Send mail from website ubuntu, php, ajax - php

Question

I have a website with a form where you can send a message to my email adress. But it doesn't work yet. I am not really sure what is required to do this. Here is what i have done so far:
The PHP:
<?php
if (isset($_POST['from']) && isset($_POST['header']) && isset($_POST['message'])) {
$to = "example#awesomemail.com";
$subject = $_POST['from'];
$body = $_POST['message'];
$headers = $_POST['header'];
if (mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers)) {
echo("<p>Email successfully sent!</p>");
echo json_encode('success');
} else {
echo("<p>Email delivery failed…</p>");
echo json_encode('failed');
}
}
?>
The JS:
$.ajax({
type : "POST",
url : "sendmail.php",
data: {"from": from, "header": header, "message": message},
dataType: "json",
success: function(msg){
alert(msg);
}
});
Is there something wrong with my code or am i missing something?
The email is supposed to be sent to a gmail account.

Answer 1

Not enough points to comment on question... but just wanted to confirm you have an Mail Transfer Agent set up on the system. If not, that may be the culprit.
If this hasn't yet been done yet, you can refer to sendmail: how to configure sendmail on ubuntu? or https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/installation-guide/i386/mail-setup.html to get that going.

Answer 2

Try it like this , try sending a complete json response from the server side to client side for it to parse..
PHP :
<?php
if (isset($_POST['from']) && isset($_POST['message']))
{
$to = "example#awesomemail.com";
$subject = $_POST['from'];
$body = $_POST['message'];
$headers = urldecode($_POST['header']);
if (mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers))
echo json_encode('success');
else
echo json_encode('failed');
}
else
echo json_encode('failed');
?>
JS :
$.post('sendmail.php',{"from": from ,"header" :header, "message":message},function(response)
{
var response = $.parseJSON(response);
console.log(response);
});

Answer 3

if sending header is a problem you can do like this:
first concat all values into one variable
var string = 'mail='+from+'/'+header+'/'+message;
$.ajax({
type : "POST",
url : "sendmail.php",
data: string,
dataType: "json",
success: function(msg){
alert(msg);
}
});
sendmail.php
<?php
if (isset($_POST['mail']) && !empty($_POST['mail'])) {
$msg = explode('/','$_POST['mail']');
$to = "example#awesomemail.com";
$subject = $msg[0];
$headers = $msg[1];
$body = $msg[2];
if (mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers)) {
echo("<p>Email successfully sent!</p>");
echo json_encode('success');
} else {
echo("<p>Email delivery failed…</p>");
echo json_encode('failed');
}
}
?>
This answer is just another alternative way, more based on your comment.
(you can perform javascript validation before submitting form or with condition before even entering jquery/ajax)