Installing postfix on Ubuntu from a boot initialization script

Question

I need to install Postfix on a fresh Ubuntu box on first boot, but the interactive configuration screen that the installer presents to you isn't scriptable. When my startup script attempts the following:

apt-get -y install postfix

the init script hangs. If I run it by hand, I'm presented with a "dialog" screen from the whiptail command.

Is there a way for me to force a particular option from the command-line, or tell the Postfix installer that I don't want it to give me any configuration at all? I'm generating my own main.cf file anyway, and don't need Ubuntu's helper screen.

Answer 1

DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -y install postfix

should do the trick. You may want to lay down working config files on the system after you run that, though.