Reading up on GAE as a possible alternative to dedicated hosting (or VPS)...
Seems I would need to re-write a bit of code, if I had modules which relied on SMTP. Does this mean that even if I connected to a remote SMTP server that code would need to change to an HTTP API (assuming one is even provided by an third party SMTP provider such as smtp.com).
Yes - AppEngine/PHP does not yet support sockets and thus you can not connect to external SMTP servers. Also, even with sockets you would not be able to use SMPT on port 25, but authenticated SMTP on port 587 - see socket limitations.
OTOH, you can send email from AppEngine via the Mail API.
If you still want to send email via an external mail provider, you need to choose one that supports HTTP API, for example Amazon SES.
Related
I have an issue with the mandrill API, I got this message :
Failed to connect to mandrillapp.com port 443: Connection timed out
It's works on my production server (ex mysite.com), but not on my dev server (ex mysite.com:8080).
The two servers have same config by the way.
Anyone knows why I got this issue ?
Thanks !
Make sure your hosting provider or internet provider (ISP) allows
outbound SMTP connections. Some shared hosting providers only allow
outbound SMTP connections on dedicated servers, while others block
them completely. In some cases, hosting providers might redirect the
connection, so instead of connecting to smtp.mandrillapp.com, you
connect to their local server instead.
Make sure the port you've selected is one that your hosting provider
or ISP has available for outbound SMTP connections. Some hosts block
all connections on port 25, for example, so you can try using a
different supported port.
Double check that you're using a valid API key to connect via SMTP,
and not the password that's used to log in to Mandrill's web
application.
If you're using Postfix, make sure that you have an SASL library
(like libsasl2 or cyrus) installed and that it's up to date.
Otherwise, you may be connecting but not passing authentication
credentials.
For other SMTP libraries, make sure you're using LOGIN or PLAIN
authentication methods.
Once you've confirmed all of the above, if you're still seeing issues,
please enable additional logging in your SMTP program or library. If
you're using an integration, contact the integration developer for
information on configuring logging of the SMTP conversation.
Where do I find my SMTP credentials?
After you create a Mandrill account, get your SMTP credentials on the
SMTP & API Info page in your account.
The SMTP password is any active API key for your account, not the
password used to log in to Mandrill. The credentials list port 587,
but any port supported by Mandrill will work, and there's no
configuration change needed within Mandrill to activate one of the
alternate ports.
Which SMTP ports can I use?
You can use port 25, 587, or 2525 if you're not encrypting the
communication between your system and Mandrill or if you want to use
the STARTTLS extension (also known as TLS encryption). SSL is
supported on port 465.
ISPs may redirect traffic on certain ports, so it's up to you which
port you use.
So, I developed this web application which needs me to send emails to everyone (details in a mysql database), providing a unique set of user credentials. I have a virtual server on the University network where I am hosting my PHP based application, so it obviously doesn't have its own mail server/SMTP settings.
So, if I were to send out mails from a university network, I guess I should request the network admin for the SMTP settings for the university mail network and then use PEAR for it right?
I need to confirm this because it's kind of a big deal to make a request like that, and I myself have never used PHP to send mails 'from' an external email id not linked to the server.
Are there any alternatives to this?
Yes you can use PEAR::mail to send mails via SMTP server. However, if SMTP is configured on localhost you can simply use mail() function to send mail. You can also connect to SMTP server via socket but then you need to handle whole protocol communication.
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 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.