Sending emails from a CGI script

Bilbo has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a CGI program which currently sends email by opening a pipe to sendmail. This is fine for my site, hosted on a Linux server, but I am trying to make it easy to install my program on any web server supporting Perl CGI scripts. I am therefore looking for a portable method of sending emails, ideally from any system, certainly from Linux or Microsoft servers.

I am aware that there are a number of modules (Mail::Sendmail, Mail::Mailer, Net::SMTP, MIME::Lite...) which provide a system independent method of sending emails, but many cheap web hosting companies do not install extra modules and I do not really want to require users to download and install modules in their cgi-bin directories if there is a reasonable alternative.

Is there, for example, a Windows equivalent of piping to sendmail, so that I could put both in a conditional statement and select the appropriate command at runtime?

Comment on Sending emails from a CGI script

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Re: Sending emails from a CGI script by Jaap (Curate) on Jan 30, 2003 at 12:34 UTC
There is no windows equivalent that is installed on every windows system. You could always add a module to your program distribution (might want to rename the module then, say NetSMTP.pm or something) and add the '.' directory to the library path.	[reply]
Re: Sending emails from a CGI script by derby (Abbot) on Jan 30, 2003 at 12:53 UTC
You could include nms_sendmail with your installs. -derby	[reply]
Re: Sending emails from a CGI script by AcidHawk (Vicar) on Jan 30, 2003 at 12:38 UTC
As Jaap said .. there is nothing common to Windows servers but you may want to see this NT Sendmail and Perl site NTsendmail ----- Of all the things I've lost in my life, its my mind I miss the most.	[reply]
Re: Sending emails from a CGI script by dree (Monsignor) on Jan 30, 2003 at 16:07 UTC
There is a commercial equivalent of sendmail for Windows machines: IndigoMail from Indigostar. From the docs: it uses the same simple interface as the Unix Sendmail	[reply]
Re: Sending emails from a CGI script by !unlike (Beadle) on Jan 30, 2003 at 12:55 UTC
As the others have said there is no equivilent to sendmail for Windows. The best solution would be to use a module. This has the problems you stated. The only real solution I can see it to write your own code that sends the email in a portable way. But this is no simple task. Sorry I couldn't have been more help and hope you find a solution. !unlike "The price if ignorance, which is of course that you must learn from those who know." Socrates (paraphrased)	[reply]
Re: Sending emails from a CGI script by hiseldl (Priest) on Jan 31, 2003 at 06:12 UTC
There is a server that runs on windows and linux. Take a look at XMail Server. There are Perl modules at the bottom of the page. I installed XMail on my win2k box, and I am sending mail with no problems. I don't have XMail setup to receive mail, but there is ample documentation at the XMail site. Hope this helps. -- hiseldl What time is it? It's Camel Time!	[reply]