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📛 NAME

postmulti — Postfix multi-instance manager

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
🚀 Init multi-instance	postmulti -e init	Enable multi-instance management for the primary instance
📋 List instances	postmulti -l	List all instances with name, group, status, and config directory
▶️ Start all instances	postmulti -p start	Start all Postfix instances
⏹️ Stop all instances	postmulti -p stop	Stop all Postfix instances
▶️ Start a group	postmulti -g msa -p start	Start instances in a specific group
➕ Create instance	postmulti -e create -I name	Create a new Postfix instance
❌ Destroy instance	postmulti -e destroy -i name	Destroy a stopped, disabled instance
✅ Enable instance	postmulti -e enable -i name	Mark an instance as enabled
❌ Disable instance	postmulti -e disable -i name	Mark an instance as disabled
📦 Execute command	postmulti -x unix-command	Run a Unix command across all instances with appropriate environment

📋 SYNOPSIS

🚀 Enabling multi-instance management

postmulti -e init [-v]

🔄 Iterator mode

postmulti -l [-aRv] [-g group] [-i name]
postmulti -p [-av] [-g group] [-i name] postfix-command...
postmulti -x [-aRv] [-g group] [-i name] unix-command...

🩺 Life-cycle management

postmulti -e create [-av] [-g group] [-i name] [-G group] [-I name] [param=value ...]
postmulti -e import [-av] [-g group] [-i name] [-G group] [-I name] [config_directory=/path]
postmulti -e destroy [-v] -i name
postmulti -e deport [-v] -i name
postmulti -e enable [-v] -i name
postmulti -e disable [-v] -i name
postmulti -e assign [-v] -i name [-I name] [-G group]

📖 DESCRIPTION

The postmulti(1) command allows a Postfix administrator to manage multiple Postfix instances on a single host.

postmulti(1) implements two fundamental modes of operation:

• 🔄 Iterator mode — Executes the same command for multiple Postfix instances.
• 🩺 Life-cycle management mode — Adds or deletes an instance, or changes the multi-instance status of an instance.

Each mode has its own command syntax, documented in separate sections below.

🧠 BACKGROUND

A multi-instance configuration consists of one primary Postfix instance and one or more secondary instances. The secondary instances' configuration directory pathnames are recorded in the primary instance's main.cf file. Postfix instances share program files and documentation but have their own configuration, queue, and data directories.

Currently, only the default Postfix instance can be used as the primary instance. The postmulti(1) command does not support a -c option to select an alternative primary instance and exits with a fatal error if the MAIL_CONFIG environment variable is set to a non-default configuration directory.

See the MULTI_INSTANCE_README tutorial for a more detailed discussion.

🔄 ITERATOR MODE

In iterator mode, postmulti performs the same operation on all Postfix instances in turn. If multi-instance support is not enabled, the requested command is performed just for the primary instance.

🎯 Instance selection

• -a — Perform the operation on all instances. This is the default.
• -g group — Perform the operation only for members of the named group.
• -i name — Perform the operation only for the instance with the specified name. You can specify the instance name or the absolute pathname of its configuration directory. Specify "-" to select the primary Postfix instance.
• -R — Reverse the iteration order. This may be appropriate when updating a multi-instance system (e.g., "sink" instances started before "source" instances). This option cannot be used with -p.

📋 List mode

• -l — List Postfix instances with their instance name, instance group name, enable/disable status, and configuration directory.

📦 Postfix-wrapper mode

• -p postfix-command — Invoke postfix(1) to execute postfix-command. This implements the postfix-wrapper(5) interface.

Behavior by command type:

• ▶️ "start"-like commands — "postfix check" is executed for instances that are not enabled. The full list is specified by the postmulti_start_commands parameter.
• ⏹️ "stop"-like commands — The iteration order is reversed, and disabled instances are skipped. The full list is specified by the postmulti_stop_commands parameter.
• 🔄 "reload" and other control commands — Require a started instance; disabled instances are skipped. The full list is specified by the postmulti_control_commands parameter.
• 📊 "status" and other commands — Do not require a started instance; executed for all instances.

The -p option can also be used interactively to start/stop a named instance or group. For example:

# postmulti -g msa -p start

⌨️ Command mode

• -x unix-command — Execute the specified Unix command for all Postfix instances. The command runs with appropriate environment settings for MAIL_CONFIG, command_directory, daemon_directory, config_directory, queue_directory, data_directory, multi_instance_name, multi_instance_group, and multi_instance_enable.

⚙️ Other options

• -v — Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Multiple -v options make the software increasingly verbose.

🩺 LIFE-CYCLE MANAGEMENT MODE

With the -e option, postmulti(1) can be used to add or delete a Postfix instance and to manage the multi-instance status of an existing instance.

🎯 Existing instance selection

• -a — When creating or importing an instance, place the new instance at the front of the secondary instance list.
• -g group — When creating or importing an instance, place the new instance before the first secondary instance that is a member of the specified group.
• -i name — When creating or importing an instance, place the new instance before the matching secondary instance. With other life-cycle operations, apply the operation to the named existing instance. Specify "-" to select the primary Postfix instance.

🏷️ New or existing instance name assignment

• -I name — Assign the specified instance name to an existing, newly-created, or imported instance. Instance names other than "-" (which makes the instance "nameless") must start with "postfix-". This reduces the risk of name collisions with system files.
• -G group — Assign the specified group name to an existing, newly created, or imported instance.

✨ Instance creation/deletion/status change

• -e action — "Edit" managed instances. The following actions are supported:

• init — Required before postmulti(1) can be used. Updates the primary instance's main.cf by setting multi_instance_wrapper and multi_instance_enable = yes.
• create — Create a new Postfix instance and add it to the multi_instance_directories parameter of the primary instance. The -I name option is recommended to give the instance a short name. Optional "name=value" arguments specify the instance's config_directory, queue_directory, and data_directory.
• import — Import an existing instance into the list of managed instances. For existing instances, create and import are identical.
• destroy — Destroy a secondary Postfix instance. The instance must be disabled, stopped, and its queue must be empty. The instance is removed from the primary instance's alternate_config_directories parameter, and its data, queue, and configuration directories are cleaned. This triggers potentially dangerous file removal operations.
• deport — Deport a secondary instance from the list of managed instances. Deletes the configuration directory from the primary instance's multi_instance_directories list, but does not remove any files or directories.
• assign — Assign a new instance name or a new group name to the selected instance. Use "-" to specify "no group" or "no name".
• enable — Mark the selected instance as enabled (sets multi_instance_enable = yes).
• disable — Mark the selected instance as disabled (will not be started with postfix start, etc.).

⚙️ Other options

• -v — Enable verbose logging for debugging purposes. Multiple -v options make the software increasingly verbose.

🌳 ENVIRONMENT

The postmulti(1) command exports the following environment variables before executing the requested command for a given instance:

• MAIL_VERBOSE — Set when the -v command-line option is present.
• MAIL_CONFIG — The location of the configuration directory of the instance.

⚙️ CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS

• config_directory (see 'postconf -d' output) — The default location of the Postfix main.cf and master.cf configuration files.
• daemon_directory (see 'postconf -d' output) — The directory with Postfix support programs and daemon programs.
• import_environment (see 'postconf -d' output) — The list of environment parameters that a privileged Postfix process will import from a non-Postfix parent process, or name=value environment overrides.
• multi_instance_directories (empty) — An optional list of non-default Postfix configuration directories; these belong to additional Postfix instances that share executable files and documentation.
• multi_instance_group (empty) — The optional instance group name of this Postfix instance.
• multi_instance_name (empty) — The optional instance name of this Postfix instance.
• multi_instance_enable (no) — Allow this Postfix instance to be started, stopped, etc., by a multi-instance manager.
• postmulti_start_commands (start) — The postfix(1) commands that postmulti(1) treats as "start" commands.
• postmulti_stop_commands (see 'postconf -d' output) — The postfix(1) commands that postmulti(1) treats as "stop" commands.
• postmulti_control_commands (reload flush) — The postfix(1) commands that postmulti(1) treats as "control" commands, that operate on running instances.
• syslog_facility (mail) — The syslog facility of Postfix logging.
• syslog_name (see 'postconf -d' output) — A prefix that is prepended to the process name in syslog records.

Available in Postfix 3.0 and later:

• meta_directory (see 'postconf -d' output) — The location of non-executable files shared among multiple Postfix instances, such as postfix-files, dynamicmaps.cf, and the multi-instance template files main.cf.proto and master.cf.proto.
• shlib_directory (see 'postconf -d' output) — The location of Postfix dynamically-linked libraries (libpostfix-*.so), and the default location of Postfix database plugins.

📁 FILES

• $meta_directory/main.cf.proto — Stock configuration file
• $meta_directory/master.cf.proto — Stock configuration file
• $daemon_directory/postmulti-script — Life-cycle helper program

👀 SEE ALSO

• postfix(1) — Postfix control program
• postfix-wrapper(5) — Postfix multi-instance API

📚 README FILES

Use "postconf readme_directory" or "postconf html_directory" to locate this information.

• 📄 MULTI_INSTANCE_README — Postfix multi-instance management

📜 HISTORY

The postmulti(1) command was introduced with Postfix version 2.6.

⚖️ LICENSE

The Secure Mailer license must be distributed with this software.

✍️ AUTHOR(S)

• Victor Duchovni — Morgan Stanley
• Wietse Venema — IBM T.J. Watson Research, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA
• Wietse Venema — Google, Inc., 111 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10011, USA

📛 NAME 🚀 Quick Reference 📋 SYNOPSIS 📖 DESCRIPTION 🧠 BACKGROUND 🔄 ITERATOR MODE 🩺 LIFE-CYCLE MANAGEMENT MODE 🌳 ENVIRONMENT ⚙️ CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS 📁 FILES 👀 SEE ALSO 📚 README FILES 📜 HISTORY ⚖️ LICENSE ✍️ AUTHOR(S)