Validate email by MX lookup
 

This simple little hack will verify email addresses during registration and updates of profiles by doing an MX lookup against the domain to ensure somebody is accepting email for it.

It won't tell you if the actual user is valid on the domain, but it will prevent fake domains backing up in your mail spool and slowing everything down.

It requires one new error template and two simple code additions to register.php and member.php. Instructions attached.

nice man, install this asap!

Fantastic, I am soo going to install this :)

Great. :) What happens if the mail server is down though?

Most ISP's will have secondary MX and mail server. In fact, even I have a backup mail server.

If they don't have a backup, then you probably wouldn't want them registering with that unreliable address and risk clogging up your forums mail queue. :)

Ok, I was just wondering. :)
I once saw a different script that tries to connect to the server, and make sure the mailbox is really there, but then if the server was done the script will just return false.

Actually, I just realized that what I wrote was all wrong. I wasn't thinking straight.

The MX record is a DNS issue. It doesn't matter if the mail server is down. The DNS will still show that somebody should be accepting mail for it.

The only time it will fail will be if the DNS server is down or the domain doesn't have anyone accepting mail for it.

Even better. :D The other script I saw though definitely connects to the server, so this one is better.

]great hack! :) I'm tired of peeps who give they mail like i_love_vbb@coolhax0r.net or something... I'll install it! :D

Very nice!

This is a wonderful hack and should be integrated into vB3 I reckon! Two thumbs up.

Good! Hack must be integrated into vB3! Very cool!
Thanks for hack, fastforward!

for some reason it didnt work on these domains for me

@yahoo.com
@hotmail.com
@excite.com

What do mean by 'it doesn't work'? It works for me on all those domains. Lets face it, it's unlikely any of those would have broken DNS and MX records set up. :)

well lets see for some reason, it came back with the error that those were invalid email account, and I tested using my email accout from those domains,

Well, hotmail.com, yahoo.com etc. all work for my forums with this hack. That is when I don't ban them.

I will try it one more time, when user registration isnt full, it jus bothers me that a simple hack thats supposed to check a domain to make sure its a domain tell me that the 3 domains I tryed for the most popular email accounts on my forum are invalid

You must have the hack installed wrong... It works fine for me.

Do do do do, I hate to bring back hacks from the hack graveyard, but since Im installing this one I thought I should mention that the mx lookup doesnt work on win32 binary releases.

So, ppl with WINNT and 2K servers are out of luck.

This nice hack worked fine to me since I installed it months ago.
Now, suddendly, it stopped working on the same server and any UserCP update returns the error:
On the server is installed PHP v4.2.1 and I have VB v2.2.6

Is there any php.ini config item missing or mistyped to enable the getmxrr() function ?

Thank you very much.

I just installed this on 2.2.6 and php 4.2.1 and it works fine....the getmxrr function is still supported in this php release but not on Windows servers....

Unfortunately, I have a perfectly valid email address (colin@thedvdforums.dynip.com) that DOESN'T have a MX record but still works. Nice hack though and have installed it - if I get to many complaints I'll have to remove it though.

I have a small question. In my member.php file, it has " " instead of ' '. Does that matter? This:

is this:

Should I change it to what's in the hack?

I read that on php.net.
I'm on a Linux shared server and, since installed PHP 4.2.1, that function is not defined yet.
I receive the above mentioned message.

Thanks

The hack called for insertion of the new code FOLLOWING the existing BAD_EMAIL function.

What you are describing sounds like you have listed
yahoo.com
among the "bulk email domains" to be banned,
under "Banning Options"
and have that setting (to check bad_email) enabled.

In other words, "bad email address" sounds like the earlier function matched/blocked the yahoo address(es) you tried.

Installed this and its working great so far on one of my really busy sites.

tested with @hotmail.com and a couple other email addys.

vb 2.2.6
vbp 3pr8.1

This is why I cant see this hack getting into vB3 :( getmxrr(); isnt supported by Windows PHP Builds, and as vBulletin is for Windows and *nix servers.....

Nice hack :)

I have a problem and I really don't know if it related to this mod or not but I thought this the best place to start. I have been using this mod for approx. 4 months and this is an occasional issue.

If a user joins and then gets banned for some reason or another, and he/she tries to add a new account since we don't revive banned accounts, he/she gets a message that the IP address is now banned. Does this mod do any logic like that?

Anyone operating this successfully with v3.67 or above?

Thanks :)

Regards,
Badger