Solution (almost certainly): postfix fails to launch at boot

[Steven Smith]

Thank you very much for troubleshooting this issue.

First, as Gerben points out, macOS‘s postfix launch daemon is in /System/Library, so you’d have to disable SIP to unload it, which at best is a major PITA, and realistically a non-option.

Second, I see these two possible fixes:

• Include a little bash script in the postfix launch daemon that tests for macOS postfix being loaded, or port 25 in use, then wait a bit, and try a few times before giving up. I do this hack in the port macos-fortress-pf to make sure that PF is enabled. See this code:

https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/blob/1a27634a3f38cd7eafb2d3ecc92a402aa62b7d7f/net/macos-fortress/Portfile#L290-L292

• Edit /etc/postfix/master.cf as Gerben suggests.

My concern about the second option is that it will never give the macOS postfix a chance to do what it wants to do a boot time, and I don’t know what the unintended consequences would be. Also, every time you update the system this fix will get undone. Does macOS 10.14+ have an published approach to turn off native postfix completely?

I would prefer the first option because it takes the least amount of effort on the part of users.

> On Jan 11, 2020, at 06:17, daniel Azuelos <daniel+macports at azuelos.org> wrote:
> 
> [ My questions and answers are in the normal reading order. ]
> 
> On 11/01/2020, Gerben Wierda <gerben.wierda at rna.nl> wrote :
> 
> [...]
> | It is not necessary as the cause has (probably) been found.
> | 
> | macOS still contains a postfix and it is launched at boot time during 60 seconds with a launchdaemon plist /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.postfix.master.plist:
> 
> I simply suggest to unload this Apple LaunchDaemons since there is no
> need and many problems to have 2 of them on the same OS.
> -- 
>   « Je reste optimiste. La vie m'a appris qu'avec le temps
>   le progrès l'emporte toujours. »
>                                                          Simone Veil
> --------
> daniel Azuelos
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