Skip to Content
Postfix: The Definitive Guide
book

Postfix: The Definitive Guide

by Kyle D. Dent
December 2003
Beginner
278 pages
10h 47m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Postfix: The Definitive Guide

Postfix Components

The architecture of Postfix is quite different from that of a monolithic system such as Sendmail, which traditionally uses a single large program for its handling of email messages. Postfix breaks down tasks into separate functions using individual programs that each perform one specific task. Most of these programs are daemons, which are processes that run in the background on your system. The master daemon is started first, and it invokes most other processes, as needed. Postfix daemons that are invoked by the master daemon process their assigned tasks and terminate. They might also terminate after a configured amount of time or after handling a maximum number of requests. The master daemon is resident at all times, and gets its configuration information at startup from both main.cf and master.cf. See Chapter 4 for more information on Postfix configuration files.

Figure 3-1 depicts a high-level picture of the Postfix architecture. Broadly speaking, Postfix receives messages, queues them, and finally delivers them. Each stage of processing is handled by a distinct set of Postfix components. After a message is received and placed into the queue, the queue manager invokes the appropriate delivery agent for the final disposition of the message. The next few sections in this chapter discuss the details of each of the stages.

Broad view of the Postfix architecture
Figure 3-1. Broad view of the Postfix ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Postfix

Postfix

Richard Blum
Linux Under the Hood

Linux Under the Hood

Sander van Vugt
Kubernetes: Up and Running, 2nd Edition

Kubernetes: Up and Running, 2nd Edition

Brendan Burns, Joe Beda, Kelsey Hightower

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596002122Errata Page