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I am trying to install postfix on ubuntu 20.04 but the postfix config screen does not start and there is no error message:

user@leo:~$ sudo apt-get install mailutils
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
mailutils is already the newest version (1:3.7-2.1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.

user@leo:~$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure postfix
dpkg-query: package 'postfix' is not installed and no information is available
Use dpkg --info (= dpkg-deb --info) to examine archive files.
/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: postfix is not installed

Does mailutils no longer contain postfix?

merlin
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2 Answers2

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Ubuntu hasn't changed at all. It will still install postfix as a dependency of mailutils, if you don't already have some other mail transport agent installed.

The package lists as its dependencies:

default-mta
virtual package provided by postfix
or mail-transport-agent
virtual package provided by [show 15 providing packages]

Because you have replaced postfix with one of the listed packages, it would not be installed. If you really want postfix, you will need to remove the other MTA before installing postfix.

Michael Hampton
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  • I am unaware that I have installe an MTA before and I can not send mail which is the reason I am installing postfix: $ echo "This is the body of the email" | mail -s "This is the subject line" your_email_adress mail: Cannot open mailer: No such file or directory mail: cannot send message: No such file or directory – merlin Aug 26 '21 at 18:10
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    @merlin First you need to actually go and check which of those packages you have installed. – Michael Hampton Aug 26 '21 at 18:11
  • It seems that I do have none of them installed: $ sudo apt list --installed | grep mail WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts. I tried all package names that are in the list. As I am the only maintainer of that server I am pretty sure that there is non installed, except if I have exidentely installed some with another package. ther is also non running: sudo lsof -i :25 – merlin Aug 31 '21 at 14:56
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Aparently it was as easy as: apt install postfix

merlin
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