobtime**

  the total transmission time of a successful job or the connect time of a failed request (passed as a string).

- **nextTry**

  the time (passed as a string) at which the next attempt will be made to complete the job. This parameter is passed only if **why** is \`\`requeued''.

## NOTES

The behavior of **notify** is intended to be customizable via the **etc/FaxNotify** script, if present.  FaxNotify is sourced after the q-file is parsed and all default values are preset.  Useful settings for FaxNotify are:

- *WHY*

  is identical to **why** mentioned above and can be useful in determining under what conditions various settings should take effect.  For example,

  ```
  if [ "$WHY" != "done" ]; then
      RETURNFILETYPE=pdf;
  fi
  ```

  This would only set **RETURNFILETYPE** when the job did not complete successfully.

- *RETURNFILETYPE*

  can be set to \`\`tif'', \`\`pdf'', \`\`ps'', or \`\`original''.  If set, this causes **notify** to return a copy of the submitted documents to the **SENDER** address along with the notification message.  The \`\`original'' setting uses the format type that was used in the submission. Multiple values may be specified by separating them with whitespace. In that case a separate attachment is created for each filetype.

- *TEMPLATE*

  the template subdirectory to use when sending e-mails.  HylaFAX ships with a base set of templates, and some direct translations.  To use the German translated templates, set TEMPLATE=de in FaxNotify.  This is relative to the base template directory.

- *NOTIFY\_FAXMASTER*

  is used to deliver a notification message to **TOADDR** (which defaults to \`\`FaxMaster'') that contains technical information about the job.  This is useful in allowing the administrator to be aware of any problems before those problems are reported by the users. Possible settings are \`\`yes'', \`\`always'', \`\`no'', \`\`never'', and \`\`errors''. If \`\`errors'' is used then the notification message is only sent to FaxMaster when the job experienced an error.  The default is \`\`no''.

The settings of the user in **$notify** (read from the **sendq** job file) controls whether the user will get the notification email.  If you want to force notification emails, irregardless of the users selection, or force a blocked notification (which is not sent by default), you can set

```
notify="always"
```

which will force the notify script to send the email.

## FILES

```
/var/spool/hylafax	spooling area
/usr/lib/sendmail	for delivering mail
```

## SEE ALSO

[*faxq*(8)](/faxq/8.md), [*hylafax-server*(5)](/hylafax-server/5.md), [*sendq*(5)](/sendq/5.md)