Host won't allow me to use formmail.php

[basnyd]

Hi -

I've used formmail.php twice before (on a different host) and have been very happy. I wanted to use it for a different client and the host told me the following:

**********

We do not allow this script to be run on our servers. If you attempt to run it, you will receive a "Forbidden" error. We do not allow "Formmail" due to the high number of Spam exploits. If you want to run this script, you have two choices:

1) The one we recommend the most. This is to use our customized version of this script. We call it "FormNewMail". It can be found in the "Online Support Pages" part on XXXXX.

2) You will just need to change the name of the script to something other then "Formmail".

NOTE: If you choose run an odd version of Formmail, and change the name of the script and it gets exploited for Spam, we will delete your account for a Terms of Service violation.
Thanks.

How can I tell them that your formmail.php is not the spamming type? I thought there was a page on the site that that described this, but I could not find it.

[russellr]

Hi,

NOTE: If you choose run an odd version of Formmail, and change the name of the script and it gets exploited for Spam, we will delete your account for a Terms of Service violation.

Based on this, it seems you are allowed to use other FormMails, including ours, but you just need to be sure it doesn't get exploited for spam.

If you're confident with Tectite FormMail (it has *never* been exploited for spam as far as we know) then just go ahead and name "formmail.php" to a different name.

You're also welcome to ask your hosting provider to contact us for a discussion, and, of course, they can evaluate Tectite FormMail for its security for themselves.

[basnyd]

I responded to the host and gave them a link to your site and explained what I wanted to do and since then they have been very helpful.

The host actually was the one who renamed the script file.

I'm still running into one issue that we have not been able to resolve. I get an error message back that states the following:

The following error occurred in FormMail :
Unable to create check file "/home/virtual/siteABC/fst/var/www/tmp/fmd27956.txt": failed to open stream: No such file or directory

I've explained to the host about the tmp directory under php, but they have not been able to fix whatever is wrong.

I've gone to creating a tmp directory of my one. The first one I created was at the same level as the html & cgi bin directories. The 2nd one was actually under the html directory.

I've defined the scratch pad

$SCRATCH_PAD = "/home/virtual/site262/fst/var/www/tmp";

The formmail.php file is in the html directory.

I just figured out the answer to my own question. You need to use the DOCUMENT_ROOT: and NOT the REAL_DOCUMENT_ROOT: to make the scratch pad work. Or at least that is what worked for me. I also had to have the tmp directory under the html directory.

I hope this helps someone else.