How to force a "Return-Path" header when sending email with PHP's mail() function
When sending emails with PHP's mail() function, you are able to specify headers such as Content-type, To, From and Return-Path:
<?php
$headers = "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
//$headers .= "To: Myself <recipient@domain.com>\r\n";
$headers .= "From: Willem <sender@domain.com>\r\n";
$headers .= "Return-Path: sender@domain.com\r\n";
$mail_body = "This<br />is<br />a<br />test<br />mail.";
mail('recipient@domain.com', 'Subject', $mail_body, $headers);
?>
Depending on sendmail's configuration your Return-Path might be overridden by the default setting for the machine, and the raw source of the sent message will contain something like:
Return-Path: <_www@willem-macbook-pro.local>
... instead of:
Return-Path: <sender@domain.com>
If this happens, some email servers will not accept the message because the Return-Path domain can't be verified. To force the correct Return-Path use the mail() function's fifth argument to specify extra options that must be passed to sendmail:
mail('recipient@domain.com', 'Subject',
$mail_body, $headers, " -f sender@domain.com");
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