How do I specify to PHP that mail() should be sent using an external mail server?

Question

I have my email hosted at Rackspace Email and would like to use that as my mail server for the contact form on my website.

Looking at the php.ini file, I\'m only abl

Answer 1

The default PHP function 'mail()' will only get the basic functionality to send an email. For Rackspace, you'll probably need to setup an SMTP connection to their mail server. To do this it's best to get a more advanced and developed mailing class. Several code frameworks have them available. If you're looking for a good package, check out PHP Mailer. It's almost a standard these days.

http://phpmailer.worxware.com/

require_once('../class.phpmailer.php');
//include("class.smtp.php"); // optional, gets called from within class.phpmailer.php if not already loaded

$mail             = new PHPMailer();

$body             = file_get_contents('contents.html');
$body             = eregi_replace("[\]",'',$body);

$mail->IsSMTP(); // telling the class to use SMTP
$mail->Host       = "mail.yourdomain.com"; // SMTP server
$mail->SMTPDebug  = 2;                     // enables SMTP debug information (for testing)
                                       // 1 = errors and messages
                                       // 2 = messages only
$mail->SMTPAuth   = true;                  // enable SMTP authentication
$mail->Host       = "mail.yourdomain.com"; // sets the SMTP server
$mail->Port       = 26;                    // set the SMTP port for the GMAIL server
$mail->Username   = "yourname@yourdomain"; // SMTP account username
$mail->Password   = "yourpassword";        // SMTP account password

$mail->SetFrom('name@yourdomain.com', 'First Last');

$mail->AddReplyTo("name@yourdomain.com","First Last");

$mail->Subject    = "PHPMailer Test Subject via smtp, basic with authentication";

$mail->AltBody    = "To view the message, please use an HTML compatible email viewer!"; // optional, comment out and test

$mail->MsgHTML($body);

$address = "whoto@otherdomain.com";
$mail->AddAddress($address, "John Doe");

$mail->AddAttachment("images/phpmailer.gif");      // attachment
$mail->AddAttachment("images/phpmailer_mini.gif"); // attachment

if(!$mail->Send()) {
  echo "Mailer Error: " . $mail->ErrorInfo;
} else {
  echo "Message sent!";
}