I'm getting a 'could not instantiate mail function' error from PHPMailer. From reading around, I understand this to mean that the PHP mail() function isn't working for some reason.
The results of phpinfo() for the mail settings are:
To me, this means that mail() should work and that port 25 is open. Is that right?
Is there anything else I can check to make this work please? I had a look at the docs for the mail() function, but I couldn't see what exceptions it threw and how I'd print them out to screen. I did a:
mail('name#email.com', "test", "test") or die("Doesn't work");
type test, but that's my error message and I could do with something a bit more helpful.
Grateful for any help on this.
Many thanks
it doesn't mean port 25 is open, it just means that PHP should use port 25 for contacting the SMTP server. You don't state what OS you're on, but note that sendmail would be a unix-only thing, and will fail if you're on Windows.
That list merely show you your current settings. That doesn't mean that they are right. :)
Your localhost is probably not configured to be a mail server. Set the smtp server to a real server than can be reached from your PHP server.
I am probably way off, but check to see if sendmail is installed, maybe it is malfunctioning. This depends on your OS.
The settings from phpinfo() show the PHP is set up to use SMTP but it does not mean that you have an SMTP server set up on the machine. Your error message suggests that one is not setup.
Good luck
My answer would be - don't send emails by calling Sendmail. The sendmail method (or ANY local method) is a mess of pitfalls... and even if you get past those issues, the bottom line is many spam filters (at the places you send mail TO) simply do not like this type of mail.
To provide just a little detail why the sendmail approach is bad, your sendmail daemon is unlikely to be configured to have an SMTP HELO which matches the reverse DNS of your IP address. Your webserver is unlikely to have valid reverse DNS matching a standard hostname. NO reverse DNS at all is bad, as is rdns like 123-123-123-123-static.someisp.com. SpamAssassing will flag such "unconfigured or default reverse DNS" hosts for example.
Fortunately you don't need to understand or fix everything I just said. The much simpler to accomplish (and easier to test/debug) is to GATEWAY your emails through a working SMTP mailserver. To do this:
1a) Install PHPMailer http://phpmailer.worxware.com/ ... OR
1b) Install the PEAR Mail() library http://pear.php.net/package/Mail
Either 1a or 1b will replace the limited "mail()" function in PHP. These replacements support both SMTP, and Authenticated SMTP.
2) I suggest using Authenticated SMTP over plain SMTP. Either works, but with authenticated SMTP you can literally send mail through another mail server just as IF your script were a local email client like Outlook. This has major benefits. For example, if you are a company sending mail, your mail is more likely to be trusted by remote/target mailservers, since your mailserver has a good reputation and (hopefully) proper reverse DNS setup. But if you originate the email off a webserver, you have none of that (and if you use shared webhosting, you will inherit the email reputation of whatever other sites run on your webserver IP.).
Related
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'm developing a Web application with PHP 5.3.3.
I want it to send confirmation e-mails automatically.
I don't have a domain name yet.
I'm using Windows XP.
I don't have PEAR's Mail package.
I have hMailServer and is the mail server I want to use to send the e-mails.
My questions are:
Can I send e-mails without a domain name? (Is it absolutely necessary? I just want to test the application for the moment.)
If a domain name is necessary, do I also need to host the application with a Web Hosting Service Provider? Can I do it from my computer?(Remember, I just want to test the application.)
Do I absolutely need the PEAR's mail package? or can I simply use the mail() function?
I'm clueless about what I should do. I've made my research, I understand the parts but I can't make sense of the whole, I mean what resources are necessary and how to put it together. I've never developed any application that sends e-mail before. Please, help me.
Yes. You can set your "from" address to whatever you want. (Though note, the recipient server might detect it's forged and reject it.)
You can host from you computer, just make sure your network is not blocking port 25 outbound.
mail() alone will suffice as long as you have a local SMTP server that will handle your messages. (I'm assuming that's what the hMailServer product is.)
First off, if you're running Windows as your server, you need to configure how your e-mails will be sent (SMTP server). Go to this section in your php.ini file. Change localhost to an SMTP server you can use from your network (either the IP address of your hMailServer OR sometimes you need to purchase one to use like http://www.smtp2go.com/).
[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/smtp
SMTP = localhost
; http://php.net/smtp-port
smtp_port = 25
Second, you use the mail(...) function in php (including the ability to send HTML mail). That's it.
Yes, you can. I believe your emails will show up with your server's DNS by default, but you can set the from: header to whatever you want. However, if you change the from: header, be warned that your emails are likely to get picked off by spam filters.
You need some special server configuration to use the php mail() function - I haven't tried setting it up myself, but I know that a basic local apache / php install won't have the capacity to send emails. Pretty much every paid web server should have it set up properly, though.
No. You can send regular and html emails with the generic mail() function.
I know this is possible, but can I do without a remote SMTP server or the like? Basically I want to send mail with PHP, but without mail()
I'm unsure what you exactly mean with 'without a remote SMTP server', as in any mail delivery at least one of those has to be involved - the one receiving mail on account of the recipient...
What you can probably do (it's up to you to decide if it's worth the effort) is to use PHP's socket functions to open a connection on port 25 with a remote mail server. Google 'SMTP telnet' for some examples of how a SMTP session looks like (quite simple, to be true) and then google for 'SMTP codes' for more explanations of what the remote server is saying you.
Possible, but not entirely trivial considering the fact that you should be familiar with SMTP, POP3 and/or IMAP to actually exchange data with a mail server.
You need to code your app so it mimics the behavior of an MTA, that is if you're going to do what the mail() function does - and using sockets. If you're on Linux, another option is to make an OS call to sendmail.
To not use mail() look into PHPMailer
I use this library for all my e-mailing code. I've extended it to have a debug mode so I can intercept outgoing e-mails while testing code.
I could be wrong but you will always be using an SMTP server even if that server is just the webserver with sendmail on it. If you were running your PHP on windows you'd need to enable IIS's in built SMTP service.
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.