Postfix Manual Pages

Information for new Postfix users

New Postfix users should first look at the following introductory documents. These introductions are hyperlinked to more advanced documents and to UNIX-style manual pages. The UNIX-style manual pages are intended for people who are already familiar with Postfix.

• Postfix architecture overview
• Basic configuration
• Trouble shooting
• Content inspection overview
• Relay/access control overview
• Lookup table overview

Postfix manual page organization

Each Postfix manual page is numbered after a section of the UNIX manual: examples are mailq(1) or access(5). Unfortunately, there is no single universal method to organize manual pages; each UNIX flavor appears to be different. Postfix documentation assumes the following convention:

Section	Topic
1	Commands
3	Library routines
5	File formats
8	Daemons

Commands

• postalias(1), create/update/query alias database
• postcat(1), examine Postfix queue file
• postconf(1), Postfix configuration utility
• postdrop(1), Postfix mail posting utility
• postfix(1), Postfix control program
• postfix-tls(1), Postfix TLS management
• postkick(1), trigger Postfix daemon
• postlock(1), Postfix-compatible locking
• postlog(1), Postfix-compatible logging
• postmap(1), Postfix lookup table manager
• postmulti(1), Postfix multi-instance manager
• postqueue(1), Postfix mail queue control
• postsuper(1), Postfix housekeeping
• mailq(1), Sendmail compatibility interface
• newaliases(1), Sendmail compatibility interface
• sendmail(1), Sendmail compatibility interface

Postfix configuration

• bounce(5), Postfix bounce message templates
• master(5), Postfix master.cf file syntax
• postconf(5), Postfix main.cf file syntax
• postfix-wrapper(5), Postfix multi-instance API

Table-driven mechanisms

• access(5), Postfix SMTP access control table
• aliases(5), Postfix alias database
• canonical(5), Postfix input address rewriting
• generic(5), Postfix output address rewriting
• header_checks(5), body_checks(5), Postfix content inspection
• relocated(5), Users that have moved
• transport(5), Postfix routing table
• virtual(5), Postfix virtual aliasing

Table lookup mechanisms

• cidr_table(5), Associate CIDR pattern with value
• ldap_table(5), Postfix LDAP client
• lmdb_table(5), Postfix LMDB database driver
• memcache_table(5), Postfix memcache client
• mysql_table(5), Postfix MYSQL client
• nisplus_table(5), Postfix NIS+ client
• pcre_table(5), Associate PCRE pattern with value
• pgsql_table(5), Postfix PostgreSQL client
• regexp_table(5), Associate POSIX regexp pattern with value
• socketmap_table(5), Postfix socketmap client
• sqlite_table(5), Postfix SQLite database driver
• tcp_table(5), Postfix client-server table lookup

Daemon processes

• anvil(8), Postfix connection/rate limiting
• bounce(8), defer(8), trace(8), Delivery status reports
• cleanup(8), canonicalize and enqueue message
• discard(8), Postfix discard delivery agent
• dnsblog(8), DNS allow/denylist logger
• error(8), Postfix error delivery agent
• flush(8), Postfix fast ETRN service
• local(8), Postfix local delivery agent
• master(8), Postfix master daemon
• oqmgr(8), old Postfix queue manager
• pickup(8), Postfix local mail pickup
• pipe(8), deliver mail to non-Postfix command
• postlogd(8), Postfix internal logging service
• postscreen(8), Postfix zombie blocker
• proxymap(8), Postfix lookup table proxy server
• qmgr(8), Postfix queue manager
• qmqpd(8), Postfix QMQP server
• scache(8), Postfix connection cache manager
• showq(8), list Postfix mail queue
• smtp(8), lmtp(8), Postfix SMTP+LMTP client
• smtpd(8), Postfix SMTP server
• spawn(8), run non-Postfix server
• tlsmgr(8), Postfix TLS cache and randomness manager
• tlsproxy(8), Postfix TLS proxy server
• trivial-rewrite(8), Postfix address rewriting
• verify(8), Postfix address verification
• virtual(8), Postfix virtual delivery agent