Installing server software...

[middleman666]

Hi all,

ok, I have a server machine on which I used to have windows server 2003 installed along with php/mysql.... everything was going fine until I wanted to use the mail() function, I've asked just about everywhere in hope someone would give me the answer I wanted, but everyone said mail() is linux and will not work on windows....

After a big sigh, I'm trying to decide what to do next, I basically need a new linux based OS to install PHP/myswl on to use as a web server. I downloaded the new version of ubuntu server, but it's gone a bit over my head when it came to installing it.

Can anyone recomend an OS that's really easy to install and allows the use of php mail()? By easy, I mean noob easy.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[laserlight]

everyone said mail() is linux and will not work on windows.

According to the PHP manual, that is not true: Mail Runtime Configuration

[cahva]

How much mail traffic would it be with your site? You can use your ISP's SMTP server to send mail in windows. Just spot the SMTP configuration in php.ini and mail should work. Im no Windows specialist but if youre running windows server 2003, there should be option to setup your own SMTP server which you can use.

EDIT: Those are the SMTP configs that I meant in Laserlight's post 🙂

[middleman666]

You've given me a glimmer of hope in saying php mail() will work on windows, so I have now reinstalled windows server 2003 and php and mysql.

I feel like I need some sort of idiots guide to making php mail() work on windows server 2003, as I'm currently not getting very far.

Here's my problem:

if(!mail("[e-mail]","subject text","body text", "From: [e-mail]")) {
  echo 'did not send';
}
else {
  echo 'sent';
}

I get 'did not send' so I know that the php mail function failed to send the email. (or at least that's what my understanding is...)

What I've tried to do:
- I've installed the POP3 Service and the SMTP service.
- I've setup a domain and mailbox on the POP3 service
- I've changed the php.ini smtp stuff to the following:
SMTP = localhost
smtp_port = 25
sendmail_from = [e-mail]
- I've also configured my router/firewall to allow port 25

I'm now at a bit of a loose end as I simply don't know what to test next.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[NogDog]

I'll ask the (hopefully) stupid questions, just to get them out of the way:

Did you restart the web server program after you updated the php.ini settings?

Assuming you did, you might want to run a [man]phpinfo[/man] page just to ensure that the settings being used are correct. (Sometimes there are multiple php.ini files, and the web server may be using a different one than the one you modified.)

[middleman666]

NogDog wrote:

I'll ask the (hopefully) stupid questions, just to get them out of the way:

Did you restart the web server program after you updated the php.ini settings?

Assuming you did, you might want to run a [man]phpinfo[/man] page just to ensure that the settings being used are correct. (Sometimes there are multiple php.ini files, and the web server may be using a different one than the one you modified.)

Hey NogDog,

Thanks for the reply.

Yep, the server was restarted after I updated the ini file.

And my phpinfo states:
Loaded Configuration File = C:\WINDOWS\php.ini

Which is the one I edited, I did a quick check to make sure there wasn't another one hiding around, but this is the only one.

Is there anything else I should check?

[NogDog]

To be honest -- not that I normally lie here, mind you -- the couple times I needed to run mail() from a Windows host, I got frustrated trying to make it work and ended up using phpMailer with its own SMTP class to send mail via SMTP. :rolleyes:

[middleman666]

Ok, I'm pretty much willing to try anything at the moment just so I can send an email using php, so I've:
- downloaded phpmailer
- put the contents of the zip into a folder on my public web directory
- copied class.phpmailer.php, class.smtp.php, phpmailer.lang-en.php into my php includes folder
- uncommented the includes path in php.ini

And now I'm trying to use the example they've given in the readme file:

<?php
require("class.phpmailer.php");

$mail = new PHPMailer();

$mail->IsSMTP();                                      // set mailer to use SMTP
$mail->Host = "192.168.1.68;192.168.1.68";  // specify main and backup server
//$mail->SMTPAuth = true;     // turn on SMTP authentication
//$mail->Username = "jswan";  // SMTP username
//$mail->Password = "secret"; // SMTP password

$mail->From = "[e-mail]";
$mail->FromName = "Mailer";
$mail->AddAddress("[e-mail]");

$mail->IsHTML(true);                                  // set email format to HTML

$mail->Subject = "Here is the subject";
$mail->Body    = "This is the HTML message body <b>in bold!</b>";
$mail->AltBody = "This is the body in plain text for non-HTML mail clients";

if(!$mail->Send())
{
   echo "Message could not be sent. <p>";
   echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
   exit;
}

echo "Message has been sent";
?>

At the moment, I'm unsure about the SMTP username and password - I simply don't remember being ask to set them - would I have had to set these when installing smtp from windows server 2003? Or are they the same as my windows login details? Or do I even have to set them?

The error messages I'm currently getting are:
Message could not be sent

Mailer Error: Language string failed to load: recipients_failed [e-mail]

Could you tell me how you managed to get phpmailer working on your windows install?

Thanks.

[NogDog]

The phpmailer install should include a "language" directory with several files in it for different languages. It may be an include_path problem keeping it from finding them. A quick work-around might be to explicitly include the desired language in your main script where you include phpmailer itself, e.g.:

require_once 'path/to/phpmailer/language/phpmailer.lang-en.php';