This is quite strange as email sending using my Gmail SMTP server works in my localhost, but when I deployed it on a VPS, it wouldn't work at all.
I can't find any issue as to why this is happening, the configuration looks normal (SSL port 465, Gmail SMTP server). I'm using Laravel 4.0.9 so I thought of upgrading to 4.1/4.2 to use the Mailgun feature (not sure if 4.0 can use Mailgun?)
Anyway, for a quick fix, I just switched to mail method for email sending. Since this works well for me, my question is that whether there is any tradeoff of using mail instead of SMTP on Laravel? The delivery seems okay as it got to my inbox, but what about the long term?
Any thoughts would be very much appreciated :)
When using the built-in mail function you don't benefit from additional features such as DKIM and the SFP configuration for your domain may not allow hosts other than your SMTP mail server to send mail for your domain, all of this makes the mail you send that way look like spam to other servers.
While you may not have issues with some providers, try to send mail to some more restrictive providers such as Outlook (ex-Hotmail); I'm pretty sure all the mail you send there will be automatically marked as spam because of the issues described above.
PHP mail may be faster since you don't have to connect to your smtp server, but it's not better. In the long run, SMTP email is the only way to guarantee that your email will arrive in the inbox of your receivers
Related
I've tried using Postfix only as a SMTP server for sending "verification" mails locally, to any provided destination. The current problem is, it sends all mails without any issues but receivers don't get them.
I'm using XenForo software with "127.0.0.1:25" SMTP data for sending mails, without user - / pass login because Postfix is locally bound and should only send mails - not receiving any from outside.
Also I'm using my custom domain to provide "from:" data for mail. (e.g. "no-reply#*******.com")
I already tried using SMTP servers of different hosts such as "MailJet" but I had the same issue there. The staff of used hosts said, there'd be something wrong with my server and nothing else, so that's why I had decided to host an own SMTP server locally on the same server as like as my webserver's running.
Postfix "main.cf" file: http://pastebin.com/r8EfKbXL
Logs: http://pastebin.com/TnjVbNfp
Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Chris
And you have SPF, DKIM, etc. all sorted? I suggest you (authenticate with and) use the same SMTP server you use for all other email from that domain, create a separate inbox if you need so it's using different credentials to you. It's usually a lot less hassle.
I am trying to send an e-mail from localhost but am getting the error:
Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set().
Does this mean i need to set up a local mail server?? and if so how and which one is easiest.
Thanks in advance
Paul
This is what I use, but it's for testing purposes only:
http://www.toolheap.com/test-mail-server-tool/
There's almost no configuration, and I got it to work right out of the box (on Win7) after failure with several other mail servers. It does not send the actual mail, but stores it as an .eml file. This is great for testing mailing lists for instance, where you don't really want to send the 2000 emails, but want to get a realistic result from your application.
It might look like garbage, but it's been working great for me.
Yes, it does, and if you want to send mail to an outside email address (and not a user local to the system, it is annoyingly difficult).
Most hosting companies (e.g. GoDaddy) have this setup for you, so PHP's mail() function works without you needing to do anything.
If you're configuring it on your own system, you might want to consider (a) configuring sendmail to use an alternate SMTP gateway (I frequently use Gmail) or (b) a complete alternative to sendmail (Zend Mail looks promising.)
If you are using Linux, there is usually no need to set up a a mail server,
If you are using Windows, yes, you do need to set up a mail server
If you are interested in just sending mail, you can by SMTP protocol use any SMTP server. Here is a tutorial to setting up PHP to use a remote SMTP server.
Yes, you need a mail server to be able to send mail, but even if you do, you are not going to be able to send to addresses outside of you local network as mail from your computer will be blocked by all recipients for spam reasons.
You could use the pear mail function to connect to an external smtp providor like gmail to send the mails for you. More info here and here.
smtp4dev is in my opinion the best tool for capturing local SMTP traffic on Windows.
It listens SMTP on localhost port 25 and pops up a notification every time a new mail is posted (it doesn't actually forward the mail to its recipient). You can then open the message in your favorite mail agent or save it to a file.
I'm building a site on my home computer using MAMP. The code I'm using employs the PHP mail() function to send emails, but whenever I test it, the mails aren't getting sent.
My computer is connected to the net, but I'm wondering if there's something about local hosting that prevents mails from getting sent. I'm not getting any kind of error message.
Any ideas?
PHP can send mail in one of two ways.
The first, and the default on non-Windows systems, is to use the local mail transfer agent installed on the system. This would be "sendmail" or an application compatible with it, the most popular probably being postfix.
The other is to connect via SMTP to some mail server.
You will either need to install a mail transfer agent on your local system (and set it up correctly), or edit PHP's configuration to specify an SMTP server address and port.
Yes, there are things that could block locally hosted mail. For one, your ISP could block SMTP to servers other than the ISP. ask your ISP support if they block SMTP... Or try telexing so someone's MX port 25 and do you get a response?
If your ISP blocks smtp you can still send the mail, but first you must relay that email through a hosted email server like your ISP mail server. This process is called 'smart hosting' and you can search for more info.
Even if you are not blocked on port 25, many sites will refuse or lose smtp traffic that originates from a dynamic or residential IP address, so again the smart host suggestion.
Also I suggest not using the built in mail() function in PHP... Use something that replaces and improves it like http://pear.php.net/package/Mail or http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmailer/. Again, use the SMTP method as it is way more reliable than direct sending or calling Sendmail.
It is important to confirm this problem, doing SMTP manually over telnet. That way you isolate the problem from PHP. I did ISP support for years and saw this question lots. Most people setup php and mail correctly but get stuck on a background network issue with SMTP.
If you have Wireshark installed, it can record network traffic and you might see the actual SMTP traffic, for example the remote server may be refusing your connection. Wireshark is helpful but not required to solve this though. Good luck.
You need to setup SMTP server in order to be able use mail function, or you can use PHPMailer class, with it you can avoid using mail function and setup problems, PHPMailler need socket extension to be loaded in order to function correctly.
I am just learning php and it's my first question on this site. Hope, you will help me. I just want to send Email from my local machine to gmail. I have tried but didn't got any success. Please help How to do this.
my code is
form processing
return mail(
$message['to'],
join("\n", $headers))
};
?>
You will want the mail() function see: php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php
mail('kushagra#gmail.com', 'My First Email', 'The body of my email');
You will need a mail server running on your local machine such as Postfix for *nix or Pegasus for Windows.
If you do not have the ability run a mail server on your machine then you might need to use a PHP class that allows you to connect to an SMTP server such as SwiftMailer or PHPMailer.
Be aware though that a lot of ISPs will block connections on port 25 (SMTP) to protect against spamming (see my encounter of this with Optus a few years ago http://blog.simonholywell.com/post/374223466/optus-cable-port-25-smtp). If they are blocking it then you will need to use their SMTP server.
There is a tool linked in my blog post above which will allow you to determine if it is blocked or not see: http://www.zoneedit.com/smtp.html
The standard builtin function to send mail in PHP is mail():
http://php.net/mail
Unfortunately, you cannot use it with Gmail since Gmail requires two security measures that are not supported by good old mail():
Authentication
Encryption
You need to find and download a third-party library. Popular choices include PHPMailer and Swift Mailer.
If you take a look at this PHPMailer example you could use Gmail as an SMTP server to send mail to your own account - guaranteed delivery!
I need to send a newsletter to several thousands of subscribers with PHP.
The hosting service I am using allows me to send 300 mails/hour tops with their SMTP server.
They told me that if I send email with PHP without authenticating or using the SMTP server I won't have any problems with limits.
Is that even possible? Doesn't the mail() function in PHP use SMTP to send mail?
The mail() function will use whatever php.ini tells it to use which may be sendmail or may be an external SMTP server.
You have a few different options:
If they're not time sensitive, use their SMTP server and throttle yourself;
Alternatively, if they are time sensitive, it may make sense to authenticate against your own external SMTP server;
Finally, I'd suggest looking at a system like MailChimp or iContact. They'll let you send to anyone on your list and will handle bounces and unsubscribes for you. Even better, their servers have been whitelisted by ISPs, etc, so you're much less likely to have your messages flagged as spam.
My 0.02
On unix/linux, mail() is almost always configured to just use the local sendmail facility.
Technically speaking, you're still using SMTP servers, but not at your ISP. Sendmail communicates directly with the SMTP server responsible for incoming mail for each recipient.
While it's possible that your host has sendmail to route all mail through their SMTP server, it's unlikely.
I'd say just use plain old mail() and give it a shot.
The hosting company probably provides you with a SMTP server you can use, and it is that server that probably has the limitation. You can avoid the limitation by using another SMTP server (one that they aren't providing.)
All e-mail is traditionally "sent" using SMTP. You would need to configure your machine to use an external server.
http://email.about.com/od/emailprogrammingtips/qt/Configure_PHP_to_Use_a_Remote_SMTP_Server_for_Sending_Mail.htm
For a good general discussion of successfully sending e-mails from code, see this Coding Horror post. I noticed one of the comments mentioned the Postmark app as a paid alternative to using your ISP's SMTP server. I've never used it, so I don't know if it's worth the price.