PHP Mail Configuration
In the previous lesson, we used mail() to send mail in PHP. That lesson assumes that your PHP installation is configured for sending mail. If your system isn’t configured for sending mail, all is not lost — you can change the configuration.
The php.ini File
The php.ini file is where you configure your PHP installation. This is the file you need to edit in order to configure PHP to send mail.
You need to ensure that the php.ini file contains details of the mail server that should be used whenever your application sends mail.
To check/change your PHP mail configuration:
- Open your php.ini file (if you don’t know where this is, see below)
- Search for the line that reads [mail function]
- Add/change the details of your mail server. This could be a local mail server or the mail server of your ISP.
- Save/close the php.ini file
- Restart your web server
Here’s an example of what the mail settings could look like when you first open the php.ini file:
If you’re using a UNIX based system, you will need to change the line that reads ;sendmail_path = . You will also need to remove the semicolon from the start of this line (semicolons indicate that the line is a comment). For example, sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail .
If you’re using a Windows system, you should change the line that reads SMTP = localhost to include your mail server (or your ISP’s mail server). You could leave it at localhost if you’re using your own local SMTP server. If you aren’t using your own local SMTP server, you will need to enter a mail server that you have access to (such as your ISP’s mail server). For example, SMTP = mail.earthlink.net .
You should also set a default «From» email address by changing the line that reads ;sendmail_from = [email protected] . For example, sendmail_from = [email protected] .
Don’t Know Your php.ini Location or sendmail_path Path?
If you don’t know where your php.ini is, or what your sendmail_path setting should be, read on.
Your php.ini may be located here: /private/etc/php.ini . And there’s a chance that your sendmail path will be at /usr/sbin/sendmail ). Having said this, each PHP installation is different, so you should check using phpinfo() .
Fortunately, this is easy to do.
phpinfo() is used to view your PHP configuration details. You can do this by creating a .php file with the following line on it: . When you run this in your browser, you will see a full list of PHP configuration variables. Simply search for the lines that contain php.ini and sendmail_path to see the values you need to use.
Set mail server in php ini
The behaviour of these functions is affected by settings in php.ini .
| Name | Default | Changeable | Changelog |
|---|---|---|---|
| mail.add_x_header | «0» | PHP_INI_PERDIR | |
| mail.log | NULL | PHP_INI_SYSTEM|PHP_INI_PERDIR | |
| mail.force_extra_parameters | NULL | PHP_INI_SYSTEM|PHP_INI_PERDIR | |
| SMTP | «localhost» | PHP_INI_ALL | |
| smtp_port | «25» | PHP_INI_ALL | |
| sendmail_from | NULL | PHP_INI_ALL | |
| sendmail_path | «/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i» | PHP_INI_SYSTEM |
For further details and definitions of the PHP_INI_* modes, see the Where a configuration setting may be set.
Here’s a short explanation of the configuration directives.
Add X-PHP-Originating-Script that will include UID of the script followed by the filename.
The path to a log file that will log all mail() calls. Log entries include the full path of the script, line number, To address and headers.
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() .
Used under Windows only: host name or IP address of the SMTP server PHP should use for mail sent with the mail() function.
Used under Windows only: Number of the port to connect to the server specified with the SMTP setting when sending mail with mail() ; defaults to 25.
Which «From:» mail address should be used in mail sent directly via SMTP (Windows only). This directive also sets the «Return-Path:» header.
Where the sendmail program can be found, usually /usr/sbin/sendmail or /usr/lib/sendmail . configure does an honest attempt of locating this one for you and set a default, but if it fails, you can set it here.
Systems not using sendmail should set this directive to the sendmail wrapper/replacement their mail system offers, if any. For example, » Qmail users can normally set it to /var/qmail/bin/sendmail or /var/qmail/bin/qmail-inject .
qmail-inject does not require any option to process mail correctly.
This directive works also under Windows. If set, smtp , smtp_port and sendmail_from are ignored and the specified command is executed.
User Contributed Notes 8 notes
On Ubuntu 13.04, not sure of the other Distros.
If you simply uncomment the default:
sendmail_path = «sendmail -t -i»
Your mail() functions will all fail. This is because, you should place the FULL PATH (i.e. /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i )
The documentation states PHP tries it’s best to find the correct sendmail path, but it clearly failed for me.
So, always enter in the FULLPATH to sendmail or you may get unexpected failing results.
As a secondary note: Those that just want to ENFORCE the -f parameter, you can do so in php.ini using:
You can leave the sendmail path commented out, it will still use the defaults (under UNIX -t -i options which if you look them up are very important to have set).
But, now there is no way to change this, even with the 5th argument of the mail() function. -f is important, because if NOT set, will be set to which ever user the PHP script is running under, and you may not want that.
Also, -f sets the Return-Path: header which is used as the Bounce address, if errors occur, so you can process them. You you can not set Return-Path: in mail() headers for some reason. you could before. Now you have to use the -f option.
The documentation should be made clear that sendmail does NOT default to -t -i when using just /usr/sbin/sendmail. You literally need to specify the options.
I know this might seem like a no-brainer but I wasted hours trying to get mail() to work only to discover that the sendmail program is NOT passed -t and -i by default as stipulated in the documentation.
If anyone gets this cryptic error message in the PHP error logs:
«sh: -t: command not found»
after upgrading from PHP 5.4, this may be the solution for you.
I upgraded PHP from 5.4 to 5.6 and all our mail() functionality suddenly broke, with no useful error logging.
If this is you, and you’ve been using ini_set() to set the «sendmail_path» then note that even though it’s apparently not mentioned in the upgrade documentation — or anywhere else I could find on php.net (or a dozen forums) — you’ll now need to go set the sendmail_path in your php.ini file; it is now ignored if you use ini_set() to specify a path to the sendmail binary on the fly.
So, just specify «sendmail_path» in php.ini instead. That’s all there is to it — that fixed all the mail() functionality for us.
Hope this little note saves someone else as much time as I spent troubleshooting and researching. Cheers!
It is worth reiterating that, as stated above, sendmail_path also works for Windows, overriding other Windows SMTP settings.
The comment in php.ini, “For Unix only”, does not make that clear.
This makes it relatively easy to substitute a fake sendmail program or even a shell script/batch file to save mail to a text file.
I use this technique when teaching or testing in PHP.
For linux you can over-ride the default «From» for the outgoing emails by including in php.ini this line:
sendmail_path = «/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i -f fromMe@blah.com»
The path should work for most linux installations.
Return-path header does not work because it is not part of smtp.
on *nix -f may be set on the mail command
alternatively
some MTAs accept mbox-style «From » header on the first header line
note: no colon after «From» , must be the first header line
or you may be able to re-configure you MTA to interpret return-path headers
-f is the most reliable method but it may mean that you can’t set any other command-line option due to shell escaping problems.
also note that email formatting requirements differ between windows and everything else. sendmail expects only \n line-endings
On Darwin OS such as OSX (current one: 10.8.3) you need to add a specific command and option to the sendmail_path constant if you have downloaded and installed a mamp with a stack.
Indeed you can see the required libraries for PHP, Apache, MySQL in «common/lib» folder. The problem is when you run an external command using these libraries, for example «sendmail». It could be a problem if it gets the stack libraries and not the system ones (different versions, etc).
The «env -i» command clean the Stack environment variables and run «sendmail» with the system libraries.
Ненавижу всякие денверы и ёбн серверы.
У меня голый апач на винде 10 и на нем 6 версий пхп от 5.6 до самой последней. 🙂
Все устанавливается и конфигиться за минуты. 🙂
Все версии пхп конфигяться отдельно и работают одновременно. На разных виртуальных хостах и портах.
Не надо ничего переключать и перезапускать.
У меня еще есть виртуальная машина(WmVare) c FreeBSD 13.
Там, например, Redis.
С пхп на винде все работает.
Так вот вопрос:
можно ли юзать sendmail с виртуальной машины на юниксе
в пхп на винде?
Было бы замечательно.
Зы в идеале хочу перенести апач с пхпями на виртуальную машину с юникс.
А загружать пхп скрипты с браузера под виндой.
Там уже установлен апач и последняя версия пхп.
И еще perl и Go. (Зачем не знаю. 🙂 Было по приколу поковырять конфиги и понастраивать 🙂 )
Но пока не разобрался как в юниксах подтянуть к голому апачу несколько версий пхп. 🙁