Postfix Mail System Anatomy

Note: this web page is no longer maintained. It exists only to avoid breaking links in web pages that describe earlier versions of the Postfix mail system.

Table of contents

• Receiving mail. What path a message takes on its way into the Postfix mail system, and what programs are involved. Lots of daemons, mostly.

• Delivering mail. An introduction to the machinery that is responsible for delivering mail: queues, a queue manager, and more daemons.

• Behind the scenes. What happens behind the scenes while mail is flowing through the Postfix system: another manager, and still more daemons.

• Command-line utilities. Auxiliary programs that people interact with when using the Postfix mail system. No daemons here.