is it possible to have mail() use SMTP on Linux?

ShawnD

if you look at php.ini it says stuff to this effect

; For Win32 only.
SMTP =

; For Win32 only.
sendmail_from =
; For Unix only. You may supply arguments as well (default: "sendmail -t -i").
;sendmail_path =

notice how it says SMTP is Windows only? my Mandrake Linux didn't have the option to install Sendmail and it'll be a while before i finish trying to install the damn thing but in the mean time is there a way i can set it to use SMTP when i use the mail() function? i'm forced to use my lazy man's mailing program on my Windows computer because i just don't have sendmail on Linux.

if it's not possible without using stuff like includes and headers and scripts from a site then just say "no you cannot do that", thank you 🙂

mrmufin

Perhaps this is a silly question, but why don't you just download and install sendmail on your linux machine?

ShawnD

installing it takes a really long time. you read the manual then it tells you that you have to read 93 pages of instructions on how to make the config file then you have to move a few files around.....moving files is not a biggy but reading 93 pages is a real bitch 🙁

nightowl

I had the same problem. After all, I decided to just "apt-get install exim" , run through some standard questions and it worked. It may not be the ideal solution, Exim may not be installed that properly, but it does the job ...

jwalk76

if all you want smtp for is the mail() function in php, then download and install the latest sendmail rpm. it doesn't get much easier.

type:
rpm -ivh sendmail.<version...>.rpm

then type:
service sendmail start

obviously, the program will not be configured for anything else, but php can use it. and since relaying is turned off by default now, you won't need to worry about being the middle man for spammers.

ShawnD

relay? middle man for spam? what do you mean?

nightowl

nothing to worry about: it is turned OFF by default.

But for your convenience: sendmail can be configured to allow others to use your computer as a host to send mail. As a first SMTP server. This would make it look like the mail they send comes from your computer. so some spammer could use your computer to send his mails. But again: default this is not possible so don't worry about it.

jwalk76

check out this link; it explains mail relaying and spam:

http://mail-abuse.org/tsi/ar-what.html

my point in bringing this up is you can use your default RPM install of sendmail, and you won't be vulnerable to things explained in the link above. in the past, sendmail DID NOT turn off relaying by default, so you would have needed to poke around in your config files to disallow mail relaying.

awhile back, when i first installed the sendmail RPM on Mandrake, all i did was turn it on and my PHP form mail script worked. so, i'm assuming you will have similar success. good luck.

ShawnD

hey i went to sendmail's site at sendmail.org and there is no rpm distribution, there is only the .tar.gz ones.

jwalk76

yes, that's because RPM's have to be built from the original source, and the people at Sendmail.org aren't going to do that. i'm not an RPM expert, but RPM's basically take care of all of the compiling for you. this is good, because it makes things easy for the end user; this is bad, because you are at the mercy of whoever built the RPM. in your case, RPM's are perfect. go to www.rpmfind.net and do a search for sendmail. this will give you a list of all available packages. near the top of this list, you can further narrow down the search by selecting your system and architecture.

i'm using Mandrake 8.1 on an i686 machine, so the most relevant sendmail RPM for me is here:

http://www.rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/mandrake/8.2/i586/Mandrake/RPMS/sendmail-8.12.1-4mdk.i586.html

good luck!

lordrashmi

Damn these new forums.. I had to re-register.

Check out this:
http://phpmailer.sourceforge.net/

SHould do what you need, but I am too lazy to post the details...

yelvington

Mandrake uses Postfix instead of Sendmail (which is notoriously hard to configure and has a poor security record).

It's on the CD. Use the Software Manager. Install the RPMs. It will be properly configured right out of the box, and it works fine with PHP.

ShawnD

mailing with postfix isn't working either.

i installed Mandrake with postfix. in the php.ini file i specified the sendmail path as
/usr/sbin/postfix
then i restarted the web server and test the email system and it just won't send mail. is there anything i have to do in order to get postfix to work?

btw i tried to install the rpm of sendmail and it said it was missing quite a few dependencies.

yelvington

You did the wrong thing by altering with php.ini. Restore the original. Seriously, Mandrake is 100% functional when it's distributed.

All MTAs include a pseudo-Sendmail binary so that they can provide a standard interface with all MUAs.

SENDMAIL(1)

NAME
sendmail - Postfix to Sendmail compatibility interface

SYNOPSIS
sendmail [option ...] [recipient ...]

   mailq
   sendmail -bp

   newaliases
   sendmail -I

The /usr/sbin/postfix binary does NOT provide the same interface.

ShawnD

actually no, according to the smart guys at LinuxQuestions.org, sendmail did NOT come with my installation. and as i said before, i can't install it because it won't let me.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28736&highlight=sendmail

jwalk76

you can install sendmail. you just need to satisfy the RPM's dependencies. if i had to make a wild guess, i would say that you need to install cyrus-sasl before you can install sendmail. unfortunately, you aren't in the dragNdrop/plugNplay world of Window$ anymore, so you are going to have to put forth some effort to configure your system like you want it, but trust me it's worth it in the long run. you will have more control and more knowledge as you progress, and:

POWER = knowledge + control;

ShawnD

i'm missing the following things:
/usr/bin/getid
libcrypto.so.0.9.6.1
libdb-3.1.so
libssl.so.0.9.6.1
cyrus-sasl

error: sendmail conflicts with postfix-20010228-20mdk