php , sendmail or SMTP ??

ConsultClifford

Hi
im taking a look at mambo at the moment

on several newsletter components there are 3 sending options:

- Selecting mail will send using the php mail function.
- Selecting sendmail will use sendmail for sending
- Selecting SMTP will use a SMTP server to send

what are the differences and (dis)advantages of each????

tnx

maxheadroom

Basically:

ConsultClifford wrote:

- Selecting mail will send using the php mail function.

So it'll call the function mail() to send the mail. Read that linked page for details

ConsultClifford wrote:

- Selecting sendmail will use sendmail for sending

It'll directly call /usr/bin/sendmail to send the mail. Your host may or may not allow this. It obviouosly won't work if you don't have sendmail installed (or something that emulates sendmail like postfix), or if you're using a windows host.

ConsultClifford wrote:

- Selecting SMTP will use a SMTP server to send

This will open up a TCP socket connetcion to an SMTP server to send the mail. You might not be able to if your host has firewalled off the SMTP ports.

ConsultClifford

thats great thanks.. but with is best / most reliable etc etc

seamus

I'd go with the php mail function. The settings for this function are set on the webserver, so it gives you more flexibility.

If you choose Sendmail or SMTP, it may or may not work with your host, and may also introduce config problems if you ever decide to switch host, hosting type or hosting plan.

By using the php mail() function, you're guaranteed that whatever web host you're using, it'll work. Although some web hosts may disallow using this function, I'd say they'd be very very rare.

andersde10

go with the mail() function as long as the volume of messages you want to sent is not too large. some people find performance of mail() is slow if you got loads of stuff to send and instead they create direct connections.

I've never had any problem with mail() once you got it working it should stay working.