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system-switch-mail is gone, so use alternatives

When I setup a new Centos or Amazon Linux server, one of the first tasks I want to accomplish is installing postfix. There used to be a package named system-switch-mail that made this easy to do from the shell. If you've tried to yum install this package recently you might have been surprised to find that it has disappeared. Instead there is a tool that lets you do essentailly the same thing which is part of the chkconfig package.


For this to work you need to have the chkconfig package installed:

CODE:
[root@ ~]# rpm -qa | grep chkconfig
chkconfig-1.3.49.3-2.10.amzn1.x86_64


If you don't see it, then yum install chkconfig!

With chkconfig installed you have access to the alternatives system. Of course to be able to switch your mta you first have to install your sendmail alternative. In my case it's typically:


yum install postfix
 



Now you can switch your system to use postfix as the default MTA!


alternatives --config mta
 


Choose Postfix and hit enter and you're done. Don't forget to remove sendmail, as you no longer need it.


yum remove sendmail
 


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