table of contents
other versions
- wheezy 2.9.6-2
- wheezy-backports 2.11.2-1~bpo70+1
- jessie 2.11.3-1+deb8u2
- testing 3.1.4-7
- unstable 3.1.4-7
- experimental 3.2.0-1
other sections
MASTER(5) | File Formats Manual | MASTER(5) |
NAME¶
master - Postfix master process configuration file formatDESCRIPTION¶
The Postfix mail system is implemented by small number of (mostly) client commands that are invoked by users, and by a larger number of services that run in the background.
SYNTAX¶
The general format of the master.cf file is as follows:
- •
- Each logical line defines a single Postfix service. Each service is identified by its name and type as described below. When multiple lines specify the same service name and type, only the last one is remembered. Otherwise, the order of master.cf service definitions does not matter.
- •
- Empty lines and whitespace-only lines are ignored, as are lines whose first non-whitespace character is a `#'.
- •
- A logical line starts with non-whitespace text. A line that starts with whitespace continues a logical line.
- Service name
- The service name syntax depends on the service type as described next.
- Service type
- Specify one of the following service types:
- inet
- The service listens on a TCP/IP socket and is accessible
via the network.
- unix
- The service listens on a UNIX-domain socket and is
accessible for local clients only.
- fifo
- The service listens on a FIFO (named pipe) and is
accessible for local clients only.
- pass
- The service listens on a UNIX-domain socket, and is
accessible to local clients only. It receives one open connection (file
descriptor passing) per connection request.
- Private (default: y)
- Whether or not access is restricted to the mail system. Internet (type inet) services can't be private.
- Unprivileged (default: y)
- Whether the service runs with root privileges or as the
owner of the Postfix system (the owner name is controlled by the
mail_owner configuration variable in the main.cf file).
- Chroot (default: y)
- Whether or not the service runs chrooted to the mail queue
directory (pathname is controlled by the queue_directory
configuration variable in the main.cf file).
- Wake up time (default: 0)
- Automatically wake up the named service after the specified
number of seconds. The wake up is implemented by connecting to the service
and sending a wake up request. A ? at the end of the wake-up time field
requests that no wake up events be sent before the first time a service is
used. Specify 0 for no automatic wake up.
- Process limit (default: $default_process_limit)
- The maximum number of processes that may execute this
service simultaneously. Specify 0 for no process count limit.
- Command name + arguments
- The command to be executed. Characters that are special to
the shell such as ">" or "|" have no special
meaning here, and quotes cannot be used to protect arguments containing
whitespace.
- -D
- Run the daemon under control by the command specified with the debugger_command variable in the main.cf configuration file. See DEBUG_README for hints and tips.
- -o name=value
- Override the named main.cf configuration parameter. The
parameter value can refer to other parameters as $name etc., just
like in main.cf. See postconf(5) for syntax.
- -v
- Increase the verbose logging level. Specify multiple -v options to make a Postfix daemon process increasingly verbose.
SEE ALSO¶
master(8), process manager postconf(5), configuration parameters
README FILES¶
Use " postconf readme_directory" or " postconf html_directory" to locate this information.
BASIC_CONFIGURATION_README, basic configuration DEBUG_README, Postfix debugging
LICENSE¶
The Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this software.
AUTHOR(S)¶
Initial version by Magnus Baeck Lund Institute of Technology Sweden Wietse Venema IBM T.J. Watson Research P.O. Box 704 Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA