Using php to send mail on apache (ubuntu)

I have an Ubuntu in Oracle VM VirtualBox, however i did not set it as a server, I just want to implement  sending  email on ubuntu.
Make it short:using sendmail.
installing sendmail on ubuntu


in the file:  /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
make it like this:  sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i

sudo apt-get install sendmail
sudo apt-get install sendmail-cf

then we can use the following code to send mail:

this is only a test, you can change the code according to your demand.
done!

using php to send mail on iis(windows server 2008)

I know php might show better performance on apache, however it happened that I only have a windows server 2008 on amazon EC2 with iis installed. A senior student want me to finish the sending mail function with using php, so I have no other choice so far.

It seems very easy, every one know that php has the function mail(). But, this function only could easily run on linux almost without any configuration, while on windows, it is another story.

I spent days to find that there two basic methods:
1. directly use the SMPT service on iis
2. use some  other classes: phpmailer or swiftermailer

I choose the 2nd method first, unluckily, no matter how I configure, it  dose not work, so far, I still do not know why.(still think about it)

then I switched to 1st method,
in windows server2008, the smpt server is not installed by default, so you should install and configure them,
I use the following two steps to finish the task:
1:to install the smtp server:
http://www.iis.net/learn/application-frameworks/install-and-configure-php-on-iis/configure-smtp-e-mail-in-iis-7-and-above

2. configuration and code testing
http://geekswithblogs.net/tkokke/archive/2009/05/31/sending-email-from-php-on-windows-using-iis.aspx

done!