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Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent [message #181863 is a reply to message #181862]

Thu, 20 June 2013 18:40

Jerry Stuckle
Messages: 2598
Registered: September 2010

Karma:

Senior Member

On 6/20/2013 2:24 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 20/06/13 18:40, Twayne wrote:
>> I'm a PHP near-newbie working fairly successfully on creating a secure
>> PHP e-mail (mail()) function. It occurs to me that the only way a user
>> knows (thinks) a form has been sent, is that I tell him so either in a
>> line of code or with a Thank You page.
>>
>> With that in mind, is there any way with PHP to actually tell that a
>> message was actually sent? That it at least was mailed out?
>>
>> I came across retval() and thought that might be way to do it, but I
>> misinterpreted it, thinking it was a PHP function, which it turns out
>> to not be. Therefore I'm looking for some way to authenticate that the
>> e-mail actually left the server.
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>
> Not easy. I usually include myself in the mailing list.
>
> BUT even so if there are bad mail addresses, then you need to set
> yourself as the bounce target as well, to see those.
> In general in a *nix platform the messages will be recieved by the SMTP
> forwarding agent, and then get queued and a queue run will take place
> immediately.
>
> to check the mail queue there is a system command mailq which should
> return empty.
>
> But you cant execute that without root privileges. Which means having
> that level of access to the machine and writing an su 'ed wrapper in C
> and calling that instead.
>

You don't necessarily need root privileges to check the mail queue (the
exact command is dependent on the MTA being used - not always mailq).
You should also be able to use the MTA's userid (usually 'mail'), if the
MTA is on the same machine. See posix_setuid() and posix_setgid().

However, this creates a big security risk in PHP, by allowing a rogue
script to get root access. Better would be to invoke a CLI script to
change the uid/gid. Even this is subject to potential security risks,
but those are less.

Of course, this also depends on the MTA being on the same machine. It
also depends on the receiving MTA bouncing the email for an invalid
address (or other problems). More and more, email hosting companies are
not rejecting invalid addresses, because it will help spammers determine
what is a valid address and what isn't. It also depends on the MTA
processing the bounce immediately upon receipt, which is dependent on
the MTA's configuration.

It also doesn't work if the receiving MTA receives the email but then
dumps it, i.e. as spam.

> If apache is running php as 'www-data' or whatever.
>
> In short there are things you can do, but none are easy and all are
> outside the scope of 'just' php.
>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Twayne`
>
>

This can all be done with 'just' PHP, but you have to ensure the rest of
the system is also set up properly. And even then, it's not perfect.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex(at)attglobal(dot)net
==================

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[Message index]

		FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Thu, 20 June 2013 17:40
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Jerry Stuckle on Thu, 20 June 2013 17:53
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: J.O. Aho on Thu, 20 June 2013 18:18
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: The Natural Philosoph on Thu, 20 June 2013 18:24
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Jerry Stuckle on Thu, 20 June 2013 18:40
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: gordonb.vb4vo on Thu, 20 June 2013 19:44
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: The Natural Philosoph on Thu, 20 June 2013 21:03
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Fri, 21 June 2013 18:06
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Sat, 22 June 2013 15:42
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Thomas 'PointedEars' on Sun, 23 June 2013 11:13
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: The Natural Philosoph on Sun, 23 June 2013 11:22
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Sun, 23 June 2013 17:07
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Sun, 23 June 2013 17:00
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: J.O. Aho on Sun, 23 June 2013 18:22
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Sun, 23 June 2013 18:53
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: gordonb.4qaft on Mon, 24 June 2013 19:43
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Peter H. Coffin on Mon, 24 June 2013 20:09
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Thomas 'PointedEars' on Tue, 25 June 2013 13:19
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Jerry Stuckle on Tue, 25 June 2013 14:11
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Tue, 25 June 2013 15:43
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Tue, 25 June 2013 15:32
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: gordonb.htsnc on Thu, 27 June 2013 15:57
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Thomas 'PointedEars' on Thu, 27 June 2013 19:13
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Arno Welzel on Fri, 28 June 2013 09:43
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: gordonb.k0cb7 on Thu, 20 June 2013 20:46
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Jerry Stuckle on Thu, 20 June 2013 21:03
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: gordonb.udxst on Sat, 22 June 2013 00:26
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Jerry Stuckle on Sat, 22 June 2013 00:36
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Sat, 22 June 2013 16:04
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Christoph Michael Bec on Thu, 20 June 2013 21:39
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Tim Streater on Fri, 21 June 2013 09:11
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: The Natural Philosoph on Fri, 21 June 2013 10:25
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Tim Streater on Fri, 21 June 2013 11:27
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: The Natural Philosoph on Fri, 21 June 2013 16:59
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Tim Streater on Fri, 21 June 2013 17:25
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: The Natural Philosoph on Fri, 21 June 2013 22:43
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Tim Streater on Sat, 22 June 2013 12:45
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Sat, 22 June 2013 16:20
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: Peter H. Coffin on Thu, 20 June 2013 22:27
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: The Natural Philosoph on Fri, 21 June 2013 06:57
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: bill on Sat, 22 June 2013 16:02
		Re: FORMS, validating mail was sent By: GravyCode on Fri, 21 June 2013 18:30

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