Useful Postfix Commands

If your server is configured to send emails with postfix, you should be familiar with some basic Postfix commands without any help from your sysadmin.

1. List your default and custom settings

If you have added your custom Postfix settings or set your own email aliases with virtual_alias_maps, you will find it with postconf -n.

If you want to see your Postfix default settings, just change the parameter -n to -d.

It’s a good practise to keep this output as a running configuration snapshot in a simple text file in case you have any troubles with Postfix after server reboot or software updates.

2. List the current queue and email id’s

Check your postqueue frequently to make sure all your emails were delivered correctly. If everything is okay you will see the message “Mail queue is empty”. Otherwise, you will see a list of  undelivered emails.

3. Read emails from the queue

4. Delete emails from the queue