Ubuntu 14.04 mail() dont send email

Posted on June 14, 2016

Let´s go, I have PHP5 with apache2 installed in my Ubuntu 14.04 x64 with 512MB.

Great, I have a php file inside my server that execute this code below:

$headers = “MIME-Version: 1.0” . “\r\n”; $headers .= “Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1” . “\r\n”; $headers .= "From: ". “help@mysitecom”. “\r\n”; $headers .= "Reply-To: ". “help@mysite.com”. “\r\n”; $headers .= “X-Mailer: PHP/” . phpversion(); $headers .= “X-Priority: 1” . “\r\n”;

if(mail(‘mymail@hotmail.com’, ‘hello’, ‘world’, $headers)){ echo “Status: OK”; }else{ echo “Status: False”; }

When I run I receive the following message: “Status: False”, Of course I don´t configure the mail server.

For this I use this steps:

1°: Change my hostname to “mymail.mysite.com” 2°: Check if the linux command “hostname” return “mymail.mysite.com” (Yes it returns) 3°: Install postfix “sudo apt-get install postfix”, select internet, and insert “mymail.mysite.com” inside system mail.

Great! Let´s test my php file and now I receive the message: “Status: OK”, Great! Now lets wait for my email…(5 minutes)…(1 hour)…(1 day)… NOTHING COMES TO MY HOTMAIL.

What I´m doing wrong??

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Patrick Ancillotti

August 10, 2016

Hi @sdanz,

It seems like there could be a configuration problem with your linux server’s mail system. Have you looked in the logs (/var/log), specifically the mail log, to see if there are any error messages there? Which mail transfer system have you been using?

If you haven’t setup a mail system yet, have a look through this tutorial: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-postfix-as-a-send-only-smtp-server-on-ubuntu-14-04

Please let us know if you get things sorted!