fatal: parameter inet_interfaces: no local interface found for ::1

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
• postfix
• ipv6

Issue

• Errors in maillog after applying postfix update and when ipv6 is disabled.
• After applying errata and updating postfix from 2.6.6-2.2 to 2.6.6-6 I'm seeing the following errors in /var/log/maillog

Raw

Aug 26 10:04:00 hostname postfix/pickup[24754]: fatal: parameter inet_interfaces: no local interface found for ::1
Aug 26 10:04:01 hostname postfix/master[1895]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/pickup pid 24754 exit status 1
Aug 26 10:04:01 hostname postfix/master[1895]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/pickup: bad command startup -- throttling
Aug 26 10:04:01 hostname aliasesdb: /usr/sbin/postconf: fatal: parameter inet_interfaces: no local interface found for ::1

• Unable to send outgoing email.

Resolution

Postfix has been configured to listen on localhost IP address in /etc/postfix/main.cf file. localhost generally resolves to two IP addresses i.e. 127.0.0.1(ipv4) and ::1(ipv6) as part of localhost declaration in /etc/hosts file. It may be a case that IPV6 is disabled on the system but that doesn't allow postfix to bind to IPV6 localhost address on ::1. As a result, postfix fails to start.

Raw

$ cat /etc/postfix/main.cf | grep inet_interfaces
inet_interfaces = localhost

$ cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1   localhost localhost.localdomain localhost4 localhost4.localdomain4
::1         localhost localhost.localdomain localhost6 localhost6.localdomain6

Since IPV6 is disabled on the system, make sure to remove the following line from /etc/hosts file to resolve the issue.

::1 localhost localhost.localdomain localhost6 localhost6.localdomain6

Another solution is to configure postfix to listens on loopback-only interface which only listens on 127.0.0.1 or to the specific IP address that is available on the system.

Raw

inet_interfaces = loopback-only

or
inet_interfaces = <System IP address>

Additionally, refer to the following related articles:

• How do I disable or enable the IPv6 protocol in Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Postfix doesn't start on boot with error postfix: fatal: parameter inet_interfaces: no local interface found for 'specific IP address'

Root Cause

• The errors mentioned in the title can be seen when ipv6 is disabled but the reference of IPV6 loopback address(::1) is still preset in /etc/hosts file.