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implementing PHP 8.1 and mail() function not sending emails from Docker container

👀 Views: 666 đŸ’Ŧ Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-13
php docker email

I'm optimizing some code but I've looked through the documentation and I'm still confused about I've been struggling with this for a few days now and could really use some help. I'm working with a frustrating scenario where the native `mail()` function in PHP 8.1 is failing to send emails when running my application inside a Docker container. I have set up a simple PHP application using Apache and included the following code to send a test email: ```php $to = 'recipient@example.com'; $subject = 'Test Email'; $message = 'This is a test email.'; $headers = 'From: sender@example.com'; if (mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers)) { echo 'Email sent successfully!'; } else { echo 'Failed to send email.'; } ``` When I run this code, the output is consistently "Failed to send email." I checked the Docker logs and found the following behavior messages: ``` sendmail: want to connect to local SMTP server ``` I confirmed that I have an SMTP server configured in my `php.ini` file like this: ``` [mail] SMTP = smtp.example.com smtp_port = 587 sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i ``` I've tried using different SMTP configurations, but I still get the same behavior. My Docker container runs on a host that has port 587 open, so I don't think it's a network scenario. I've also tested the SMTP server with external tools like Telnet and they connect fine. As a workaround, I considered using PHPMailer or similar libraries, but I'd prefer to understand why the `mail()` function isn't working in this setup. Any insights or troubleshooting steps would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building.