On Fri, 07 Oct 2005 07:46:54 -0700, Greg Maruszeczka <greg@...>
Subject: Re: sendmail/postfix ports question
Wrote these words of wisdom:

> Matt Singerman wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I have a server running FreeBSD 5.2.1 that provides (amongst other
> > things) MTA services to our office via sendmail. For a variety of a
> > reasons, I would like to move away from sendmail to postfix. However,
> > the postfix package cannot, as I am sure you know, simply install with
> > sendmail on the system, since they install files to the same places. I
> > am assuming that I have to delete the sendmail package off the system
> > before I can install postfix (someone please correct me if this
> > assumption is wrong). My question is, is there a way to safely and
> > accurately save my sendmail configuration in the event that postfix
> > simply does not work out? I would really prefer not to have to face a
> > situation where I am left high and dry with no MTA working :)
> >
>
>
> The ports version of postfix by default installs all its configuration
> files under /usr/local/ports/postfix so it leaves your /etc/mail alone
> (with the exception of mailer.conf) so your sendmail config should be
> safe -- though it never hurts to tar it up and cp someplace else just in
> case. You DO NOT need to remove sendmail from the system, though, if you
> desire, you can exclude it from the `make world` process by adding
> "NO_SENDMAIL=yes" to /etc/make.conf.
>
> A couple of things to watch for:
>
> 1. You will have another aliases file under the new postfix directory so
> you'll want to remember this if you use the aliases file much. You can
> just ignore the new one and continue to use the one in /etc/mail or you
> can do what I did and instruct postfix through its main.cfg to take the
> postfix-directory version as gospel since this seemed convenient for me
> to keep the bulk of my config stuff in the postfix directory.
>
> 2. Like David said in his reply to you, make sure you read the
> post-install messages once you build/install postfix so that you can
> modify your mailer.conf appropriately to use postfix instead of the core
> sendmail. The /etc/mail/mailer.conf file is the key to the "seamless"
> transition here. Also, be careful with mergemaster when you do the next
> `make world` so that you don't inadvertently overwrite your
> postfix-modified one with the base sendmail one (done that myself once
> or twice :) )
>
>
> Hope that helps,
> G
>

***** REPLY SEPARATOR *****
On 10/8/2005 2:41:20 PM, Gerard Seibert Replied:

I have always thought that it might be a nice option to have FreeBSD
only install the MTA that the user prefers, when the OS is first
installed. If a user wanted PostFix, or Qmail or whatever, that MTA
would be installed and initialized in a similar fashion to what is
currently done with SendMail. However, SendMail would not be installed,
unless it was the users preference. Further, buildworld would by default
update the users MTA of choice, and not default to SendMail.

Of course, I want to win the lottery next week, but that is probably
not going to happen either.

Just my 2ΒΆ.

--
"There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything
or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking."

Alfred Korzybski
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@... mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@..."