Postfix necessary?

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi!

I use opensuse 11.0. As a standard postfix is installed and launched. Is there any need for this postfix service or can I disable it without having to fear my computer will never boot again or something behind the scenes stops working?

Thanks!

Sinepp

2

It won’t stop your computer from working if you don’t have it running, but you will not get system emails to root (or whomever is getting root’s email) so if the system wants to tell you something it won’t be able to. Also output from cron and at jobs. It’s not a hazard because it listens on localhost in the default install. The footprint is quite small and unless you really badly need a few MB of memory more, there’s little to be gained from disabling it.

3

Thanks for the quick answer. I will think about disabling again, since I know now what the consequences are.

Regards,
Sinepp

4

> but you will not get system emails to root (or whomever is getting
> root’s email) so if the system wants to tell you something it won’t be
> able to.

hmmmmmm…i shudder to admit: i have never received an email to root…

so, where does one go to find if root has any waiting mail (it sure
doesNOT seem to show up in my thunderbird (or whatever i used before
that, sylpheed and/or evolution)…

or, maybe my system does not wanna talk to me :frowning:

–
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315)
A Texan in Denmark

5

Usually goes into /var/mail/$USER

6

> Usually goes into /var/mail/$USER

thanks…i don’t have any…i guess.

–
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315)
A Texan in Denmark

7

Let’s hope it stays that way. Smartd if enabled can send mail, as will mdadm in monitoring mode. Also any cron jobs that have not discarded their output.

However you can arrange for root’s mail to go to your external mailbox even. In /etc/aliases you will see an alias that goes:

root: you

if you have elected to get system mail. You can change that to

root: you@some.external.server

then run postalias /etc/aliases to tell postfix to rebuild /etc/aliases.db.

You may have to set POSTFIX_RELAYHOST in postfix’s sysconfig to your ISP’s relay.

The other way is simply to poll /var/mail/you in your mail reader.