Sending Mail using PHP Mail function - Local mail server?

Question

I am trying to send an e-mail from localhost but am getting the error:

Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set().

Does this mean i need to set up a local mail server?? and if so how and which one is easiest.

Thanks in advance

Paul

So yes, you need to set up a mail server on windows – Naftali May 05 '11 at 20:20 — Naftali, May 05 '11 at 20:20

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered May 05 '11 at 20:21

This is what I use, but it's for testing purposes only:

http://www.toolheap.com/test-mail-server-tool/

There's almost no configuration, and I got it to work right out of the box (on Win7) after failure with several other mail servers. It does not send the actual mail, but stores it as an .eml file. This is great for testing mailing lists for instance, where you don't really want to send the 2000 emails, but want to get a realistic result from your application.

It might look like garbage, but it's been working great for me.

Thanks this will do great for testing Thanks every1 – Pjn2020 May 05 '11 at 20:29 — Pjn2020, May 05 '11 at 20:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 25 '14 at 13:59

smtp4dev is in my opinion the best tool for capturing local SMTP traffic on Windows.

It listens SMTP on localhost port 25 and pops up a notification every time a new mail is posted (it doesn't actually forward the mail to its recipient). You can then open the message in your favorite mail agent or save it to a file.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 05 '11 at 20:20

Yes, it does, and if you want to send mail to an outside email address (and not a user local to the system, it is annoyingly difficult).

Most hosting companies (e.g. GoDaddy) have this setup for you, so PHP's mail() function works without you needing to do anything.

If you're configuring it on your own system, you might want to consider (a) configuring sendmail to use an alternate SMTP gateway (I frequently use Gmail) or (b) a complete alternative to sendmail (Zend Mail looks promising.)

I have also tried using my hosts smtp server but get this error: SMTP server response: 501 Syntactically invalid HELO argument(s) Any ideas?? — Pjn2020, May 05 '11 at 20:25

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered May 05 '11 at 20:20

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If you are using Linux, there is usually no need to set up a a mail server,

If you are using Windows, yes, you do need to set up a mail server

answered May 05 '11 at 20:20

Naftali

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 05 '11 at 20:23

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If you are interested in just sending mail, you can by SMTP protocol use any SMTP server. Here is a tutorial to setting up PHP to use a remote SMTP server.

answered May 05 '11 at 20:23

ohmusama

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score 0 · Answer 6 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:50

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Yes, you need a mail server to be able to send mail, but even if you do, you are not going to be able to send to addresses outside of you local network as mail from your computer will be blocked by all recipients for spam reasons.

You could use the pear mail function to connect to an external smtp providor like gmail to send the mails for you. More info here and here.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:50

Community

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answered May 05 '11 at 20:26

jeroen

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Sending Mail using PHP Mail function - Local mail server?

6 Answers6