How to start, stop and reload postfix

This is a quick post that lists commands to start, stop postfix service.

Postfix is a free and open-source mailing service. It was developed by IBM and is a common alternative to Sendmail service.

How to start, stop and reload postfix mail service

You can use postfix command directly or you can use OS service management commands.

[root@kerneltalks ~]# postfix start
postfix/postfix-script: starting the Postfix mail system
[root@kerneltalks ~]# postfix stop
postfix/postfix-script: stopping the Postfix mail system
[root@kerneltalks ~]# postfix reload

Using systemctl or service command to control postfix service.

[root@kerneltalks ~]# service postfix start
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl start postfix.service
[root@kerneltalks ~]# service postfix stop
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl stop postfix.service
[root@kerneltalks ~]# systemctl start postfix
[root@kerneltalks ~]# systemctl stop postfix

IPv6 error in postfix

Sometimes you see below error while dealing with postfix service.

[root@kerneltalks ~]# postfix start
postfix: fatal: parameter inet_interfaces: no local interface found for ::1

This is due to your system is using IPv6 as well along with IPv4. If you don’t need IPv6 then you can safely disable IPv6 and then restart postfix service to resolve the above error.

Another way is to disable postfix IPv6 support and get rid of this error. To do that you need to edit /etc/postfix/main.cf configuration file and change inet_protocols to ipv4.

[root@kerneltalks ~]# vi /etc/postfix/main.cf
#inet_protocols = all 
inet_protocols = ipv4 

Save changes and restart postfix service.