Configuring MSMTP to work as SMTP Mail Relay for Php Mail() in Linux Server

Most of the times, the php mail function dosen't work in Linux servers because Postfix or Sendmail relays are misconfigured. To workaround this situation you can build your own mail relay using MSMTP and use an SMTP server as the carrier I have tested this solution in a CentOS 5.8 box, however it should work in any Linux distribution as we compile the main package (msmtp) from source.

Please follow the following command sequence to get going. In case of commands not working for you please post a comment so that we can help.

yum install make gcc pkgconfig
wget http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/msmtp/msmtp-1.x.x.tar.bz2
tar xjvf msmtp-1.x.x.tar.bz2
cd msmtp-x.x
./configure
make
make install
make clean

vi /etc/msmtp   (put the contents below)

#####NO_TLS#####
defaults
tls off
tls_certcheck off
tls_starttls off
#tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

account default
host smtp.com
port 25
auth on
user support@testdomain.com
password xxxxxxx
from no-reply@testdomain.com
logfile /var/log/msmtp.log
#####

OR


#####WITH TLS#####
defaults
tls on
tls_certcheck off
tls_starttls on
#tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

account default
host smtp.testdomain.com
port 587
auth on
user binpipe@testdomain.com
password xxxxxxx
from no-reply@testdomain.com
logfile /var/log/msmtp.log
#####


ln -s /etc/msmtp /usr/local/etc/msmtprc

touch /var/log/msmtp.log
chmod 777 /var/log/msmtp.log

Test with this:

echo -e "Subject: Test Mail\r\n\r\nThis is a test mail" |msmtp --debug --from=test@example.com -t tester@testmail.com


To integrate with php, write this in /etc/php.ini

;sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i
sendmail_path = /usr/local/bin/msmtp -t -i


service httpd restart

Now, php mail function will work using smtp as the relay and mails will go through.