To increase security on email sent by websites, some web hosts (e.g. streamline.net) require that all mail sent via PHP scripts use the "-f" parameter to ensure that the sending email address is from a domain registered with that host.

This "-f" parameter is used to set the envelope sender address when using sendmail.

Wordpress does not seem to support the appending of this type of parameter by default. As a workaround, you can edit the Wordpress emailing code directly.

You can do this by modifying the function MailSend in the file wp-includes/class-phpmailer.php (search for 'function MailSend').

There is a line in here:

Change this to:

replacing the dummy email address there with one registered with the host in question.

If you are using a plugin to generate emails (such as the cforms II plugin) you will also need to edit the mailing functions there. In cforms, the functions you need to change are in lib_nonajax.php or lib_ajax.php (depending on whether you are using AJAX forms or not). In this case, the lines you need to change are the ones that read

and

As always, there may be a better way to do this - if you know one, let me know!

Many people come across problems using content management systems like Wordpress and Joomla on Windows Servers. One of the problems is folder permissions when you try to upload images or other content.

There are thousands of tutorials out there on how to fix this on Linux servers - chmod the properties of the folder to '777' - but what can you do when you are using a Windows server running IIs?

The error message I was getting in Wordpress was:

You may get a similar message from Mambo, Joomla or other content management systems.

In the case of Wordpress, the wp-content folder needs to be writable to IIs - or more specifically the internet user on your server. So how do you do this on Windows? Like all these things, its only easy when you know how.

Assuming you have access to the server e.g. by remote desktop:

1. Navigate to the wp-content directory. This will most likely be in inetpub/wwwroot/yourdomain or a similar folder in the main web root.
2. Right-click on the folder, select Properties, and then the 'Security' tab.
3. This will show a list of the users with rights on your machine. You need to determine which one is used by the IIs process to serve web pages - usually the name in brackets after the username will be prefixed IUSR. In our case, as we are running Plesk to manage our server, the username is Plesk IIS User (ServerName/IUSR_mydomain)


4. The only permissions set for this user will probably be the 'List Folder Contents'. You need to add the 'Write' permission, by clicking that box.
5. Click 'Apply'.
6. You're done (hopefully).

If you have the Plesk Control Panel, you can set these permissions directly in Plesk without having to remote desktop to the server:

1. Click Domains, then the relevant domain, then File Manager. Navigate through the folders so you can see the appropriate directory name
2. Click on the yellow padlock icon ('Change Permissions for Directory')

3. Again choose the appropriate IIs user (the one with IUSR_ in the name)
4. Click the 'Write' option
5. Click OK.

Please let me know if you found this useful.