UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have a strange problem. I have a script that sends out emails and it used to work fine to all email addresses, but I recently moved the site to a dedicated server and now it won't send out emails to any Hotmail accounts. None of the Hotmail accounts have got spam filters on and they all used to get email from the site. All of the script is the same as I say the only difference is the site is now on a dedicated server. Both the old and new servers are RedHat Linux using php5. I went into the php.ini file and all I found for SMTP is:

The send_mail() function is:

Code:

<?php

function send_mail($to, $from, $subject, $message)
{
	global $g;
	if (isset($g['options']['mail_html']) and $g['options']['mail_html'] == "Y") $ct = "text/html";
	else $ct = "text/plain";
	if (isset($g['options']['mail_utf8']) and $g['options']['mail_utf8'] == "Y") {
		$headers = "From: " . $from . "\n";
		$headers .= "Content-Type: " . $ct . "; charset=utf-8;\n";
		$headers .= "Reply-To: " . $from . ";\n";
		$headers .= "Return-Path: " . $from . ";\n";
	} else {
		$headers = "From: " . $from . "\n";
		$headers .= "Content-Type: " . $ct . ";\n";
		$headers .= "Reply-To: " . $from . ";\n";
		$headers .= "Return-Path: " . $from . ";\n";		
	}
	if (isset($g['options']['mail_utf8_subject']) and $g['options']['mail_utf8_subject'] == "Y") $subject = '=?UTF-8?B?'.base64_encode(trim(preg_replace('#[\n\r]+#s', '', $subject)))."?=\n";
	mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
}

but that all works fine. It's just that the emails aren't being sent to Hotmail addresses.

maybe your new server dunno how to forward the email, maybe you need to specify a mailhost or maybe some config missing.

Go to the "/" root filesystem and check if there is any file called dead.letter.

type mailq to check if your mails are stuck in the queue.

on solaris servers there is a syslog log file whenever you send email out it will log to that file, check your syslog for more clues. Maybe syslog will say mails are dererred or error or remote server terminated you.

Lastly you can try few things which can reveal more details on what's going on in the email sending process

banner test > /tmp/xxx
/usr/lib/sendmail -v youremail@hotmail.com < /tmp/xxx

or

(assuming from your above code your localhost is your mailhost)

First open 2 sessions.
1st session do a tail -f /var/log/syslog

2nd session do
telnet localhost 25
mail from: darthvader@yourdomain.com
rcpt to: youremail@hotmail.com
data
test
test
test
. <---- once you type the termination "." it will immed attempt to send the email. Then at the same time switch to first session(tail -f) to check syslog and see what it says.

but if you just want a quick and dirty way out of your problem. This may or may not work (usually it does work for me)

On the new server stop sendmail then backup sendmail binary and sendmail.cf
cp -p sendmail sendmail.ORG
cp -p sendmail.cf sendmailcf.ORG

from your old server copy over the sendmail binary and cf file into the appropriate directory, change the appropriate ownership and permissions then start sendmail. Check syslog (tail -f) to see if mails are going out.

good luck

Thanks, the server itself is sending out email, it was just Hotmail that wasn't getting through, but it turned out that Spam Cannibal had wrong blacklisted it. I've now had it removed from the list and it's all working fine.