Forwarding/Piping emails to a PHP Program

takabanana · November 15th, 2007, 6:28 PM

So here's the deal.
I *just* stumbled across this feature/setting in cPanel:

Cpanel -> Email Forwarder -> Destination: Pipe to a Program

and it COULD be exactly what I have been looking for a long time!

Well, so, if I wanted to forward/pipe the emails to a specific PHP script... HOW do I handle the email? i.e., it probably isn't a $_GET or $_POST since it's not HTTP. In what format does the email get piped into the PHP script, and how would I parse it? Also, what about an email that has an attachment? How can that be handled by the PHP script?

ANY thoughts/ideas on how this works would be HIGHLY appreciated! Thanks!!

-taka

takabanana · November 15th, 2007, 6:58 PM

ok so I found out (thanks to Google) that it's just STDIN.

But what is the formatting of the mail? I am currently assuming pure text like POP/SMTP uses...

takabanana · November 15th, 2007, 7:43 PM

i'm just answering my own Q's... :-)
ok so it's just normal internet mail format (ASCII text).

I've got it mostly working - only issue I have is that the PHP file DOES parse it, because I have the PHP file itself do a mail() to forward all content from STDIN to myself (which does work)... but I ALSO get an error email from the server:

Quote:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

pipe to |<PHP path/filename>
generated by <Forwarded email address>

The following text was generated during the delivery attempt:

------ pipe to |<PHP path/filename>
generated by <Forwarded email address> ------

X-Powered-By: PHP/4.4.4
Content-type: text/html

------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------

Any thoughts from anyone?

November 15th, 2007, 6:28 PM	#1 (permalink)
takabanana Registered User Seasoned Poster Joined in May 2003 Lives in Atlanta, GA 69 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Forwarding/Piping emails to a PHP Program So here's the deal. I just stumbled across this feature/setting in cPanel: Cpanel -> Email Forwarder -> Destination: Pipe to a Program and it COULD be exactly what I have been looking for a long time! Well, so, if I wanted to forward/pipe the emails to a specific PHP script... HOW do I handle the email? i.e., it probably isn't a $_GET or $_POST since it's not HTTP. In what format does the email get piped into the PHP script, and how would I parse it? Also, what about an email that has an attachment? How can that be handled by the PHP script? ANY thoughts/ideas on how this works would be HIGHLY appreciated! Thanks!! -taka __________________ Server: simplemedia.com XX.XX.74.115 (Reseller) DNS: ns770.dizinc.com ns771.dizinc.com Sites: www.simplemedia.com www.southernbloom.com www.torimoto.net www.rubyforest.net

November 15th, 2007, 6:58 PM	#2 (permalink)
takabanana Registered User Seasoned Poster Joined in May 2003 Lives in Atlanta, GA 69 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	ok so I found out (thanks to Google) that it's just STDIN. But what is the formatting of the mail? I am currently assuming pure text like POP/SMTP uses... __________________ Server: simplemedia.com XX.XX.74.115 (Reseller) DNS: ns770.dizinc.com ns771.dizinc.com Sites: www.simplemedia.com www.southernbloom.com www.torimoto.net www.rubyforest.net

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