So, I developed this web application which needs me to send emails to everyone (details in a mysql database), providing a unique set of user credentials. I have a virtual server on the University network where I am hosting my PHP based application, so it obviously doesn't have its own mail server/SMTP settings.
So, if I were to send out mails from a university network, I guess I should request the network admin for the SMTP settings for the university mail network and then use PEAR for it right?
I need to confirm this because it's kind of a big deal to make a request like that, and I myself have never used PHP to send mails 'from' an external email id not linked to the server.
Are there any alternatives to this?
Yes you can use PEAR::mail to send mails via SMTP server. However, if SMTP is configured on localhost you can simply use mail() function to send mail. You can also connect to SMTP server via socket but then you need to handle whole protocol communication.