Configure LAMP on Ubuntu 10.04 to send email via PHP mail function

edited 2010-11-08 former guide doesn't work for me more (changed to ubuntu 10.10 64b lampp  1.7.3a) but this helped me http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/10/21/sending-email-from-your-system-with-ssmtp/

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Lampp comes like standalone package without need to reconfigure something. It runs out of box. But If your Ubuntu installation has no configured mail server, it is problem to send mails via PHP mail function. Here is quick solution how use Gmail SMTP server to send emails from localhost:

sudo apt-get install ssmtp

sudo gedit /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

edit variables hostname, FromLineOverride

hostname=smtp.gmail.com
FromLineOverride=YES

sudo gedit /opt/lampp/etc/php.ini

add or change following variables in php.ini

smtp_port = 465
sendmail_path =/usr/sbin/ssmtp -t

Restart lampp

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp restart

create php mail testing script like:

$additional_headers = 'From: michaeljackson@heaven.org' . "\r\n";

$res = mail('recipient@domain.com','test','test body', $additional_headers);

var_dump($res);

?>

$res should be TRUE after executing and check out your mail mailbox, there should be something like this:

Thanks to this forum post.