Sending Mail using PHP Mail function - Local mail server?

Question

I am trying to send an e-mail from localhost but am getting the error:

Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set().

Does this mean i need to set up a local mail server?? and if so how and which one is easiest.

Thanks in advance

Paul

Answer 1

This is what I use, but it's for testing purposes only:

http://www.toolheap.com/test-mail-server-tool/

There's almost no configuration, and I got it to work right out of the box (on Win7) after failure with several other mail servers. It does not send the actual mail, but stores it as an .eml file. This is great for testing mailing lists for instance, where you don't really want to send the 2000 emails, but want to get a realistic result from your application.

It might look like garbage, but it's been working great for me.