sendmail/postfix ports question

[Greg Maruszeczka]

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