UBB.Developers Forums Community Development Programming PHP and Server-side Scripting Warning: mail() is not supported in this PHP build

hi there,

I recently moved UBBT from one ISP to another and moved from a shared hosting environment to a VDS (Virtual Dedicated Server).

when I try to run "perl subscriptions.pl" I get the following error, "Warning: mail() is not supported in this PHP build in /home/kurt/forums.retailflorist.com/html/ubbthreads/mess_reply.php on line 275

Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/kurt/forums.retailflorist.com/html/ubbthreads/mess_reply.php:275) in /home/kurt/forums.retailflorist.com/html/ubbthreads/mess_reply.php on line 317

I read in another post that it is because an smtp server is not specified in my php.ini file.

is this the problem?

in that case how shall I specify it?

I'm using exim as an MTA right now but will be switching back to sendmail shortly.

could you advise on the appropriate entry for both, please?

thanks,

That's a common problem, here's a explanation and solution:

This problem/fix should be here since it oddly takes a long time to find the answer on the internet, yet the problem seems common. If you get

mail() not supported in this PHP build

when trying to use this function then you need to recompile. This happens during configure if /sbin/sendmail is not found. For some reason PHP decides to leave out mail support entirely if it can't find this file while configuring for build. If you run qmail or some other sendmail replacement it is very likely this could be your situation. To fix, make sure the appropriate file or symlink exists. To be safe, why not make a symlink from /usr/sbin/sendmail too. In the case of qmail, these should both point to /var/qmail/bin/sendmail which is qmail's sendmail wrapper.

After fixing that, delete config.cache and start your build over again and reinstall. Thanks to Surojit Niyogi -- and Google, for caching the page on the www.bajaar.com where he posted this simple solution which was unfortunately broken at the time I was looking for an answer.

[]Astaran said:
That's a common problem, here's a explanation and solution:

This problem/fix should be here since it oddly takes a long time to find the answer on the internet, yet the problem seems common. If you get

mail() not supported in this PHP build

when trying to use this function then you need to recompile. This happens during configure if /sbin/sendmail is not found. For some reason PHP decides to leave out mail support entirely if it can't find this file while configuring for build. If you run qmail or some other sendmail replacement it is very likely this could be your situation. To fix, make sure the appropriate file or symlink exists. To be safe, why not make a symlink from /usr/sbin/sendmail too. In the case of qmail, these should both point to /var/qmail/bin/sendmail which is qmail's sendmail wrapper.[/]

I'm using exim. would you happen to know what the symlink should be for exim?
or spell out exactly the steps I should take? I'm not yet a linux guru.

[]
After fixing that, delete config.cache and start your build over again and reinstall. Thanks to Surojit Niyogi -- and Google, for caching the page on the www.bajaar.com where he posted this simple solution which was unfortunately broken at the time I was looking for an answer. [/]

so I really need to reinstall PHP you're saying not UBBT?

isn't there a simpler faster way by just handediting some .conf files somewhere?

thanks,

[]I'm using exim. would you happen to know what the symlink should be for exim?
or spell out exactly the steps I should take? I'm not yet a linux guru. [/]

Sorry, i never used exim. Maybe someone else can help you with this.

[]so I really need to reinstall PHP you're saying not UBBT?

isn't there a simpler faster way by just handediting some .conf files somewhere? [/] Yes, as described you need to recompile your php.