Question

Use Postfix instead of Sendmail?

Posted May 3, 2017 12.6k views
Ubuntu Messaging

I have Sendmail installed for relaying web site emails to Google Apps and have been having random problems very often. If I wish to replace it with Postfix, how do I ensure that Sendmail stops permanently and doesn’t initiate on reboot?

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cloudnine
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1 answer
hansen May 3, 2017

Hi @cloudnine
Good choice. Simply stop Sendmail and install Postfix, since it’s a drop-in replacement.

sudo service sendmail stop
sudo apt-get install postfix

So unless you’ve made some special calls to sendmail commands, Postfix should take over everything what Sendmail does. You need to re-do the configuration in Postfix, since that is not converted.

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  • cloudnine May 3, 2017

    Thanks. Postfix has worked flawlessly on a couple of other servers.

    One thing, though. If I reboot the system, wouldn’t Sendmail become active again? If yes, what should I change to prevent that from happening?

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    • hansen May 3, 2017

      No, because Postfix replaces the configuration, so it should be a drop-in replacement. You shouldn’t need to change anything, anywhere - but if you have special configuration or pipes, then you might need to modify something.

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    • hansen May 3, 2017

      Otherwise, simply remove Sendmail before installing Postfix.

      sudo service sendmail stop
sudo apt-get remove sendmail
sudo apt-get install postfix
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      • cloudnine May 4, 2017

        Thank you for taking the time to respond with the commands. I couldn’t uninstall Sendmail cleanly on another server, but I am not sure if I used apt-get remove.

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      • ranklord April 26, 2018

        There is no need to remove sendmail with dedicated command before installing postfix since postfix installation removes sendmail as part of installation process.

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