RE: [PHP] Speed of sending email .. can I put them in a queuerather than wait?

From: Paul M Foster > On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 02:02:18PM +1000, Angus Mann wrote: >> >> I'm currently using the phpmailer class from phpmailer.worxware.com >> to send datatbase -populated emails to clients. >> >> At the moment I'm runninng PHP on Windows and using the built-in >> sendmail equivalent packaged with XAMPP. It uses a remote SMTP that >> authenticates by prior logging into a POP account. >> >> The number of emails sent is very small. Each one is only sent after >> a user fills out a form and presses send. >> >> But there is a noticable lag of about 5 or sometimes 10 seconds >> after pressing "send" before the user sees the "Mail sent" page. >> I presume the reason for the lag is the time spent logging on and >> off a remote POP, then SMTP server, transferring the data etc. >> >> It would be better if this happened in the background - that is, the >> user could get on with doing his next task while the emails sat in a >> queue in the backgorund, being lined up and sent without PHP waiting >> for the process to finish. >> >> Can anybody recommend a good way of doing this? Is Mercury Mail going >> to help me here? >> > > If this were me, I'd set up a mailserver on the web machine and send > mail to it instead of using phpmailer to connect directly to a distant > mailserver. The authentication between phpmailer and the local > mailserver should be near instantaneous, and you can let the local > mailserver deal with transferring mails in its own sweet time. I don't > know if there's a mailserver included in XAMPP installations, but if so, > I'd do that. In fact, if you're just sending simple emails, you could > use PHP's built-in mail() function, which will connect directly to the > local mailserver without further configuration. As another option, I have a simple SMTP script (Perl) that listens on port 25, accepts all forwarded messages and appends them to a text file. Since it doesn't actually do anything, it is all but instantaneous. I use it as a black hole relay MTA for development and test servers that can't reach the real world. If anyone is interested, let me know and I can send you a copy. It is adapted from something I found via Google. Bob McConnell