Is Postfix running?
I've just executed systemctl restart postfix
Checking the status gives the message that I've pasted below.
Why does it say "active (exited)"? Is that the same as "running"? The guide explicitly says I should be getting "running" if the service is running properly.
FWIW: I can send emails to an external mail address, but I cannot receive emails on my Linode. One of the first steps from the troubleshooting guide is to check that postfix is actually running or not.
fgphil@adonax:~$ sudo systemctl status postfix
● postfix.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/postfix.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (exited) since Sat 2019-11-23 07:43:03 PST; 20s ago
Process: 3715 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 3715 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Nov 23 07:43:03 adonax systemd[1]: Starting Postfix Mail Transport Agent...
Nov 23 07:43:03 adonax systemd[1]: Started Postfix Mail Transport Agent.
1 Reply
Checking the contents of /var/log/mail.log after stopping and starting postfix:
root@adonax:/var/log# cat mail.log
Nov 24 15:47:16 adonax postfix[15240]: Postfix is running with backwards-compatible default settings
Nov 24 15:47:16 adonax postfix[15240]: See http://www.postfix.org/COMPATIBILITY_README.html for details
Nov 24 15:47:16 adonax postfix[15240]: To disable backwards compatibility use "postconf compatibility_level=2" and "postfix reload"
Nov 24 15:47:16 adonax postfix/postfix-script[15246]: stopping the Postfix mail system
Nov 24 15:47:16 adonax postfix/master[3714]: terminating on signal 15
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postfix[15308]: Postfix is running with backwards-compatible default settings
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postfix[15308]: See http://www.postfix.org/COMPATIBILITY_README.html for details
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postfix[15308]: To disable backwards compatibility use "postconf compatibility_level=2" and "postfix reload"
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postfix/postfix-script[15406]: starting the Postfix mail system
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postfix/master[15408]: /etc/postfix/master.cf: line 31: using backwards-compatible default setting chroot=y
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postfix/master[15408]: daemon started -- version 3.3.0, configuration /etc/postfix
The "stop" occurred at 15:47:16 and the "start" occurred at 15:47:26. So as far as I can tell, Postfix is running, but in some sort of funky "compatibility" mode.
The documentation provided by PostFix on this is very difficult to interpret and implement and it is not clear to me if it will have an effect on how things will run or not.
An error listing I found at https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=877992 suggests running the command systemctl status postfix*
This gives the following result:
root@adonax:/var/log# systemctl status postfix*
● postfix.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/postfix.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (exited) since Sun 2019-11-24 15:47:26 PST; 25min ago
Process: 15409 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 15409 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax systemd[1]: Starting Postfix Mail Transport Agent...
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax systemd[1]: Started Postfix Mail Transport Agent.
● postfix@-.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent (instance -)
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/postfix@.service; indirect; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sun 2019-11-24 15:47:26 PST; 25min ago
Docs: man:postfix(1)
Process: 15239 ExecStop=/usr/sbin/postmulti -i - -p stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Process: 15307 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/postmulti -i - -p start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Process: 15253 ExecStartPre=/usr/lib/postfix/configure-instance.sh - (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Tasks: 3 (limit: 1109)
CGroup: /system.slice/system-postfix.slice/postfix@-.service
├─15408 /usr/lib/postfix/sbin/master -w
├─15419 pickup -l -t unix -u -c
└─15420 qmgr -l -t unix -u
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postmulti[15307]: /usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/master.cf: unused parameter: smtpd_sasl-path=private/auth
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postmulti[15307]: /usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/master.cf: unused parameter: smtpd_sasl-path=private/auth
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postmulti[15307]: /usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/master.cf: unused parameter: smtpd_sasl-path=private/auth
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postmulti[15307]: /usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/master.cf: unused parameter: smtpd_sasl-path=private/auth
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postmulti[15307]: /usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/master.cf: unused parameter: smtpd_sasl-path=private/auth
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postmulti[15307]: /usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/master.cf: unused parameter: smtpd_sasl-path=private/auth
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postfix/postfix-script[15406]: starting the Postfix mail system
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postfix/master[15408]: /etc/postfix/master.cf: line 31: using backwards-compatible default setting chroot=y
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax postfix/master[15408]: daemon started -- version 3.3.0, configuration /etc/postfix
Nov 24 15:47:26 adonax systemd[1]: Started Postfix Mail Transport Agent (instance -).
What is going on here? Are there multiple instances of Postfix? Why is one of them "running" and the other "exited"?