EMail based application using PHP

Hi

I been trying to use mail() function in PHP. I read that I need to have Sendmail or QMail.
Now I developing my application using Apache+PHP+MySql,

My question is SendMail or Qmail is part of Apache server, and when I read that I need to have a 'mail server' ist a server of its own or what realy it is.

I sorry if my question sound primitve, all the books I used does not explain these issue properly. All they say is that mail() function would relieve from all the hastle!! OK but how to go about it.

Thanx

No, neither sendmail or Qmail are included in apache. They are a completely seperate server..

My recomendation would be to use Qmail, because it's not too hard to configure, and you can use webmin if you really want to, to configure it.

You can download the source for qmail at www.qmail.org

Also check out Dan Bernsteins articles on qmail located at : http://cr.yp.to/qmail.html

and I also suggest reading life with qmail article located at : http://www.lifewithqmail.org/


Mail servers and web servers are two seperate apps, but can be ran on the same machine. My suggestion would be to use qmail. That's what I use anyway..

Does Qmail only run on Linux servers?

Yep.

Malignant,

Are you using the mailserver for public use, or is this just for development purposes?

If you're only using it for development/testing, just modify your PHP.INI file to use your ISP's outgoing SMTP server to send your emails.

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

Change the x's to reflect the outgoing mail server for your ISP.

Oops..* didn't even realize you could do that..* lol.. thanks Frankie! I just learned something new today

I assume Windows based servers would use Sendmail instead then?

sendmail is a linux mail server... there *are* versions of it for windows tho.. But windows machines usually use exchange or something similar..

Hey, i am using aol, so does it mean i changed it to mail.aol.com?? that doesnt work. Please tell me how i can fix this problem!!! it is urgent!

-Bengaltiger

You would need to contact aol to find out what your outgoing SMTP server is, I'm not really sure what it would be in your case

Hi, I am using my WinXP Pro machine for development purposes using a php content management system that uses the mail() function to send mail to new users on the system.

I have verizon DSL, so I changed the value of the SMTP directive in PHP.ini to outgoing.verizon.net . When that did not work I changed it to 206.46.170.8 which is what I get when I ping the server.

I've also tried localhost and 127.0.0.1. I am running an SMTP server through IIS.

None of these settings made mail() work.

Any ideas?

Thanks.