[Resolved] help with mail() on localhost

[BIOSTALL]

Sorry to butt in on the topic but thought i'd post my question here instead of starting a new thread.

Ermm... i too have a query about the mail() function

How do i add a link in the body of the message i am sending?

So far i have:

"Dear user. thank you for signing up to the forums"

How would i make the word 'forums' a link to www.blabla.com/Forum.php??

Thanks, BIOSTALL

[hwttdz]

I think you need to add "Content-Type: text/html" to the headers, this tells the mail program to interpret as html rather than plain text. Of course I don't really know because I can't send mail at all but that's what I've seen said.

"Try setting those values with ini_set() in your script."
Any advice on what they should be set to?

[lucasrd]

Yep. use the Content-Type mail header and set to text/html is correct...however, beware, many spam filters will block HTML-only email messages...make sure you test before you deploy ....

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by hwttdz
In php info we have
sendmail_from "no value"
sendmail_path "no value"
internal sendmail support for windows "enabled"

What else should I look for, and is there something I need to change about these?

Note: The Windows implementation of mail() differs in many ways from the Unix implementation. First, it doesn't use a local binary for composing messages but only operates on direct sockets which means a MTA is needed listening on a network socket (which can either on the localhost or a remote machine).

originally posted by id10t
Try setting those values with ini_set() in your script. I had to do that a while back on a win32 server once to get the mail() function to work...

IIRC, you need to set SMTP_HOST (or something like that) in php.ini . . . you might find the comments in php.ini to be of some assistance with this. 🙂

[lucasrd]

Try this simple test....

echo out your mail() call.

If it pirnts a "1" you're server is fine.

If it prints a "0" you need to re-configure/enable sendmail

...atleast it will keep you from trying to fix something that isn't broken and get you going in the right direction.

[hwttdz]

We definitely have a 0.

SMTP_host is set to localhost, which I think is what I want
SMTP_port is set to 25 which again is I think correct.

Of course it doesn't work so these may not be correct. About the other values that I mentioned that are not set, do I need to set those. And what does IIRC mean?

[dalecosp]

If I recall correctly, that's what it means.

Hmm, recursion? I could've done better, methinks...

Your problem could be any number of things. Are you sure there's an MTA running on the localhost? Is PHP running in safe mode (if so, [man]mail/man won't work!)? What about permissions/user rights, over-restrictive anti-spam/relaying policies (not that those are always bad), firewall configuration . . . it goes on and on.

If this is your box, you're got some definite seat work to do; if it's a "hosted" server, it dial-n-hold time . . . 🙁

[edit]Incidentally, Windows doesn't come with SMTP service by default. They want you to buy Exchange 😉[/edit]

[hwttdz]

This is my box. I don't know what an MTA is? I have safe_mode=off in php.ini. Does firewall affect localhost, even if it wasn't reaching the inbox due to anti-spam shouldn't mail return 1 if it gets sent. I don't know about permissions/user rights what do I need to check there.

[lucasrd]

since it's your box, I'm sure you can open a terminal....

try the following: the # denots the terminal prompt be sure to enter a period on a line by itself at the end of the message body to denote it's finished.

mail [e-mail] <press Enter>

Subject: enter your subjext <press Enter>
type your message body
. <press Enter>

see if you get the message.

[hwttdz]

Open a terminal? as in be in the directory of php. I'm sorry I don't know this.

In the directory of php I get 'mail' is not recognized as an internal or external command.

[lucasrd]

what OS are you running....

[hwttdz]

windows xp professional. If you want version information you're going to have to tell me how to fetch that.

[dalecosp]

Run "cmd" on your machine, and enter the command "netstat -an".

Search the output for a LISTEN directive that appears on port 25, perhaps like (off the top of my head, no Winbox handy)

22.33.44.55:25   LISTEN

If your machine is listening on port 25, most likely you do have a working "Mail Transfer Agent". Like I noted above, Windows doesn't have one built in. If you don't have an MTA, you'll need to either install one on this box or set your SMTP_HOST variable in php.ini to a machine that does have a running MTA ... maybe your upstream provider's mailserver?

[lucasrd]

right...if you install linux or unix, they come installed with an internal sendmail server so setting SMTP to localhost indeed work...since you are running wihdows, do as suggested...install an SMTP server on your box or use your ISPs' mail server (if they'll allow you to do so)

[hwttdz]

No listening on 25, so I need to install an SMTP server or use an ISP mail server. So if I have outlook setup the ISP mail server would be the incoming server?

Are there any freeware SMTP servers?

There's no chance that there is a free server that has this mail capability, is there?

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by hwttdz
No listening on 25, so I need to install an SMTP server or use an ISP mail server. So if I have outlook setup the ISP mail server would be the incoming server?

Are there any freeware SMTP servers?

There's no chance that there is a free server that has this mail capability, is there?

I imagine so. Googling "Windows SMTP Server Freeware" gives me 606,000 results, one of which might actually work.

The server you want in your Outlook config is the "Outgoing" (SMTP) server.

Have a good day; I hope we've been of some assistance to ya! 🙂

[hwttdz]

Now I have a working SMTP server, I added an email account in outlook with the outgoing mail server set to the server that I have set up on localhost and I can send an e-mail out from that account and recieve it on my other account.

Now I'm confused again because I'm looking for a MTA but some of the MTA's are both servers and MTA's and I don't know if my server is also an MTA but it's much more user friendly than the sendmail (www.sendmail.org) and I know that it's working, at least partially as demonstrated by the functionality in outlook.

What is the next step that needs to be taken to try to get the mail() function to work?

Sorry about asking so many questions but I need to have this working eventually and the documentation is abysmal (for example senmail.org does not make clear what it is, server or mta, and this is not in the faq's, I imagine this is common sense to some people, but unfortunately not all.) Also you all have been very helpful.

I forgot to say I have postcast server free edition set up.

My server must include an MTA because I did the previous check netstat.an and I got myipaddress:25 listening
One thing that's a little unusual is there are a bunch of addresses with all zeros, i.e. 0.0.0.0:80 listening, but the 25 one shows my ip address first. Is this correct?

[dalecosp]

Well, sorry for throwing jargon around and confusing you.

An MTA is a "Mail Transfer Agent", which is the same as saying that it is an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) "server".

"Server", in this case, means "program that runs on a computer and provides a service" (in this case, SMTP service) rather than "a computer that provides a service or services".

In other words (MTA==SMTP server) = TRUE.

A program like Outlook would be called an MUA (Mail User Agent), because it is a client program that handles mail for the user . . . it talks to a POP or IMAP server to receive your email, and it talks to an SMTP server to send email to others, but it doesn't actually do the "over the Internet" transfer of mail from one domain to another....

The 0.0.0.0 thing is the "ME" address, used when a service is either running on all interfaces, or on an interface upon which that service doesn't know its IP address. I'd say that's pretty normal, depending on how many ports you have open . . . shouldn't be too many unless you're serving everything plus the kitchen sink.

What do you need to do next? Well, if you're sure that you have mail service up and running, try to get PHP to connect to it by setting SMTP_HOST to its address, etc. Hopefully, it'll return TRUE instead of false when you call mail() now.

As for your next issue, I wish you luck, but I'm gonna have to beg off, as I'm forumming my time away when I have paying clients that need help. Have a nice day, and good luck!

[hwttdz]

Well I finally have it all figured and mail() is sending mail. Thanks a bunch to everyone who helped. If anyone else runs into this feel free to ask me, and I'll give what limited help I can.

[cbl]

I don't know if this thread is closed or not but I've encountered the same mail() problem so I thought i would post it here.

Here is my problem, I'm trying to send mail internally inside company (win xp) and I am having trouble with php settings. When I run my script
$m=mail('[e-mail]',subject,'body','From:[e-mail]');

no errors were showing and I do get $m = 1 but no mails were ever being sent or rather it never got to my outlook.

here is my settings in php.ini:
SMTP = localhost
smtp_port = 25
include_path = .:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php
sendmail_path = sendmail -t -i

I also tried to pin command "netstat -an" and found that I do not have my localhost listening to port 25, this is what i get:
0.0.0.0: 25 LISTENING
127.0.0.1:1147 LISTENING

any help would be appreciated. I'm really running out of ideas.
Thanks in advance.