Sending mail using Fake Sendmail

Introduction

• The php mail() function uses sendmail by default.
• Windows does not have sendmail.
• Hence we use fake sendmail.
• This article is taken from the comments in the Online PHP Manual for the mail() function.

Getting Fake SendMail

1. Download sendmail.zip from http://glob.com.au/sendmail/
2. Unzip this in a folder on your local disk (preferably use a simple path, for example c:/xampp/sendmail -- long filenames could cause problems)

php.ini Configuration

• Edit your c:/xampp/php/PHP.INI file (note: WAMP users should access their php.ini file from the WAMP menu). Go to the [mail function] section and modify it as such:

[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
;SMTP =

; For Win32 only.
;sendmail_from =

; For Unix only.  You may supply arguments as well (default: "sendmail -t -i").
sendmail_path = "C:/xampp/sendmail/sendmail.exe -t"

; Force the addition of the specified parameters to be passed as extra parameters
; to the sendmail binary. These parameters will always replace the value of
; the 5th parameter to mail(), even in safe mode.
;mail.force_extra_paramaters =

.... and save the changes.

sendmail.ini Configuration

• Open the c:/xampp/sendmail/sendmail.ini and modify the settings to:

[sendmail]

; you must change mail.mydomain.com to your smtp server,
; or to IIS's "pickup" directory.  (generally C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Pickup)
; emails delivered via IIS's pickup directory cause sendmail to
; run quicker, but you won't get error messages back to the calling
; application.

smtp_server=mail.yourdomain.com

; smtp port (normally 25)

smtp_port=25

; the default domain for this server will be read from the registry
; this will be appended to email addresses when one isn't provided
; if you want to override the value in the registry, uncomment and modify

default_domain=yourdomain.com

; log smtp errors to error.log (defaults to same directory as sendmail.exe)
; uncomment to enable logging
; error_logfile=sendmail_error.log

; create debug log as debug.log (defaults to same directory as sendmail.exe)
; uncomment to enable debugging
; debug_logfile=sendmail_debug.log

; if your smtp server requires authentication, modify the following two lines

;auth_username=
;auth_password=

; if your smtp server uses pop3 before smtp authentication, modify the
; following three lines

pop3_server=mail.yourdomain.com
pop3_username=you@yourdomain.com
pop3_password=mysecretpassword

; to force the sender to always be the following email address, uncomment and
; populate with a valid email address.  this will only affect the "MAIL FROM"
; command, it won't modify the "From: " header of the message content

force_sender=you@yourdomain.com

; sendmail will use your hostname and your default_domain in the ehlo/helo
; smtp greeting.  you can manually set the ehlo/helo name if required

hostname=

... and save the changes.

Use it

• The optional error and debug logging is recommended when trying this the first time, so you have a clue what goes wrong in case it doesn't work.
• Force_sender is also optional, but recommended to avoid confusion on the server end.
• Obviously mail.yourdomain.com, you@yourdomain.com, and mysecretpassword should be the relevant info for your SMTP server.
• Now restart the XAMPP / WAMP services (mainly Apache so PHP re-reads it's config).

Now you're good to go and use the PHP mail() statement as if you're a Unix user ...