The "From" field is whacked

[pcinfoman]

Script URL: Behind a Password
Version of script: 1.43
Hosting company: Netwrk Solutions

Write your message below:
I got this script installed and all is working fine. However, when I get a notification email, it says it is from "328033.334070".

Whats with that? How do i tell it to put in the contents of the "Name" field?

[Klemen]

Unless you have been editing the gbook.php the name field should display without problems...

[pcinfoman]

It displays just fine on the comments page, but when an email is sent the "from" field in the email is wierd.

I have not edited the code except to change the text that displays the work "Guestbook" to display "Comment" instead.

[Klemen]

Does it do the same if you use the ORIGINAL gbook.php file (backup your edited one, upload the original one and test it)?

[pcinfoman]

I don't know. I will try that.

[pcinfoman]

OK, I just uploaded a totally clean (untouched) copy of gbook.php and after filling out the form, it sent me an email.

The exact same thing happened. The email is from "328066.334270@vux.bos.netsolhost.com".

The EXACT email looks like this (headers and all)

---------------------------------------------------
Return-Path: <328066.334270@vux.bos.netsolhost.com>
Delivered-To: admin@328066.385143
Received: (qmail 15685 invoked by uid 78); 6 Nov 2006 18:26:07 -0000
Delivered-To: animalmakers.com-admin@animalmakers.com
Received: (qmail 15661 invoked by uid 78); 6 Nov 2006 18:26:07 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO ns-mr7.netsolmail.com) (10.49.16.166)
by mail2.lb.hosting.dc2.netsol.com with SMTP; 6 Nov 2006 18:26:07 -0000
Received: from vux.bos.netsolhost.com (vux.bos.netsolhost.com [205.178.145.65])
by ns-mr7.netsolmail.com (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id kA6IQ6Bb018967
for <admin@animalmakers.com>; Mon, 6 Nov 2006 13:26:06 -0500
Received: from vux16.prod.netsolhost.com (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by vux.bos.netsolhost.com (8.13.7/8.13.7) with ESMTP id kA6IQ6fo013909
for <admin@animalmakers.com>; Mon, 6 Nov 2006 13:26:06 -0500
Received: (from 328066.334270@localhost)
by vux16.prod.netsolhost.com (8.13.7/8.13.7/Submit) id kA6IQ6OR013908;
Mon, 6 Nov 2006 13:26:06 -0500
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2006 13:26:06 -0500
From: "328066.334270" <328066.334270@vux.bos.netsolhost.com>
Message-Id: <200611061826.kA6IQ6OR013908@vux16.prod.netsolhost.com>
To: admin@animalmakers.com
Subject: Someone has just signed your guestbook

Hello!

Someone has just signed your guestbook!

Name: test
From: test
E-mail: test@test.com
Website:

Message (without smileys):
Test


Visit the below URL to view your guestbook:
[I have hidden the url]

End of message
---------------------------------------------------

Ideas?

[FruitBeard]

Hi, that possibly could be because that is who infact sent you the email.

You must have been a spam target.

[Klemen]

Ah, now I get it. That is the default "FROM" address your host has set for sending e-mails from user "Nobody" (used for example by PHP scripts).

You don't have to worry about it at all, it's just a (strange) configuration, but if it bothers you that much you can change line 666 from

Code: Select all

mail("$settings[admin_email]","Someone has just signed your guestbook",$message);

to

Code: Select all

mail("$settings[admin_email]","Someone has just signed your guestbook",$message,"From:you@yourmail.com");

inside gbook.php (replace you@yourmail.com with any e-mail address you wish, for example "From:gbook_entries@yourdomain.com").

[pcinfoman]

Thank you fro this. It is not that it bothers me so much but it bothers the people that get the emails. I am tired of hearing about it. I will implement this and see how it goes.

Again, thank you.

[kloomis]

I ran into this same problem with those strange from email addys on the notify emails.

Here is what I tried.

The 'setting's file contains the config for gbook. The 'admin_email' is set here:

Code: Select all

/* Your e-mail. Only required if $settings['notify'] is set to 1 */
$settings['admin_email']=' \"Ken Loomis\" <username@domain.com>';

I added these to the settings.php file:

Code: Select all

/* The 'From' e-mail. Only required if $settings['notify'] is set to 1 */
$settings['gbook_email']=' \"Gbook Admin\" <gbookadmin@AaronLoomis.com>';

/* The 'Reply' e-mail. Only required if $settings['notify'] is set to 1 */
$settings['reply_email']=' \"Gbook Admin\" <gbookadmin@AaronLoomis.com>';

Then in the actual gbook.php file, I added this:

Code: Select all

$headers = 'From: $settings['gbook_email'] ' . "\r\n" .
               'Reply-To: $settings['reply_email'] ' . "\r\n" .
               'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

Then I modified the mail statement to this:

Code: Select all

    mail("$settings[admin_email]","Someone has just signed your guestbook",$message,$headers);

But that just generates errors. I am pretty sure it's because I don't understand the syntax in the $header assignment statement, because it all works if I set $headers with this:

Code: Select all

 $headers = 'From: webmaster@AaronLoomis.com' . "\r\n" .
     'Reply-To: kloomis@bigplanet.com' . "\r\n" .
     'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

BTW: This last piece of code came directly from the php manual page for mail.

I could leave it at that, but I hate hard coding things like that into a script. I just don't know php well enough to know how to write that assignment.

any help would be appreciated

Thanks,
Ken Loomis

[Klemen]

You have to be careful with all the quotes. Variables are not parsed within single quotes ('). Try with:

Code: Select all

$headers = 'From: '.$settings['gbook_email']."\r\n" .
               'Reply-To: '.$settings['reply_email']."\r\n".
               'X-Mailer: PHP/'.phpversion();

[kloomis]

Thank you, Klemen.

That solved the problem with that assignment statement. I'll have to look at that more closely to see what I was doing wrong. I tried every configuration I could think of with those quotes. But obviously not the right one.

I did run into another problem after fixing that.

Using this to set the from email in the settings file:

Code: Select all

/* The 'From' e-mail. Only required if $settings['notify'] is set to 1 */
$settings['gbook_email']=' \"Gbook Admin\" <gbookadmin@AaronLoomis.com>'; 

Resulted in an email addy that looked like this:

\"Gbook Admin\ <gbookadmin@AaronLoomis.com>

I had to change that to this to make it work:

Code: Select all

/* The 'From' e-mail. Only required if $settings['notify'] is set to 1 */
$settings['gbook_email']=' "Gbook Admin" <gbookadmin@AaronLoomis.com>';

Which at first glance is pretty confusing since I had patterned that exactly like this:

Code: Select all

/* Your e-mail. Only required if $settings['notify'] is set to 1 */
$settings['admin_email']=' \"Ken Loomis\" <kloomis@BigPlanet.com>';

If anyone can explain that I'd be grateful.

Thanks,
Ken Loomis

[Klemen]

You need to escape quotes " with a backslash \ if you are using quotes within quotes. For example:

" \"Ken Loomis\" <kloomis@BigPlanet.com>"

But if you are using quotes " within single-quotes ' you omit the \, like this:

' "Ken Loomis" <kloomis@BigPlanet.com>'

If you on the other hand use single-quotes within single-quotes you need to escape those, for example

' \'Ken Loomis\' <kloomis@BigPlanet.com>'


These are PHP rules, I suggest you find some PHP tutorials when working.

[kloomis]

Thanks again, Klemen.

From what you described, as I understand it, the original code in gbook is wrong.

Here is the original code from the gbook settings file:

Code: Select all

/* Your e-mail. Only required if $settings['notify'] is set to 1 */
$settings['admin_email']=' \"Ken Loomis\" <kloomis@BigPlanet.com>';

Which I think, if I understand you correctly, should be:

Code: Select all

/* Your e-mail. Only required if $settings['notify'] is set to 1 */
$settings['admin_email']=' "Ken Loomis" <kloomis@BigPlanet.com>';

Is that right?

Also, can you explain the why and what for of using single versus double quotes?

I will take your advise and do some tutorials on php. I have done a lot of programming in the past, BASIC, FORTRAN, Pascal, COBOL, even Forth, but usually just modify scripts when working with Perl, Javascript or php. Unfortunately when I was in school, I just missed the C++ revolution.

Thanks,
Ken Loomis

[Klemen]

That's the one to use, yes.

The original settings file has

Code: Select all

$settings['admin_email']='you@yourdomain.com'; 

For double vs single quotes there's a lot here:
http://php.net/types.string

Had to learn Fortran for a year myself, but I left it in the last century