You use the postfix program to start and stop the Postfix mail server. In addition, after the configuration files /etc/postfix/master.cf and /etc/postfix/main.cf have been modified you can use postfix to read these files in again. You do not need to stop the Postfix mail server explicitly to do this.
On account of special POSIX features you should not call the postfix program directly, but use the encapsulation script /etc/init.d/MAIL.postfix for the postfix call. Before Postfix starts, this script regenerates, among other things, all the index files defined in the configuration file main.cf, thus preventing a divergence of source and index files.
/etc/init.d/MAIL.postfix |
{ start | stop | reload } |
start
Starts the Postfix mail server.
stop
Stops the Postfix mail server.
reload
Reads the (modified) configuration files in again.