What is adding "X-PHP-Originating-Id" to my email header?

Question

I have a php script that emails form data to me from a hosted provider domain. I do not have access to the php.ini file.

This script was working fine until about a week ago when emails stopped getting sent - no errors on the script, just the emails didn't leave the email server.

The hosting provider claims that it was because of the attribute: "X-PHP-Originating-Id" on my emails tripping the spam filter.

The attribute does appear in my header:

Received: (qmail 12927 invoked by uid 30297); 13 Jun 2013 19:14:34 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO p3pismtp01-006.prod.phx3.secureserver.net) ([72.167.238.6])
      (envelope-sender <noreply@onlineserver.cc>)
      by p3plsmtp21-05.prod.phx3.secureserver.net (qmail-1.03) with SMTP
      for <admin@foo.com>; 13 Jun 2013 19:14:34 -0000
X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AsoBANYWulFIp+r1fmdsb2JhbABbw0EWDgEBCQsMCBQog3IzPRKHfAMPsnoNlTSBH4QigQcDiSCCAoo4jgWIU4FR
Received: from p3nlsmtp20.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net ([72.167.234.245])
  by p3pismtp01-006.prod.phx3.secureserver.net with ESMTP; 13 Jun 2013 12:14:29 -0700
Received: from P3NW8SHG346.phx3.gdhosting.gdg ([184.168.27.83]) 
  by p3nlsmtp20.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net with 
id nvEV1l00V1nbBZC01vEV2b; Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:14:29 -0700
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:14:29 -0700
Subject: Client Assessment Form
To: owner@foo.com, admin@foo.com, admin2@foo.com, owner2@foo.com
X-PHP-Originating-Id: [10541707]
From: chef@foo.com\r\nReply-To: chef@foo.com
X-Mailer: PHP/5.3.6
X-Nonspam: None

but from the code I use to send the email:

$headers = "From: notspam@foo.com\r\n".
           'Reply-To: '.$email_from."\r\n" .
           'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion() . "\r\n".
           'Return-Path: admin@foo.com';

$additional = "-radmin@foo.com";
$retMail = @mail($email_to, $email_subject, $email_message, $headers, $additional); 
if (!$retMail)
{
    $error = htmlspecialchars($php_errormsg);
}
else
{
    $error = "";
}

I'm not putting that attribute on the header.

Additionally I just grep'ed the source for PHP 5.3.6 (which is what the host provider has me on) and that attribute does not appear in there as well.

I found a number of examples of "spamwatch" emails on the web with the attribute in the header, but I've found no documentation on it specifically (I know about "X-PHP-Originating-Script" - is this a precursor?).

Frankly, I think the hosting site is pointing at a red herring but I wanted to get some groupthink on it.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Eli, I think your thoughts are correct.

X-PHP-Originating-Id is not added by PHP anywhere. It adds the X-PHP-Originating-Script header. (Source 1)

I don't think X-PHP-Originating-Id is a precursor, it is not anywhere in the commit history for PHP. X-PHP-Originating-Script was added in PHP 5.2, iirc.

It's not mentioned in the Exim config files, it's not known to spamassasain.

Even a search on http://opensearch.krugle.org/ found nothing. It must be something added by the hosting company, with a patch most likely sitting inside PHP.

What hosting company are you with?