PHP - Sockets / Signals

I am trying to post a feed file to ebay from our site via a PHP script, but I am new to this stuff. I found some instructions he http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/pdf/us/file_exchange/File_Exchange_Advanced_Instructions.pdf

The most important part of that PDF is:
Quote

Sample HTTP Post Request
POST /path/to/upload/script HTTP/1.0
Connection: Keep-Alive
User-Agent: My Client App v1.0
Host:
https://bulksell.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?FileExchangeUpload
Content-type: multipart/form-data;
boundary=THIS_STRING_SEPARATES
Content-Length: 256
--THIS_STRING_SEPARATES
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="token"
12345678987654321
--THIS_STRING_SEPARATES
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file";
filename="listings.csv"
Content-Type: text/csv
... contents of listings.csv ...
--THIS_STRING_SEPARATES



I tried to implement it using this code:
<?php

// GET THE FEED FILE
$options = array(
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HEADER         => false, 
    CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true, 
    CURLOPT_ENCODING       => "", 
    CURLOPT_USERAGENT      => "website", 
    CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER    => true,
    CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT => 120, 
    CURLOPT_TIMEOUT        => 120,
    CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS      => 10, 
    CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER => false,
);

$ch = curl_init('https://www.mysite.com/pull_feed.php');
curl_setopt_array( $ch, $options );
$contents = curl_exec( $ch );
curl_close( $ch );


//----------------------------------------------------//


//OPEN THE CONNECTION
$conn = fsockopen('https://bulksell.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?FileExchangeProgrammaticDownload', 80);

// START THE REQUEST
fputs($conn, "POST ".$_SERVER['PATH_INFO']." HTTP/1.0");
fputs($conn, "Connection: Keep-Alive");
fputs($conn, "User-Agent: My Client App v1.0");
fputs($conn, "Host:");
fputs($conn, "https://bulksell.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?FileExchangeUpload");
fputs($conn, "Content-type: multipart/form-data;");
fputs($conn, "boundary=THIS_STRING_SEPARATES");
fputs($conn, "Content-Length: ".strlen($contents));
fputs($conn, "--THIS_STRING_SEPARATES");
fputs($conn, "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"token\"");
fputs($conn, "MY_KEY_IS_HERE_000000000000000000000000");
fputs($conn, "--THIS_STRING_SEPARATES");
fputs($conn, "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"file\";");
fputs($conn, "filename=\"listings.csv\"");
fputs($conn, "Content-Type: text/csv");

// SEND THE FILE
fputs($conn, $contents);

// END THE REQUEST
fputs($conn, "--THIS_STRING_SEPARATES");

// GET THE RESULT
while(!feof($conn)) {
    echo fgets($conn, 128);
}

// CLOSE CONNECTION
fclose($conn);

?>

UPDATE: I accidently had error reporting off. Whoops. It is giving me this error:
Quote

Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to https://bulksell.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?FileExchangeProgrammaticDownload:80 (Unable to find the socket transport "https" - did you forget to enable it when you configured PHP?) in C:\home\imafs\public_html\funad\ebay\send_feed.php on line 27

Followed by more errors resulting from that one.

I recently came across http://forums.phpfre...g-with-sockets/.  Sockets?  Never heard of them...   I looked at the PHP documentation http://php.net/manua...tro.sockets.php, and it tells how to implement them, but not really what their purpose is.   I then search a bit, and learned about their history http://en.wikipedia....erkeley_sockets, but still not really why they are used.   Okay, sockets are used to connect an application to a given port and IP, and PHP can be set up as either a socket host or socket client?  Is this something like a SOAP server/client, but SOAP specifies a given port and protocol?  Do sockets not necessarily specify a protocol?   Still a little fuzzy.  Can anyone provide examples on where they might be used?
  BSD Sockets generally relies upon client/server architecture. For TCP communications, one host listens for incoming connection requests. When a request arrives, the server host will accept it, at which point data can be transferred between the hosts. UDP is also allowed to establish a connection, though it is not required. Data can simply be sent to or received from a host.   The Sockets API makes use of two mechanisms to deliver data to the application level: ports and sockets. Ports and sockets are one of the most misunderstood concepts in sockets programming.   All TCP/IP stacks have 65,536 ports for both TCP and UDP. There is a full compliment of ports for UDP (numbered 0-65535) and another full compliment, with the same numbering scheme, for TCP. The two sets do not overlap. Thus, communication over both TCP and UDP can take place on port 15 (for example) at the same time.   A port is not a physical interface - it is a concept that simplifies the concept of Internet communications for humans. Upon receiving a packet, the protocol stack directs it to the specific port. If there is no application listening on that port, the packet is discarded and an error may be returned to the sender. However, applications can create sockets, which allow them to attach to a port. Once an application has created a socket and bound it to a port, data destined to that port will be delivered to the application. This is why the term socket is used - it is the connection mechanism between the outside world (the ports) and the application. A common misunderstanding is that sockets-based systems can only communicate with other sockets-based systems. This is not true. TCP/IP or UDP/IP communications are handled at the port level - the underlying protocols do not care what mechanisms exist above the port. Any Internet host can communicate with any other, be it Berkeley Sockets, WinSock, or anything else. "Sockets" is just an API that allows the programmer to access Internet functionality - it does not modify the manner in which communications occur.   Reference: http://wiki.treck.co..._to_BSD_Sockets

i have been working to works. but any time i use the method socket_read(); or socket_write(); my apache server gives me an error  undefined method pls want could be responsible for this error. i am quite sure of the syntax

I have server #1 that host a php page with a form.  I have server #2 that has a VPN connection to #1.   I want the user to fill out the form on server #1 and on submit the data is sent to server #2 where it is processed and then an email is sent from server #2 with a confirmation.

I do not want the user to be sent to the server#2  though.  They can be sent to a thank you page.

Can anyone enlighten me with the best function to use in this case or if it is even possible? THANKS Everyone!

I'm having issues working with sockets in PHP, I'm hoping someone can help.   I'm making an application in which I need to open my own socket connections. There are two specific features that I need: I need to set a timeout for the connection attempt. I need these connections to come from a custom IP address, and by that I mean that my server has more than one IP, and I need the socket connection to use an IP that is not the server's default internet connection port.   There are (as far as I know) two ways to open a socket connection. Both techniques meet a requirement and miss a requirement.   Option 1: I can use the function fsockopen( ) to open the connection. This function works great and let's me set a timeout for the connection itself. It's solid and reliable. However it has, as far as I can tell, no way to set the connection to come from a custom IP. All connections using this function come from the server's default IP address.   Option 2: The socket_create( ) / socket_connect( ) family of functions. These functions have a lot more options, they let you do a lot more. I can easily bind the socket to my server's secondary IP address so socket connections will come from it. HOWEVER as far as I can tell, these family of functions lack a connection timeout. You can set timeout for reads and timeouts for writes. But there doesn't seem to be a way to set a timeout for initiating the connection itself. Even setting the "default_socket_timeout" parameter doesn't have any effect on the connection time.    This type of question is a bit more technical than most PHP questions. But I'm hoping someone out there knows a way I can open sockets while meeting both of my two requirements. It's entirely possible that it is not possible, I know. But hopefully it can be done.   One thought I had was a way of using the second option, and wrapping the whole socket_connect( ) function inside of another function that sets a timeout, and would kill the socket_connect( ) function once the timeout was met. However, I don't know of any such system in PHP, this was only a concept theory.      How I open my sockets using fsockopen( ):

$sock = @fsockopen($ip,$port,$errno,$errstr,$timeout);