4 This file contains descriptions of new features that have been added to Exim.
5 Before a formal release, there may be quite a lot of detail so that people can
6 test from the snapshots or the Git before the documentation is updated. Once
7 the documentation is updated, this file is reduced to a short list.
12 1. Dual-certificate stacks on servers now support OCSP stapling, under GnuTLS
13 version 3.5.6 or later.
19 1. PKG_CONFIG_PATH can now be set in Local/Makefile;
20 wildcards will be expanded, values are collapsed.
22 2. The ${readsocket } expansion now takes an option to not shutdown the
23 connection after sending the query string. The default remains to do so.
25 3. An smtp transport option "hosts_noproxy_tls" to control whether multiple
26 deliveries on a single TCP connection can maintain a TLS connection
27 open. By default disabled for all hosts, doing so saves the cost of
28 making new TLS sessions, at the cost of having to proxy the data via
29 another process. Logging is also affected.
31 4. A malware connection type for the FPSCAND protocol.
33 5. An option for recipient verify callouts to hold the connection open for
34 further recipients and for delivery.
36 6. The reproducible build $SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH environment variable is now
39 7. Optionally, an alternate format for spool data-files which matches the
40 wire format - meaning more efficient reception and transmission (at the
41 cost of difficulty with standard Unix tools). Only used for messages
42 received using the ESMTP CHUNKING option, and when a new main-section
43 option "spool_wireformat" (false by default) is set.
45 8. New main configuration option "commandline_checks_require_admin" to
46 restrict who can use various introspection options.
48 9. New option modifier "no_check" for quota and quota_filecount
51 10. Variable $smtp_command_history returning a comma-sep list of recent
54 11. Millisecond timetamps in logs, on log_selector "millisec". Also affects
55 log elements QT, DT and D, and timstamps in debug output.
57 12. TCP Fast Open logging. As a server, logs when the SMTP banner was sent
58 while still in SYN_RECV state; as a client logs when the connection
59 is opened with a TFO cookie.
61 13. DKIM support for multiple signing, by domain and/or key-selector.
62 DKIM support for multiple hashes, and for alternate-identity tags.
63 Builtin macro with default list of signed headers.
64 Better syntax for specifying oversigning.
65 The DKIM ACL can override verification status, and status is visible in
68 14. Exipick understands -C|--config for an alternative Exim
71 15. TCP Fast Open used, with data-on-SYN, for client SMTP via SOCKS5 proxy,
72 for ${readsocket } expansions, and for ClamAV.
74 16. The "-be" expansion test mode now supports macros. Macros are expanded
75 in test lines, and new macros can be defined.
77 17. Support for server-side dual-certificate-stacks (eg. RSA + ECDSA).
83 1. Allow relative config file names for ".include"
85 2. A main-section config option "debug_store" to control the checks on
86 variable locations during store-reset. Normally false but can be enabled
87 when a memory corrution issue is suspected on a production system.
93 1. The new perl_taintmode option allows to run the embedded perl
94 interpreter in taint mode.
96 2. New log_selector: dnssec, adds a "DS" tag to acceptance and delivery lines.
98 3. Speculative debugging, via a "kill" option to the "control=debug" ACL
101 4. New expansion item ${sha3:<string>} / ${sha3_<N>:<string>}.
102 N can be 224, 256 (default), 384, 512.
103 With GnuTLS 3.5.0 or later, only.
105 5. Facility for named queues: A command-line argument can specify
106 the queue name for a queue operation, and an ACL modifier can set
107 the queue to be used for a message. A $queue_name variable gives
110 6. New expansion operators base32/base32d.
112 7. The CHUNKING ESMTP extension from RFC 3030. May give some slight
113 performance increase and network load decrease. Main config option
114 chunking_advertise_hosts, and smtp transport option hosts_try_chunking
117 8. LMDB lookup support, as Experimental. Patch supplied by Andrew Colin Kissa.
119 9. Expansion operator escape8bit, like escape but not touching newline etc..
121 10. Feature macros, generated from compile options. All start with "_HAVE_"
122 and go on with some roughly recognisable name. Driver macros, for
123 router, transport and authentication drivers; names starting with "_DRIVER_".
124 Option macros, for each configuration-file option; all start with "_OPT_".
125 Use the "-bP macros" command-line option to see what is present.
127 11. Integer values for options can take a "G" multiplier.
129 12. defer=pass option for the ACL control cutthrough_delivery, to reflect 4xx
130 returns from the target back to the initiator, rather than spooling the
133 13. New built-in constants available for tls_dhparam and default changed.
135 14. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_QUEUEFILE, a queuefile transport, for writing
136 out copies of the message spool files for use by 3rd-party scanners.
138 15. A new option on the smtp transport, hosts_try_fastopen. If the system
139 supports it (on Linux it must be enabled in the kernel by the sysadmin)
140 try to use RFC 7413 "TCP Fast Open". No data is sent on the SYN segment
141 but it permits a peer that also supports the facility to send its SMTP
142 banner immediately after the SYN,ACK segment rather then waiting for
143 another ACK - so saving up to one roundtrip time. Because it requires
144 previous communication with the peer (we save a cookie from it) this
145 will only become active on frequently-contacted destinations.
147 16. A new syslog_pid option to suppress PID duplication in syslog lines.
153 1. The ACL conditions regex and mime_regex now capture substrings
154 into numeric variables $regex1 to 9, like the "match" expansion condition.
156 2. New $callout_address variable records the address used for a spam=,
157 malware= or verify= callout.
159 3. Transports now take a "max_parallel" option, to limit concurrency.
161 4. Expansion operators ${ipv6norm:<string>} and ${ipv6denorm:<string>}.
162 The latter expands to a 8-element colon-sep set of hex digits including
163 leading zeroes. A trailing ipv4-style dotted-decimal set is converted
164 to hex. Pure ipv4 addresses are converted to IPv4-mapped IPv6.
165 The former operator strips leading zeroes and collapses the longest
166 set of 0-groups to a double-colon.
168 5. New "-bP config" support, to dump the effective configuration.
170 6. New $dkim_key_length variable.
172 7. New base64d and base64 expansion items (the existing str2b64 being a
173 synonym of the latter). Add support in base64 for certificates.
175 8. New main configuration option "bounce_return_linesize_limit" to
176 avoid oversize bodies in bounces. The default value matches RFC
179 9. New $initial_cwd expansion variable.
185 1. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
187 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
188 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
190 3. New "malware=" support for Avast.
192 4. New "spam=" variant option for Rspamd.
194 5. Assorted options on malware= and spam= scanners.
196 6. A command-line option to write a comment into the logfile.
198 7. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_SOCKS feature enabled, the smtp transport can
199 be configured to make connections via socks5 proxies.
201 8. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, support is included for
202 the transmission of UTF-8 envelope addresses.
204 9. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, an expansion item for a commonly
205 used encoding of Maildir folder names.
207 10. A logging option for slow DNS lookups.
209 11. New ${env {<variable>}} expansion.
211 12. A non-SMTP authenticator using information from TLS client certificates.
213 13. Main option "tls_eccurve" for selecting an Elliptic Curve for TLS.
214 Patch originally by Wolfgang Breyha.
216 14. Main option "dns_trust_aa" for trusting your local nameserver at the
217 same level as DNSSEC.
223 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
224 DANE SMTP draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
225 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
226 domain of the sender.
228 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
229 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
230 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
231 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
232 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
233 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
235 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
236 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
237 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
247 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
248 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
249 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
250 proxy that is connecting to it.
252 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
253 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
254 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
255 detect and reject if those characters are present.
257 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
258 codepoints with valid ones.
260 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
261 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
262 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
263 be included in the command line.
265 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
266 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
267 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
268 verification cancels the encryption.
270 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
271 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
274 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
275 file when searching the queue.
277 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
279 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
281 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
282 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
283 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
286 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
288 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
290 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
291 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negotiate
292 DSN features per RFC 3461.
298 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
299 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
300 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
301 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
302 SIEVE capability line.
304 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
305 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
306 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
307 followed by a newline, and no other text.
309 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
310 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
311 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
312 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
313 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
314 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
315 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
316 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
318 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
320 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
321 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
322 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
323 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
324 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
325 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
327 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
329 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
330 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
331 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
333 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
334 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
336 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
337 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
339 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
340 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
341 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
342 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
345 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
346 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are received on and
347 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
348 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
349 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
350 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
351 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
352 is negotiated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
353 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
354 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
355 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
356 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
359 The Received-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
360 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
361 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
362 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
364 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
365 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
366 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
368 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
369 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
370 are present for now but deprecated.
372 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
374 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
375 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
377 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
378 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
379 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
380 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
381 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
382 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
383 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
384 unless this new option is set.
386 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
387 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
388 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
391 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
393 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
394 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
395 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
396 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
397 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
398 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
399 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
400 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
401 return results in a forced fail.
403 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
404 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
406 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
407 handled by routers/transports.
409 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
410 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
412 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
413 modifier (but not yet added to message).
415 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
417 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
419 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
420 particularly for debug_print as -bt command-line option does not
421 require privilege whereas -d does.
423 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
424 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
426 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
427 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
428 wrappers, for instance.
430 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
433 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
434 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
435 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
436 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
437 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
438 dmarc_enable_forensic. The default for the dmarc_tld_file option is
439 "/etc/exim/opendmarc.tlds" and can be changed via EDITME.
441 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
442 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
443 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
445 23. New ACL modifier "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
448 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
449 characters in the string to \xNN form.
451 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
452 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
454 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
460 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
461 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
462 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
463 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
464 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
466 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
467 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
468 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
469 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
471 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
472 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
473 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
474 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
475 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
477 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
478 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
480 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
482 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
483 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
484 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
487 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
489 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
490 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
491 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
492 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
493 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
494 compatibility at the cost of session security.
496 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
497 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
498 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
499 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
500 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
502 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
503 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
505 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
506 for Exim as a server.
508 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
509 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
510 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
511 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
512 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
514 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
515 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
516 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
517 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
518 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
520 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
521 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
523 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
524 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
525 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
526 string, documentation for which is at:
527 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
529 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
531 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
532 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
534 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
535 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
536 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
537 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
538 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
540 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
542 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
543 identically to TXT record lookups.
545 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
547 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
548 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
549 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
551 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
552 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
553 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
554 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
557 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
558 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
559 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
565 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
566 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
568 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
569 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
571 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
572 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
574 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
575 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
576 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
578 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
579 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
580 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
581 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
587 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
588 or off in the resolver library.
594 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
595 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
596 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
597 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
598 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
600 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
601 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
602 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
604 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
605 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
607 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
608 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
609 including any header additions or removals from transport.
611 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
612 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
618 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
619 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
620 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
621 on content supplied by the attacker.
623 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
624 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
625 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
626 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
627 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
633 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
634 items below carefully
636 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
637 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
638 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
639 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
640 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
641 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
644 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
645 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
646 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
647 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
648 be able to take effect.
650 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
651 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
652 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
653 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
655 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
656 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
657 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
658 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
660 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
662 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
664 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
665 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
666 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
667 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
668 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
669 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
671 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
672 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
674 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
676 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
677 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
679 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
680 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
681 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
682 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
683 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
684 don't all make sense in all contexts:
687 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
688 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
689 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
691 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
692 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
693 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
694 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
695 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
696 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
697 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
698 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
699 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
700 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
703 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
704 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
705 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
707 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
709 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
711 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
712 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
713 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
714 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
715 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
718 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
719 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
721 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
722 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
723 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
724 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
725 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
726 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
728 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
729 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
730 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
731 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
732 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
733 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
734 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
735 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
741 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
742 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
744 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
746 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
747 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
750 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
751 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
752 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
753 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
754 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
755 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
756 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
757 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
758 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
759 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
761 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
762 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
764 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
765 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
766 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
772 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
773 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
774 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
775 for details on conditionally disabling)
777 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
779 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
780 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
781 and{} expansion operator).
783 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
786 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
787 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
789 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
790 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
791 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
793 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
794 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
795 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
796 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
798 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
801 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
807 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
813 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
816 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
817 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
818 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
821 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
823 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
824 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
825 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
828 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
830 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
831 192.168.6.7 (for example).
833 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
834 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
835 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
836 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
838 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
840 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
841 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
842 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
845 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
846 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
847 only by an admin user.
849 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
850 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
851 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
852 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
853 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
855 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
856 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
861 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
863 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
864 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
865 (max $sender_rate_limit)
867 [... some other logic and tests...]
869 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
870 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
871 (max $sender_rate_limit)
872 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
876 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
877 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
878 line termination character(s).
880 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
881 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
882 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
884 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
885 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
886 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
887 message is queued, the remainder are also.
889 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
890 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
891 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
892 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
893 log files) that make the situation even worse.
895 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
896 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
897 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
899 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
900 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
901 connection. The possible values are:
903 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
904 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
905 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
906 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
907 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
908 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
909 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
910 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
911 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
912 tls-failed TLS failed to start
914 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
915 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
916 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
917 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
918 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
921 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
922 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
923 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
925 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
926 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
927 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
929 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
931 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
932 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
933 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
935 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
936 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
937 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
939 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
941 In an updating lookup, you could then write
943 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
945 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
947 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
949 you can still update the master by
951 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
953 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
954 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
955 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
962 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
963 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
964 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
967 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
968 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
969 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
970 rather than the default "any" matching.
972 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
973 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
974 other parameters to be varied.
976 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
977 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
979 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
981 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
983 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
984 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
986 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
987 after the connection to the server has been made.
989 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
990 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
992 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
993 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
996 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
997 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
998 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
999 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
1000 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
1002 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
1003 called forany and forall.
1005 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
1006 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
1007 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
1009 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
1011 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
1012 that makes it case-sensitive.
1014 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
1015 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
1016 items, typically addresses.
1018 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
1019 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
1020 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
1023 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
1024 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
1026 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
1029 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
1036 No new features were added to 4.66.
1042 No new features were added to 4.65.
1048 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
1049 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
1050 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
1053 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
1054 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
1056 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
1057 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
1058 number of authentication methods.
1060 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
1061 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
1062 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
1064 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
1065 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
1066 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
1067 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
1069 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
1071 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
1072 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
1073 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
1074 before doing the expansions.
1076 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
1077 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
1080 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
1081 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
1082 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
1084 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
1085 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
1087 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
1088 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
1089 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
1090 available for compatibility.)
1092 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
1093 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
1099 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
1102 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
1103 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
1106 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
1107 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
1108 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
1110 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
1111 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
1113 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
1115 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
1116 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
1118 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
1120 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
1122 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
1123 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
1124 each messages value for each variable.
1126 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
1127 same criteria without --not).
1133 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
1134 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
1135 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
1136 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
1137 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
1138 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
1140 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
1142 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
1143 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
1144 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
1147 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
1148 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
1149 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
1151 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
1152 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
1153 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
1154 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
1160 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
1161 the 4.60 release are:
1163 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
1165 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
1167 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
1168 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
1169 for other things in complicated expansions.
1171 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
1173 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
1174 resources used in pipe deliveries.
1176 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
1178 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
1180 There are a number of other additions too.
1186 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
1187 the 4.50 release are:
1189 . Support for SQLite.
1191 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
1193 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
1195 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
1197 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
1199 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
1201 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
1203 There are many more minor changes.
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