php email form question...

[The Duck]

I'm currently learning php, I have apache, php, mysql, and a couple other things installed, it was one of those bundle things. So I am readig this tutorial about email forms done in php and I try it myself. My code looks like this:


<?
$name=$_POST['name'];
$email=$_POST['email'];
$comments=$_POST['comments'];
$to="kungfukurt@yahoo.com";
$message="$name just filled in your comments form. They said:\n$comments\n\nTheir e-mail address was: $email";
if(mail($to,"Comments From Your Site",$message,"From: $email\n")) {
echo "Thanks for your comments.";
} else {
echo "There was a problem sending the mail. Please check that you filled in the form correctly.";
}
?>


I run this code and I get this error:

Warning: mail() [function.mail]: Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set() in C:\apachefriends\xampp\htdocs\phpbitch\mail.php on line 7


Can someone help me out please?

Thanks.

[sec_ware]

Hi

Sorry for this question, but do you actually have a SMTP server on localhost
running, that is listening on port 25? Otherwise, mail won't work ...

In case you don't have, you probably need to install a SMTP mailer, like blat[1].
By the way: A while ago, there was a free IpSwitch Imail version available,
but unfortunately I am not sure, whether this is that one[2] (I haven't tested it).

The php.ini-file which actually is used, you can locate using the phpinfo()-command.


Good luck.

Cheers

[1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/blat
[2] http://www.golddownload.com/IMail_Se...load_2016.html

[The Duck]

Well, this mail software called mercury also came in the 'package' known as xampp and when I have that running and try my script I get this error:

Warning: mail() [function.mail]: SMTP server response: 553 We do not relay non-local mail, sorry. in C:\apachefriends\xampp\htdocs\phpbitch\mail.php on line 7
There was a problem sending the mail. Please check that you filled in the form correctly.

What does this mean? Maybe I don't have it set for port 25?? Sorry, I'm not that skilled at configuring mail servers and such, I'm just starting to seriously get into web development.

Thanks again

[sec_ware]

Hi

I have no experience with that package xampp, but anyway:
The message you obtain indicates that a mail server
is running. There are several issues to consider in
order that your mail server cannot be misused to send
spam (so called open relays).

a) Usually, your mail server delivers any email, when the
recipient is a local mail account (to be defined). This is
the case if someone wants to send an email to
your email address myname@mydomain.com and your
mail server is responsible for mydomain.com.

b) Another function of a mail server is, that you, as an
authenticated user (login), can send email to other people.

Your error message corresponds to situation b). You try
to send an email to a non-local address without identifying
yourself to the mail server.

That is the situation - but I cannot help you with the configuration
of xampp mail server (Mercury?). But - if you use the PHPmailer
class[1], you can configure the authentication process.

In case you always send the mails to kungfukurt@yahoo.com, you
could configure php.ini to use yahoo.com as the mail server - if I understand
the working of mail() correctly ...

Cheers.

[1] http://phpmailer.sourceforge.net/

[The Duck]

And how can you correctly configure the php.ini file to use a particular mail server?

Also, could I also use outlook express to do what your suggesting with phpmailer?

Thanks again, I will take a look at phpmailer.

[sec_ware]

Hi

Originally posted here by The Duck
And how can you correctly configure the php.ini file to use a particular mail server?

In php.ini, there is an option SMTP. Due to the specifications of mail(), this is the
SMTP-server used to send mail. If the recipient is a local account on that server
(yahoo.com), the mail can be delivered without authentication.

Also, could I also use outlook express to do what your suggesting with phpmailer?

I really do not know what you mean. Phpmailer is a php-class allowing for a more
detailed configuration than mail - like authentication
(class SMTP, bool Authenticate (mixed $username, mixed $password) ).

Cheers

[The Duck]

Oh, I thought phpmail as like a mailing program, like outlook express...

[sec_ware]

Hi


If something is not working as I expect it to do, I am very much
motivated to track the problem down. Here, mail() did not as wanted.
See below why.


The goal: Send an email to a specific address using php. OS: Windows.
Two ways: phpmailer / php-native mail().


phpmailer


I played a little bit with the phpmailer[1] as an alternative, because
mail() did not work. Make sure to have the files class.phpmailer.php
and class.smtp.php in the same directory as the following php-script.

require("class.phpmailer.php");

$mail = new PHPMailer();
$mail->IsSMTP(); // telling the class to use SMTP
$mail->Host = "yahoo.com"; // SMTP server
$mail->From = "myself@mydomain.com";
$mail->AddAddress("avalidaddress@yahoo.com");

$mail->Subject = "PhpMailer test";
$mail->Body = "Some text";
$mail->WordWrap = 80;

if(!$mail->Send())
{
   echo "Message was not sent";
   echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
}
else
{
   echo "Message has been sent";
}

As explained in a previous post, no authentication is needed, if we
use the appropriate mail-server.


mail()


Since I do not like "blackboxes", I also worked on how to get the
same done using the native mail(). Mail() reads in a configuration-file
php.ini, in which sendmail options (*nix) or mail-server options
(windows) are set. The reason why mail() did not work:

mail() seems not to be able to resolve DNS entries!

Instead of setting the mail-server as "yahoo.com", we have grab one
out of two solutions:

- either we put a particular entry in the hosts file (somewhat dynamic)
- or we directly use the IP address as mail-server (seems to need a restart
of the apache server)

First thing: Obtain the IP address of the mail server.

c:\> nslookup
> set type=mx
> yahoo.com
> [a list of IP numbers - pick one, eg. 67.28.113.10]

Second thing: Configure the php.ini file.

The current php.ini used by apache/php can be determined using

   <? phpinfo() ?>

Search for the entry SMTP and add yahoo.com

SMTP = yahoo.com

Open the hosts-file %windir%\drivers\etc\hosts and add

67.28.113.10    yahoo.com

Restart apache and send an email using

  if (mail("avalidaddress@yahoo.com","mail() test","Some text"))
	echo "Message has been sent";
  else
	echo "Message was not sent";

A note of annoyance/hardening: Please make sure that the recipients email
address is hardcoded. And if not - usually, an email address consists of
alphanumerics, "-", "_" and one "@" only. There is no need for anything else.

Cheers!

[1] http://phpmailer.sourceforge.net/