How To Use Gmail or Yahoo with PHP mail() Function

Hi,

Thanks for the tutorial, it’s very clear and easy to follow. I have a problem though, and I’ve exhausted every method I can think of to solve it.

When using the sample PHP script above to send the message (through gmail), I get the following error:

errormsg=‘authentication failed (method PLAIN)’ exitcode=EX_NOPERM

I have followed the config settings to the letter, checked the php.ini path, etc. but to no avail. Any suggestions on where to start looking to solve this?

By the way, I can tell than an attempt to send the message through gmail was made because I received a message from Google about an unauthorized attempt to send email through my account. I double checked the password, file settings, file location, but all seems correct.

@wizardware: Google prevented the login so php was unable to send the message. Try to see if you can whitelist your app from your gmail account’s settings.

Bingo! That did the trick, problem solved. Thank you Kamal, I doubt I would have ever thought of this.

It looks like msmtp expects to see the system wide config file in /etc/msmtprc in spite of what you put in the sendmail path. You also need to change the SMTP port to 587 to work with gmail - at least for my paid Google Apps account.

Ignore my comment - i’d missed out the chown. After some sleuthing, I found the reason!

CentOS 6.4 x32 does not send e-mail in error: “msmtp: support for TLS is not compilled in”. How to fix the problem?

This method is not safe to use on shared environments, since the gmail/yahoo password is exposed and readable by any apache user.

@dmmd Add “tls_certcheck off” to the msmtp configuration file.

Hi there, great guide! It’s helped a lot, but I seem to be having issues getting the actual PHP to work.

Using command line msmtp command seems to work correctly, however using the PHP file sends back the failiure message. Just running “php mail.php” sends a “Authentication Failed (xxx Too Many Login Attempts)” which really confuses me. How could the command line email pass authentication but not the php file?

Thanks!

@em.apparition That error is displayed by the SMTP server (usually Gmail’s SMTP) if you’re using Google Apps without a DKIM record.

Read this http://serverfault.com/questions/543007/google-smtp-error-454-4-7-0-too-many-login-attempts-please-try-again-later

As to why it succeeds with the msmtp command I’m guessing that you’re using different email accounts in the ~/.msmtprc file and the one in /etc

something missing that make me crazy

yum install openssl yum install openssl-devel

and check send mail path

msmtp --version

I couldn’t send it from file.php but it worked on php /var/www/html/file.php What did I do wrong?

I made it work. But not on 465 port. Actually I’m on 587… but would be more secure to use 465? I tried to exchange from 587 to 465 but with no success. I tried add ssl:// on smtp.gmail.com and no email wass ent

I cant get it working… Tryed postfix, sendmail, exim and now this, none work. Unnistalled everything before testing and followed the many tutorials. Using unbutu 12.4

On this one im having problem on step cat sample_email.txt | msmtp --debug -a gmail bob@domain.com

msmtp: cannot connect to smtp.gmail.com, port 587: Network is unreachable msmtp: could not send mail (account gmail from /home/username/.msmtprc)

This is the first time I’m doing stuff like this, so I almost don’t have any idea. My msmtprc file looks like this:

account killaribyte host mail.killaribyte.com port 587 from contacto@killaribyte.com user contacto password **********

When I run the command: dig MX killaribyte.com +short @ns1.digitalocean.com I got: 50 mail.killaribyte.com.

When I run: host mail.killaribyte.com ns1.digitalocean.com I got: Using domain server: Name: ns1.digitalocean.com Address: 198.199.120.125#53 Aliases:

mail.killaribyte.com has address ... (my IP)

And finally when I want to test it with: cat sample_email.txt | msmtp --debug -a killaribyte contacto@killaribyte.com I got: msmtp: cannot connect to mail.killaribyte.com, port 587: Connection refused msmtp: could not send mail (account killaribyte from /etc/msmtprc)

@lfna23 Try changing the port to 25

@luanpersini I think iptables is configured incorrectly to block outgoing connections or to prevent TCP connections. Try clearing the rules

<pre>iptables -X iptables -F</pre>

The command line of sending e mail works for me but when it comes to using the file.php, I encountered the error msg in the browser "Failed to connect to ssl://foeapp.com:465 [SMTP: Failed to connect socket: Connection refused (code: -1, response: )]”

Any idea? I thought i have changed it to 587 on the msmtp file.

I got it work. Used the wrong file.php. Apologies

Thank you for this tutorial! It was very helpful and did exactly what I needed!

Hi, followed and successfully configured.

However, its rather slow even for the test mail. Takes 3-5 mins, is it normal?

@erwin: What’s the latency between your server and the SMTP server you’re connecting to?

ping -c 4 smtp.mail.yahoo.com

or

ping -c 4 smtp.gmail.com

Ok … managed to nail the problem, droplet is in Singapore 1 with IPv6 enabled. It takes 3-5 minutes with IPv6 and after disabling IPv6 within OS (nothing else changed), it takes 2-4 seconds with IPv4.

I do not know if it is Google or DigitalOcean but I really hope that DigitalOcean will look into and check if there is a IPv6 routing or speed issue.

msmtp: TLS handshake failed: An unexpected TLS packet was received. msmtp: could not send mail (account gmail from /home/pi/.msmtprc)

I have no idea what this means, could someone help? I would greatly appreciate it!

When I run the test php command it throws this error.

sh: 1: /usr/sbin/sendmail: not found

Why is it even setting it to sendmail path? how can I change it to make it use the msmtp? Also it’s not logging this error. I had to run the php in putty to get this error msg =\

Please help

I’m having the same issue as dmmd running CentOS… Everything works up until I try to send the test email.

[root@first msmtp-1.4.32]# cat sample_email.txt | msmtp --debug -a yahoo bob@domain.com ignoring system configuration file /usr/local/etc/msmtprc: No such file or directory loaded user configuration file /root/.msmtprc using account yahoo from /root/.msmtprc host = smtp.mail.yahoo.com port = 465 timeout = off protocol = smtp domain = localhost auth = choose user = myUserName password = * passwordeval = (not set) ntlmdomain = (not set) tls = on tls_starttls = off tls_trust_file = (not set) tls_crl_file = (not set) tls_fingerprint = (not set) tls_key_file = (not set) tls_cert_file = (not set) tls_certcheck = off tls_force_sslv3 = off tls_min_dh_prime_bits = (not set) tls_priorities = (not set) auto_from = off maildomain = (not set) from = myUserName@yahoo.com dsn_notify = (not set) dsn_return = (not set) keepbcc = off logfile = (not set) syslog = (not set) aliases = (not set) reading recipients from the command line msmtp: support for TLS is not compiled in

Any suggestions? I already had the tls_certcheck set to off.

Thanks.

Thank you for this. Skipped sendmail for this. However I would suggest not disabling TLS cert check.

Run this command to find cert issuer of your SMTP host.

Then simply locate appropriate cert to be used by msmtp.

tls_trust_file /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/Thawte_Premium_Server_CA.crt
domain yourdomain.com
port 587
keepbcc on

Now I just need to figure out how to use passwordeval + gpg with this so password is not plaintext.

It works for me exactly as described. I’m using an Archlinux and msmtp in version 1.4.32.

Thanks, it’s very useful.

I get to the part to enter my data into vi ~/.msmtprc however I cannot figure out how to save it and move to the next screen. Im a total noob with the terminal. Please help someone :)

i am getting “The program ‘php’ is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: apt-get install php5-cli”

I have the current LEMP stack installed

This is a great article. I’ve used replacement modules for PHP mail before, and I’ve configured SMTP servers before… but I like this no-nonsense approach.

Email sent this way is more reliable/deliverable because other mail servers will see the traffic coming from a well-known SMTP service like Google (instead of directly off my webhosting IP, which some sites will spam score or at least treat with skepticism).

Hmm, odd problem occurring. I have only created an /etc/msmtprc file for config testing, not created a ~/.msmtprc. In this I have

account gmailsam
tls on
tls_certcheck off
auth on
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
from sam.richardson@mydomain.com
user sam.richardson@mydomain.com
password foobar

Then I send this text message:

From: sam.richardson@mydomain.com
To: ronny@otherdomain.co.uk
Subject: Test from our server

This email from the our server, sam account

When I test with debug, it authorises great thru google apps, but I get this:

<-- 250 SMTPUTF8
--> AUTH PLAIN AHNhbS5yaWNoYXJkc29uQHZvb2Rvb3Ntcy5jb20AYnJpZ2h0MG46
<-- 235 2.7.0 Accepted
--> MAIL FROM:<sam.richardson@mydomain.com>
--> RCPT TO:<sam@mydomain.com>
--> DATA
<-- 250 2.1.0 OK ud4sm18672618wib.0 - gsmtp
<-- 250 2.1.5 OK ud4sm18672618wib.0 - gsmtp
<-- 354  Go ahead ud4sm18672618wib.0 - gsmtp
--> From: sam.richardson@mydomain.com
--> To: ronny@otherdomain.co.uk
--> Subject: Test from our server
-->
--> This email from the our server, sam account
-->
--> .
<-- 250 2.0.0 OK 1422374255 ud4sm18672618wib.0 - gsmtp
--> QUIT

Question: Where is it getting **RCPT TO: ** value from - there is no sam@ anywhere in this config.

David

Great tutorial - thanks!

Only works by the terminal.

What do I do?

Thanks for this tutorial! Works great!!!

Took a fair amount of time and hair pulling between figuring out exactly what parameters I needed to change, and remembering to uncomment the darn sendmail path >.<, but got everything working eventually!

Everyone getting blocked by google may try this solution

if you don’t have w3m text browser - install it with this command: sudo apt-get install w3m

w3m https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

authorize with the e-mail you are using on the server confirm

press q to quit w3m

Great tutorial! But I’m running on a small problem that I don’t quite understand.

I’ve installed msmtp, and configured everything of my Google account (Google apps account) above, (email and password are correct).

Created the small email test php script. restarted apache2 and php5-fpm services (even my droplet after several attempts). But my email has never arrived.

Strange this is. When I execute the test script via command line I get the my success message and when I go to the same test script via the browser (script is located in www directory), I get the error message, msmtp.log file is for some reason empty, maybe permissions problem?

Oh yes: cat sample_email.txt | msmtp --debug -a gmail “myemail@myemail.com” works…

Any help is welcome :)

Hi,

thank you for your great tutorial. I followed your tutorial and manage to send email when executing the php command line but not when I access the file from the web browser, what does this mean?

I don’t understand why I cannot send email from Wordpress (ie. fail to send a password from the interface Wordpress). How about Apache config ‘ServerAdmin’ ?

Thank you in advance for your help

Hi, Thanks for the tutorial. Recently I have taken a gmail domain account (like support@domain.com). I want to send a mail from this account whenever the user register in my website. For this, I have followed the above steps and configured things as mentioned. When I run the given file sample_email.txt the mail is delivered to the user with the correct details like (from: namesupport@domain.com mailed-by : domain.com ). But when I run the php script it is giving different values (like, from : www-data “www-data@user@gmail.com via ******(some domain)” mailed-by: ******(that same name as mentioned after via) ). Please help me to correct these columns.

Hello. how are you? I wanted to install smtp but I wanted to ask you what directory should I do the configuration? in fact I use centos 7 and wanted to make ntopng alerts by email with php. I really need your help. I am an amateur in linux I wanted to clarify it. thank you in advance!!!

hello everyone. I came to you for help. I have a configuration problem. msmtp the configuration with the command: cat sample_email.txt | -a --debug msmtp gmail bob@domain.com, I have these following messages: msmtp: authentication failed (method PLAIN) msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 <https://accounts.google.com/ContinueSignIn?sarp=1&scc=1&plt=AKgnsbsRV msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 dU_WG3tl3eq1zhs2g0IeWzF2UBdsyiayN0rxXjHZK5IhmDNxtMJD8kV-41OHGrDodKP6bI msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 KI5L-JUPNnEckLiT7NNiRT7T6OxwI4XIrQT6qA1ivaETCiQANV-lNKuQBpYw16v7nBTnv2 msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 cAp4uZjYxyfSvP3wOlWkePlajXW8pzYnglSx0ev4D6kGHrZ1izZ6K2HaBZ_RZlT4zw1XPJ msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 9HbBAv2SIDs73LDB8DST25zC4pZM> Please log in via your web browser and msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 then try again. msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 Learn more at msmtp: server message: 534 5.7.14 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78754 gd10sm30481048wjb.47 - gsmtp msmtp: could not send mail (account gmail from /root/.msmtprc)

am an amateur and my system is a Centos 7. help me.

FOR NEWCOMERS:

After MANY and MANY hours spent trying do it work (msmtp, sendmail, postfix, rain dance, etc) I decided to open a ticket in DO just to discover that, as a “newcomer”, my server was blocked to mail. They (DO) unblocked it and now it works.

I am in love with DO, but, this was a big fault. Why dont just advise the “newcomers” about those restrictions?

Support is excellent, anyway.

Hi All, i’m a bit stuck on Ubuntu 14.04 lamp. I’ve got it working from the command line but cannot get it working from php. I’ve edited the php.ini file in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini (which i checked was the correct one by creating a php.info page and seeing the loaded config file.

I only get the php output error message of ‘an error occurred’ with no output in the log file i’ve created either. i’ve double checked:

• log file location
• permissions on /etc/.msmtp_php and /var/log/msmtp.log (both www-data:www-data)
• restarted apache2 after editing the php.ini

i’ve also put the msmtp settings in a global file /etc/msmtprc as well as ~/.msmtprc but without much luck (i’d tried the global one first /etc/msmtprc).

Again it sends fine from the command line e.g. sudo echo ‘test email’ | msmtp --dubug -a gmail email@email.com

Any ideas? thanks in advance :)

Hi.

I work with XAMPP and get the error:

msmtp: /etc/.msmtp_php: Permission denied

Owner: www-data Permission: 600

When I changing permission to 644 I get the error:

msmtp: /etc/.msmtp_php: must be owned by you

How I can fix it?

When I try the test email i get a notification from gmail that says sign in attempt prevented.

How do i prevent google from blocking my sign in attempt. (I don’t have google apps)

here is what I see in console

root@andrew:~# cat sample_email.txt | msmtp --debug -a gmail ahfridley@gmail.com ignoring system configuration file /etc/msmtprc: No such file or directory loaded user configuration file /root/.msmtprc using account gmail from /root/.msmtprc host = smtp.gmail.com port = 587 timeout = off protocol = smtp domain = localhost auth = choose user = ajhfridley@gmail.com password = * passwordeval = (not set) ntlmdomain = (not set) tls = on tls_starttls = on tls_trust_file = (not set) tls_crl_file = (not set) tls_fingerprint = (not set) tls_key_file = (not set) tls_cert_file = (not set) tls_certcheck = off tls_force_sslv3 = off tls_min_dh_prime_bits = (not set) tls_priorities = (not set) auto_from = off maildomain = (not set) from = ahfridley@gmail.com dsn_notify = (not set) dsn_return = (not set) keepbcc = off logfile = (not set) syslog = (not set) aliases = (not set) reading recipients from the command line <-- 220 smtp.gmail.com ESMTP x79sm423534qka.37 - gsmtp –> EHLO localhost <-- 250-smtp.gmail.com at your service, [104.236.122.69] <-- 250-SIZE 35882577 <-- 250-8BITMIME <-- 250-STARTTLS <-- 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES <-- 250-PIPELINING <-- 250-CHUNKING <-- 250 SMTPUTF8 –> STARTTLS <-- 220 2.0.0 Ready to start TLS TLS certificate information: Owner: Common Name: smtp.gmail.com Organization: Google Inc Locality: Mountain View State or Province: California Country: US Issuer: Common Name: Google Internet Authority G2 Organization: Google Inc Country: US Validity: Activation time: Wed 16 Mar 2016 01:40:41 PM EDT Expiration time: Wed 08 Jun 2016 01:40:00 PM EDT Fingerprints: SHA1: 11:38:E6:5B:82:39:60:68:E8:CE:2E:C6:7C:E7:14:58:A8:25:5F:33 MD5: D0:F1:4C:95:E4:18:99:49:8A:5B:AC:C1:35:B0:D1:C4 –> EHLO localhost <-- 250-smtp.gmail.com at your service, [104.236.122.69] <-- 250-SIZE 35882577 <-- 250-8BITMIME <-- 250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN XOAUTH2 PLAIN-CLIENTTOKEN OAUTHBEARER XOAUTH <-- 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES <-- 250-PIPELINING <-- 250-CHUNKING <-- 250 SMTPUTF8 –> AUTH PLAIN AGFoZnJpZGxleUBnbWFpbC5jb20AVGhlemFwMDc3 <-- 534-5.7.14 <https://accounts.google.com/signin/continue?sarp=1&scc=1&plt=AKgnsbui <-- 534-5.7.14 cLVPsaV_Dt2s4pLygk43-7YGvL2gO2JsxVkGeDX0fL_-yyEGKf8pGDd0YYUkX51X_2Q7OX <-- 534-5.7.14 S-4BoTQKbASCSkWbyO9-eXN5nPWsMjqBZV_1UVqanqdldnWCEdDgbSuEWJa7Huwi1CyuWQ <-- 534-5.7.14 n2RmaEwOKolxLd611ED8SyPh6jiIVudW7WJLBME8i2s1bOpo5jYe7uZfcW7BEwUAisvVJb <-- 534-5.7.14 DBSgh8ha6wEBK5WQCIBNnQB09CbcI> Please log in via your web browser and <-- 534-5.7.14 then try again. <-- 534-5.7.14 Learn more at <-- 534 5.7.14 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78754 x79sm423534qka.37 - gsmtp msmtp: authentication failed (method PLAIN) msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 <https://accounts.google.com/signin/continue?sarp=1&scc=1&plt=AKgnsbui msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 cLVPsaV_Dt2s4pLygk43-7YGvL2gO2JsxVkGeDX0fL_-yyEGKf8pGDd0YYUkX51X_2Q7OX msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 S-4BoTQKbASCSkWbyO9-eXN5nPWsMjqBZV_1UVqanqdldnWCEdDgbSuEWJa7Huwi1CyuWQ msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 n2RmaEwOKolxLd611ED8SyPh6jiIVudW7WJLBME8i2s1bOpo5jYe7uZfcW7BEwUAisvVJb msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 DBSgh8ha6wEBK5WQCIBNnQB09CbcI> Please log in via your web browser and msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 then try again. msmtp: server message: 534-5.7.14 Learn more at msmtp: server message: 534 5.7.14 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78754 x79sm423534qka.37 - gsmtp msmtp: could not send mail (account gmail from /root/.msmtprc)

First of all thanks for the complete and easy understood tutorial

I did it all good, except one thing.

When i’m typing ‘php /var/www/html/file.php’ from my Putty console the mail is sent, it’s working like a charm.

But when i test the script via the browser i got the “An error occured” message on my web page… and nothing is sent, no more error in my msmtp.log as well…

Do you have any idea what is the problem ?

Thanks again !

Best Regards

Hi Jesin A, Thank you for the great tutorial. I followed your steps to config Gmail with msmtp. The sending works from shell, even from php, but every time I send an email through php I receive “504 Gateway Time-out”, but the email is sending and is received every time. I run Centos 6.7 with LEMP. My google-fu was to so helpful with me these days.

Is Anybody here with google account suspension mail while doing this?? My google account has been suspended. Does it have to do anything with this?

Hi,

I have gone through all of the comments and followed this tutorial but can’t get my PHP form to process and send the email.

After installing MSMTP I have modified the PHP ini file and checked that it was the correct one using phpinfo()

I can send an email from the terminal and it works fine. The PHP form processes online but nothing gets sent even though I get an “email sent” with the test.php.

I am using Ubuntu 14.16 and have checked the log file - there are no errors.

I am wondering if having additional dirs that are preventing the overriding the apache2/php.ini file such as:

/etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/05-opcache.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/10-pdo.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-curl.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-gd.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-json.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-mysql.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-mysqli.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-pdo_mysql.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-readline.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-snmp.ini

Also, could it be perhaps that I have to add something to my process-form.php?:

<?php $event_date = $_POST[‘event_date’]; $name = $_POST[‘full_name’]; $event_type = $_POST[‘event_type’]; $telephone = $_POST[‘telephone’]; $email = $_POST[‘email’];

$email_from = ‘gmail I set up form msmtp goes here’;

$email_subject = "New Form submission from your website";

$email_body = "You have received a new message via your websites form from $name.\n".
                        "The date requested for the event is:\n     $event_date\n".
    
"The type of event is:\n $event_type \n".
    
"The customers contact telephone number is:\n $telephone \n".

"From:\n $email \n".

$to = “myclientsemailaddress@gmail.com”; $headers = “From: $email_from \r\n”; $headers = “Reply-To: $email \r\n”; mail($to,$email_subject,$email_body,$headers);

//Load thank you page once form is submitted

header (‘Location: contact-thank-you.html’); exit();

?>

<?php

function IsInjected($str) { $injections = array(‘(\n+)’, ‘(\r+)’, ‘(\t+)’, ‘(%0A+)’, ‘(%0D+)’, ‘(%08+)’, ‘(%09+)’ );

$inject = join('|', $injections);
$inject = "/$inject/i";
 
if(preg_match($inject,$str))
{
  return true;
}
else
{
  return false;
}

}

if(IsInjected($visitor_email)) { echo “Bad email value!”; exit; }

error_reporting(-1);

?>

Sorry I am relatively new to all this and have been struggling for several days.

Thanks!