PHP "MAIL" Function not sending mail - RH7 - Apache - PHP4

I think some providers have disabled the mail function especially on free webspace. When you say you have console access, it seems very unlikely that this is the case in your situation.

Have you asked your provider if they may have disabled the mail function for some reason? Some providers do that to prevent spam from their accounts.

An alternative would be to call the sendmail program with a system() or exec() command directly. So if you can do it from the console prompt, it should also work within PHP.

Marian

if you run your own server, this might be helpful:

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/00/44/index4a_page11.html?tw=programming

Maybe there is a linie missing in your php.ini regarding your mail program. So search this article for "mail()" to find out what you should enter in php.ini

Marian

mail function's working is dependent on your php.ini setting.

You would have following in your php.ini

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

; For Win32 only.
sendmail_from = me@phpkid.org

; For Unix only.  You may supply arguments as well (default: 'sendmail -t -i').
;sendmail_path =


Which platform you are on ?
If you are on *nix, set sendmail path, if on windows set up SMTP to correct SMTP server.

Incase its not possible for you to edit php.ini, You can use phpmailer from http://phpmailer.sourceforge.net. It would allow you to use any SMTP server, even the one who needs pop authentication before use. I highly recommend it.

JD

I followed dkjariwala's advise (For Unix only:) since I am running Red Hat Linux 7.0 on my own server and the same server runs SENDMAIL. Still same results! I use POP5 daemon for the mail send / receive. SENDMAIL does not require authentication. Made changes and rebooted, if that was your next question. Here is that part of my PHP.INI...

[mail function]
;SMTP     =  localhost               ;for win32 only
;sendmail_from     =  me@localhost.com     ;for win32 only
sendmail_path     = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i

Any ideas?

Hi all,

  I am a php newbie.
  I would like to ask how can I check I have installed the sendmail program? If this progrma is absent, how can I install this?

Thx a lot!!!

JD's last comment got me into really probing around. I made the suggested change to no avail. MAILQ shows nothing in the queue. BUT Apache log file ERROR_LOG shows:

sh: /usr/sbin/sendmail: Permission denied

Ok. Where to go now???

-Vic

I guess that says everything.

Does the user nobody ( user apache runs as ) have permission to call up sendmail ???

JD

I guess that says everything.

Does the user nobody ( user apache runs as ) have permission to call up sendmail ???

JD

User APACHE is running the HTTPD. APACHE has the /bin/false shell. Do I need to give it a real shell like /bin/bash, to run SENDMAIL? Is that safe to do, security speaking?

User APACHE is running the HTTPD. APACHE has the /bin/false shell. Do I need to give it a real shell like /bin/bash, to run SENDMAIL? Is that safe to do, security speaking?

Tried changing APACHE shell to /bin/bash but still getting "sh: /usr/sbin/sendmail: Permission denied". Where are APACHE permissions to use SENDMAIL? How can I test?

Which group user *Apache* belongs to ?
What are the permissions for /usr/sbin/sendmail ??

JD

My last post disappeared! Anyway, dkjariwala is the one on track here, so I am going to award him the answer points. It is obvious that I am having trouble with something other than PHP stuff. I cannot add a user on this machine that has ANY rights, except that of mail and FTP access. So it is obvious that Apache user would not have SENDMAIL rights. Even ROOT is acting strange as seen by the fact that LS is giving me some strange results like;

ls *.conf   [gives me]
sh: -c: line 1: unexpected EOF

and normal users at the console:
[at login]
bash: id: command not found

ls  [gives me]
sh: /usr/lib/ldlibls.so: Permission Denied

So, I will post this in the General Linux forum for more info. I might just re-build this server if it becomes a major proble. Thanks for all of the help.

-Vic