mail() function problem

[Daggeth]

Em, Im trying to use the mail(); function but my host doesnt allow it or something.. this was his response:

PHP scripts will not work with sendmail functions if they
try to use "nobody"..... I have this turned off on my server.
Mainly because this is where Spam comes from.
Also..... sendmail is not used anymore because cpanel

now uses exim.

He says that I can still use mail() but not use sendmail? Anyone know, based on his reply how I could bypass the problem. This is greek to me..

by the way, on the "nobody" thing, I am using proper headers.. i think..

[planetsim]

Try using mail(); To see if it does work.

Make sure you specify all feilds so, to,from, message,subject etc.

[dalecosp]

Heh, spam comes from spammers 🙂

They like to use any MTA that's not been updated, like his, perhaps. Sendmail is not near as bad about it as, say, ESMTP, which is used by many of the lard-brained ISP's 'round here.

Also, if it's Linux/BSD there are some server functions that usually use Sendmail for logging, etc. so I wonder if it's really off. That said, it's quite likely that he's disallowed user 'nobody" from accessing it. I'd try it, anyway, depending on HOW he's shut it off, it still might work. I think that's what planetsim is betting on --- that using a different username than 'nobody' in the from field might help. It's possible....

There is, by example, this note in the PHP manual

The optional 5th parameter was the only way I found to get sendmail to stop putting a return path of "[e-mail]".

As soon as I added "[e-mail]" it worked fine.

I would also question whether having Exim as the MTA will make a lot of difference. As I mentioned, lots of servers use mail, and it's likely that they system lets them use whatever MTA is running....

[Daggeth]

I sort of understand what you said but not completely.

Any idea on how I should go about sending my mails?

I filled out all the required fields, yet it wont work.. I used additional headers to see if it would solve the problem - nothing.

[dalecosp]

// init vars
$to="[e-mail]";
$subject="test of mail()";
$message="testing, 1, 2, 3";
$header="From: postmaster@$SERVER_NAME\r\n";
$headers=$header."X-Sender: postmaster@$SERVER_NAME"\r\n;
$headers.="Reply-To: postmaster@$SERVER_NAME\r\n";
$headers.="Errors-To: [email][e-mail][/email]";
$clincher="-fwebmaster@$SERVER_NAME";
//try some mails
$one=mail($to, $subject, $message);
$two=mail($to, $subject, $message, $header);
$three=mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
$four=mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers, $clincher);
//get a report
if ($one) { echo "one worked..."; }
if ($two) { echo "two worked..."; }
if ($three) { echo "three worked..."; }
if ($four) { echo "four worked..."; }
if (!($one&&$two&&$three&&$four)) {
echo "I need a new ISP, @#@!@#$^%";
}

[Daggeth]

They all "worked" but the mail didnt arrive at my inbox..

Stupid .... .... .... .... .... host.

[dalecosp]

Well, without access to the server's mail logs, you may not know what happened. It could actually be that your ISP/mail service is rejecting mail from whatever domain the server is on, or something like that. There's another thread here where the guy has no reverse DNS (see RFC 1912) and we think that might have something to do with it. It could be that your server guy has real restrictive relay rules (sounds likely from your description).

I doubt he'd consider allowing fsockopen() to port 25, then, too...... 🙁

[Daggeth]

couldnt I use the STMP server or something..

any other ideas of how I can get around this problem.. sending mail is very cruscial to this script..

[dalecosp]

Do you have a cgi-bin directory? Is it possible you could compile a PHP binary and stick it in there, use suexec() to elevate privileges and then use mail?