Unable to send mail via php mail()

Question

I am unable to send an email via php's mail function.

This is the error I receive. 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 D:\inetpub\vhosts\southernbatteries.com\httpdocs\includes\utils.php on line 6 Array ( [0] => [1] => Could not send mail, please try later... )

What exactly does this mean ? Does it mean there is not mail server installed on my webserver ? Is it possible to use a different mail server. E.g Gmails mail server to send the mail ?

Answer 1

If you want to use built-in mail(), you will need to talk to the server administrator. It is possible to use an external SMTP server on Windows, but it has to be specified in the php.ini settings, and PHP's built-in functions don't support SMTP authentication.

The usual way is to either use a local mail server that in turn can talk to a "real" SMTP server with authentication, or use a mailing package like SwiftMailer that can connect to a 3rd party SMTP server like GMail directly.