Postfix Mailer - do I need it on my system for a normal Thunderbird client and Roundcube webmail

I get delays of up to 1m30s when shutting down and sometimes when booting up. These are shown on the screen and scrolling stops for the delay.
Do I need Postfix for what I would describe as a normal client system? Can I remove it or stop the waiting?

Are you absolutely certain that, Postfix is causing these delays?


 # systemd-analyze blame | grep -i post
  951ms postfix.service                                                                          
 # 
 # journalctl -b -1 --no-hostname --output=short-monotonic | grep -i post
   17.719512] systemd[1]: Starting Postfix Mail Transport Agent...
   17.721730] echo[2266]: Starting mail service (Postfix)
   17.989697] postfix/postfix-script[2477]: starting the Postfix mail system
   18.018738] postfix/master[2479]: daemon started -- version 3.5.9, configuration /etc/postfix
   18.034973] systemd[1]: Started Postfix Mail Transport Agent.
[28223.059882] systemd[1]: Stopping Postfix Mail Transport Agent...
[28223.104179] postfix/postfix-script[28891]: stopping the Postfix mail system
[28223.105724] postfix/master[2479]: terminating on signal 15
[28223.121953] systemd[1]: postfix.service: Succeeded.
[28223.122139] systemd[1]: Stopped Postfix Mail Transport Agent.
 # 

What is shown on the screen?

  • I’m not aware of any warnings due to delays which may or may not be displayed on the boot or shutdown splash screens.

Postfix is needed to handle e-Mail being sent by the Linux system – some system processes send e-Mail by default to the user “root” and, optionally to a defined system administrator when anomalies occur.

  • The Postfix RPM package has some dependencies –

 > rpm --query --whatrequires postfix
postfix-ldap-3.5.9-5.9.2.x86_64
 > rpm --query --whatrecommends postfix
patterns-base-enhanced_base-20200505-lp153.6.1.x86_64
 > rpm --query --whatsuggests postfix
patterns-base-base-20200505-lp153.6.1.x86_64
openSUSE-release-15.3-lp1532.157.1.x86_64
 > 

Hi and thanks. Seems like I do need Postfix. Remind me please how I can get to get a screen shot of the scrolling screen. Somewhere in logs?
Thanks.

You may post shutdown as follows:

erlangen:~ # journalctl -b -1 -u init.scope -g Stop --since 09:50 --no-pager  
-- Journal begins at Mon 2021-11-22 23:45:25 CET, ends at Tue 2021-11-30 16:53:16 CET. -- 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Session 2 of User karl... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Graphical Interface. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Multi-User System. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Login Prompts. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Sound Card. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Timer Units. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Backup of /home. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Backup of RPM database. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Backup of /etc/sysconfig. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Balance block groups on a btrfs filesystem. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Defragment file data and/or directory metadata. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Scrub btrfs filesystem, verify block checksums. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Discard unused blocks on a mounted filesystem. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Check if mainboard battery is Ok. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Discard unused blocks once a week. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Daily rotation of log files. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Daily man-db regeneration. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Daily locate database update. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Systemd timer to update the system daily with PackageKit. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Daily Cleanup of Snapper Snapshots. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Timeline of Snapper Snapshots. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Daily Cleanup of Temporary Directories. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Save/Restore Sound Card State... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Stack... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Command Scheduler... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping CUPS Scheduler... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping X Display Manager... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Restore /run/initramfs on shutdown... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping A remote-mail retrieval utility... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Getty on tty1... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping hd-idle disk spindown service... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping irqbalance daemon... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Apply settings from /etc/sysconfig/keyboard. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Machine Check Exception Logging Daemon... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping MiniDLNA is a DLNA/UPnP-AV server software... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Authorization Manager... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping RealtimeKit Scheduling Policy Service... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Load/Save Random Seed... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Disk Manager... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Daemon for power management... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped hd-idle disk spindown service. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped irqbalance daemon. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Machine Check Exception Logging Daemon. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped A remote-mail retrieval utility. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Save/Restore Sound Card State. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Restore /run/initramfs on shutdown. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Load/Save Random Seed. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Stack. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Getty on tty1. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Command Scheduler. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Start fetchmail. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Hold until boot process finishes up. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Postfix Mail Transport Agent... 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped CUPS Scheduler. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Authorization Manager. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Disk Manager. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped RealtimeKit Scheduling Policy Service. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Daemon for power management. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Postfix Mail Transport Agent. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped MiniDLNA is a DLNA/UPnP-AV server software. 
Nov 30 09:52:19 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Network is Online. 
Nov 30 09:52:20 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped X Display Manager. 
Nov 30 09:52:20 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping The Apache Webserver... 
Nov 30 09:52:20 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped The Apache Webserver. 
Nov 30 09:52:20 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target System Time Synchronized. 
Nov 30 09:52:20 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target System Time Set. 
Nov 30 09:52:20 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping NTP client/server... 
Nov 30 09:52:20 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped NTP client/server. 
Nov 30 09:52:20 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Host and Network Name Lookups. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Session 2 of User karl. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping User Login Management... 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping User Manager for UID 1000... 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped User Login Management. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped User Manager for UID 1000. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping User Runtime Directory /run/user/1000... 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped User Runtime Directory /run/user/1000. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping D-Bus System Message Bus... 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Permit User Sessions... 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped D-Bus System Message Bus. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Permit User Sessions. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Basic System. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Network. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Path Units. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Watch /etc/sysconfig/btrfsmaintenance. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Watch for changes in CA certificates. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped CUPS Scheduler. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Watch for changes in issue snippets. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Watch for changes in smartmontools sysconfig file. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Remote File Systems. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Slice Units. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Socket Units. 
Nov 30 09:52:22 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target System Initialization. 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Local Encrypted Volumes. 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Dispatch Password Requests to Console Directory Watch. 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Local Verity Protected Volumes. 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Network Name Resolution... 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Record System Boot/Shutdown in UTMP... 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Record System Boot/Shutdown in UTMP. 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Security Auditing Service... 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Network Name Resolution. 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Network Configuration... 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Security Auditing Service. 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped Create Volatile Files and Directories. 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopped target Local File Systems. 
Nov 30 09:52:23 erlangen systemd[1]: Stopping Flush Journal to Persistent Storage... 
erlangen:~ # 

Hi
Is IPv6 disabled on this system? If so have you edited /etc/postfix/main.cf to change the inet_protocol line from all to ipv4?

RPM dependency system does not work with package names. It works with abstract provides. “zypper se --requires-pkg postfix” will surprise you.

Yes – same dependencies though –


 > zypper search --suggests-pkg postfix
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S  | Name                   | Summary                                          | Type
---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+--------
   | fetchmail              | Full-Featured POP and IMAP Mail Retrieval Daemon | package
i+ | openSUSE-release       | openSUSE Leap 15.3                               | package
i+ | patterns-base-base     | Minimal Base System                              | package
   | patterns-desktop-books | Documentation                                    | package
 > 

Meaning that, these Patterns only suggest Postfix but, the Pattern “patterns-base-enhanced_base” recommends Postfix –

  • If one really wants to avoid Postfix, that person will either have to lock the Postfix packages or, avoid using the openSUSE Base package Patterns …

You can also avoid “postfix” by installing an alternative mail server such as “sendmail” or “exim”.