Why is this php script not mailing me?
<p>I'm running the example from chapter 1 in Head First's PHP and MySQL. I placed the files on Head Fist's site on apache's /var/www folder and the thing runs. Yet, why isn't php's mailto working?</p>

<p>edit: btw, I'm working on Ubuntu 10.04  </p>

<p>I added two debugging lines to the script:</p>

<pre><code>$testmail = mail($to, $subject, $msg);
echo 'WAS IT MAILED? &lt;br /&gt;'.$testmail;
</code></pre>

<p><strong>Why isn't printing <code>WAS IT MAILED? TRUE</code>? Why isn't it mailing?</strong></p>

<p><strong>Edit: Is the fact that I'm mailing to my gmail address relevant?</strong></p>

<p>Here's the script:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"&gt;
&lt;html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"&gt;
&lt;head&gt;
  &lt;meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /&gt;
  &lt;title&gt;Aliens Abducted Me - Report an Abduction&lt;/title&gt;
&lt;/head&gt;
&lt;body&gt;
  &lt;h2&gt;Aliens Abducted Me - Report an Abduction&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;?php
  $name = $_POST['firstname'] . ' ' . $_POST['lastname'];
  $when_it_happened = $_POST['whenithappened'];
  $how_long = $_POST['howlong'];
  $how_many = $_POST['howmany'];
  $alien_description = $_POST['aliendescription'];
  $what_they_did = $_POST['whattheydid'];
  $fang_spotted = $_POST['fangspotted'];
  $email = $_POST['email'];
  $other = $_POST['other'];

  $to = 'antoniorueda18@gmail.com';
  $subject = 'Aliens Abducted Me - Abduction Report';
  $msg = "$name was abducted $when_it_happened and was gone for $how_long.\n" .
    "Number of aliens: $how_many\n" .
    "Alien description: $alien_description\n" .
    "What they did: $what_they_did\n" .
    "Fang spotted: $fang_spotted\n" .
    "Other comments: $other";

  $testmail = mail($to, $subject, $msg);
  echo 'WAS IT MAILED? &lt;br /&gt;'.$testmail;

  echo 'Thanks for submitting the form.&lt;br /&gt;';
  echo 'You were abducted ' . $when_it_happened;
  echo ' and were gone for ' . $how_long . '&lt;br /&gt;';
  echo 'Number of aliens: ' . $how_many . '&lt;br /&gt;';
  echo 'Describe them: ' . $alien_description . '&lt;br /&gt;';
  echo 'The aliens did this: ' . $what_they_did . '&lt;br /&gt;';
  echo 'Was Fang there? ' . $fang_spotted . '&lt;br /&gt;';
  echo 'Other comments: ' . $other . '&lt;br /&gt;';
  echo 'Your email address is ' . $email;
?&gt;

&lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>And here's the html form:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"&gt;
&lt;html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"&gt;
&lt;head&gt;
  &lt;meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /&gt;
  &lt;title&gt;Aliens Abducted Me - Report an Abduction&lt;/title&gt;
  &lt;link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" /&gt;
&lt;/head&gt;
&lt;body&gt;
  &lt;h2&gt;Aliens Abducted Me - Report an Abduction&lt;/h2&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;Share your story of alien abduction:&lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;form method="post" action="report.php"&gt;
    &lt;label for="firstname"&gt;First name:&lt;/label&gt;
    &lt;input type="text" id="firstname" name="firstname" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;label for="lastname"&gt;Last name:&lt;/label&gt;
    &lt;input type="text" id="lastname" name="lastname" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;label for="email"&gt;What is your email address?&lt;/label&gt;
    &lt;input type="text" id="email" name="email" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;label for="whenithappened"&gt;When did it happen?&lt;/label&gt;
    &lt;input type="text" id="whenithappened" name="whenithappened" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;label for="howlong"&gt;How long were you gone?&lt;/label&gt;
    &lt;input type="text" id="howlong" name="howlong" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;label for="howmany"&gt;How many did you see?&lt;/label&gt;
    &lt;input type="text" id="howmany" name="howmany" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;label for="aliendescription"&gt;Describe them:&lt;/label&gt;
    &lt;input type="text" id="aliendescription" name="aliendescription" size="32" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;label for="whattheydid"&gt;What did they do to you?&lt;/label&gt;
    &lt;input type="text" id="whattheydid" name="whattheydid" size="32" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;label for="fangspotted"&gt;Have you seen my dog Fang?&lt;/label&gt;
    Yes &lt;input id="fangspotted" name="fangspotted" type="radio" value="yes" /&gt;
    No &lt;input id="fangspotted" name="fangspotted" type="radio" value="no" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;img src="fang.jpg" width="100" height="175"
      alt="My abducted dog Fang." /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;label for="other"&gt;Anything else you want to add?&lt;/label&gt;
    &lt;textarea id="other" name="other"&gt;&lt;/textarea&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
    &lt;input type="submit" value="Report Abduction" name="submit" /&gt;
  &lt;/form&gt;
&lt;/body&gt;
&lt;/html&gt;
</code></pre>
