从PHP调用Python smtplib

Question

I have a python script which sends mails to intended recipients. And now I wanted to call this script from my PHP code. The python script works when invoked from the shell. The mail is getting delivered. However, when called from the PHP code, it doesn't work.

#!/usr/bin/python2.7  
import smtplib
email = '[e-mail]'
password = 'somepassword'
server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com', 587)
server.ehlo()
server.starttls()
server.ehlo()
server.login(email, password)
server.sendmail(email, '[e-mail]', 'Hello World')
server.close()
print 'Sent mail'

The php code is as follows:

    <?php
      if(exec('echo TEST')=='TEST') {
        echo 'works';
      }
      else {
        echo 'NOT WORKING';
      }
      $command = escapeshellcmd('/home/sharan/Desktop/mail.py');
      $output = shell_exec($command);
      echo ' output:';
      echo $output;
    ?>

But when I comment out all the python lines except for the last statement ( print statment ) , I am getting the output. So I know there is something to do with the smtplib only. Hence forth, I tried importing some other module ( I tried os ) and used it in the program. Even in that case, the script works. Only when I import smtplib, the script doesn't work when invoked from PHP. Why is this problem occuring?

Can someone help me get through this problem?