Accessing SMTP direct instead of using mail()

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

My shared web host has made some sort of upgrade to .. something .. the
support tech can't tell me what. It's a cPanel system, with all the
regular stuff. The site is a club site.

For years, I have been using the regular old mail(...) function for
things like sending broadcast messages to members. Yesterday, that
failed. The host now tells me I need to access the SMTP server directly,
using a valid email account and password. "It's a new security measure
to prevent spamming. Go find a script," was the tech's reply.

I found one, at:
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.mail.php
2/3rds down, search the page for:
josephcmiller2 at gmail dot com

Port 25 doesn't work; the tech finally told me to try port 587. That
helps. No authentication is required, he said. However, the script fails
at:

// Say hello...
fputs($cp, "HELO ".$GLOBAL["SMTP_SERVE R"]."\r\n");
$res=fgets($cp, 256);
if(substr($res, 0,3) != "250") return "Failed to Introduce";

...and I don't know what to do after that. $GLOBAL["SMTP_SERVE R"]
contains the name of the server, ("mail.example. com") which works for
the fsockopen() code preceding the HELO lines. Any ideas, folks?

--
-bts
-Friends don't let friends drive Windows

[Michael Fesser]

..oO(Beauregard T. Shagnasty)

>I've been playing with phpmailer. After some modification - and
rewriting some of the mailing scripts/pages - it works after a fashion.
Heh, 90-something KB to replace one mail() line.

You'll soon learn that PHPMailer is much more powerful and far more
convenient than the simple mail() function, where you would have to do a
lot of things by hand, especially if you want to send multi-part mails.

The only things that I don't like about PHPMailer are some of the method
names, which are misleading. For example isHtml() shouldn't set the used
mode, but just return a TRUE or FALSE. Anyway, such things are easy to
fix with a wrapper class if necessary, the rest is just working fine.

Micha

[Jerry Stuckle]

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Michael Fesser wrote:

>.oO(Beaurega rd T. Shagnasty)

>>Jerry Stuckle wrote:
Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
My shared web host has made some sort of upgrade to ..
Get phpmailer. It handles all of that.
I looked at that during my search. It appears to me it needs to be
installed on the *shared* web host, and I don't see how I can do
that.

Just upload it to some directory on your host and include the two
classes in your script, that's all. No further installation
necessary. The configuration can be set at runtime.

I've been playing with phpmailer. After some modification - and
rewriting some of the mailing scripts/pages - it works after a fashion.
Heh, 90-something KB to replace one mail() line.

Oh, and this. I just got a 'followup' from the tech guy, who says, "Your
normal php mail() function should now be working."

Duh... Last night I wasn't allowed to use it.

Hmmm, not sure why you had to rewrite some of the scripts. The couple
of times I've used it it's worked fine. But you must have some really
off-the-wall requirements from your host.

Interesting that now mail() works. They must have had a bunch of
complaints from their users.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Michael Fesser wrote:

.oO(Beauregard T. Shagnasty)

>I've been playing with phpmailer. After some modification - and
rewriting some of the mailing scripts/pages - it works after a
fashion. Heh, 90-something KB to replace one mail() line.

You'll soon learn that PHPMailer is much more powerful and far more
convenient than the simple mail() function, where you would have to
do a lot of things by hand, especially if you want to send multi-part
mails.

I'll agree it's powerful. However, it far exceeds my needs, which
consist only of sending short text messages^1 to broadcast events to our
members, to confirm registrations (about 150 ten-line messages per
summer), a little members-only "forum", and the contact page. There are
never attachments nor embedded graphics, for example.

But I'll still do some more experimenting with it.

1. HTML is for web pages <g>

--
-bts
-Friends don't let friends drive Windows

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

Interesting that now mail() works. They must have had a bunch of
complaints from their users.

It worked for one run of a half-dozen individual messages to rally
registrants.

Then it failed on a broadcast of coming events to the club members. Club
email address in TO: and a hundred members in BCC:. That script is
unmodified for years.

I reopened the trouble ticket. :-(

--
-bts
-Friends don't let friends drive Windows