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 CVS before the documentation is updated. Once
7 the documentation is updated, this file is reduced to a short list.
12 1. The new perl_taintmode option allows to run the embedded perl
13 interpreter in taint mode.
15 2. New log_selector: dnssec, adds a "DS" tag to acceptance and delivery lines.
17 3. Speculative debugging, via a "kill" option to the "control=debug" ACL
20 4. New expansion item ${sha3:<string>} / ${sha3_<N>:<string>}.
21 N can be 224, 256 (default), 384, 512.
22 With GnuTLS 3.5.0 or later, only.
24 5. Facility for named queues: A commandline argument can specify
25 the queue name for a queue operation, and an ACL modifier can set
26 the queue to be used for a message. A $queue_name variable gives
29 6. New expansion operators base32/base32d.
31 7. The CHUNKING ESMTP extension from RFC 3030. May give some slight
32 performance increase and network load decrease. Main config option
33 chunking_advertise_hosts, and smtp transport option hosts_try_chunking
36 8. LMDB lookup support, as Experimental. Patch supplied by Andrew Colin Kissa.
38 9. Expansion operator escape8bit, like escape but not touching newline etc..
40 10. Feature macros, generated from compile options. All start with "_HAVE_"
41 and go on with some roughly recognisable name. Use the "-bP macros"
42 command-line option to see what is present.
44 11. Integer values for options can take a "G" multiplier.
50 1. The ACL conditions regex and mime_regex now capture substrings
51 into numeric variables $regex1 to 9, like the "match" expansion condition.
53 2. New $callout_address variable records the address used for a spam=,
54 malware= or verify= callout.
56 3. Transports now take a "max_parallel" option, to limit concurrency.
58 4. Expansion operators ${ipv6norm:<string>} and ${ipv6denorm:<string>}.
59 The latter expands to a 8-element colon-sep set of hex digits including
60 leading zeroes. A trailing ipv4-style dotted-decimal set is converted
61 to hex. Pure ipv4 addresses are converted to IPv4-mapped IPv6.
62 The former operator strips leading zeroes and collapses the longest
63 set of 0-groups to a double-colon.
65 5. New "-bP config" support, to dump the effective configuration.
67 6. New $dkim_key_length variable.
69 7. New base64d and base64 expansion items (the existing str2b64 being a
70 synonym of the latter). Add support in base64 for certificates.
72 8. New main configuration option "bounce_return_linesize_limit" to
73 avoid oversize bodies in bounces. The dafault value matches RFC
76 9. New $initial_cwd expansion variable.
82 1. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
84 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
85 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
87 3. New "malware=" support for Avast.
89 4. New "spam=" variant option for Rspamd.
91 5. Assorted options on malware= and spam= scanners.
93 6. A commandline option to write a comment into the logfile.
95 7. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_SOCKS feature enabled, the smtp transport can
96 be configured to make connections via socks5 proxies.
98 8. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, support is included for
99 the transmission of UTF-8 envelope addresses.
101 9. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, an expansion item for a commonly
102 used encoding of Maildir folder names.
104 10. A logging option for slow DNS lookups.
106 11. New ${env {<variable>}} expansion.
108 12. A non-SMTP authenticator using information from TLS client certificates.
110 13. Main option "tls_eccurve" for selecting an Elliptic Curve for TLS.
111 Patch originally by Wolfgang Breyha.
113 14. Main option "dns_trust_aa" for trusting your local nameserver at the
114 same level as DNSSEC.
120 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
121 DANE smtp draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
122 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
123 domain of the sender.
125 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
126 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
127 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
128 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
129 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
130 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
132 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
133 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
134 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
144 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
145 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
146 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
147 proxy that is connecting to it.
149 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
150 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
151 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
152 detect and reject if those characters are present.
154 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
155 codepoints with valid ones.
157 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
158 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
159 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
160 be included in the command line.
162 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
163 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
164 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
165 verification cancels the encryption.
167 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
168 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
171 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
172 file when searching the queue.
174 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
176 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
178 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
179 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
180 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
183 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
185 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
187 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
188 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negociate
189 DSN features per RFC 3461.
195 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
196 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
197 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
198 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
199 SIEVE capability line.
201 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
202 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
203 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
204 followed by a newline, and no other text.
206 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
207 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
208 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
209 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
210 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
211 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
212 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
213 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
215 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
217 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
218 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
219 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
220 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
221 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
222 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
224 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
226 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
227 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
228 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
230 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
231 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
233 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
234 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
236 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
237 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
238 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
239 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
242 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
243 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are recieved on and
244 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
245 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
246 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
247 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
248 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
249 is negociated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
250 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
251 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
252 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
253 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
256 The Recieved-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
257 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
258 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
259 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
261 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
262 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
263 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
265 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
266 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
267 are present for now but deprecated.
269 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
271 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
272 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
274 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
275 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
276 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
277 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
278 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
279 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
280 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
281 unless this new option is set.
283 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
284 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
285 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
288 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
290 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
291 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
292 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
293 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
294 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
295 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
296 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
297 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
298 return results in a forced fail.
300 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
301 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
303 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
304 handled by routers/transports.
306 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
307 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
309 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
310 modifier (but not yet added to message).
312 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
314 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
316 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
317 particularly for debug_print as -bt commandline option does not
318 require privilege whereas -d does.
320 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
321 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
323 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
324 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
325 wrappers, for instance.
327 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
330 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
331 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
332 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
333 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
334 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
335 dmarc_enable_forensic.
337 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
338 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
339 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
341 23. New ACL modifer "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
344 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
345 characters in the string to \xNN form.
347 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
348 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
350 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
356 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
357 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
358 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
359 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
360 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
362 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
363 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
364 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
365 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
367 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
368 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
369 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
370 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
371 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
373 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
374 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
376 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
378 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
379 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
380 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
383 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
385 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
386 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
387 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
388 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
389 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
390 compatibility at the cost of session security.
392 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
393 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
394 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
395 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
396 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
398 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
399 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
401 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
402 for Exim as a server.
404 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
405 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
406 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
407 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
408 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
410 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
411 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
412 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
413 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
414 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
416 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
417 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
419 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
420 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
421 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
422 string, documentation for which is at:
423 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
425 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
427 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
428 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
430 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
431 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
432 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
433 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
434 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
436 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
438 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
439 identically to TXT record lookups.
441 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
443 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
444 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
445 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
447 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
448 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
449 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
450 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
453 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
454 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
455 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
461 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
462 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
464 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
465 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
467 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
468 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
470 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
471 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
472 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
474 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
475 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
476 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
477 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
483 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
484 or off in the resolver library.
490 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
491 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
492 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
493 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
494 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
496 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
497 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
498 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
500 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
501 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
503 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
504 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
505 including any header additions or removals from transport.
507 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
508 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
514 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
515 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
516 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
517 on content supplied by the attacker.
519 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
520 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
521 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
522 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
523 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
529 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
530 items below carefully
532 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
533 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
534 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
535 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
536 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
537 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
540 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
541 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
542 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
543 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
544 be able to take effect.
546 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
547 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
548 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
549 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
551 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
552 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
553 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
554 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
556 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
558 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
560 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
561 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
562 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
563 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
564 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
565 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
567 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
568 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
570 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
572 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
573 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
575 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
576 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
577 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
578 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
579 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
580 don't all make sense in all contexts:
583 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
584 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
585 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
587 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
588 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
589 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
590 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
591 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
592 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
593 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
594 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
595 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
596 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
599 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
600 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
601 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
603 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
605 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
607 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
608 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
609 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
610 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
611 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
614 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
615 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
617 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
618 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
619 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
620 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
621 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
622 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
624 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
625 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
626 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
627 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
628 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
629 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
630 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
631 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
637 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
638 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
640 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
642 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
643 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
646 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
647 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
648 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
649 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
650 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
651 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
652 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
653 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
654 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
655 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
657 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
658 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
660 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
661 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
662 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
668 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
669 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
670 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
671 for details on conditionally disabling)
673 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
675 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
676 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
677 and{} expansion operator).
679 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
682 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
683 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
685 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
686 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
687 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
689 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
690 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
691 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
692 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
694 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
697 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
703 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
709 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
712 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
713 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
714 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
717 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
719 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
720 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
721 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
724 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
726 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
727 192.168.6.7 (for example).
729 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
730 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
731 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
732 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
734 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
736 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
737 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
738 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
741 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
742 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
743 only by an admin user.
745 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
746 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
747 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
748 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
749 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
751 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
752 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
757 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
759 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
760 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
761 (max $sender_rate_limit)
763 [... some other logic and tests...]
765 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
766 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
767 (max $sender_rate_limit)
768 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
772 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
773 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
774 line termination character(s).
776 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
777 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
778 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
780 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
781 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
782 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
783 message is queued, the remainder are also.
785 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
786 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
787 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
788 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
789 log files) that make the situation even worse.
791 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
792 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
793 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
795 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
796 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
797 connection. The possible values are:
799 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
800 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
801 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
802 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
803 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
804 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
805 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
806 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
807 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
808 tls-failed TLS failed to start
810 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
811 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
812 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
813 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
814 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
817 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
818 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
819 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
821 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
822 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
823 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
825 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
827 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
828 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
829 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
831 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
832 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
833 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
835 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
837 In an updating lookup, you could then write
839 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
841 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
843 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
845 you can still update the master by
847 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
849 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
850 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
851 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
858 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
859 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
860 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
863 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
864 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
865 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
866 rather than the default "any" matching.
868 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
869 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
870 other parameters to be varied.
872 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
873 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
875 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
877 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
879 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
880 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
882 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
883 after the connection to the server has been made.
885 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
886 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
888 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
889 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
892 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
893 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
894 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
895 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
896 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
898 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
899 called forany and forall.
901 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
902 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
903 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
905 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
907 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
908 that makes it case-sensitive.
910 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
911 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
912 items, typically addresses.
914 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
915 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
916 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
919 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
920 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
922 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
925 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
932 No new features were added to 4.66.
938 No new features were added to 4.65.
944 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
945 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
946 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
949 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
950 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
952 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
953 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
954 number of authentication methods.
956 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
957 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
958 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
960 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
961 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
962 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
963 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
965 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
967 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
968 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
969 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
970 before doing the expansions.
972 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
973 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
976 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
977 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
978 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
980 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
981 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
983 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
984 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
985 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
986 available for compatibility.)
988 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
989 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
995 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
998 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
999 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
1002 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
1003 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
1004 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
1006 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
1007 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
1009 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
1011 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
1012 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
1014 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
1016 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
1018 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
1019 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
1020 each messages value for each variable.
1022 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
1023 same criteria without --not).
1029 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
1030 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
1031 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
1032 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
1033 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
1034 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
1036 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
1038 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
1039 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
1040 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
1043 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
1044 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
1045 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
1047 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
1048 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
1049 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
1050 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
1056 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
1057 the 4.60 release are:
1059 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
1061 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
1063 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
1064 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
1065 for other things in complicated expansions.
1067 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
1069 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
1070 resources used in pipe deliveries.
1072 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
1074 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
1076 There are a number of other additions too.
1082 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
1083 the 4.50 release are:
1085 . Support for SQLite.
1087 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
1089 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
1091 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
1093 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
1095 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
1097 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
1099 There are many more minor changes.
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