Trying to send an email for first time from my local server

Question

I have installed easyphp and I'm trying to send an email from my computer (server).

My PHP code:

<?php
$message = "Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3";
$headers = "From: sender@example.com\r\n";
mail('receiver@metu.edu', 'My Subject', $message, $headers);
?>

Error message:

Warning: mail() [function.mail]: Failed to connect to mailserver at "127.0.0.1" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set() in C:\Program Files\EasyPHP-5.3.3.1\www\email.php on line 9

Now, do I need to install an email server? Is it mandatory?

Edit: I don't think that my ISP will allow me to send emails from their servers.

Answer 1

By default, PHP will try to send via a local SMTP server, which it's trying to do here.

What you'll need to do is edit your php.ini file, and find the SMTP option. Change it to read something like this:-

SMTP = your.isp.mailserver.com
sendmail_from = sender@example.com

FAQ entry 55 on the EasyPHP FAQ tells you how to do this for EasyPHP.

Answer 2

Well you need to install an email server or configure it to use a readily existing one. From the easyPHP faq:

The "mail" function from PHP returns an error (0) ! You need to replace this line: SMTP="localhost" in your PHP conf file (php.ini) by SMTP="mail.isp.com" where mail.isp.com stands for the mail server of your ISP.

You will probably also find point number 6 here to be helpful.