Perl-based Form Mail (Feedback) Script

Using a Perl script, you may accept feedback from your website visitors and get the results emailed to you. You can use the sample script provided by BlueHost China and tweak it a bit to suit your requirements.

Sample Script


#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
#
 $title='Perl Mail demo';
 $to='TO_Email';
 $from= 'some-name@yourdomain.com';
 $subject='perl mail';
 
  open(MAIL, "|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t");
  
   ## Mail Header
   print MAIL "To: $to\n";
   print MAIL "From: $from\n";
   print MAIL "Subject: $subject\n\n";
   ## Mail Body
   print MAIL "This is a test message
   mail body text here\n";
   
    close(MAIL);
    
     print "<html><head><title>$title</title></head>\n<body>\n\n";
     
     print "<h1>$title</h1><p>A message has been sent from $from to $to</p></body></html>";
#
Note

  • The .pl file containing the script needs to be uploaded to your web server in ASCII mode only.

  • The .pl file needs to have execute permissions for the normal web user. For example, the .pl file can have permissions 755 or 765.

Sample HTML Feedback Form

The following code needs to be added in the form which connects to the above script:


<form action="cgi-bin/script.pl" method="POST">
<input type="hidden" name="recipient" value="xyz@yourdomain.com">
<input type="hidden" name="email" value="some-name@yourdomain.com">
<input type="hidden" name="realname" value="Feedback Form">
<input type="hidden" name="subject" value="Feedback Form">
<input type=hidden name="redirect" value="https://yourdomain.com/file.htm">

Below is the explanation about the variables in the code:

  • recipient: This would be the email address, where the email containing the data submitted through the form needs to be delivered.

  • email: You would need to change the email address in the email field to any email address on the domain name, on which you are incorporating this script. For example, if you are deploying this script on yourdomain.com, then you would define the From email address as some-name@yourdomain.com. This email address need not be existing on the Mail Server of yourdomain.com; however, the domain name in the email field has to be yours. This implies that you may use an email address such as Do_Not_reply@yourdomain.com. This email address will appear as the From email address in the email sent by the script.

  • realname: The value here indicates the name mentioned in the From section of the email, that will be sent upon submission of this form. This can be modified as per your requirement.

  • subject:The value in this field can be changed to indicate an appropriate subject for the mail to be sent. For example, you may set this as YourDomain.com Feedback Form or any other subject that would allow you to uniquely identify from which form on your website this data has been received.

  • redirect: Once the visitor provides feedback, he/she can then be redirected to another page on your website. In order to achieve this, you need to mention the path to the HTML file in the redirect field. Alternately, you can display a message to the visitor thanking him/her for the feedback. Such messages can be displayed in a new page like thanks.htm. Such a page can also contain other information as deemed necessary.

Note

In an attempt to keep a check on abuse from BlueHost China's Hosting Servers, the following conditions have been set for mail scripts on BlueHost China's Linux Hosting Servers:

  • The domain name in either the To or the From email address used in the script should be your domain name hosted with BlueHost China.

    Example: yourdomain.com is hosted with BlueHost China and yourotherdomain1.com and yourotherdomain2.com are hosted with some other hosting provider.

  • For mail scripts with the From email address as <user>@<server_hostname>, the To email address compulsorily should be an email address on your domain name hosted with BlueHost China.

    Example: yourdomain.com is hosted with BlueHost China with parent user yourdo & server name cp-00.webhostbox.net and yourotherdomain1.com is hosted with some other hosting provider.

    With the From email address as yourdo@cp-00.webhostbox.net: