Emailing dilemma

Hi,

I have almost 30 websites that use PEAR::Mail to send emails on behalf of
users at universities (one site for each) to lecturers at the same
university.

The problem I have is that if a lecturer sets an 'Out of Office' status, it
gets bounced back to my server instead of to the user at the university.

I did have the 'From' set to the user's email address, but that wasn't very
successful ats it caused problems with the universities' anti-spam systems.

I've tried using ini_set('sendmail_from',$useremail); but that doesn't seem
to work either.

Can anyone point me in the right direction, please?


Cheers

George in Edinburgh

George,

Had this problem a year ago, although I'm not using PEAR. Have a look at
http://ca3.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php
and this down in the additional_parameters(optional) section:

"For example, this can be used to set the envelope sender address when using
sendmail with the *-f* sendmail option."

It is not well documented, don't know if this helps, but it may get you
started.

Cheers - Miles

On Nov 26, 2007 3:21 PM, George Pitcher <george.pitcher@ingenta.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have almost 30 websites that use PEAR::Mail to send emails on behalf of
> users at universities (one site for each) to lecturers at the same
> university.
>
> The problem I have is that if a lecturer sets an 'Out of Office' status,
> it
> gets bounced back to my server instead of to the user at the university.
>
> I did have the 'From' set to the user's email address, but that wasn't
> very
> successful ats it caused problems with the universities' anti-spam
> systems.
>
> I've tried using ini_set('sendmail_from',$useremail); but that doesn't
> seem
> to work either.
>
> Can anyone point me in the right direction, please?
>
>
> Cheers
>
> George in Edinburgh
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
>
>

Miles,

I see that tha manual talks about a trusted sender list
(/etc/mail/trusted-users). Do you know if there is something similar for a
Windows NT server?

Cheers

George

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Miles Thompson [mailto:milesthom@gmail.com]
> Sent: 26 November 2007 8:44 pm
> To: PHP List
> Subject: Re: [php] Emailing dilemma
>
>
> George,
>
> Had this problem a year ago, although I'm not using PEAR. Have a look at
> http://ca3.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php
> and this down in the additional_parameters(optional) section:
>
> "For example, this can be used to set the envelope sender address
> when using
> sendmail with the *-f* sendmail option."
>
> It is not well documented, don't know if this helps, but it may get you
> started.
>
> Cheers - Miles
>
> On Nov 26, 2007 3:21 PM, George Pitcher
> <george.pitcher@ingenta.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have almost 30 websites that use PEAR::Mail to send emails on
> behalf of
> > users at universities (one site for each) to lecturers at the same
> > university.
> >
> > The problem I have is that if a lecturer sets an 'Out of Office' status,
> > it
> > gets bounced back to my server instead of to the user at the university.
> >
> > I did have the 'From' set to the user's email address, but that wasn't
> > very
> > successful ats it caused problems with the universities' anti-spam
> > systems.
> >
> > I've tried using ini_set('sendmail_from',$useremail); but that doesn't
> > seem
> > to work either.
> >
> > Can anyone point me in the right direction, please?
> >
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > George in Edinburgh
> >
> > --
> > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
> >
> >
>

You could try the following headers (they might also cause trouble to the
antispam soft, but I'd give it a try)

// Replies delivered to the user
Reply-To: <username@domain.com>
// Bounces delivered to the user
Return-Path: <username@domain.com>
// Errors delivered to the user
Errors-To: <username@domain.com>

I don't know if either Return-Path or Errors-To will work (maybe both work)
but I believe Errors-To would be more suitable... just give it a try and let
us know.

Rob

Andrés Robinet | Lead Developer | BESTPLACE CORPORATION
5100 Bayview Drive 206, Royal Lauderdale Landings, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308
| TEL 954-607-4207 | FAX 954-337-2695
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Pitcher [mailto:george.pitcher@ingenta.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 11:14 AM
> To: PHP List
> Subject: RE: [php] Emailing dilemma
>
> Miles,
>
> I see that tha manual talks about a trusted sender list
> (/etc/mail/trusted-users). Do you know if there is something similar
> for a
> Windows NT server?
>
> Cheers
>
> George
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Miles Thompson [mailto:milesthom@gmail.com]
> > Sent: 26 November 2007 8:44 pm
> > To: PHP List
> > Subject: Re: [php] Emailing dilemma
> >
> >
> > George,
> >
> > Had this problem a year ago, although I'm not using PEAR. Have a look
> at
> > http://ca3.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php
> > and this down in the additional_parameters(optional) section:
> >
> > "For example, this can be used to set the envelope sender address
> > when using
> > sendmail with the *-f* sendmail option."
> >
> > It is not well documented, don't know if this helps, but it may get
> you
> > started.
> >
> > Cheers - Miles
> >
> > On Nov 26, 2007 3:21 PM, George Pitcher
> > <george.pitcher@ingenta.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I have almost 30 websites that use PEAR::Mail to send emails on
> > behalf of
> > > users at universities (one site for each) to lecturers at the same
> > > university.
> > >
> > > The problem I have is that if a lecturer sets an 'Out of Office'
> status,
> > > it
> > > gets bounced back to my server instead of to the user at the
> university.
> > >
> > > I did have the 'From' set to the user's email address, but that
> wasn't
> > > very
> > > successful ats it caused problems with the universities' anti-spam
> > > systems.
> > >
> > > I've tried using ini_set('sendmail_from',$useremail); but that
> doesn't
> > > seem
> > > to work either.
> > >
> > > Can anyone point me in the right direction, please?
> > >
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > >
> > > George in Edinburgh
> > >
> > > --
> > > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> > > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
> > >
> > >
> >
>
> --
> PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php

> > On Nov 26, 2007 3:21 PM, George Pitcher
> > <george.pitcher@ingenta.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I have almost 30 websites that use PEAR::Mail to send emails on
> > behalf of
> > > users at universities (one site for each) to lecturers at the same
> > > university.
> > >
> > > The problem I have is that if a lecturer sets an 'Out of Office'
> status,
> > > it
> > > gets bounced back to my server instead of to the user at the
> university.
> > >
> > > I did have the 'From' set to the user's email address, but that wasn't
> > > very
> > > successful ats it caused problems with the universities' anti-spam
> > > systems.
> > >
> > > I've tried using ini_set('sendmail_from',$useremail); but that doesn't
> > > seem
> > > to work either.
> > >
> > > Can anyone point me in the right direction, please?
> > >
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > >
> > > George in Edinburgh
> > >
> > > --
> > > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
> > > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
> > >
> > >
> >
>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Miles Thompson [mailto:milesthom@gmail.com]
> Sent: 26 November 2007 8:44 pm
> To: PHP List
> Subject: Re: [php] Emailing dilemma
>
>
> George,
>
> Had this problem a year ago, although I'm not using PEAR. Have a look at
> http://ca3.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php
> and this down in the additional_parameters(optional) section:
>
> "For example, this can be used to set the envelope sender address
> when using
> sendmail with the *-f* sendmail option."
>
> It is not well documented, don't know if this helps, but it may get you
> started.
>
> Cheers - Miles
>



> On Nov 27, 2007 10:13 AM, George Pitcher <george.pitcher@ingenta.com>
> wrote:
> Miles,
>
> I see that tha manual talks about a trusted sender list
> (/etc/mail/trusted-users). Do you know if there is something similar for a
> Windows NT server?
>
> Cheers
>
> George
>

Sorry George, can't help you as my experience with Windows mail servers is
zero.
Miles

Hi Rob,

>
> You could try the following headers (they might also cause trouble to the
> antispam soft, but I'd give it a try)
>
> // Replies delivered to the user
> Reply-To: <username@domain.com>
> // Bounces delivered to the user
> Return-Path: <username@domain.com>
> // Errors delivered to the user
> Errors-To: <username@domain.com>
>
> I don't know if either Return-Path or Errors-To will work (maybe
> both work)
> but I believe Errors-To would be more suitable... just give it a
> try and let
> us know.
>
Tried these but it doesn't stop the actual email envelope from using the
sendmail_from tag as the Return-path.

Did some testing and putting ini_set('sendmail_from', $useremail) just ahead
of the $mail->send() command did the trick. It may be that it needs to have
the headers set correctly to work, as I had tried this setting change in the
past unsuccessfully.

Anyway, another small problem removed from my list.

Thanks to all who chipped in on this one.

George