PHP 5.6 and PHPMailer 5.2

PHP Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟PHP 5.6 and PHPMailer 5.2

This section provides a tutorial example on how to install PHPMailer 5.2 in CentOS 8 for PHP 5.6 to send out emails to remote STMPS server.

If you are still using PHP 5.6 engine for some reason, you can use PHPMailer 5.2 to send out emails. Here is what I did on my CentOS 8 computer.

1. Check PHP version:

herong$ php -version

PHP 5.6.40 (cli) (built: May 12 2020 15:27:05)
Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group

2. Install Remi's RPM repository, where PHPMailer packages are hosted.

herong$ export url=http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/8/remi/x86_64
herong$ wget $url/remi-release-8.3-1.el8.remi.noarch.rpm
herong$ sudo rpm -Uvh remi-release-8.3-1.el8.remi.noarch.rpm

3. Install php-PHPMailer from Remi's RPM repository.

herong$ sudo dnf --enablerepo=remi install php-PHPMailer
...
Installed:
  php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch
  php-common-7.2.24-1.module_el8.2.0+313+b04d0a66.x86_64
  php-intl-7.2.24-1.module_el8.2.0+313+b04d0a66.x86_64
  php-mbstring-7.2.24-1.module_el8.2.0+313+b04d0a66.x86_64

4. Find the path name where php-PHPMailer is installed:

herong$ sudo find / -name PHPMailer
/usr/share/php/PHPMailer

herong$ sudo ls -l /usr/share/php/PHPMailer
-rw-r--r-- 1   2464 Mar 19  2020 class.phpmaileroauthgoogle.php
-rw-r--r-- 1   7216 Mar 19  2020 class.phpmaileroauth.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 148027 Mar 26 17:43 class.phpmailer.php
-rw-r--r-- 1  11006 Mar 19  2020 class.pop3.php
-rw-r--r-- 1  43495 Mar 19  2020 class.smtp.php
-rw-r--r-- 1   1216 Mar 26 17:43 PHPMailerAutoload.php

5. Run the following PHP script to test. It works!

<?php
#  PHPMailer-PHP-5.php
#- Copyright 2019 (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.

$path = "/usr/share/php/PHPMailer";
require "$path/class.phpmailer.php";

$mail = new PHPMailer(true);
$mail->CharSet = "utf-8"; # must be the first
$mail->SMTPDebug = 4;
$mail->isSMTP();
$mail->SMTPAuth = true;
$mail->SMTPSecure = 'TLS';
$mail->Host = "smtp.example.com";
$mail->Port = 587;
$mail->Username = 'herong@herongyang.com';
$mail->Password = 'TopScret';

try {
   $mail->setFrom('herong@herongyang.com', 'Herong Yang');
   $mail->addAddress('joe@herongyang.com', 'Joe Doe');
   $mail->Subject = 'PHPMailer 5.2 and PHP 5.6 Test';
   $mail->Body = 'There is a test message from PHPMailer.';
   $mail->AddCC('amy@herongyang.com', '');
   $mail->AddAttachment('/home/herong/tmp/junk.pdf');
   $mail->send();
} catch (Exception $e) {
   echo $e->errorMessage();
} catch (\Exception $e) {
   echo $e->getMessage();
}
?>

You should avoid using "rpm" command to install PHPMailer package files directly. It is not smart enough to manage dependencies automatically. See the example below:

herong$ export url=http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/8/remi/x86_64
herong$ wget $url/php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch.rpm

heron$ sudo rpm -Uvh php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
  php-date is needed by php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch
  php-filter is needed by php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch
  php-hash is needed by php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch
  php-intl is needed by php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch
  php-mbstring is needed by php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch
  php-openssl is needed by php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch
  php-pcre is needed by php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch
  php-spl is needed by php-PHPMailer-5.2.28-6.el8.remi.noarch