[RESOLVED] Recover password from flatfile DB and send to email

DaleRobbins

Howdy There! I'm a pathetic newbie, trying to figure out how to recover a member's lost password from an external flatfile DB and send to the member's email address. The password is not encrypted. (Below are sample lines.)

Basically, the member will submit his/her email address to a form. If it matches an email found in field[0] it will send the password from field[1] to the email address.

Here's what I've got thus far, but dang... it doesn't work. Any kind assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Sample DB lines
Jack@nimble.com|YCFW039|Jack B Nimble|08/23/10 15:51:16
MonkeyPuss@abc.com|QLFE039|Abc Company|08/23/10 16:17:41


<?php
$email = $_POST["email"];
if (!isset($_POST['submit'])) { // if page is not submitted to itself echo the form
?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Password Finder</title>
</head>
<body>
<form method="post" action="<?php echo $PHP_SELF;?>">
<table style="width: 215px; margin-bottom: 0px; background-color: #F3F3F3;" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" align="center">
<tr>
<td colspan="2" style="text-align: center; height: 24px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;">
<strong>Password Finder</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; width: 33px;">Email:</td>
<td><input type="text" style="width: 165px" maxlength="36" name="email"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<input type="submit" value="Send" name="submit"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>


<?php
} else {

$key = $email;

//load file into $fc array
$fc = file("db.txt");

//loop through array using foreach
foreach($fc as $line)
{
if (strstr($line,$key)) //look for $key in each line
$fields = explode('|', $line);
}

//email[0]|password[1]|membname[2]|stamp[3]
//$record = "$fields[0]|$fields[1]|$fields[2]|$fields[3]";


$sbmail = "noreply@whatever.com";
$sname = "whatever.com";
$to = "$fields[0]";
$membname = "$fields[2]";
$pswd = "$fields[1]";

$subject = "Password Finder";
$message = "Here is your Requested Ad Password \n\nName: $rname \n\nMember Name: $membname \nPassword: $pswd \n\nContact us if you need further assistance. \nhttp://www.whatever.com/ \n";
$from = "$sbmail";
$headers = "From: '$sname' <$from>";
if (mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers)) {
echo '<br><p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;text-align:center;color:red;"><b>Password has been Sent<br>to Registered Email Address!</b></p><br>';
} else {
echo '<br><p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;text-align:center;color:red;"><b>Confirmation failed...</b></p><br>';

}
}

?>

dagon

just stop using flat-file db's really y its not a db, its just nasty. Then you can start hashing passwords and all the other proper stuff.

DaleRobbins

Thanks for your kind reply, but sometimes we have to work with what we have and don't always have a choice. Your thoughts are appreciated.

paulnaj

Hi Dale,

Apart from re-iterating Dagon's comments, there were a few odd things in your code. A cleaned-up un-debugged version is below, along with a few comments that should help you.

As a rule, I never embed variables in strings (although a lot of PHP'ers do). It's often something that trips up newbies, so best not to do it. Just cut in-and-out of any string (see $message for example).

<html>
<head>
	<title>Password Finder</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
//Sample DB lines
//Jack@nimble.com|YCFW039|Jack B Nimble|08/23/10 15:51:16
//MonkeyPuss@abc.com|QLFE039|Abc Company|08/23/10 16:17:41

// Could be many reasons why data sent is not good ... check
// But if no email is sent, then we definitely need the form
if(!empty($_POST['email'])){

// Changed $PHP_SELF to modern $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']
?>
<form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];?>">
	<table style="width: 215px; margin-bottom: 0px; background-color: #F3F3F3;" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" align="center">
		<tr>
			<td colspan="2" style="text-align: center; height: 24px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px;"> <strong>Password Finder</strong></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; width: 33px;">Email:</td>
			<td><input type="text" style="width: 165px" maxlength="36" name="email"></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td colspan="2"><input type="submit" value="Send" name="submit"></td>
		</tr>
	</table>
</form>
<?php
} else {
	//$email = $_POST["email"]; no need for $email var

$key = $_POST["email"];

//load file into $fc array
$fc = file("db.txt");
//loop through array using foreach
foreach($fc as $line){
	// Clean up any whitespace (newlines)
	$line = trim($line);
	// Get the fields
	$fields = explode('|', $line);
	if($key == $fields[0]){
		// Found correct line - break out of loop
		break;
	}
}

//email[0]|password[1]|membname[2]|stamp[3]
//$record = "$fields[0]|$fields[1]|$fields[2]|$fields[3]";


$sbmail = "noreply@whatever.com"; // Make this a real email address
$sname = "whatever.com";
$to = $fields[0];   // Don't need to embed these
$pswd = $fields[1]; // ... probably where the error was
$membname = $fields[2];

$subject = "Password Finder";

// In your message there was a var named $rname - is this a typo?
// ... changed it to $sname as a guess
$message = '
Here is your Requested Ad Password

Name: '.$sname.'
Member Name: '.$membname.'
Password: '.$pswd.'

Contact us if you need further assistance.
http://www.whatever.com/';

$from = $sbmail;
$headers = 'From: '.$sname.' <'.$from.'>';
if(mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers)) {
	echo '<br><p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;text-align:center;color:red;"><b>Password has been Sent<br>to Registered Email Address!</b></p><br>';
} else {
	echo '<br><p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;text-align:center;color:red;"><b>Confirmation failed...</b></p><br>';

}
}
?>
</body>
</html>

Hope that helps.

DaleRobbins

Thanks for taking your time to look at this. Yes, that helps... but still haven't been able to make it work yet. Thanks again!

paulnaj

You need to say what doesn't work.

What is happening that is unexpected?

DaleRobbins

Basically it doesn't do anything as is, but I will tweak around and see if I can get it doing something.

paulnaj

There was a typo ... change

if(!empty($_POST['email'])){

if(empty($_POST['email'])){

DaleRobbins

Yes, thanks, that helped... the form displays now... and processes when I submit the email address... but I get no email.

paulnaj

Are you doing this on a local server or on a host?

DaleRobbins

It's on a web host. The sendmail is working fine... I can email other things with mail(). Here's my little mail test script I use... it works fine.

<?php
mail('handle@domain.com', 'This is the subject line', 'This is the content of the email!', null, '-ftest@mydomain.com');
?>

paulnaj

Try just echo-ing out the results for the moment so you can everything is as expected ...

	/*
	if(mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers)){
		echo '<br><p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;text-align:center;color:red;"><b>Password has been Sent<br>to Registered Email Address!</b></p><br>';
	} else {
		echo '<br><p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px;text-align:center;color:red;"><b>Confirmation failed...</b></p><br>';

}
*/
echo '<pre>
To: '.$to.'
Headers: '.$headers.'
Subject: '.$subject.'
----------------------------------------
'.$message.'
----------------------------------------
</pre>';

BTW the mail() just puts the data onto the email loop - it doesn't check for example that the email addresses are valid.

DaleRobbins

Hey... COOL... it prints out fine! All the data and password display. Soooo... the problem must be in the mail somewhere...

paulnaj

Check out with your host that you can use the mail() function effectively - they might require you to use an SMTP server to send mails via PHP instead (which helps them to stop spammers).

It might also just be that the email queue it gets appended to is very long!!

DaleRobbins

I finally got it working... it was the mail routine. Very strange, the only configuration I could find that would work is shown below... and I haven't a clue as to why. Maybe someone can offer a suggestion why this works and the other configuration doesn't.

mail("$to", "$subject", "$message", null, "-f $from");

paulnaj

Glad you got it working.

Just a thought ... the $headers var might be the problem. Try plain ...

$headers = 'From: '.$from; 
//...
 if(mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers)) { 
//...

... see if that works.

DaleRobbins

YES... to my surprise, that WAS the issue. AND in further study, I've discovered all kinds of things I was unaware of... such as how sendmail has to be configured properly to bypass certain spam filters, such as hotmail's.