Question

I am using the same php code I have always used to try and send a form via email and I am getting this message:

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
sendMailSuscribete.php on line 44

this are lines 40 – 54:

$header .= "From: $email" . "\r\n";
$header .= "Reply-To: $email" . "\r\n";
$header .= "Return-Path: $email" . "\r\n";

if(mail($to, $subject, $msg, $header)){
    //Message sent!
    redirect("http://www.domain.com/suscribete.html");
}else{
    // Display error message if the message failed to send
    echo "
    <div class=\"MsgError\">
        <h1>Error&hellip;</h1>
        <p>Disculpa <b><?=$name;?></b>, tu mensaje fall&oacute; en ser enviado. Por favor vuelve a intentar.</p>
</div>";
}

I already checked using phpinfo() and I know that the smtp is set to localhost and the port it uses is 25 so I really have no idea what the error may be.

Update
I forgot to say it is running on a Windows server and this php file is the one I’ve always used for Unix servers, should it contain something different?

Answer 1

mail cannot send e-mails directly (at least not on Windows), it needs an SMTP server. There is no SMTP server running on the host on which the PHP-Script is being executed. Solutions are:

1. Use a library that can send e-mails directly using SMTP, like PHPMailer or Swiftmailer (github repo).
2. Edit the php.ini directives to point to a SMTP server that accepts e-mails from you. Ask your hosting provider if you do not know which one to use.
3. Set up an SMTP server on localhost.

Point 1. is a good idea, because those libraries provide abstractions that make it unnecessary to deal with low level stuff like putting MIME messages together correctly. Point 2. is probably the least trouble. I advice against Point 3. unless you are serious about administering an e-mail server by yourself.