This text describes how to install Postfix from source code.
See the
PACKAGE_README file if you are building a package for
distribution to other systems. See auxiliary/MacOSX/README-
INSTALL.OSX
for information about installing Postfix from source on Mac OS X.
6.1 - Save existing Sendmail binaries
IMPORTANT: if you are REPLACING an existing
Sendmail installation with Postfix, you may need to keep the old
sendmail program running for some time in order to flush the mail
queue. As superuser, execute the following commands (your sendmail,
newaliases and mailq programs may be in a different place):
# mv /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail.OFF
# mv /usr/bin/newaliases /usr/bin/newaliases.OFF
# mv /usr/bin/mailq /usr/bin/mailq.OFF
# chmod 755 /usr/sbin/sendmail.OFF /usr/bin/newaliases.OFF \
/usr/bin/mailq.OFF
6.2 - Create account and groups
Before you install Postfix for the first time you need to
create an account and a group:
-
Create a user account "postfix" with a user id and group
id that are not used by any other user account. Preferably, this
is an account that no-one can log into. The account does not need
an executable login shell, and needs no existing home directory.
My password and group file entries look like this:
/etc/passwd:
postfix:*:12345:12345:postfix:/no/where:/no/shell
/etc/group:
postfix:*:12345:
Note: there should be no whitespace before "postfix:".
-
Create a group "postdrop" with a group id that is not used
by any other user account. Not even by the postfix user account.
My group file entry looks like:
/etc/group:
postdrop:*:54321:
Note: there should be no whitespace before "postdrop:".
6.3 - Install Postfix
To install or upgrade Postfix from compiled source code, run
one of the following commands as the super-user:
# make install (interactive version, first time install)
# make upgrade (non-interactive version, for upgrades)
-
The non-interactive version ("make upgrade") needs the
/etc/postfix/
main.cf file from a previous installation. If the file
does not exist, use interactive installation ("make install")
instead.
-
The interactive version offers suggestions for pathnames
that you can override interactively, and stores your preferences
in /etc/postfix/
main.cf for convenient future upgrades.
6.4 - Configure Postfix
Proceed to the section on how you wish to run Postfix on
your particular machine:
-
Send mail only, without changing
an existing Sendmail installation (section 7).
-
Send and receive mail via a
virtual host interface, still without any change to an existing
Sendmail installation (section 8).
-
Run Postfix
instead of Sendmail
(section 9).
