Error - Postfix mail system is not running? [SOLVED]

Hi all. Just installed postfix, and having a basic issue: When I start it, I get no errors, but upon 'reloading' I get the following error:

Reloading Postfix configuration…postfix/postfix-script: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running

failed.

So, I noticed during install via apt-get that it couldn't find exim, and looking in aptitude, it seems that sendmail is still installed… could this be my problem? I've checked /var/log/syslog and /var/log/mail.log, but there is no trace of an error…

Here are the mail application installed via aptitude:

mailx

postfix

procmail

sendmail-base

sendmail-cf

sensible-mda

All I will be doing with postfix will be mail forwarding (i.e. thatguy@example.com => thatguy@realdomain.com). Anything else on that list I can safely remove after I nuke sendmail?

Thanks for any assistance!

Paul

6 Replies

What distro are you using? What error? (your post is missing it)

Installing postfix via aptitude would have removed exim and any other conflicting packages.

@Alucard:

What distro are you using? What error? (your post is missing it)

Installing postfix via aptitude would have removed exim and any other conflicting packages.

Sorry, Debian (latest), here is the error:

Reloading Postfix configuration…postfix/postfix-script: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running

failed.

Do /etc/init.d/postfix restart and post the output and also look near the end of /var/log/syslog for errors

@Alucard:

Do /etc/init.d/postfix restart and post the output and also look near the end of /var/log/syslog for errors

No errors on screen from restart, here is what I found in syslog:

postfix/postfix-script[16999]: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running

postfix/master[17067]: fatal: bind 0.0.0.0 port 25: Address already in use

nmapping the port I get this:

25/tcp open smtp Sendmail 8.14.3/8.14.3/Debian-5

So, uninstall sendmail I pressume? I also noticed a ton of cron errors in syslog referring to exim… looks like somehow my system is missing exim, but still has sendmail, weird. I should go into crom and clean out any exim related items as well, yes?

Paul

Uninstall/stop sendmail, yes.

Uninstalled, rebooted and postfix is now listening properly, thanks!

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