Three Steps to Setup SMTP Mail in Debian

Step one

Install Pear (PHP Extension and Application Repository) by the following command,

apt-get install php-pear

Step two

Install Pear Mail Package by the following command,

pear install Mail-1.2.0

Note: the latest version of Mail package at the time I am writing is 1.2.0, check this page for the current version.

Setp three

Install Net_SMTP, which is required to send SMTP mail. You can use the following command to install it.

pear install Net_SMTP

Done!

The following is the script you can use to test,

<?php
include(\"Mail.php\");

function sendmail_smtp($to, $subject, $body){

   $from = \"you@gmail.com\";

   $host = \"ssl://smtp.gmail.com\";
   $port = \"465\";
   $username = \"you@gmail.com\";
   $password = \"yourpass\";

   $headers = array ('From' => $from,
     'To' => $to,
     'Subject' => $subject);
   $smtp = Mail::factory('smtp',
     array ('host' => $host,
       'port' => $port,
       'auth' => true,
       'username' => $username,
       'password' => $password));

   $mail = $smtp->send($to, $headers, $body);

   if (PEAR::isError($mail)) {
      echo(\"<p>\" . $mail->getMessage() . \"</p>\");
   } else {
      echo(\"<p>Message successfully sent!</p>\");
   }

}
?>

Now, you can use Pear SMPT to send mail on any server even your home server without seting up a mail server. Is it cool?