Building Postfix

The source file that you download is in a compressed, tar archive and must be uncompressed using the gzip command. In the same directory as the downloaded bundle, type the following:

$ gzip -d postfix-2.0.10.tar.gz

This uncompresses the file and produces a tar file without the .gz extension. Next, untar the file:

$ tar -xf postfix-2.0.10.tar

This creates a directory called postfix-2.0.10 below the current directory. Set that directory as your current directory for the rest of the compilation:

$ cd postfix-2.0.10

If you accept all of the default parameters for building Postfix, compiling is as simple as executing make in the top-level directory of the distribution:

$ make

Executing make creates a Makefile for your particular platform, which is in turn used to compile Postfix for your system. If you don’t need any changes to the default build, you can skip ahead to the “Installation” section.