How to Install Postfix on Elementary OS Latest

Postfix is a popular open-source mail transfer agent (MTA) that can be easily installed on most Linux distributions, including Elementary OS. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps to install Postfix from the official website on Elementary OS.

Prerequisites

Before beginning the installation, you need to ensure that you have the following prerequisites:

• A terminal window on your Elementary OS system
• sudo privileges
• An internet connection
• A valid domain name or IP address

Step 1: Update the system

The first step in installing Postfix is to ensure that your system is up-to-date. Open a terminal window and enter the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

This command will update the package lists and install any available updates.

Step 2: Install Postfix dependencies

Next, we need to install some dependencies required for Postfix to function properly:

sudo apt-get install -y postfix mailutils libsasl2-2 ca-certificates libsasl2-modules

Step 3: Install Postfix

After installing the required dependencies, download the latest version of Postfix from the official website:

wget http://cdn.postfix.johnriley.me/mirrors/postfix-release/official/postfix-3.5.11.tar.gz

Next, extract the downloaded package using the following command:

tar -xf postfix-3.5.11.tar.gz

Enter the extracted directory:

cd postfix-3.5.11/

Configure Postfix using the following command:

sudo make makefiles CCARGS="-DDEF_CONFIG_DIR=\\\"/etc/postfix\\\" -DDEF_COMMAND_DIR=\\\"/usr/sbin\\\" -DDEF_DAEMON_DIR=\\\"/usr/libexec/postfix\\\" -DDEF_MAILQ_PATH=\\\"/usr/bin/mailq\\\" -DDEF_DATA_DIR=\\\"/var/lib/postfix\\\" -DDEF_MAIL_OWNER=\\\"postfix\\\" -DDEF_MYDEST=\\\"localhost, localhost.localdomain\\\" -DDEF_MAILBOX_TRANSPORT=\\\"virtual\\\" -DDEF_RELAY_TRANSPORT=\\\"smtp\\\" -DDEF_INET_PROTOCOLS=\\\"all\\\" -DDEF_MYNETWORKS_STYLE=\\\"subnet\\\" -DDEF_IN_FLOW_DELAY=5 -DDEF_SMTPD_CLIENT_PORT=\\\"smtp\\\" -DDEF_SMTP_STREAM_TIMEOUT=600" AUXLIBS="-lssl -lcrypto"

Now, run the following command to start the installation process:

sudo make
sudo make install

Step 4: Configure Postfix

After installing Postfix, we need to configure it to send and receive emails. To do this, we need to edit the main configuration file, /etc/postfix/main.cf.

Open the file using your preferred text editor:

sudo nano /etc/postfix/main.cf

Add the following lines at the end of the configuration file:

myhostname = yourdomain.com
mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain, localhost
mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128

Replace "yourdomain.com" with your actual domain name or IP address.

Step 5: Restart Postfix

After editing the main configuration file, we need to restart Postfix to apply the changes:

sudo service postfix restart

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we showed you how to install Postfix on Elementary OS using the official website. After installing Postfix, be sure to configure it to work as necessary for your specific use case.