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THE EXIM FAQ
------------

This is the FAQ for the Exim Mail Transfer Agent. Many thanks to the many
people who provided the original information. This file would be amazingly
cluttered if I tried to list them all. Suggestions for corrections,
improvements, and additions are always welcome.

This version of the FAQ applies to Exim 4.00 and later releases. It has been
extensively revised, and material that was relevant only to earlier releases
has been removed. As this caused some whole sections to disappear, I've taken
the opportunity to re-arrange the sections and renumber everything except the
configuration samples.

References of the form Cnnn, Fnnn, Lnnn, and Snnn are to the sample
configuration, filter, \^^local_scan()^^\, and ``useful script'' files. These
are hyperlinked from the HTML version of this FAQ. They can also be found in
the separately distributed directory called \(config.samples)\. The primary
location is

\?ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/email/exim/exim4/config.samples.tar.gz?\
\?ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/email/exim/exim4/config.samples.tar.bz2?\

There are brief descriptions of these files at the end of this document.

Philip Hazel
Last update: 31-March-2004


The FAQ is divided into the following sections:

  0. General Debugging
  1. Building and Installing
  2. Routing in general
  3. Routing to remote hosts
  4. Routing for local delivery
  5. Filtering
  6. Delivery
  7. Policy controls
  8. Rewriting addresses
  9. Headers
 10. Performance
 11. Majordomo
 12. Fetchmail
 13. Perl
 14. Dial-up and ISDN
 15. UUCP
 16. Modifying message bodies
 17. Encryption (TLS/SSL)
 20. Millennium
 50. Miscellaneous
 91. Mac OS X
 92. FreeBSD
 93. HP-UX
 94. BSDI
 95. IRIX
 96. Linux
 97. Sun sytems
 98. Configuration cookbook
 99. List of sample configurations



0. GENERAL DEBUGGING

Q0001: Exim is crashing. What is wrong?

A0001: Exim should never crash. The author is always keen to know about
       crashes, so that they can be diagnosed and fixed. However, before you
       start sending me email, please check that you are running the latest
       release of Exim, in case the problem has already been fixed. The
       techniques described below can also be useful in trying to pin down
       exactly which circumstances caused the crash and what Exim was trying to
       do at the time. If the crash is reproducable (by a particular message,
       say) keep a copy of that message.


Q0002: Exim is not working. What is wrong? How can I check what it is doing?

A0002: Exactly how is it not working? Check the more specific questions in the
       other sections of this FAQ. Some general techniques for debugging are:

       (1) Look for information in Exim's log files. These are in the \(log)\
           directory in Exim's spool directory, unless you have configured a
           different path for them. Serious operational problems are reported
           in paniclog.

       (2) If the problem involves the delivery of one or more messages, try
           forcing a delivery with the \-M-\ option and also set the \-d-\
           option, to cause Exim to output debugging information. For example:

==>          exim -d -M 0z6CXU-0005RR-00

           The output is written to the standard error stream. You need to have
           admin privileges to use \-M-\ and \-d-\.

       (3) If the problem involves incoming SMTP mail, try using the \-bh-\
           option to simulate an incoming connection from a specific host,
           for example:

==>          exim -bh 10.9.8.7

           This goes through the motions of an SMTP session, without actually
           accepting a message. Information about various policy checks is
           output. You will need to know how to pretend to be an SMTP client.

       (4) If the problem involves lack of recognition or incorrect handling
           of local addresses, try using the \-bt-\ option with debugging turned
           on, to see how Exim is handling the address. For example,

==>          exim -d -bt z6abc

           shows you how it would handle the local part \"z6abc"\.


Q0003: What does the error \*Child process of address_pipe transport returned
       69 from command xxx*\ mean?

A0003: It means that when a transport called \%address_pipe%\ was run to pass an
       email message by means of a pipe to another process running the command
       xxx, the return code from that command was 69, which indicates some kind
       of error (the success return code is 0).

       The most common meaning of exit code 69 is ``unavailable'', and this often
       means that when Exim tried to run the command \(xxx)\, it failed. One
       cause of this might be incorrect permissions on the file containing the
       command. See also Q0026.


Q0004: My virtual domain setup isn't working. How can I debug it?

A0004: You can use an exim command with \-d-\ to get it to show you how it is
       processing addresses. You don't actually need to send a message; use the
       \-bt-\ option like this:

==>      exim -d -bt localpart@virtualhost

       This will show you which routers it is using. If the problem appears
       to be with the expansion of an option setting, you can use the
       \debug_print\ option on a router to get Exim to output the expanded
       string values as it goes along.


Q0005: Why is Exim not rejecting incoming messages addressed to non-existent
       users at SMTP time?

A0005: This is controlled by the ACL that is run for each incoming RCPT
       command. It is defined by the \acl_smtp_rcpt\ option. You can check this
       part of your configuration by using the \-bh-\ option to run a simulated
       SMTP session, during which Exim will tell you what things it is
       checking.


Q0006: I've put an entry for \"*.my.domain"\ in a DBM lookup file, but it isn't
       getting recognized.

A0006: You need to request ``partial matching'' by setting the search type to
       \partial-dbm\ in order for this to work.


Q0007: I've put the entry \"*@domain.com"\ in a lookup database, but it isn't
       working. The expansion I'm using is:

==>      ${lookup{${lc:$sender_address}}dbm{/the/file} ...

A0007: As no sender address will ever be //*@domain.com// this will indeed have
       no effect as it stands. You need to tell Exim that you want it to look
       for defaults after the normal lookup has failed. In this case, change the
       search type from \"dbm"\ to \"dbm*@"\. See the section on \*Default values in
       single-key lookups*\ in the chapter entitled \*File and database
       lookups*\ in the Exim manual.


Q0008: If I run \"./exim -d -bt user@domain"\ all seems well, but when I send
       a message from my User Agent, it does not arrive at its destination.

A0008: Try sending a message directly to Exim by typing this:

==>      exim -v user@domain
         <some message, could be empty>
         .

       If the message gets delivered to a remote host, but never arrives at its
       final destination, then the problem is at the remote host. If, however,
       the message gets through correctly, then the problem may be between your
       User Agent and Exim. Try setting Exim's \log_selector\ option to include
       \"+arguments"\, to see with which arguments the UA is calling Exim.


Q0009: What does \*no immediate delivery: too many messages received in one SMTP
       connection*\ mean?

A0009: An SMTP client may send any number of messages down a single SMTP
       connection to a server. Initially, an Exim server starts up a delivery
       process as soon as a message is received. However, in order not to start
       up too many processes when lots of messages are arriving (typically
       after a period of downtime), it stops doing immediate delivery after a
       certain number of messages have arrived down the same connection. The
       threshold is set by \smtp_accept_queue_per_connection\, and the default
       value is 10. On large systems, the value should be increased. If you are
       running a dial-in host and expecting to get all your mail down a single
       SMTP connection, then you can disable the limit altogether by setting
       the value to zero.


Q0010: Exim puts \*for \[address]\*\ in the ::Received:: headers of some, but not all,
       messages. Is this a bug?

A0010: No. It is deliberate. Exim inserts a ``for'' phrase only if the incoming
       message has precisely one recipient. If there is more than one
       recipient, nothing is inserted. The reason for this is that not all
       recipients appear in the ::To:: or ::Cc:: headers, and it is considered a
       breach of privacy to expose such recipients to the others. A common
       case is when a message has come from a mailing list.


Q0011: Instead of \^exim_dbmbuild^\, I'm using a homegrown program to build DBM
       (or cdb) files, but Exim doesn't seem to be able to use them.

A0011: Exim expects there to be a binary zero value on the end of each key used
       in a DBM file if you use the \"dbm"\ lookup type, but not for the \"dbmnz"\
       lookup type or for the keys of a cdb file. Check that you haven't
       slipped up in this regard.


Q0012: Exim is unable to route to any remote domains. It doesn't seen to be
       able to access the DNS.

A0012: Try running \"exim -d+resolver -bt \[remote address]\"\. The \-d-\
       options turns on debugging output, and the addition of \"+resolver"\
       will make it show the resolver queries it is building and the results of
       its DNS queries. If it appears unable to contact any name servers, check
       the contents and permissions of \(/etc/resolv.conf)\.


Q0013: What does the error message \*transport system_aliases: cannot find
       transport driver "redirect" in line 92*\ mean?

A0013: \%redirect%\ is a router, not a transport. You have put a configuration
       for a router into the transports section of the configuration file.


Q0014: Exim is timing out after receiving and responding to the DATA command
       from one particular host, and yet the client host also claims to be
       timing out. This seems to affect only certain messages.

A0014: This kind of problem can have many different causes.

       (1) This problem has been seen with a network that was dropping all
       packets over a certain size, which mean that the first part of the SMTP
       transaction worked, but when the body of a large message started
       flowing, the main data bits never got through the network. See also
       Q0017.

       (2) This can also happen if a host has a broken TCP stack and won't
       reassemble fragmented datagrams.

       (3) A very few ISDN lines have been seen which failed when certain data
       patterns were sent through them, and replacing the routers at both end
       of the link did not fix things. One of them was triggered by more than 4
       X's in a row in the data.


Q0015: What does the message \*Socket bind() to port 25 for address (any)
       failed: address already in use*\ mean?

A0015: You are trying to run an Exim daemon when there is one already running -
       or maybe some other MTA is running, or perhaps you have an SMTP line in
       \(/etc/inetd.conf)\ which is causing \(inetd)\ to listen on port 25.


Q0016: I've set \"verify = header_syntax"\ in my ACL, but this causes Exim to
       complain about header lines like \"To: Work: Jim <jims@email>,
       Home: Bob <bobs@email>"\ which look all right to me. Is this a bug?

A0016: No. Header lines such as ::From::, ::To::, etc., which contain addresses, are
       structured, and have to be in a specific format which is defined in RFC
       2822. Unquoted colons are not allowed in the ``phrase'' part of an email
       address (they are OK in other headers such as ::Subject::). The correct
       form for that header is

==>      To: "Work: Jim" <jims@email>, "Home: Bob" <bobs@email>

       You will sometimes see unquoted colons in ::To:: and ::Cc:: headers, but only
       in connection with name lists (called ``groups''), for example:

==>      To: My friends: X <x@y.x>, Y <y@w.z>;,
             My enemies: A <a@b.c>, B <b@c.d>;

       Each list must be terminated by a semicolon, as shown.


Q0017: Whenever Exim tries to deliver a specific message to a particular
       server, it fails, giving the error \*Remote end closed connection after
       data*\ or \*Broken pipe*\ or a timeout. What's going on?

A0017: \*Broken pipe*\ is the error you get on some OS when the remote host just
       drops the connection. The alternative is \*connection reset by peer*\.
       There are many potential causes. Here are some of them (see also Q0068):

       (1) There are some firewalls that fall over on binary zero characters
       in email. Have a look, e.g. with \"hexdump -c mymail | tail"\ to see if
       your mail contains any binary zero characters.

       (2) There are broken SMTP servers around that just drop the connection
       after the data has been sent if they don't like the message for some
       reason (e.g. it is too big) instead of sending a 5xx error code. Have
       you tried sending a small message to the same address?

       It has been reported that some releases of Novell servers running NIMS
       are unable to handle lines longer than 1024 characters, and just close
       the connection. This is an example of this behaviour.

       (3) If the problem occurs right at the start of the mail, then it could
       be a network problem with mishandling of large packets. Many emails are
       small and thus appear to propagate correctly, but big emails will
       generate big IP datagrams.

       There have been problems when something in the middle of the network
       mishandles large packets due to IP tunnelling. In a tunnelled link, your
       IP datagrams gets wrapped in a larger datagram and sent over a network.
       This is how virtual private networks (VPNs), and some ISP transit
       circuits work. Since the datagrams going over the tunnel require a
       larger packet size, the tunnel needs a bigger maximum transfer unit
       (MTU) in the network handling the tunnelled packets. However, MTUs
       are often fixed, so the tunnel will try to fragment the packets.

       If the systems outside the tunnel are using path MTU discovery, (most
       Sun Sparc Solaris machines do by default), and set the DF (don't
       fragment) bit because they don't send packets larger than their \(local)\
       MTU, then ICMP control messages will be sent by the routers at the
       ends of the tunnel to tell them to reduce their MTU, since the tunnel
       can't fragment the data, and has to throw it away. If this mechanism
       stops working, e.g. a firewall blocks ICMP, then your host never
       knows it has hit the maximum path MTU, but it has received no ACK on
       the packet either, so it continues to resend the same packet and the
       connection stalls, eventually timing out.

       You can test the link using pings of large packets and see what works:

==>	 ping -s host 2048

       Try reducing the MTU on the sending host:

==>	 ifconfig le0 mtu 1300

       Alternatively, you can reduce the size of the buffer Exim uses for SMTP
       output by putting something like

==>      DELIVER_OUT_BUFFER_SIZE=512

       in your \(Local/Makefile)\ and rebuilding Exim (the default is 8192).
       While this should not in principle have any effect on the size of
       packets sent, in practice it does seem to have an effect on some OS.

       You can also try disabling path MTU discovery on the sending host. On
       Linux, try:

==>      echo 1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_no_pmtu_disc

       For a general discussion and information about other operating systems, see
       \?http://www.netheaven.com/pmtu.html?\. If disabling path MTU discovery
       fixes the problem, try to find the broken or misconfigured
       router/firewall that swallows the ICMP-unreachable packets. Increasing
       timeouts on the receiving host will not work around the problem.


Q0018: Why do messages not get delivered down the same connection when I do
       something like: \"exim -v -R @aol.com"\? For other domains, I do this and
       I see the appropriate \*waiting for passed connections to get used*\
       messages.

A0018: Recall that Exim does not keep separate queues for each domain, but
       operates in a distributed fashion. Messages get into its `waiting for
       host x' hints database only when a delivery has been tried, and has had
       a temporary error. Here are some possibilities:

       (1) The messages to \(aol.com)\ got put in your queue, but no previous
       delivery attempt occured before you did the \-R-\. This might have been
       because of your settings of \queue_only_load\, \smtp_accept_queue\, or any
       other option that caused no immediate delivery attempt on arrival. If
       this is the case, you can try using \-qqR-\ instead of \-R-\.

       (2) You have set \connection_max_messages\ on the smtp transport, and
       that limit was reached. This would show as a sequence of messages
       down one connection, then another sequence down a new connection, etc.

       (3) Exim tried to pass on the SMTP connection to another message, but
       that message was in the process of being delivered to \(aol.com)\ by some
       other process (typically, a normal queue runner). This will break the
       sequence, though the other delivery should pass its connection on to
       other messages if there are any.

       (4) The folk at \(aol.com)\ changed the MX records so the host names have
       changed - or a new host has been added. I don't know how likely this is.

       (5) Exim is not performing as it should in this regard, for some reason.
       Next time you have mail queued up for \(aol.com)\, try running

==>      exim_dumpdb /var/spool/exim wait-remote_smtp

       to see if those messages are listed among those waiting for the relevant
       \(aol.com)\ hosts.


Q0019: There seems to be a problem in the string expansion code: it doesn't
       recognize references to headers such as \"${h_to}"\.

A0019: The only valid syntax for header references is (for example) \"$h_to:"\
       because header names are permitted by RFC 2822 to contain a very wide
       range of characters. A colon (or white space) is required as the
       terminator.


Q0020: Why do connections to my machine's SMTP port take a long time to respond
       with the banner, when connections to other ports respond instantly? The
       delay is sometimes as long as 30 seconds.

A0020: These kinds of delay are usually caused by some kind of network problem
       that affects outgoing calls made by Exim at the start of an incoming
       connection. Configuration options that cause outgoing calls are:

       (1) \rfc1413_hosts\ and \rfc1413_query_timeout\ (for \*ident*\ calls).
           Firewalls sometimes block ident connections so that they time out,
           instead of refusing them immediately. This can cause this problem.
           See Q5023 for a discussion of the usefulness of \*ident*\.

       (2) The \host_lookup\ option, the \host_reject_connection\ option, or a
           condition in the ACL that runs at connection time requires the
           remote host's name to be looked up from its IP address. Sometimes
           these DNS lookups time out. You can get this effect with ACL
           statements like this:

==>          deny  hosts = *.x.example

           If at all possible, you should use IP addresses instead of host
           names in blocking lists in order to to avoid this problem.

       You can use the \-bh-\ option to get more information about what is
       happening at the start of a connection. However, note that the \-bh-\
       option does not provide a complete simulation. In particular, no
       \*ident*\ checks are done, so it won't show up a delay problem that is
       related to (1) above.


Q0021: What does \*failed to create child process to send failure message*\ mean?
       This is a busy mail server with \smtp_accept_max\ set to 500, but this
       problem started to occur at about 300 incoming connections.

A0021: Some message delivery failed, and when Exim wanted to send a bounce
       message, it was unable to create a process in which to do so. Probably
       the limit on the maximum number of simultaneously active processes has
       been reached. Most OS have some means of increasing this limit, and in
       some operating systems there is also a limit per uid which can be
       varied.


Q0022: What does \*No transport set by system filter*\ in a log line mean?

A0022: Your system filter contains a \"pipe"\ or \"save"\ or \"mail"\ command,
       but you have not set the corresponding option which specifies which
       transport is to be used. You need to set whichever of
       \system_filter_pipe_transport\, \system_filter_file_transport\ or
       \system_filter_reply_transport\ is relevant.


Q0023: Why is Exim refusing to relay, saying \*failed to find host name from IP
       address*\ when I have the sender's IP address in an ACL condition? My
       configuration contains this ACL statement:

==>      accept hosts = lsearch;/etc/mail/relaydomains:192.168.96.0/24

A0023: When checking a host list, the items are tested in left-to-right
       order. The first item in your list is a lookup on the incoming host's
       name, so Exim has to determine the name from the incoming IP address in
       order to perform the test. If it can't find the host name, it can't do
       the check, so it gives up. You would have discovered what was going
       on if you had run a test such as

==>      exim -bh 192.168.96.131

       The solution is to put all explicit IP addresses first in the list.
       Alternatively, you can split the ACL statement into two like this:

==>      accept hosts = lsearch;/etc/mail/relaydomains
         accept hosts = 192.168.96.0/24

       If the host lookup fails, the first \"accept"\ fails, but then the
       second one is considered.


Q0024: When I run \"exim -bd -q10m"\ I get \*PANIC LOG: exec of exim -q failed*\.

A0024: This probably means that Exim doesn't know its own path so it can't
       re-exec itself to do the first queue run. Check the output of

==>      exim -bP exim_path


Q0025: I can't seem to get a pipe command to run when I include a \"${if"\
       expansion in it. This fails:

==>      command = perl -T /usr/local/rt/bin/rtmux.pl \
                     rt-mailgate helpdesk \
                     ${if eq {$local_part}{rt} {correspond}{action}}

A0025: You need some internal quoting in there. Exim expands each individual
       argument separately. Because you have (necessarily) got spaces in your
       \"${if"\ item, you have to quote that argument. Try

==>      command = perl -T /usr/local/rt/bin/rtmux.pl \
                     rt-mailgate helpdesk \
                     "${if eq {$local_part}{rt} {correspond}{action}}"

       \**Warning:**\ If command starts with an item that requires quoting,
       you cannot just put it in quotes, because a leading quote means that the
       entire option setting is being quoted. What you have to do is to quote
       the entire value, and use internally escaped quotes for the ones you
       really want. For example:

==>      command = "\"${if ....}\" arg1 arg2"

       Any backslashes in the expansion items will have to be doubled to stop
       them being interpreted by the string reader.


Q0026: I'm trying to get Exim to connect an alias to a pipe, but it always
       gives error code 69, with the comment \*(could mean service or program
       unavailable)*\.

A0026: If your alias entry looks like this:

==>      alias:  |"/some/command some parameters"

       change it to look like this:

==>      alias:  "|/some/command some parameters"


Q0027: What does the error \*Spool file is locked*\ mean?

A0027: This is not an error. All it means is that when an Exim delivery
       process (probably started by a queue runner process) looked at a message
       in order to start delivering it, it found that another Exim process was
       already busy delivering it. On a busy system this is quite a common
       occurrence. If you set \"-skip_delivery"\ in the \log_selector\ option,
       these messages are omitted from the log.

       The only time when this message might indicate a problem is if it is
       repeated for the same message for a very long time. That would suggest
       that the process that is delivering the message has somehow got stuck.


Q0028: Exim is reporting IP addresses as 0.0.0.0 or 255.255.255.255 instead of
       their correct values. What's going on?

A0028: You are using a version of Exim built with gcc on an IRIX box.
       See Q9502.


Q0029: I can't seem to figure out why PAM support doesn't work correctly.

A0029: There is a problem using PAM with shadow passwords when the calling
       program is not running as \/root/\. Exim is normally running as the
       Exim user when authenticating a remote host. See this posting for one
       way round the problem:

       \?http://www.exim.org/mailman/htdig/exim-users/Week-of-Mon-20010917/030371.html?\

       Another solution can be found at \?http://www.e-admin.de/pam_exim/?\.

       PAM 0.72 allows authorization as non-\/root/\, using setuid helper programs.
       Furthermore, in \(/etc/pam.d/exim)\ you can explicitelly specify that
       this authorization (using setuid helpers) is only permitted for certain
       users and groups.


Q0030: I'm trying to use a query-style lookup for hosts that are allowed to
       relay, but it is giving really weird errors.

A0030: Does your query contain a colon character? Remember that host lists are
       colon-separated, so you need to double any colons in the query. This
       applies even if the query is defined as a macro.


Q0031: Exim is rejecting connections from hosts that have more than one IP
       address, for no apparent reason.

A0031: You are using Solaris 7 or earlier, and have \"nis dns files"\ in
       \(/etc/nsswitch.conf)\. Change this to \"dns nis files"\ to avoid hitting Sun
       bug 1154236 (a bad interaction between NIS and the DNS).


Q0032: Exim is failing to find the MySQL library, even though is it present
       within \\LD_LIBRARY_PATH\\. I'm getting this error:

==>      /usr/local/bin/exim: fatal: libmysqlclient.so.6: open failed:
         No such file or directory

A0032: Exim is suid, and \\LD_LIBRARY_PATH\\ is ignored for suid binaries on a
       Solaris (and other?) systems. What you should be doing is adding
       \"-R/local/lib/mysql"\ to the same place in the compilation that you added
       \"-L/local/lib/mysql"\. This tells the binary where to look without
       needing a path variable.


Q0033: What does the error \*lookup of host "xx.xx.xx" failed in yyy router*\
       mean?

A0033: You configured a \%manualroute%\ router to send the message to xx.xx.xx. When
       it tried to look up the IP address for that host, the lookup failed
       with a permanent error. As this is a manual routing, this is a
       considered to be a serious error which the postmaster needs to know
       about (maybe you have a typo in your file), and there is little point
       in keeping on trying. So it freezes the message.

       (1) Don't set up routes to non-existent hosts.

       (2) If you must set up routes to non-existent hosts, and don't want
       freezing, set the \host_find_failed\ option on the router to do something
       other than freeze.


Q0034: Exim works fine on one host, but when I copied the binary to another
       identical host, it stopped working (it could not resolve DNS names).

A0034: Is the new host running exactly the same operating system? Most
       importantly, are the versions of the dynamically loaded libraries
       (files with names like \(libsocket.so.1)\) the same on both systems? If not,
       that is probably the cause of the problem. Either arrange for the
       libraries to be the same, or rebuild Exim from source on the new host.


Q0035: I set a \"hosts"\ condition in an ACL to do a lookup in a file of IP
       addresses, but it doesn't work.

A0035: Did you remember to put \"net-"\ at the start of the the search type? If
       you set something like this:

==>      accept hosts = lsearch;/some/file

       Exim searches the file for the host name, not the IP address. You need
       to set

==>      accept hosts = net-lsearch;/some/file

       to make it use the IP address as the key to the lookup.


Q0036: Why do I get the error \*Permission denied: creating lock file hitching
       post*\ when Exim tries to do a local delivery?

A0036: Your configuration specifies that local mailboxes are all held in
       single directory, via configuration lines like these (taken from the
       default configuration):

==>      local_delivery:
           driver = appendfile
           file = /var/mail/$local_part

       and the permissions on the directory probably look like this:

==>      drwxrwxr-x   3 root     mail         512 Jul  9 13:48 /var/mail/

       Using the default configuration, Exim runs as the local user when doing
       a local delivery, and it uses a lock file to prevent any other process
       from updating the mailbox while it is writing to it. With those
       permissions the delivery process, running as the user, is unable to
       create a lock file in the \(/var/mail(\ directory. There are two solutions
       to this problem:

       (1) Set the \"write"\ and \"sticky bit"\ permissions on the directory, so
           that it looks like this:

==>          drwxrwxrwt   3 root     mail         512 Jul  9 13:48 /var/mail/

           The \"w"\ allows any user to create new files in the directory, but
           the \"t"\ bit means that only the creator of a file is able to remove
           it. This is the same setting as is normally used with the \(/tmp)\
           directory.

       (2) Arrange to run the local_delivery transport under a specific group
           by changing the configuration to read

==>          local_delivery:
               driver = appendfile
               file = /var/mail/${local_part}
               group = mail

           The delivery process still runs under the user's uid, but with the
           group set to \"mail"\. The group permission on the directory allows
           the process to create and remove the lock file.

           The choice between (1) and (2) is up to the administrator. If the
           second solution is used, users can empty their mailboxes by updating
           them, but cannot delete them.

       If your problem involves mail to \/root/\, see also Q0507.


Q0037: I am experiencing mailbox locking problems with Sun's \"mailtool"\ used
       over a network.

A0037: See Q9705 in the Sun-specific section below.


Q0038: What does the error message \*error in forward file (filtering not
       enabled): missing or malformed local part*\ mean?

A0038: If you are trying to use an Exim filter, you have forgotten to enable
       the facility, which is disabled by default. In the \%redirect%\ router
       (in the Exim run time configuration file) you need to set

==>      allow_filter = true

       to allow a \(.forward)\ file to be used as an Exim filter. If you are not
       trying to use an Exim filter, then you have put a malformed address in
       the \(.forward)\ file.


Q0039: I have installed Exim, but now I can't mail to \/root/\ any more. Why is
       this?

A0039: Most people set up \/root/\ as an alias for the manager of the host. If
       you haven't done this, Exim will attempt to deliver to \/root/\ as if it
       were a normal user. This isn't really a good idea because the delivery
       process would run as \/root/\. Exim has a trigger guard in the option

==>      never_users = root

       in the default configuration file. This prevents it from running as \/root/\
       when doing any deliveries. If you really want to run local deliveries as
       \/root/\, remove this line, but it would be better to create an alias for
       \/root/\ instead.


Q0040: How can I stop undeliverable bounce messages (e.g. to routeable, but
       undeliverable, spammer senders) from clogging up the queue for days?

A0040: If at all possible, you should try to avoid getting into this situation
       in the first place, for example, by verifying recipients so that you
       do not accept undeliverable messages that lead to these bounces.
       You can, however, configure Exim to discard failing bounce messages
       early. Just set \ignore_bounce_errors_after\ to specify a (short) time
       to keep them for.


Q0041: What does the message \*unable to set gid=ddd or uid=ddd (euid=ddd):
       local delivery to ... transport=ttt*\ mean?

A0041: Have you remembered to make Exim setuid \/root/\? It needs root privilege if
       it is to do any local deliveries, because it does them ``as the user''.
       Note also that the partition from which Exim is running (where the
       binary is installed) must not have the \nosuid\ mount option set. You
       can check this by looking at its \(/etc/fstab)\ entry (or \(/etc/vfstab)\,
       depending on your OS).


Q0042: My ISP's mail server is rejecting bounce messages from Exim, complaining
       that they have no sender. The SMTP trace does indeed show that the
       sender address is \"<>"\. Why is the Sender on the bounce message empty?

A0042: Because the RFCs say it must be. Your ISP is at fault. Send them this
       extract from RFC 2821 section 6.1 (\*Reliable Delivery and Replies by
       Email*\):

         If there is a delivery failure after acceptance of a message, the
         receiver-SMTP MUST formulate and mail a notification message.  This
         notification MUST be sent using a null (\"<>"\) reverse path in the
         envelope.  The recipient of this notification MUST be the address
         from the envelope return path (or the ::Return-Path:: header line).
         However, if this address is null (\"<>"\), the receiver-SMTP MUST NOT
         send a notification.

       The reason that bounce messages have no sender is so that they
       themselves cannot provoke further bounces, as this could lead to a
       unending exchange of undeliverable messages.


Q0043: What does the error \*Unable to get interface configuration: 22 Invalid
       argument*\ mean?

A0043: This is an error that occurs when Exim is trying to find out the all the
       IP addresses on all of the local host's interfaces. If you have lots of
       virtual interfaces, this can occur if there are more than around 250 of
       them. The solution is to set the option \local_interfaces\ to list just
       those IP addresses that you want to use for making and receiving SMTP
       connections.


Q0044: What does the error \*Failed to create spool file*\ mean?

A0044: Exim has been unable to create a file in its spool area in which to
       store an incoming message. This is most likely to be either a
       permissions problem in the file hierarchy, or a problem with the uid
       under which Exim is running, though it could be something more drastic
       such as your disk being full.

       If you are running Exim with an alternate configuration file using a
       command such as \"exim -C altconfig..."\, remember that the use of -C
       takes away Exim's root privilege.

       Check that you have defined the spool directory correctly by running

==>      exim -bP spool_directory

       and examining the output. Check the mode of this directory. It should
       look like this, assuming you are running Exim as user \/exim/\:

==>      drwxr-x---   6 exim  exim      512 Jul 16 12:29 /var/spool/exim

       If there are any subdirectories already in existence, they should have
       the same permissions, owner, and group. Check also that you haven't got
       incorrect permissions on superior directories (for example, \(/var/spool)\).
       Check that you have set up the Exim binary to be setuid \/root/\. It should
       look like this:

==>      -rwsr-xr-x   1 root     xxx       502780 Jul 16 14:16 exim

       Note that it is not just the owner that must be \/root/\, but also the third
       permission must be \"s"\ rather than \"x"\.


Q0045: I see entries in the log that mention two different IP addresses for the
       same connection. Why is this? For example:

==>      H=tip-mp8-ncs-13.stanford.edu ([36.173.0.189]) [36.173.0.156]

A0045: The actual IP address from which the call came is the final one.
       Whenever there's something in parentheses in a host name, it is what the
       host quoted as the domain part of an SMTP HELO or EHLO command. So in
       this case, the client, despite being 36.173.0.156, issued the command

==>      EHLO [36.173.0.189]

       when it sent your server the message. This is, of course, very
       misleading.


Q0046: A short time after I start Exim I see a defunct zombie process. What
       is causing this?

A0046: Your system must be lightly loaded as far as mail is concerned. The
       daemon sets off a queue runner process when it is started, but it only
       tidies up completed child processes when it wakes up for some other
       reason. When there's nothing much going on, you occasionally see
       defunct processes like this waiting to be dealt with. This is
       perfectly normal.


Q0047: On a reboot, or a restart of the mail system, I see the message \*Mailer
       daemons: exim abandoned: unknown, malformed, or incomplete option
       -bz sendmail*\. What does this mean?

A0047: \-bz-\ is a Sendmail option requesting it to create a `configuration freeze
       file'. Exim has no such concept and so does not support the option. You
       probably have a line like

==>      /usr/lib/sendmail -bz

       in some start-up script (e.g. \(/etc/init.d/mail)\) immedately before

==>      /usr/lib/sendmail -bd -q15m

       The first of these lines should be commented out.


Q0048: Whenever exim restarts it takes up to 3-5 minutes to start responding on
       the SMTP port. Why is this?

A0048: Something else is hanging onto port 25 and not releasing it. One place
       to look is \(/etc/inetd.conf)\ in case for any reason an SMTP stream is
       configured there.


Q0049: What does the log message \*no immediate delivery: more than 10 messages
       received in one connection*\ mean?

A0049: A remote MTA sent a number of messages in a single SMTP session. Exim
       limits the number of immediate delivery processes it creates as a
       result of a single SMTP connection, in order to avoid creating a zillion
       processes on systems that can have many incoming connections. If you are
       dialing in to collect mail from your ISP, you should probably set
       \smtp_accept_queue_per_connection\ to some number larger than 10, or
       arrange to start a queue runner for local delivery (using \-ql-\)
       immediately after collecting the mail.


Q0050: I am getting complaints from a customer who uses my Exim server for
       relaying that they are being blocked with a \*Too many connections*\
       error.

A0050: See \smtp_accept_max\, \smep_accept_max_per_host\ and \smtp_accept_reserve\.


Q0051: When I try \"exim -bf"\ to test a system filter, I received the following
       error message: \*Filter error: unavailable filtering command "fail" near
       line 8 of filter file*\.

A0051: Use the \-bF-\ option to test system filters. This gives you access to the
       freeze and fail actions.


Q0052: What does \*ridiculously long message header*\ in an error report mean?

A0052: There has to be some limit to the length of a message's header lines,
       because otherwise a malefactor could open an SMTP channel to your host,
       start a message, and then just send characters continuously until your
       host ran out of memory. (Exim stores all the header lines in main
       memory while processing a message). For this reason a limit is imposed
       on the total amount of memory that can be used for header lines. The
       default is 1MB, but this can be changed by setting \\HEADER_MAXSIZE\\ in
       \(Local/Makefile)\ before building Exim. Exceeding the limit provokes
       the ``ridiculous'' error message.


Q0053: Exim on my host responds to a connection with \"220 *****..."\ and
       won't understand \\EHLO\\ commands.

A0053: This is the sign of a Cisco Pix ``Mailguard'' sitting in front of your
       MTA. Pix breaks ESMTP and only does SMTP. It is a nuisance when you have
       a secure MTA running on your box. Something like ``no fixup protocol
       smtp 25'' in the Pix configuration is needed. It may be possible to do
       this by logging into the Pix (using \^telnet^\ or \^ssh^\) and typing
       \"no fixup smtp"\ to its console. (You may need to use other commands
       before or after to set up configuration mode and to activate a changed
       configuration. Consult your Pix documentation or expert.) See also
       Q0078.


Q0054: I'm getting an Exim configuration error \*unknown rewrite flag
       character (m) in line 386*\ but I haven't used any flags on my rewriting
       rules.

A0054: You have probably forgotten to quote a replacement string that contains
       white space.


Q0055: What does the error \*Failed to open wait-remote_smtp database: Invalid
       argument*\ mean?

A0055: This is something that happens if you have existing DBM hints files when
       you install a new version of Exim that is compiled to use a different or
       upgraded DBM library. The simplest thing to try is

==>      rm /var/spool/exim/db/*

       This removes all the hints files. Exim will start afresh and build new
       ones. If the symptom recurs, it suggests there is some problem with your
       DBM library.


Q0056: We are using Exim to send mail from our web server. However, whenever a
       user sends an email it gets sent with the return path (envelope sender)
       //apache@server_name.com// because the PHP script is running as
       \/apache/\.

A0056: You need to include \/apache/\ in the \trusted_users\ configuration option.
       Only trusted users are permitted to specify senders when mail is passed
       to Exim via the command line.


Q0057: We've got people complaining about attachments that don't show up
       as attachments, but are included in the body of the message.

A0057: These symptoms can be seen when some software passes a CRLF line
       terminated message via the command line to an MTA that expects lines to
       be terminated by LF only, and so preserves the CRs as data. If you can
       identify the software that is doing this, try setting the \-dropcr-\
       option on the command it uses to call Exim. Alternatively, you can set
       \drop_cr\ in the configuration file, but then that will apply to all
       input.


Q0058: What does the error \*failed to open DB file \(/var/spool/exim/db/retry)\:
       File exists*\ mean?

A0058: This error is most often caused when a hints file that was written with
       one version of the Berkeley DB library is read by another version.
       Sometimes this can happen if you change from a binary version of Exim to
       a locally compiled version. Or it can happen if you compile and install
       a new version of Exim after changing Berkeley DB versions. You can find
       out which version your Exim is using by running:

==>      ldd /usr/sbin/exim

       The solution to the problem is to delete all the files in the
       \(/var/spool/exim/db)\ directory, and let Exim recreate them.


Q0059: When my Outlook Express 6.0 client sends a STARTTLS command to begin a
       TLS session, Exim doesn't seem to receive it. The Outlook log shows
       this:

==>      SMTP: 14:19:27 [tx] STARTTLS
         SMTP: 14:19:27 [rx] 500 Unsupported command.

        but the Exim debugging output shows this:

==>       SMTP<< EHLO xxxx
          SMTP>> 250-yyyy Hello xxxx [nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn]
          250-SIZE 52428800
          250-PIPELINING
          250-AUTH CRAM-MD5 PLAIN LOGIN
          250-STARTTLS
          250 HELP
          SMTP<< QUIT

A0059: Turn off scanning of outgoing email in Norton Antivirus. If you aren't
       running Norton Antivirus, see if you are running some other kind of SMTP
       proxying, either on the client or on a firewall between the client and
       server. ``Unsupported command'' is not an Exim message.


Q0060: Why am I getting the error \*failed to expand \"/data/lists/lists/${lc"\
       for require_files: \"${lc"\ is not a known operator*\ for this setting:

==>      require_files = MAILMAN_HOME/lists/${lc:$local_part}/config.db

A0060: The value of \"require_files"\ is a \*list*\ in which each item is
       separately expanded. You need either to double the colon, or switch to
       a different list separator.


Q0061: What does the error \*Too many ``Received'' headers - suspected mail
       loop*\ mean?

A0061: Whenever a message passes through an MTA, a ::Received:: header gets
       added. Exim counts the number of these headers in incoming messages. If
       there are more than the value of \received_headers_max\ (default 30),
       Exim assumes there is some kind of mail routing loop occurring. For
       example, host A passes the message to host B, which immediately passes
       it back to host A. Check the ::Received:: headers and the mail logs to
       determine exactly what is going on.

       One common cause of this problem is users with accounts on both systems
       who set up each one to forward to the other, thinking that will cause
       copies of all messages to be delivered on both of them.


Q0062: When I try to start an Exim daemon it crashes. I ran a debugger and
       discovered that the crash is happening in the function \^^getservbyname()^^\.
       What's going on?

A0062: What have you got in the file \(/etc/nsswitch.conf)\? If it contains this
       line:

==>      services:       db files

       try removing the \"db"\. (Your system is trying to look in some kind of
       database before searching the file \(/etc/services)\.)


Q0063: When I try to start an Exim daemon, nothing happens. There is no
       process, and nothing is written to the Exim log.

A0063: Check to see if anything is written to \(syslog)\. This problem can be
       caused by a permission problem that stops Exim from writing to its log
       files, especially if you've specified that they should be written
       somewhere other than under Exim's spool directory. You could also try
       running the daemon with debugging turned on.


Q0064: When I run \"exim -d test@domain"\ it delivers fine, but when I send a
       message from the \^mail^\ command, I get \*User unknown*\ and the mail
       is saved in \(dead.letter)\.

A0064: It looks as if Exim isn't being called by \^mail^\; instead it is
       calling some other program (probably Sendmail). Try running the command

==>      /usr/sbin/sendmail -bV

       (If you get \*No such file or directory*\ or \*Command not found*\ you
       are running Solaris or IRIX. Try again with \(/usr/lib/sendmail)\.) The
       output should be something like this:

==>      Exim version 4.05 #1 built 13-Jun-2002 10:27:15
         Copyright (c) University of Cambridge 2002

       If you don't see this, your Exim installation isn't fully operational.
       If you are running FreeBSD, see Q9201. For other systems, see Q0114.


Q0065: When (as \/root/\) I use -C to run Exim with an alternate configuration
       file, it gives an error about being unable to create a spool file when
       trying to run an \%autoreply%\ transport. Why is this?

A0065: When Exim is called with -C, it passes on -C to any instances of itself
       that it calls (so that the whole sequence uses the same config file). If
       it's running as \/exim/\ when it does this, all is well. However, if it
       happens as a consequence of a non-privileged user running \%autoreply%\,
       the called Exim gives up its root privilege. Then it can't write to the
       spool.

       This means that you can't use -C (even as \/root/\) to run an instance of
       Exim that is going to try to run \%autoreply%\ from a process that is
       neither \/root/\ nor \/exim/\. Because of the architecture of Exim (using
       re-execs to regain privilege), there isn't any way round this
       restriction. Therefore, the only way you can make this scenario work is
       to run the \%autoreply%\ transport as \/exim/\ (that is, the user that
       owns the Exim spool files). This may be satisfactory for autoreplies
       that are essentially system-generated, but of course is no good for
       autoreplies from unprivileged users, where you want the \%autoreply%\
       transport to be run as the user. To get that to work with an alternate
       configuration, you'll have to use two Exim binaries, with different
       configuration file names in each. See S001 for a script that patches
       the configuration name in an Exim binary.


Q0066: What does the message \*unable to set gid=xxx or uid=xxx*\ mean?

A0066: This message is given when an Exim process is unable to change uid or
       gid when it needs to, because it does not have root privilege. This is a
       serious problem that prevents Exim from carrying on with what it is
       doing. The two most common situations where Exim needs to change uid/gid
       are doing local deliveries and processing users' filter files. There are
       two common causes of this error:

       (1) You have forgotten to make the exim binary setuid to \/root/\. This
           means that it can never change uid/gid in any situation. Also, the
           setuid binary must reside on a disk partition that does not have the
           \"nosuid"\ mount option set.

       (2) The exim binary is setuid, but you have configured Exim so that,
           while trying to verify an address at SMTP time, it runs a router
           that needs to change uid/gid. Because Exim runs as \/exim/\ and not
           \/root/\ while receiving messages, the router is unable to change
           uid and therefore it cannot operate. The usual example of this is a
           \%redirect%\ router for users' filter files.

           Setting the \user\ or \check_local_user\ options on a \redirect\
           router causes this to happen (except in the special case when the
           redirection list is provided by the \data\ option and does not
           contain \":include:"\).

           The solution is to set \no_verify\ on the router that is causing the
           problem. This means that it is skipped when an address is being
           verified. In ``normal'' configurations where the router is indeed
           handling users' filter files, this is quite acceptable, because you
           do not usually need to process a filter file in order to verify that
           the local part is valid. See, for example, the \%userforward%\
           router in the default configuration.


Q0067: What does the error \*too many unrecognized commands*\ mean?

A0067: There have been instances of network abuse involving mail sent out by
       web servers. In most cases, unrecognizable commands are sent as part of
       the SMTP session. A real MTA never sends out such invalid commands. Exim
       allows a few unrecognized commands in a session to permit humans who are
       testing to make a few typos (it responds with a 5xx error). However, if
       Exim receives too many such commands, it assumes that it is dealing with
       an abuse of some kind, and so it drops the connection.


Q0068: Exim times out when trying to connect to some hosts, though those hosts
       are known to be up and running. What's the problem?

A0068: There could be a number of reasons for this (see also Q0017). The
       obvious one is that there is a networking problem between the hosts.
       If you can ping between the hosts or connect in other ways, the problem
       might be caused by ECN (Explicit Congestion Notification) being enabled
       in your kernel. ECN uses TCP flags originally assigned to TOS - it's a
       "new" invention, and some hosts and routers are known to be confused if
       a client uses it. If you are running Linux, you can turn ECN off by
       running this command:

==>      /bin/echo "0" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn

       This has also been reported to cure web connection problems from Mozilla
       and Netscape browsers in Linux when there were no problems with Windows
       Netscape browsers.


Q0069: What does the error \*SMTP data timeout (message abandoned) on connection
       from...*\ mean?

A0069: It means that there was a timeout while Exim was reading the contents of
       a message on an incoming SMTP connection. That is, it had successfully
       accepted a MAIL command, one or more RCPT commands, and a DATA command,
       and was in the process of reading the data itself. The length of timeout
       is controlled by the \smtp_receive_timeout\ option.

       If you get this error regularly, the cause may be incorrect handling of
       large packets by a router or firewall. The maximum size of a packet is
       restricted on some links; routers should split packets that are larger.
       There is a feature called ``path MTU discovery'' that enables a sender
       to discover the maximum packet size over an entire path (multiple
       Internet links). This can be broken by misconfigured firewalls and
       routers. There is a good explanation at \?http://www.netheaven.com/pmtu.html?\.
       Reducing the MTU on your local network can sometimes work round this
       problem. See Q0017 (3) for further discussion.


Q0070: What does the error \*SMTP command timeout on connection from...*\ mean?

A0070: Exim was expecting to read an SMTP command from the client, but no
       command was read within the \smtp_receive_timeout\ time limit.


Q0071: What does the error \*failed to open DB file \(/var/spool/exim//db/retry)\:
       Illegal argument*\ mean?

A0071: See Q0058. The cause of this error is usually the same.


Q0072: Exim will deliver to normal aliases, and aliases that are pipes or
       files, but it objects to aliases that involve \":include:"\ items,
       complaining that it can't change gid or uid. Why is this?

A0072: See Q0066 for a general answer. The problem happens during verification
       of an incoming SMTP message, not during delivery itself. In this
       particular case, you must have set up your aliasing router with a \user\
       setting. This causes Exim to change uid/gid when reading \":include:"\
       files. If you do not need the detailed verification provided by the
       router, the easy solution is to set \no_verify\ so that the router isn't
       used during verification.

       Otherwise, if you set \user\ on the router in order to provide a user
       for delivery to pipes or files, one solution is to put the \user\
       setting on the transports instead of on the router. You may need to
       create some special transports just for this router. The alternative is
       to supply two different routers, one with \user\ and \no_verify\, and
       the with \verify_only\ but no \user\ setting.


Q0073: I'm seeing log file corruption, with parts of log lines getting mangled
       by other log entries.

A0073: The only time this has been seen is when several servers were writing to
       the same log files over NFS. Exim assumes that its log file is on local
       disk, and using NFS, especially for more than one server, will not work.


Q0074: What does the error message \*remote delivery process count got out of
       step*\ mean?

A0074: Exim uses subprocesses for remote deliveries; this error means that the
       master process expected to have a child process running, but found there
       were none. Prior to release 4.11, this error could be caused by running
       Exim under \^strace^\ on a Linux system, because stracing causes
       children to be ``stolen'' such that a parent that tries to wait for
       ``any of my children'' is told that it has none. Current releases of
       Exim have code to get round this problem.


Q0075: I'm using LDAP, and some email addresses that contain special characters
       are causing parsing errors in my LDAP lookups.

A0075: You should be using \"${quote_ldap:$local_part}"\ instead of just
       \"$local_part"\ in your lookups.


Q0076: I've configured Exim to use \^syslog^\ for its logs, with the main and
       reject logs sent to different files, but whenever a message is rejected,
       I get one message on the reject log and two messages on the main log.

A0076: You are probably putting your reject items into the main log as well;
       remember \^syslog^\ levels are inclusive (for example, \"mail.info"\
       includes all higher levels, so a \"mail.notice"\ message will be caught
       by a \"mail.info"\ descriptor).
       Test this by running the command:

==>	 logger -p mail.notice test

       and seeing which logs it goes into.


Q0077: I've installed Exim and it is delivering mail just fine. However, when I
       try to read mail from my PC I get \*connection rejected*\ or \*unable to
       connect*\.

A0077: See Q5021.


Q0078: Exim is logging the unknown SMTP command \"XXXX"\ from my client hosts,
       and they are unable to authenticate.

A0078: This is a sign of a Cisco PIX firewall getting in the way. It does not
       support ESMTP, and turns EHLO commands into XXXX. You should configure
       the Pix to leave SMTP alone; see Q0053 for how to do this.


Q0079: Our new PIX firewall is causing problems with incoming mail. How can
       this be fixed?

A0079: See Q0053 and Q0078. If some messages get through and others do not,
       see also Q0017.


Q0080: Am I to understand that the database lookups must only return one value?
       They can not return a list of values? The documentation seems to
       indicate that it's possible to return a list.

A0080: Lookups can be used in two different situations, and what they return is
       different in the two cases. (Be thankful Exim 3 is gone; there was yet
       another case!)

       (1) You can use a lookup in any expanded string. The syntax is

==>          ${lookup ..... }

           In this case, whatever is looked up replaces the expansion item. It
           may be one value or a list of values. Whether a single value or a
           list is acceptable or not depends on where you are using the string
           expansion. If it is for an option that expects just one value, then
           only one value is allowed (for example).

       (2) You can make use of the lookup mechanism to test whether something
           (typically a host name or IP address) is in a list. For example,

==>          hosts = a : b : c

           in an ACL tests whether the calling host's name matches ``a'', or
           ``b'', or ``c''. Now, suppose you want to keep the list of names in
           a database, or cdb file, or NIS map, or...  By writing

==>           hosts = pgsql;select ....

           you are saying to Exim: ``Run this lookup; if it succeeds, behave as
           if the host is in the list; if it fails, the host is not in the
           list.'' You are using the indexing mechanism of the database as a
           fast way of checking a list. A simpler example is

==>           hosts = lsearch;/some/file

           where the file contains the list of hosts to be searched.

       The complication happens when a list is first expanded before being
       interpreted as a list. This happens in a lot of cases. You can therefore
       write either of these:

==>       hosts = cdb;/some/file
          hosts = ${lookup{something}cdb{/some/file}}

       but they have different meanings. The first means ``see if the host name
       is in the list in this file''. The second means ``run this lookup and
       use the result of the lookup as a list of host items to check''. In the
       second case, the list could contain multiple values (colon separated),
       and one of those values could even be ``cdb;/some/file''.

       Flexibility does lead to complexity, I'm afraid.


Q0081: What does \*error in redirect data: included file xxxx is too big*\
       mean?

A0081: You are trying to include a very large file in a redirection list, using
       the \":include:"\ feature. Exim has a built-in limit on the size, as a
       safety precaution. The default is 1 megabyte. If you want to increase
       this, you have to rebuild Exim. In your \(Local/Makefile)\, put

==>      MAX_INCLUDE_SIZE = whatever

       and then rebuild Exim. The value is a number of bytes, but you can give
       it as a parenthesized arithmetic expression such as \"(3*1024*1024)"\.
       However, an included file of more than a megabyte is likely to be quite
       inefficient. How many addresses does yours contain? You get the best
       performance out of Exim if you arrange to send mailing list messages
       with no more than about 100 recipients (in order to get parallelism in
       the routing).


Q0082: What does \*relocation error: /lib/libnss_dns.so.2: symbol
       __libc_res_nquery, version GLIBC_PRIVATE not defined in file
       libresolv.so.2 with link time reference*\ mean?

A0082: You have updated \^glibc^\ while an Exim daemon is running. Stop and
       restart the daemon.


Q0083: Netscape on Unix is sending messages containing an unqualified user name
       in the ::Sender:: header line, which Exim is rejecting because I have
       set \"verify = header_syntax"\. How can I fix this?

A0083: The only thing you can do in Exim is to set the
       \sender_unqualified_hosts\ option to allow unqualified sender addresses
       form the relevant hosts; of course, this applies to all sender
       addresses, not just the ::Sender:: header line.

       Alternatively, you can configure Netscape not to include the header line
       in the first place. Add the following line to the
       \($HOME/.netscape/preferences.js)\ and \($HOME/.netscape/liprefs.js)\
       files:

==>      user_pref("mail.suppress_sender_header", true);

       Netscape \*must*\ be shutdown while doing this.


Q0084: I want to set up an alias that pipes a message to \^gpg^\ and then pipes
       the result to \^mailx^\ to resubmit the message, but when I use my
       tested command in an alias file, I get an error from \^gpg^\.

A0084: Probably you are using a shell command with two pipe symbols in it. An
       alias like this:

==>      gpg-xxx: "|gpg <options> | mailx <options"

       does not work, because Exim does not run pipes under a shell by default.
       You must call a shell explicitly if you want to make use of the shell's
       features for double-piping, either by piping to \"/bin/sh"\ with a
       suitable \"-c"\ option, or by piping to a shell script.


Q0085: I see a lot of \*rejected EHLO ... syntactically invalid argument(s)*\.
       I know it's because of the underscore in the host name, but is there a
       switch to allow Exim to accept mail from such hosts?

A0085: Yes. Add this to your configuration:

==>      helo_allow_chars = _

       For more seriously malformed host names, see \helo_accept_junk_hosts\.
       See also Q0732.


Q0086: What does \*SMTP protocol violation: synchronization error (next input
       sent too soon)*\ mean?

A0086: SMTP is a ``lock-step'' protocol, which means that, at certain points in
       the protocol, the client must wait for the server to respond before
       sending more data. Exim checks for correct behaviour, and issues this
       error if the client sends data too soon. This protects against
       malefactious clients who send a bunch of SMTP commands (usually to
       transmit spam) without waiting for any replies.

       This error is also provoked if the client is trying to start up a TLS
       session immediately on connection, without using the STARTTLS command.
       See Q1707 for a discussion of this case.


Q0087: What does \*rejected after DATA: malformed address: xx@yy may not follow
       <xx@yy> : failing address in "from" header*\ mean? (I've obscured the
       real email addresses.)

A0087: Your DATA ACL contains

==>      verify = header_syntax

       and an incoming message contained the line

==>      From: xx@yy <xx@yy>

       This is syntactically invalid. The contents of an address in a header
       line are either just the address, or a ``phrase'' followed by an address
       in angle brackets. In the latter case, the ``phrase'' must be quoted if
       it contains special characters such as @. The following are valid
       versions of the bad header:

==>      From: xx@yy
         From: "xx@yy" <xx@yy>

       though why on earth anything generates this kind of redundant nonsense I
       can't think.


Q0088: The Windows mailer SENDFILE.EXE sometimes hangs while trying to send a
       message to Exim 4, and eventually times out. It worked flawlessly with
       Exim 3. What has changed?

A0088: Exim 4 sets an obscure TCP/IP parameter called TCP_NODELAY. This
       disables the "Nagle algorithm" for the TCP/IP transmission. The Nagle
       algorithm can improve network performance in interactive situations such
       as a human typing at a keyboard, by buffering up outgoing data until the
       previous packet has been acknowledged, and thereby reducing the number
       of packets used. This is not relevant for mail transmission, which
       mostly consists of quite large blocks of data; setting TCP_NODELAY
       should improve performance. However, it seems that some Windows clients
       do not function correctly if the server turns off the Nagle algorithm.
       If you are using Exim 4.23 or later, you can set

==>      tcp_nodelay = false

       This stops Exim setting TCP_NODELAY on the sockets created by the
       listening daemon.


Q0089: What does the error \*kernel: application bug: exim(12099) has SIGCHLD
       set to SIG_IGN but calls wait()*\ mean?

A0089: This was a bad interaction between a relatively recent change to the
       Linux kernel and some ``belt and braces'' programming in Exim. The
       following explanation is taken from Exim's change log:

       When Exim is receiving multiple messages on a single connection, and
       spinning off delivery processess, it sets the SIGCHLD signal handling to
       SIG_IGN, because it doesn't want to wait for these processes. However,
       because on some OS this didn't work, it also has a paranoid call to
       \^waitpid()^\ in the loop to reap any children that have finished. Some
       versions of Linux now complain (to the system log) about this
       ``illogical'' call to \^waitpid()^\. I have therefore put it inside a
       conditional compilation, and arranged for it to be omitted for Linux.

       I am pretty sure I caught all the places in Exim where this happened.
       However, there are still occasional reports of this error. I have not
       heard of any resolutions, but my current belief is that they are caused
       by something that Exim calls falling foul of the same check. There was
       at one time a suspicion that the IPv6 stack was involved.


Q0090: I can't seem to get a pipe command to run when I include a \"${lookup"\
       expansion in it.

A0090: See Q0025.


Q0091: Why is Exim giving the error \*Failed to send message from address_reply
       transport*\ when I run it using -C to specify an alternate
       configuration?

A0091: See Q0065.



1. BUILDING AND INSTALLING

Q0101: I'm having a problem with an Exim RPM.

A0101: Normally the thing to do if you have a problem with an RPM package is
       to contact the person who built the package first, not the person who
       made the software that's in the package.  You can usually find out who
       made a package using the following command:

==>      rpm --query --package --queryformat '%{PACKAGER}\n' <rpm-package-file>

       where \[rpm-package-file]\ is the actual file, e.g. \(exim-3.03-2.i386.rpm)\.
       Or, if the package is installed on your system:

==>      rpm --query --queryformat '%{PACKAGER}\n' <package-name>

       where \[package-name]\ is the name component of the package, e.g. \"exim"\.
       If the packager is unable or unwilling to help, only then should you
       contact the actual author or associated mailing list of the software.

       If you discover through the querying process that you can't tell who
       the person (or company or group) is who built the package, or that they
       no longer exist at the given address, then you should reconsider
       whether you want a package from an unknown source on your system.

       If you discover through the querying process that you yourself are the
       person who built the package, then you should either (a) contact the
       author or associated mailing list, or (b) reconsider whether you ought
       to be building and distributing RPM packages of software you don't
       understand.

       Similar rules of thumb govern other binary package formats, including
       debs, tarballs, and POSIX packages.


Q0102: I can't get Exim to compile with Berkeley DB version 2.x or 3.x.

A0102: Have you set \"USE_DB=yes\" in \(Local/Makefile)\? This causes Exim to use the
       native interface to the DBM library instead of the compatibility
       interface, which needs a header called \(ndbm.h)\ that may not exist on your
       system.


Q0103: I'm getting an \*undefined symbol*\ error for \"hosts_ctl"\ when I try to
       build Exim. (On some systems this error is \*undefined reference to
       'hosts_ctl'*\.)

A0103: You should either remove the definition of \\USE_TCP_WRAPPERS\\ or add
       \"-lwrap"\ to your \\EXTRALIBS\\ setting in Local/Makefile.


Q0104: I'm about to upgrade to a new Exim release. Do I need to ensure the
       spool is empty, or take any other special action?

A0104: It depends on where you are coming from.

       (1) If you are changing to release 4.00 or later from a release prior to
       4.00, you will need to make changes to the run time configuration file.
       See the file \(doc/Exim4.upgrade)\ for details. If you are coming from
       before release 3.00, you should also see \(doc/Exim3.upgrade)\.

       (2) If you are upgrading from an Exim 4 release to a later release, you
       do not need to take special action. New releases are made backwards
       compatible with old spool files and hints databases, so that upgrading
       can be done on a running system. All that should be necessary is to
       install a new binary and then HUP the daemon.


Q0105: What does the error \*install-info: command not found*\ mean?

A0105: You have set \\INFO_DIRECTORY\\ in your \(Local/Makefile)\, and Exim is trying
       to install the Texinfo documentation, but cannot find the command called
       \(install-info)\. If you have a version of Texinfo prior to 3.9, you
       should upgrade. Otherwise, check your installation of Texinfo to see why
       the \(install-info)\ command is not available.


Q0106: Exim doesn't seem to be recognizing my operating system type correctly,
       and so is failing to build.

A0106: Run the command \"scripts/os-type -generic"\. The output should be one of
       the known OS types, and should correspond to your operating system. You
       can see which OS are supported by obeying \"ls OS/Makefile-*"\ and looking
       at the file name suffixes.

       If there is a discrepancy, it means that the script is failing to
       interpret the output from the \"uname"\ command correctly, or that the
       output is wrong. Meanwhile, you can build Exim by obeying

==>      EXIM_OSTYPE=xxxx make

       instead of just \"make"\, provided you are running a Bourne-compatible
       shell, or otherwise by setting \\EXIM_OSTYPE\\ correctly in your
       environment. It is probably best to start again from a clean
       distribution, to avoid any wreckage left over from the failed attempt.


Q0107: Exim fails to build, complaining about the absence of the \"killpg"\
       function.

A0107: This function should be present in all modern flavours of Unix. If you
       are using an older version, you should be able to get round the problem
       by inserting

==>      #define killpg(pgid,sig)   kill(-(pgid),sig)

       into the file called \(OS/os.h-xxx)\, where xxx identifies your operating
       system, and is the output of the command \"scripts/os-type -generic"\.


Q0108: I'm getting an unresolved symbol \"ldap_is_ldap_url"\ when trying to build
       Exim.

A0108: You must have specified \"LOOKUP_LDAP=yes"\ in the configuration. Have you
       remembered to set \"-lldap"\ somewhere (e.g. in \\LOOKUP_LIBS\\)? You need that
       in order to get the LDAP library scanned when linking.


Q0109: I'm getting an unresolved symbol \"mysql_close"\ when trying to build Exim.

A0109: You must have specified \"LOOKUP_MYSQL=yes"\ in the configuration. Have you
       remembered to set \"-lmysqlclient"\ somewhere (e.g. in \\LOOKUP_LIBS\\)? You
       need that in order to get the MySQL library scanned when linking.


Q0110: I'm trying to build Exim with PAM support. I have included \"-lpam"\ in
       \\EXTRALIBS\\, but I'm still getting a linking error:

==>      /lib/libpam.so: undefined reference to `dlerror'
         /lib/libpam.so: undefined reference to `dlclose'
         /lib/libpam.so: undefined reference to `dlopen'
         /lib/libpam.so: undefined reference to `dlsym'

A0110: Add \"-ldl"\ to \\EXTRALIBS\\. In some systems these dynamic loading functions
       are in their own library.


Q0111: I'm getting the error \*db.h: No such file or directory*\ when I try to
       build Exim.

A0111: This problem has been seen with RedHat 7.0, but could also happen in
       other environments. If your system is using the DB library, you
       need to install the DB development package in order to build Exim.
       The package is called something like \"db3-devel-3.1.14-16.i386.rpm"\ for
       Linux systems, but you should check which version of DB you have
       installed (current releases are DB 4).


Q0112: I'm getting the error \*/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -ldb*\ when I try to
       build Exim.

A0112: This is probably the same problem as Q0111.


Q0113: I've compiled Exim and I've managed to start it but there was one
       problem - it always complained that \(libmsqlclient.so.10)\ was not found,
       even though this file is in \(/usr/local/lib/mysql/)\.

A0113: Solaris: ensure you have this in your \(Local/Makefile)\:

==>      LOOKUP_LIBS=-L/usr/local/lib/mysql -R/usr/local/lib/mysql

       Net/Open/FreeBSD: Run this command (or ensure it gets run automatically
       at boot time):

==>      ldconfig -m /usr/local/lib/mysql

       Linux: add \(/usr/local/lib/mysql)\ to \(/etc/ld.so.conf)\ and re-run \(ldconfig)\.
       Alternatively, add

==>      -Wl,-rpath -Wl,/usr/local/lib/mysql

       to EXTRA_LIBS and  then re-link (this is similar to the Solaris solution
       above). This will probably also work on other systems that use GNU
       Binutils.


Q0114: How can I remove Sendmail from my system? I've built Exim and run \"make
       install"\, but it still doesn't seem to be fully operational.

A0114: If you are running FreeBSD, see Q9201. Otherwise, you need to arrange
       that whichever of the paths \(/usr/sbin/sendmail)\ or \(/usr/lib/sendmail)\
       exists on your system is changed to refer to Exim. For example, you
       could use these commands (as \/root/\):

==>      mv /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail.original
         chmod u-s /usr/sbin/sendmail.original
         ln -s /path/to/exim /usr/sbin/sendmail

       The second command removes the setuid privilege from the old MTA, as a
       general safety precaution. In the third command, substitute the actual
       path to the Exim binary for \(/path/to/exim)\.


Q0115: What does \*Can't open \(../scripts/newer)\: No such file or directory*\
       mean? I got it while trying to build Exim.

A0115: You are using FreeBSD, or another OS that has a \^make^\ command which
       tries to optimize the running of commands. Exim's \(Makefile)\ contains
       targets with sequential commands like this:

==>      buildpcre:
           @cd pcre; $(MAKE) SHELL=$(SHELL) AR="$(AR)" $(MFLAGS) CC="$(CC)" \
             CFLAGS="$(CFLAGS) $(PCRE_CFLAGS)" \
             RANLIB="$(RANLIB)" HDRS="$(PHDRS)" \
             INCLUDE="$(INCLUDE) $(IPV6_INCLUDE) $(TLS_INCLUDE)"
           @if $(SHELL) $(SCRIPTS)/newer pcre/libpcre.a exim; then \
             /bin/rm -f exim eximon.bin; fi

       The second command assumes that the \"cd pcre"\ in the first command is
       no longer in effect. If you have \"-j3"\ in your default set of
       \"MAKEFLAGS"\, FreeBSD \^make^\ tries to optimize, and ends up up with both
       commands in the same shell process. The result is that \"$(SCRIPTS)"\
       (which has a value of \"../scripts"\) is not found.

       The simplest solution is to force \^make^\ to use backwards compatibility
       mode with each command in its own shell, by using the \-B\ flag. To
       ensure that this happens throughout the build, it's best to export it in
       your environment:

==>	 MAKEFLAGS='-B'
	 export MAKEFLAGS
	 make


Q0116: I have tried to build Exim with Berkeley DB 3 and 4, but I always get
       errors.

A0116: One common problem, especially when you have several different versions
       of BDB installed on the same host, is that the header files and library
       files for BDB are not in a standard place. You therefore need to tell
       Exim where they are, by setting INCLUDE and DBMLIB in your
       \(Local/Makefile)\. For example, I use this on my workstation when
       I want to build with DB 4.1:

==>      INCLUDE=-I/opt/local/include/db-4.1
         DBMLIB=/opt/local/lib/db-4.1/libdb.a

       Specifying the complete library file like this will cause it to be
       statically linked with Exim. You'll have to check to see where these
       files are on your system. For example, on FreeBSD 5, the header is in
       \(/usr/local/include/db4)\ and the library is in \(/usr/local/lib)\ and
       called \(libdb4)\. In that environment, you could use:

==>      INCLUDE=-I/usr/local/include/db4
         DBMLIB=-L/usr/local/lib -ldb4

       This time, DBMLIB is specifying the library directory (\(/usr/local/lib)\)
       and the name of the library (\(db4)\) separately. The name of the actual
       library file is \(/usr/local/lib/libdb4.something)\. If the library was
       compiled for dynamic linking, that will be used.


Q0117: Is there a quick walk-through of an Exim install from source anywhere?

A0117: Here! This is a contribution from a RedHat user, somewhat edited. On
       other operating systems things may be slightly different, but the
       general approach is the same.

       (1) Install the db needed for Exim. This needs to be done first if you
       don't have a DBM library installed. Go to \?http://www.sleepycat.com?\
       and download \(db-4.1.25.tar.gz)\, or whatever the current release is.
       Then:

==>      gunzip db-4.1.25.tar.gz
         tar -xvf db-4.1.25.tar
         cd db-4.1.25
         cd build_unix
         ../dist/configure
         make
         make install

       (2) Add a user for use by Exim, unless you want to use an existing user
       such as \/mail/\:

==>      adduser exim

       (3) Now you can prepare to build Exim. Go to \?http://www.exim.org?\ or
       one of its mirrors, or the master ftp site
       \?ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/email/exim/exim4?\, and download
       \(exim-4.20.tar.gz)\ or whatever the current release is. Then:

==>      gunzip exim-4.20.tar.gz
         tar -xvf exim-4.20.tar
         cd exim-4.20
         cp src/EDITME Local/Makefile
         cp exim_monitor/EDITME Local/eximon.conf

       (4) Edit \(Local/Makefile)\:

       Comment out EXIM_MONITOR= unless you want to install the Exim
         monitor (it requires X-windows).

       Set the user you want Exim to use for itself:

==>        EXIM_USER=exim

       If your DBM library is Berkeley DB, set up to use its native interface:

==>        USE_DB=yes

       Make sure Exim's build can find the DBM library and its headers. If
         you've installed Berkeley DB 4 you'll need to have settings like this
         in \(Local/Makefile)\:

==>        INCLUDE=-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.1/include
           DBMLIB=/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.1/lib/libdb.a

         (Check that the first directory contains the db.h file and that the
         second library exists.)

       You don't need to change anything else, but you might want to review
         the default settings in the ``must specify'' section.

       (4) Build Exim by running the \/make/\ command.

       (5) Install Exim by running, as \/root/\:

==>      make install

       You \*must*\ be \/root/\ to do this. You do not have to be root for any of
       the previous building activity.

       (6) Run some tests on Exim; see if it will do local and remote
       deliveries. Change the configuration if necessary (for example,
       uncommenting \group\ on the \%local_delivery%\ transport if you don't
       use a ``sticky bit'' directory).

       (7) Change Sendmail to Exim (of course you need to have had Sendmail
       installed to do this).

==>      /etc/init.d/sendmail stop
         mv /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail.org
         ln -s /usr/exim/bin/exim /usr/sbin/sendmail
         /etc/init.d/sendmail start

       (8) Check the Exim log. Either use the Exim monitor, or:

==>      tail -f /var/spool/exim/log/mainlog


Q0118: I've set \"LOOKUP_INCLUDE=-I/client/include"\ in Local/Makefile, but the
       compilation of \^exim_dumpdb^\ is ignoring this option and failing. Why?

A0118: LOOKUP_INCLUDE is the special include file for lookup modules in Exim
       (e.g. mysql, LDAP). Confusingly, it doesn't apply to basic DBM code
       which is used also for other things. Try setting INCLUDE and DBMLIB
       instead. For example:

==>      USE_DB=yes
         INCLUDE=-I/client/include
         DBMLIB=/client/lib/libdb.a


Q0119: I know there are some 3rd-party patches for Exim, for exiscan and
       other things. Where are they?

A0119: Exiscan is at \?http://duncanthrax.net/exiscan-acl/?\.
[[br]]
       Scanexi is at \?http://w1.231.telia.com/~u23107873/scanexi.html?\
[[br]]
       A sample \^^local_scan()^^\ function for interfacing to \^uvscan^\ is
       at \?http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/~mb/local_scan/?\.
[[br]]
       An interface to SpamAssassin at SMTP time is at
       \?http://marc.merlins.org/linux/exim/sa.html?\.
[[br]]
       A mini-HOWTO (PDF file) about scanning and virus scanning, and some RPMs
       can be found at \?http://www.timj.co.uk/linux/exim.php?\.



2. ROUTING IN GENERAL

Q0201: How can I arrange that messages larger than some limit are handled by
       a special router?

A0201: You can use a \condition\ option on the router line this:

==>      condition = ${if >{$message_size}{100K}{yes}{no}}


Q0202: Can I specify a list of domains to explicitly reject?

A0202: Set up a named domain list containing the domains in the first section
       of the configuration, for example:

==>      domainlist reject_domains = list:of:domains:to:reject

       You can use this list in an ACL to reject any SMTP recipients in those
       domains. You can also give a customized error message, like this:

==>      deny message = The domain $domain is no longer supported
              domains = +reject_domains

       If you also want to reject these domains in messages that are submitted
       from the command line (not using SMTP), you need to set up a router to
       do it, like this:

==>      reject_domains:
           driver = redirect
           domains = +reject_domains
           allow_fail
           data = :fail: The domain $domain is no longer supported


Q0203: How can I arrange to do my own qualification of non-fully-qualified
       domains, and then pass them on to the next router?

A0203: If you have some list of domains that you want to qualify, you can do
       this using a redirect router. For example,

==>      qualify:
           driver = redirect
           domains = *.a.b
           data = ${quote:$local_part}@$domain.c.com

       This adds \".c.com"\ to any domain that matches \"*.a.b"\.
       If you want to do this in conjunction with a \%dnslookup%\ router, the
       \widen_domains\ option of that router may be another way of achieving
       what you want.


Q0204: Every system has a \"nobody"\ account under which httpd etc run. I would
       like to know how to restrict mail which comes from that account to users
       on that host only.

A0204: Set up a first router like this:

==>      fail_nobody:
            driver = redirect
            senders = nobody@your.domain
            domains = ! +local_domains
            allow_fail
            data = :fail: Nobody may not mail off-site

       This assumes you have defined \+local_domains\ as in the default
       configuration.


Q0205: How can I get Exim to deliver to me locally and everyone else at the same
       domain via SMTP to the MX record specified host?

A0205: Create an \%accept%\ router to pick off the one address and pass it to
       an appropriate transport. Put this router before the one that does MX
       routing:

==>      me:
           driver = accept
           domains = dom.com
           local_parts = me
           transport = local_delivery

       In the transport you will have to specify the \user\ option. An
       alternative way of doing this is to add a condition to the router that
       does MX lookups to make it skip your address. Subsequent routers can then
       deliver your address locally. You'll need a condition like this:

==>      condition = \
           ${if and {{eq{$domain}{dom.com}}{eq{$local_part}{me}}}{no}{yes}}


Q0206: How can I get Exim to deliver certain domains to a different SMTP port
       on my local host?

A0206: You must set up a special \%smtp%\ transport, where you can specify the
       \port\ option, and then set up a router to route the domains to that
       transport. There are two possibilities for specifying the host:

       (1) If you use a \%manualroute%\ router, you can specify the local host
           in the router options. You must also set

==>          self = send

           so that it does not object to sending to the local host.

       (2) If you use a router that cannot specify hosts (for example, an
           \%accept%\ router with appropriate conditions), you have to specify
           the host using the \hosts\ option of the transport. In this case,
           you must also set \allow_localhost\ on the transport.


Q0207: Why does Exim lower-case the local-part of a non-local domain when
       routing?

A0207: Because \caseful_local_part\ is not set (in the default configuration)
       for the \%dnslookup%\ router. This does not matter because the local
       part takes no part in the routing, and the actual local part that is
       sent out in the RCPT command is always the original local part.



3. ROUTING TO REMOTE HOSTS

Q0301: What do \*lowest numbered MX record points to local host*\ and \*remote
       host address is the local host*\ mean?

A0301: They mean exactly what they say. Exim expected to route an address to a
       remote host, but the IP address it obtained from a router was for the
       local host. If you really do want to send over TCP/IP to the local host
       (to a different version of Exim or another MTA, for example), see Q0206.

       More commonly, these errors arise when Exim thinks it is routing some
       foreign domain. For example, the router configuration causes Exim to
       look up the domain in the DNS, but when Exim examines the DNS output,
       either the lowest numbered MX record points at the local host, or there
       are no MX records, and the address record for the domain contains an
       IP address that belongs to the local host.

       There has been a rash of instances of domains being deliberately set up
       with MX records pointing to \"localhost"\ (or other names with A records
       that specify 127.0.0.1), which causes this behaviour. You can use the
       \ignore_target_hosts\ option to get Exim to ignore these records. The
       default contiguration does this. For more discussion, see Q0319. For
       other cases:

       (1) If the domain is meant to be handled as a local domain, there
           is a problem with the configuration, because it should not then have
           been looked up in the DNS. Check the \domains\ settings on your
           routers.

       (2) If the domain is one for which the local host is providing a
           relaying service (called ``mail hubbing''), possibly as part of a
           firewall, you need to set up a router to tell Exim where to send
           messages addressed to this domain, because the DNS directs them to
           the local host. You should put a router like this one before the one
           that does DNS lookups:

==>          hubbed_hosts:
               driver = manualroute
               transport = remote_smtp
               route_list = see discussion below

           The contents of the \route_list\ option depend on how many hosts you
           are hubbing for, and how their names are related to the domain name.
           Suppose the local host is a firewall, and all the domains in
           \(*.foo.bar)\ have MX records pointing to it, and each domain
           corresponds to a host of the same name. Then the setting could be

==>          route_list = *.foo.bar $domain

           If there isn't a convenient relationship between the domain names
           and the host names, you either have to list each domain separately,
           or use a lookup expansion to look up the host from the domain, or
           put the routing information in a file and use the \route_data\
           option with a lookup expansion.

       (3) If neither (1) nor (2) is the case, the lowest numbered MX record or
           the address record for the domain should not be pointing to your
           host. You should arrange to get the DNS mended.


Q0302: Why does Exim say \*all relevant MX records point to non-existent hosts*\
       when MX records point to IP addresses?

A0302: MX records cannot point to IP addresses. They are defined to point to
       host names, so Exim always interprets them that way. (An IP address is a
       syntactically valid host name.) The DNS for the domain you are having
       problems with is misconfigured.

       However, it appears that more and more DNS zones are breaking the rules
       and putting IP addresses on the RHS of MX records. Exim follows the
       rules and rejects this, but other MTAs do support it, so the
       \allow_mx_to_ip\ was regretfully added at release 3.14 to permit this
       heinous activity.


Q0303: How do I configure Exim to send all messages to a central server? I
       don't want to do any local deliveries at all on this host.

A0303: Use this as your first and only router:

==>      send_to_gateway:
           driver = manualroute
           transport = remote_smtp
           route_list = * central.server.host


Q0304: How do I configure Exim to send all non-local mail to a gateway host?

A0304: Replace the \%dnslookup%\ router in the default configuration with the
       following:

==>      send_to_gateway:
           driver = manualroute
           domains = !+local_domains
           transport = remote_smtp
           route_list = * gate.way.host

       If there are several hosts you can send to, you can specify them as a
       colon-separated list.


Q0305: How can I arrange for mail on my local network to be delivered directly
       to the relevant hosts, but all other mail to be sent to my ISP's mail
       server? The local hosts are all DNS-registered and behave like normal
       Internet hosts.

A0305: Set up a first router to pick off all the domains for your local
       network. There are several ways you might do this. For example

==>      local_network:
           driver = dnslookup
           transport = remote_smtp
           domains = *.mydomain.com

       This does a perfectly conventional DNS routing operation, but only for
       the domains that match \(*.mydomain.com)\. Follow this with a `smart
       host' router:

==>      internet:
           driver = manualroute
           domains = !+local_domains
           transport = remote_smtp
           route_list = * mail.isp.net

       This routes any other non-local domains to the smart host.


Q0306: How do I configure Exim to send all non-local mail to a central server
       if it cannot be immediately delivered by my host? I don't want to have
       queued mail waiting on my host.

A0306: Add to the \%remote_smtp%\ transport the following:

==>      fallback_hosts = central.server.name(s)

       If there are several names, they must be separated by colons.


Q0307: The \route_list\ setting \"^foo$:^bar$ $domain"\ in a \%manualroute%\
       router does not work.

A0307: The first thing in a \route_list\ item is a single pattern, not a list of
       patterns. You need to write that as \"^(foo|bar)$ $domain"\.
       Alternatively, you could use several items and write

==>      route_list = foo $domain; bar $domain

       Note the semicolon separator. This is because the second thing in each
       item can itself be a list - of hosts.


Q0308: I have a domain for which some local parts must be delivered locally,
       but the remainder are to be treated like any other remote addresses.

A0308: One possible way of doing this is as follows: Assuming you are using a
       configuration that is similar to the default one, first exclude your
       domain from the first router by changing it to look like this:

==>      non_special_remote:
           driver = dnslookup
           domains = ! +local_domains : ! special.domain
           transport = remote_smtp
           ignore_target_hosts = 127.0.0.0/8
           no_more

       Then add a second router which handles the local parts that are not to
       be delivered locally:

==>      special_remote:
           driver = dnslookup
           domains = special.domain
           local_parts = ! lsearch;/list/of/special/localparts
           transport = remote_smtp
           ignore_target_hosts = 127.0.0.0/8
           no_more

       The remaining local parts will fall through to the remaining routers,
       which can delivery them locally.


Q0309: How can I configure Exim on a firewall machine so that if mail arrives
       addressed to a domain whose MX points to the firewall, it is forwarded
       to the internal mail server, without having to have a list of all the
       domains involved?

A0309: As your first router, have the standard \%dnslookup%\ router from the
       default configuration, with the added option

==>      self = pass

       This will handle all domains whose lowest numbered MX records do not
       point to your host. Because of the \no_more\ setting, if it encounters
       an unknown domain, routing will fail. However, if it hits a domain whose
       lowest numbered MX points to your host, the \self\ option comes into
       play, and overrides \no_more\. The \"pass"\ setting causes it to pass
       the address on to the next router. (The default causes it to generate an
       error.)

       The only non-local domains that reach the second router are those with
       MX records pointing to the local host. Set it up to send them to the
       internal mail server like this:

==>      internal:
           driver = manualroute
           domains = ! +local_domains
           transport = remote_smtp
           route_list = * internal.server


Q0310: If a DNS lookup returns no MX records why doesn't Exim just bin the
       message?

A0310: If a DNS lookup returns no MXs, Exim looks for an address record, in
       accordance with the rules that are defined in the RFCs. If you want to
       break the rules, you can set \mx_domains\ in the \%dnslookup%\ router, but
       you will cut yourself off from those sites (and there still seem to be
       plenty) who do not set up MX records.


Q0311: When a DNS lookup for MX records fails to complete, why doesn't Exim
       send the messsage to the host defined by the A record?

A0311: The RFCs are quite clear on this. Only if it is known that there are no
       MX records is an MTA allowed to make use of the A record. When an MX
       lookup fails to complete, Exim does not know whether there are any MX
       records or not. There seem to be some name servers (or some
       configurations of some name servers) that give a ``server fail'' error when
       asked for a non-existent MX record. Exim uses standard resolver calls,
       which unfortunately do not distinguish between this case and a timeout,
       so all Exim can do is try again later.


Q0312: Is it possible to use a conditional expression for the host item in a
       \route_list\ for \%manualroute%\ router? I tried the following, but it
       doesn't work:

==>      route_list = * ${if match{$header_from:}{\N.*\.usa\.net$\N} \
                      {<smarthost1>}{<smarthost2>}

A0312: The problem is that the second item in \route_list\ contains white
       space, which means that it gets terminated prematurely. To avoid this,
       you must put the second item in quotes:

==>      route_list = * "${if match{$header_from:}{\N.*\.usa\.net$\N} \
                      {<smarthost1>}{<smarthost2>}}"


Q0313: I send all external mail to a smart host, but this means that bad
       addresses also get passed to the smart host. Can I avoid this?

A0313: Assuming you have DNS availability, set up a conventional \%dnslookup%\
       router to do the routing, but in the \%remote_smtp%\ transport set this:

==>    hosts = your.smart.host
       hosts_override

       This will override the hosts that the router finds so that everything
       goes to the smart host, but any non-existent domains will be failed by
       the router.


Q0314: I have a really annoying intermittent problem where attempts to mail to
       valid sites are rejected with \*unknown mail domain*\. This only happens a
       few times a day and there is no particular pattern to the sites it
       rejects. If I try to lookup the same domain a few minutes later then it
       is OK.

A0314: This is almost certainly a problem with the DNS resolver or the the
       domain's name servers.

       (1) Have you linked Exim against the newest DNS resolver library that
       comes with Bind? If you are using SunOS4 that may be your problem, as
       the resolver that comes with that OS is known to be buggy and to give
       intermittent false negatives.

       (2) Effects like this are sometimes seen if a domain's name servers get
       out of step with each other.


Q0315: I'd like route all mail with addresses that can't be resolved (the DNS
       lookup times out) to a relay machine.

A0315: Set \pass_on_timeout\ on your \%dnslookup%\ router, and add below it a
       \%manualroute%\ router that routes all relevant domains to the relay.


Q0316: I would like to forward all incoming email for a particular domain to
       another host via SMTP. Whereabouts would I configure that?

A0316: Use this as your first router:

==>      special:
           driver = manualroute
           transport = remote_smtp
           route_list = the.particular.domain the.other.host

       You will also need to adjust the ACL for incoming SMTP so that this
       domain is accepted for relaying. If you are using the default
       configuration, there is a domain list called \relay_domains\ that is
       set up for this.


Q0317: What I'd like to do is have alternative smart hosts, where the one to be
       used is determined by which ISP I'm connected to.

A0317: The simplest way to do this is to arrange for the name of the smart host
       du jour to be placed in a file when you connect, say \(/etc/smarthost)\.
       Then you can read this file from a \%manualroute%\ router like this:

==>      smarthost:
           driver = manualroute
           transport = remote_smtp
           route_list = * ${readfile{/etc/smarthost}{}}

       The second argument of the \"readfile"\ item is a string that replaces
       any newline characters in the file (in this case, with nothing).
       By keeping the data out of the main configuration file, you avoid having
       to HUP the daemon when it changes.


Q0318: Exim won't route to a host with no MX record.

A0318: More than one thing may cause this.

       (1) Are you sure there really is no MX record? Sometimes a typo results
       in a malformed MX record in the zone file, in which case some name
       servers give a SERVFAIL error rather than NXDOMAIN. Exim has to treat
       this as a temporary error, so it can't go on to look for address records.
       You can check for this state using one of the DNS interrogation commands,
       such as \(nslookup)\, \(host)\, or \(dig)\.

       (2) Is there a wildcard MX record for \(your)\ domain? Is the
       \search_parents\ option on in your \%dnslookup%\ router? If the answer to
       both these questions is ``yes'', that is the cause of the problem. When
       the DNS resolver fails to find the MX record, it tries adding on your
       domain if \search_parents\ is true, and thereby finds your wildcard MX
       record. For example:

         .  There is a wildcard MX record for \(*.a.b.c)\.

         .  There is a host called \(x.y.z)\ that has an A record and no MX record.

         .  Somebody on the host \(m.a.b.c)\ domain tries to mail to \(user@x.y.z)\.

         .  Exim calls the DNS to look for an MX record for \(x.y.z)\.

         .  The DNS doesn't find any MX record. Because \search_parents\ is true,
            it then tries searching the current host's parent domain, so it
            looks for \(x.y.z.a.b.c)\ and picks up the wildcard MX record.

       Setting \search_parents\ false makes this case work while retaining the
       wildcard MX record. However, anybody on the host \(m.a.b.c)\ who mails to
       \(user@n.a)\ (expecting it to go to \(user@n.a.b.c)\) now has a problem. The
       \widen_domains\ option of the \%dnslookup%\ router may be helpful in this
       circumstance.


Q0319: I have some mails on my queues that are sticking around longer than
       the retry time indicates they should. They are all getting frozen
       because some remote admin has set their MX record to 127.0.0.1.

A0319: The admin in question is an idiot. Exim will always freeze such messages
       because they are apparently routed to the local host. To bounce these
       messages immediately, set

==>      ignore_target_hosts = 127.0.0.1

       on the \%dnslookup%\ router. This causes Exim to completely ignore any hosts
       with that IP address. In fact, there are quite a number of IP addresses
       that should never be used. Here is a suggested configuration list for
       the IPv4 ones:

==>      # Don't allow domains whose single MX (or A) record is a
         # "special-use IPv4 address", as listed in RFC 3330.
         ignore_target_hosts = \
	       # Hosts on "this network"; RFC 1700 (page 4) states that these
	       # are only allowed as source addresses
	       0.0.0.0/8 : \
	       # Private networks, RFC 1918
	       10.0.0.0/8 : 172.16.0.0/12 : 192.168.0.0/16 : \
	       # Internet host loopback address, RFC 1700 (page 5)
	       127.0.0.0/8 : \
	       # "Link local" block
	       169.254.0.0/16 : \
	       # "TEST-NET" - should not appear on the public Internet
	       192.0.2.0/24 : \
	       # 6to4 relay anycast addresses, RFC 3068
	       192.88.99.0/24 : \
	       # Network interconnect device benchmark testing, RFC 2544
	       198.18.0.0/15 : \
	       # Multicast addresses, RFC 3171
	       224.0.0.0/4 : \
	       # Reserved for future use, RFC 1700 (page 4)
	       240.0.0.0/4


Q0320: How can I arrange for all mail to \*user@some.domain*\ to be forwarded
       to \*user@other.domain*\?

A0320: Put this as your first router:

==>      forward:
           driver = redirect
           domains = some.domain
           data = ${quote:$local_part}@other.domain


Q0321: How can I tell an Exim router to use only IPv4 or only IPv6 addresses
       when it finds both types in the DNS?

A0321: You can do this by making it ignore the addresses you don't want. This
       example ignores all IPv6 addresses and all IPv4 addresses in the 127
       network:

==>      ignore_target_hosts = <; 0000::0000/0 ; 127.0.0.0/8

       To ignore all IPv4 addresses, use

==>      ignore_target_hosts = 0.0.0.0/0

       See Q0319 for a general discussion of \ignore_target_hosts\.


Q0322: How can I reroute all messages bound for 192.168.10.0 and 10.0.0.0 to
       a specific mail server?

A0322: That is an odd requirement. However, there is an obscure feature in
       Exim, originally implemented for packet radio people, that perhaps can
       help. Check out the \translate_ip_address\ generic router option.



4. ROUTING FOR LOCAL DELIVERY

Q0401: I need to have any mail for \(virt.dom.ain)\ that doesn't match one of the
       aliases in \(/usr/lib/aliases.virt)\ delivered to a particular address, for
       example, \(postmaster@virt.dom.ain)\.

A0401: Adding an asterisk to a search type causes Exim to look up ``*'' when the
       normal lookup fails. So if your aliasing router is something like this:

==>      virtual:
           driver = redirect
           domains = virt.dom.ain
           data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/usr/lib/aliases.virt}}
           no_more

       you should change \"lsearch"\ to \"lsearch*"\, and put this in the alias
       file:

==>      *: postmaster@virt.dom.ain

       This solution has the feature that if there are several unknown
       addresses in the same message, only one copy gets sent to the
       postmaster, because of Exim's normal de-duplication rules.

       NOTE: This solution works only if there is also an entry for \(postmaster)\
       in the alias file, ultimately resolving to an address that is not in
       \(virt.dom.ain)\. See also Q0434.


Q0402: How do I arrange for all incoming email for \(*@some.domain)\ to go into one
       pop3 mail account? The customer doesn't want to add a list of specific
       local parts to the system.

A0402: Set up a special transport that writes to the mailbox like this:

==>      special_transport:
           driver = appendfile
           file = /pop/mailbox
           envelope_to_add
           return_path_add
           delivery_date_add
           user = exim

       The file will be written as the user \"exim"\. Then arrange to route all
       mail for that domain to that transport, with a router like this:

==>      special_router:
           driver = accept
           domains = some.domain
           transport = special_transport


Q0403: How do I configure Exim to send messages for unknown local users to a
       central server?

A0403: Assuming you are using something like the default configuration, where
       local users are processed by the later routers, you should add the
       following router at the end:

==>      unknown:
           driver = manualroute
           transport = remote_smtp
           route_list = * server.host.name
           no_verify

       However, you should if possible try to verify that the user is known on
       the central server before accepting the message in the first place. This
       can be done by making use of Exim's ``call forward'' facility.


Q0404: How can I arrange for messages submitted by (for example) Majordomo to
       be handled specially?

A0404: You can use the \condition\ option on a router, with a setting such as

==>      condition = ${if and {{eq {$sender_host_address}{}} \
                     {eq {$sender_ident}{majordom}}} {yes}{no}}

       This first tests for a locally-submitted message, by ensuring there is
       no sending host address, and then it checks the identity of the user
       that ran the submitting process.


Q0405: On a host that accepts mail for several domains, do I have to use fully
       qualified addresses in \(/etc/aliases)\ or do I have to set up an alias
       file for each domain?

A0405: You can do it either way. The default aliasing router contains this line:

==>      data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases}}

       which is what does the actual lookup. To make it look up the complete
       address instead of just the local part, use

==>      data = ${lookup{$local_part@$domain}lsearch{/etc/aliases}}

       If you want to use a separate file for each domain, use

==>      data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases/$domain}}


Q0406: Some of my users are using the \(.forward)\ to pipe to a shell command which
       appends to the user's INBOX. How can I forbid this?

A0406: If you allow your users to run shells in pipes, you cannot control which
       commands they run or which files they write to. However, you should point
       out to them that writing to an INBOX by arbitrary commands is not
       interlocked with the MTA and MUAs, and is liable to mess up the contents
       of the file.

       If a user simply wants to choose a specific file for the delivery of
       messages, this can be done by putting a file name in a \(.forward)\ file
       rather than using a pipe, or by using the \"save"\ command in an Exim
       filter file.

       You can set \forbid_pipe\ on the router, but that will prevent them from
       running any pipe commands at all. Alternatively, you can restrict which
       commands they may run in their pipes by setting the \allow_commands\
       and/or \restrict_to_path\ options in the \%address_pipe%\ transport.


Q0407: How can I arrange for a default value when using a query-style lookup
       such as LDAP or NIS+ to handle aliases?

A0407: Use a second query in the failure part of the original lookup, like
       this:

==>      data = ${lookup ldap\
           {ldap://x.y.z/l=yvr?aliasaddress?sub?(&(mail=$local_part@$domain))}\
           {$value}\
           {\
           ${lookup ldap \
             {ldap://x.y.z/l=yvr?aliasaddress?sub?(&(mail=default@$domain))}}\
           }}

        Of course, if the default is a fixed value you can just include it
        directly.


Q0408: If I don't fully qualify the addresses in a virtual domain's alias file
       then mail to aliases which also match the local domain get delivered to
       the local domain.

A0408: Set the \qualify_preserve_domain\ option on the \%redirect%\ router.


Q0409: I want mail for any local part at certain virtual domains to go
       to a single address for each domain.

A0409: One way to to this is

==>      virtual:
           driver = redirect
           data = ${lookup{$domain}lsearch{/etc/virtual}}

       The \(/etc/virtual)\ file contains a list of domains and the addresses to
       which their mail should be sent. For example:

==>       domain1:  postmaster@some.where.else
          domain2:  joe@xyz.plc

       If the number of domains is large, using a DBM or cdb file would be more
       efficient. If the lookup fails to find the domain in the file, the value
       of the \data\ option is empty, causing the router to decline.


Q0410: How can I make Exim look in the alias NIS map instead of \(/etc/aliases)\?

A0410: The default configuration does not use NIS (many hosts don't run it).
       You need to change this line in the \%system_aliases%\ router:

==>      data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases}}

       Change it to

==>      data = ${lookup{$local_part}nis{mail.aliases}}

       If you want to use \(/etc/aliases)\ as well as NIS, put this router (with
       a different name) before or after the default one, depending on which
       data source you want to take precedence.


Q0411: Why will Exim deliver a message locally to any username that is longer
       than 8 characters as long as the first 8 characters match one of the
       local usernames?

A0411: The problem is in your operating system. Exim just calls the \^^getpwnam()^^\
       function to test a local part for being a local login name. It does not
       presume to guess the maximum length of user name for the underlying
       operating system. Many operating systems correctly reject names that are
       longer than the maximum length; yours is apparently deficient in this
       regard. To cope with such systems, Exim has an option called
       \max_user_name_length\ which you can set to the maximum allowed length.


Q0412: Why am I seeing the error \*bad mode (100664) for /home/test/.forward*\?
       I've looked through the documentation but can't see anything to suggest
       that Exim has to do anything other than read the \(.forward)\ file.

A0412: For security, Exim checks for mode bits that shouldn't be set, by
       default 022. You can change this by setting the \modemask\ option of the
       \%redirect%\ router that is handling \(.forward)\ files.


Q0413: When a user's \(.forward)\ file is syntactially invalid, Exim defers
       delivery of all messages to that user, which sometimes include the
       user's own test messages. Can it be told to ignore the \(.forward)\ file
       and/or inform the user of the error?

A0413: Setting \skip_syntax_errors\ on the redirect router causes syntax
       errors to be skipped. When dealing with users' \(.forward)\ files it is best
       to combine this with a setting of \syntax_errors_to\ in order to send
       a message about the error to the user. However, to avoid an infinite
       cascade of messages, you have to be able to send to an address that
       bypasses \(.forward)\ file processing. This can be done by including a
       router like this one

==>      real_localuser:
           driver = accept
           check_local_user
           transport = local_delivery
           prefix = real-

       before the \%redirect%\ router that handles \(.forward)\ files. This will
       do an ordinary local delivery without \(.forward)\ processing, if the
       local part is prefixed by \"real-"\. You can then set something like
       the following options on the \%redirect%\ router:

==>      skip_syntax_errors
         syntax_errors_to = real-$local_part@$domain
         syntax_errors_text = "\
           This is an automatically generated message. An error has been \
           found\nin your .forward file. Details of the error are reported \
           below. While\nthis error persists, messages addressed to you will \
           get delivered into\nyour normal mailbox and you will receive a \
           copy of this message for\neach one."

       A final tidying setting to go with this is a rewriting rule that changes
       \"real-username"\ into just \"username"\ in the headers of the message:

==>      \N^real-([^@]+)@your\.dom\.ain$\N    $1@your.dom.ain   h

       This means that users won't ever see the \"real-"\ prefix, unless they
       look at the ::Envelope-To:: header.


Q0414: I have set \caseful_local_part\ on the routers that handle my local
       domain because my users have upper case letters in their login names,
       but incoming mail now has to use the correct case. Can I relax this
       somehow?

A0414: If you really have to live with caseful user names but want incoming
       local parts to be caseless, then you have to maintain a file, indexed by
       the lower case forms, that gives the correct case for each login, like
       this:

==>      admin:    Admin
         steven:   Steven
         mcdonald: McDonald
         lamanch:  LaManche
         ...

       and at the start of the routers that handle your local domain, put one
       like this:

==>      set_case_router:
           driver = redirect
           data = ${lookup{${lc:$local_part}}lsearch{/the/file}}
           qualify_preserve_domain

       For efficiency, you should also set the \redirect_router\ option to cause
       processing of the changed address to begin at the next router. If you
       are otherwise using the default configuration, the setting would be

==>      redirect_router = system_aliases

       If there are lots of users, then a DBM or cdb file would be more
       efficient than a linear search. If you are handling several domains,
       you will have to extend this configuration to cope appropriately.


Q0415: Can I use my existing alias files and forward files as well as procmail
       and effectively drop in Exim in place of Sendmail ?

A0415: Yes, as long as your alias and forward files don't assume that pipes are
       going to run under a shell. If they do, you either have to change them,
       or configure Exim to use a shell (which it doesn't by default).


Q0416: What is quickest way to set up Exim so any message sent to a
       non-existing user would bounce back with a different message, based
       on the name of non-existing user?

A0416: Place this router last, so that it catches any local addresses that
       are not otherwise handled:

==>      non_exist:
           driver = accept
           transport = non_exist_reply
           no_verify

       Then add the following transport to the transports section:

==>      non_exist_reply:
           driver = autoreply
           user = exim
           to = $sender_address
           subject = User does not exist
           text = You sent mail to $local_part. That's not a valid user here. \
                  The subject was: $subject.

       If you want to pick up a message from a file, you can use the \file\
       option (use \file_expand\ if you want its contents expanded).


Q0417: What do I need to do to make Exim handle \(/usr/ucb/vacation)\ processing
       automatically, so that people could just create a \(.vacation.msg)\ file in
       their home directory and not have to edit their \(.forward)\ file?

A0417: Add a new router like this, immediately before the normal \%localuser%\
       router:

==>      vacation:
           driver = accept
           check_local_user
           require_files = $home/.vacation.msg
           transport = vacation_transport
           unseen

       and a matching new transport like this:

==>      vacation_transport:
           driver = pipe
           command = /usr/ucb/vacation $local_part

       However, some versions of \(/usr/ucb/vacation)\ do not work properly unless
       the DBM file(s) it uses are created in advance - it won't create them
       itself. You also need a way of removing them when the vacation is over.

       Another possibility is to use a fixed filter file which is run whenever
       \(.vacation.msg)\ exists, for example:

==>      vacation:
           driver = redirect
           check_local_user
           require_files = $home/.vacation.msg
           file = /some/central/filter
           allow_filter

       The filter file should use the \"if personal"\ check before sending mail,
       to avoid generating automatic responses to mailing lists. If sending a
       message is all that it does, this doesn't count as a ``significant''
       delivery, so the original message goes on to be delivered as normal.

       Yet another possibility is to make use of Exim's \%autoreply%\ transport,
       and not use \(/usr/ucb/vacation)\ at all.


Q0418: I want to use a default entry in my alias file to handle unknown local
       parts, but it picks up the local parts that the aliases generate. For
       example, if the alias file is

==>      luke.skywalker: luke
         ls: luke
         *: postmaster

       then messages addressed to \/luke.skywalker/\ end up at \/postmaster/\.

A0418: The default mechanism works best with virtual domains, where the
       generated address is not in the same domain. If you just want to pick up
       all unknown local parts and send them to postmaster, an easier way to do
       it is to put this as your last router:

==>      unknown:
           driver = redirect
           data = postmaster
           no_verify

       Another possibility is to put the redirect router for these aliases
       after all the other routers, so that local parts which are user names
       get picked off first. You will need to have two aliasing routers if
       there are some local parts (e.g. \/root/\) which are login names, but which
       you want to handle as aliases.


Q0419: I have some obsolete domains which people have been warned not to use
       any more. How can I arrange to delete any mail that is sent to them?

A0419: To reject them at SMTP time, with a customized error message, place
       statments like this in the ACL:

==>      deny message = The domain $domain is obsolete
              domains = lsearch;/etc/exim/obsolete.domains

       For messages that don't arrive over SMTP, you can use a router like
       this to bounce them:

==>      obsolete:
           driver = redirect
           domains = lsearch;/etc/exim/obsolete.domains
           allow_fail
           data = :fail: the domain $domain is obsolete

       If you just want to throw away mail to those domains, accept them at
       SMTP time, and use a router like this:

==>      obsolete:
           domains = lsearch;/etc/exim/obsolete.domains
           data = :blackhole:


Q0420: How can I arrange that mail addressed to \(anything@something.mydomain.com)\
       gets delivered to \(something@mydomain.com)\?

A0420: Set up a router like this:

==>      user_from_domain:
           driver = redirect
           data = ${if match{$domain}{\N^(.+)\.mydomain\.com$\N}\
             {$1@mydomain.com}}


Q0421: I can't get a regular expression to work in a \local_parts\ option on
       one of my routers.

A0421: Have you remembered to protect any backslash and dollar characters in
       your regex from unwanted expansion? The easiest way is to use the
       \"@\N"\ facility, like this:

==>      local_parts = \N^0740\d{6}\N


Q0422: How can I arrange for all addresses in a group of domains \(*.example.com)\
       to share the same alias file? I have a number of such groups.

A0422: For a single group you could just hard wire the file name into a router
       that had

==>      domains = *.example.com

       set, to restrict it to the relevant domains. For a number of such groups
       you can create a file containing the domains, like this:

==>      *.example1.com    example1.com
         *.example2.com    example2.com
         ...

       Then create a router like this

==>      domain_aliases:
           driver = redirect
           domains = partial-lsearch;/that/file
           data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch*{/etc/aliases.d/$domain_data}}

       The variable \$domain_data$\ contains the data that was looked up when the
       \domains\ option was matched, i.e. \"example1.com"\, \"example2.com"\, etc.
       in this case.


Q0423: Some of our users have no home directories; the field in the password
       file contains \(/no/home/dir)\. This causes the error \*failed to stat
       /no/home/dir (No such file or directory)*\ when Exim tries to look for a
       \(.forward file)\, and the delivery is deferred.

A0423: There are two issues involved here:

       (1) With the default configuration, you are asking Exim to check for a
       \(.forward)\ file in the user's home directory. If no file is found,
       Exim tries to \^^stat()^^\ the home directory. This is so that it will
       notice a missing NFS home directory, and not treat it as if the
       \(.forward)\ file did not exist. This \^^stat()^^\ is failing when the
       home directory really doesn't exist. You should arrange for the
       \%userforward%\ router not to run for these special users, by adding
       this line:

==>      condition = ${if eq {$home}{/no/home/dir}{no}{yes}}

       (2) If you use \check_local_user\ on another router to route to a local
       transport (again, this is what is in the default configuration), you
       will also have to specify a current directory for the transport, because
       by default it makes the home directory current. This is easily done by
       adding

==>      current_directory = /

       to the transport or

==>      transport_current_directory = /

       to the router. Or you can add \home_directory\ to the transport, because
       the current directory defaults to the home directory.


Q0424: How can I disable Exim's de-duplication features? I want it to do two
       deliveries if two different aliases expand to the same address.

A0424: This is not possible. Duplication has other ramifications other than
       just (in)convenience. Consider:

         . Message is addressed to A and to B.

         . Both A and B are aliased to C.

         . Without de-duplication, two deliveries to C are scheduled.

         . One delivery happens, Exim records that it has delivered the message
           to C.

         . The next delivery fails (C's mailbox is over quota, say).

       Next time round, Exim wants to know if it has already delivered to C or
       not, before scheduling a new delivery. Has it? Obviously, if duplicate
       deliveries are supported, it has to remember not only that it has
       delivered to C but also the ``history'' of how that delivery happened - in
       effect an ancestry list back to the original envelope address. This it
       does not do, and changing it to work in that way would be a lot of work
       and a big upheaval.

       The best way to get duplicate deliveries if you want them is not to use
       aliases, but to route the addresses directly to a transport, e.g.

==>    duplicates:
         driver = accept
         local_parts = lsearch;/etc/list/of/special/local/parts
         transport = local_delivery
         user = exim


Q0425: My users' mailboxes are distributed between several servers according to
       the first letter of the user name. All the servers receive incoming mail
       at random. I would like to have the same configuration file for all the
       servers, which does local delivery for the mailboxes it holds, and sends
       other addresses to the correct other server. Is this possible?

A0425: It is easiest if you arrange for all the users to have password entries
       on all the servers. This means that non-existent users can be detected
       at the first server they reach. Set up a file containing a mapping from
       the first letter of the user names to the servers where their mailboxes
       are held. For example:

==>      a: server1
         b: server1
         c: server2
         ...

       Before the normal \%localuser%\ router, place the following router:

==>      mailbox_host:
           driver = manualroute
           check_local_user
           transport = remote_smtp
           route_list = * ${lookup{${substr_0_1:$local_part}}lsearch{/etc/mapfile}}
           self = pass

       This router checks for a local account, then looks up the host from the
       first character of the local part. If the host is not the local host,
       the address is routed to the \%remote_smtp%\ transport, and sent to the
       correct host. If the host is the local host, the \self\ option causes
       the router to pass the address to the next router, which does a local
       delivery.

       The router is skipped for local parts that are not the names of local
       users, and so these addresses fail.


Q0426: One of the things I want to set up is for \(anything@onedomain)\ to forward
       to \(anything@anotherdomain)\. I tried adding \($local_part@anotherdomain)\ to
       my aliases but it did not expand - it sent it to that literal address.

A0426: If you want to do it that way, you can use the \"expand"\ operator on
       the lookup used in the data option of the redirect router. For example:

==>      data = ${expand:${lookup{$local_part}lsearch*{/etc/aliases}}}

       Another approach is to use a router like this:

==>      forwarddomain:
           driver = redirect
           domains = onedomain
           data = $local_part@anotherdomain

       The value of \data\ can, of course, be more complicated, involving
       lookups etc. if you have lots of different cases.


Q0427: How can I have an address looked up in two different alias files, and
       delivered to all the addresses that are found?

A0427: Use a router like this:

==>      multi_aliases:
           driver = redirect
           data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases1}\
             {$value${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases2}{,$value}}}\
             {${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases2}{$value}fail}}}\

       If the first lookup succeeds, the result is its data, followed by the
       data from the second lookup, if any, separated by a comma. If the first
       lookup fails, the result is the data from the third lookup (which also
       looks in the second file), but if this also fails, the entire expansion
       is forced to fail, thereby causing the router to decline.

       Another approach is to use two routers, with the first re-generating the
       original local part when it succeeds. This won't get processed by the
       same router again. For example:

==>      multi_aliases1:
           driver = redirect
           data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases1}{$value,$local_part}}

==>      multi_aliases2:
           data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases2}}

       This scales more easily to three or more alias files.


Q0428: I've converted from Sendmail, and I notice that Exim doesn't make use
       of the \"owner-"\ entries in my alias file to change the sender address in
       outgoing messages to a mailing list.

A0428: If you have an alias file with entries like this:

==>      somelist:        a@b, c@d, ...
         owner-somelist:  postmaster

       Sendmail assumes that the second entry specifies a new sender address
       for the first. Exim does not make this assumption. However, you can make
       it take the same action, by adding

==>      errors_to = owner-$local_part@whatever.domain

       to the configuration for your aliasing router. This is fail-safe,
       because Exim verifies a new sender address before using it. Thus, the
       change of sender address occurs only when the owner entry exists.


Q0429: I would like to deliver mail addressed to a given domain to local
       mailboxes, but also to generate messages to the envelope senders.

A0429: You can do this with an ``unseen'' router and an \%autoreply%\ transport,
       along the following lines:

==>      # Router
         auto_warning_r:
           driver = accept
           check_local_user
           domains = <domains you want to do this for>
           condition = ${if eq{$sender_address}{}{no}{yes}}
           transport = warning_t
           no_verify
           unseen

       Place this router immediately before the normal \%localuser%\ router. The
       \unseen\ option means that the address is still passed on to the next
       router. The transport is configured like this:

==>      # Transport
         warning_t:
           driver = autoreply
           file = /usr/local/mail/warning.txt
           file_expand
           from = postmaster@your.domain
           to = $sender_address
           user = exim
           subject = Re: Your mail to $local_part@$domain

       Note the use of the \condition\ option to avoid attempting to send a
       message when there is no sender (that is, when the incoming message is a
       bounce message). You can of course extend this to include other
       conditions. If you want to log the sending of messages, you can add

==>      log = /some/file

       to the transport and also make use of the \once\ option if you want to
       send only one message to each sender.


Q0430: Whenever Exim tries to route a local address, it gives a permission
       denied error for the \(.forward)\ file, like this:

==>      1998-08-10 16:55:32 0z5y2W-0000B8-00 == xxxx@yyy.zzz <xxxx@yyy.zz>
           D=userforward defer (-1): failed to open /home/xxxx/.forward
           (userforward router): Permission denied (euid=1234 egid=101)

A0430: Have you remembered to make Exim setuid \/root/\?


Q0431: How do I configure Exim to allow arbitrary extensions in local parts, of
       the form \/+extension/\?

A0431: Add this pre-condition to the relevant router:

==>      local_part_suffix = +*

       If you want the extensions to be optional, also add the option

==>      local_part_suffix_optional

       When the router runs, \$local_part$\ contains the local part with the
       extension removed, and the extension (if any) is in \$local_part_suffix$\.
       If you have set \check_local_user\, the test is carried out after the
       extension is removed.


Q0432: I use NIS for my user data. How can I stop Exim rejecting mail when my
       NIS servers are being restarted?

A0432: Exim doesn't know that you are using NIS; it just calls the \^^getpwnam()^^\
       function, which is routed by nsswitch. Unfortunately, \^^getpwnam()^^\
       was never designed to be routed through NIS, and it returns NULL if the
       entry is not found or if the connection to the NIS server fails. This
       means that Exim cannot tell the difference between ``no such user'' and
       ``NIS is down''.

       Crutches to help with this problem are \finduser_retries\ in Exim, and
       \^nscd^\ on the Unix side, but they are not perfect, and mail can still
       be lost. However, Nico Erfurth pointed out that you can create a router
       for Exim that tests for the availability of NIS, and force a defer if
       NIS is not running:

==>      check_nis:
            driver = redirect
            data = ${lookup {$local_part} nis {passwd}{}}

       This should be placed before any router that makes any use of NIS,
       typically at the start of your local routers. How does it work? If
       your NIS server is reachable, the lookup will take place, and whether it
       succeeds or fails, the result is an empty strting. This causes the
       router to decline, and the address is passed to the following routers.
       If your NIS server is down, the lookup defers, and this causes the
       router to defer. A verification of an incoming address gets a temporary
       rejection, and a delivery is deferred till later.


Q0433: How can I arrange for a single address to be processed by \*both*\
       \%redirect%\ \*and*\ \%accept%\?

A0433: Check out the \unseen\ option.


Q0434: How can I redirect all local parts that are not in my system aliases to
       a single address? I tried using an asterisk in the system alias file
       with an \"lsearch*"\ lookup, but that send \*all*\ messages to the
       default address.

A0434: If your alias file generates addresses in the local domain, they are
       also processed as a potential aliases. For example, suppose this is your
       alias file:

==>      caesar:   jc
         anthony:  ma
         *:        brutus

       The local part \/caesar/\ is aliased to \/jc/\, but that address is then
       reprocessed by the routers. As the address is in the local domain, the
       alias file is again consulted, and this time the default matches. In
       fact after the second aliasing, \/brutus/\ is also processed again from
       the start, and is aliased to itself. However, this happens only once,
       because the next time, Exim notices that the aliasing router has already
       processed \/brutus/\, so the router is skipped in order to avoid
       looping.

       There are several ways of solving this problem; which one you use
       depends on your aliasing data.

       (1) If the result of aliasing is always a local user name, that is,
           aliasing never generates another alias, you can use the
           \redirect_router\ option on the router to specify that processing
           the generated addresses must start at the next router. For example:

==>          redirect_router = userforward

           assuming that the next router is called \%userforward%\. This
           ensures that there is at most one pass through the aliasing router.

       (2) If you cannot rely on aliases generating non-aliases, it is often
           easier not to use a default alias, but instead to place a router
           such as the one below after all the other local routers (for the
           relevant domains):

==>          catch_unknown:
               driver = redirect
               domains = ...
               data = brutus@$domain

       Note that the default aliasing technique works more successfully for
       virtual domains (see Q0401) because the generated address for the
       default is not usually in the same virtual domain as the incoming
       address.


Q0435: My alias file contains fully qualified addresses as keys, and some
       wildcard domains in the form @foo.bar. Can Exim handle these?

A0435: You can handle fully qualified addresses with this router:

==>      qualified_aliases:
           driver = redirect
           data = ${lookup{$local_part@$domain}lsearch{/etc/aliases}}

       (Add any other options you need for the \%redirect%\ router.) Place this
       router either before or after the default aliases router that looks up
       the local part only. (Or, if you have no unqualified aliases, replace
       the default router.)

       To handle wildcards in the form @foo.bar you will need yet another
       router. (Wildcards of the form *@foo.bar can be handled by an lsearch*@
       lookup.) Something like this:

==>      wildcard_aliases:
           driver = redirect
           data = ${lookup{@$domain}lsearch{/etc/aliases}}

       Place this after the routers that handle the more specific aliases.



5. FILTERING

Q0501: My filter isn't working. How can I test it?

A0501: Use the \-bf-\ option (\-bF-\ for a system filter) to test the basic operation
       of your filter. You can request debugging information for filtering only
       by adding \"-d-all+filter"\ to the command.


Q0502: What I really need is the ability to obtain the result of a pipe
       command so that I can filter externally and redirect internally. Is
       this possible?

A0502: The result of a pipe command is not available to a filter, because Exim
       does not run any actual deliveries while filtering. It just sets up
       deliveries at this time. They all actually happen later. If you want to
       run pipes and examine their results, you need to set up a single
       delivery to a delivery agent such as \^procmail^\ which provides this kind
       of facility.

       An possible alternative is to use the \"${run"\ expansion item to run an
       external command while filtering. In this case, you can make use of some
       of the results of the command.


Q0503: I received a message with a ::Subject:: line that contained a non-printing
       character (a carriage return). This messed up my filter file. Is there a
       way to get round it?

A0503: Instead of \"$h_subject:"\ use \"${escape:$h_subject:}"\


Q0504: I want to search for \"$"\ in the subject line, but I can't seem to get
       the syntax.

A0504: Try one of these:

==>      if $h_subject: contains \$ then ...
         if $h_subject: contains "\\$" then ...


Q0505: My problem is that Exim replaces \$local_part$\ with an empty string in the
       system filtering. What's wrong or what did I miss?

A0505: A message may have many recipients. The system filter is run just once
       at the start of a delivery attempt. Consequently, it does not make sense
       to set \$local_part$\. Which recipient should it be set to? However, you
       can access all the recipients from a system filter via the variable
       called \$recipients$\.


Q0506: Using \$recipients$\ in a system filter gives me another problem: how can
       I do a string lookup if \$recipients$\ is a list of addresses?

A0506: Check out the section of the filter specification called \*Testing a list of
       addresses*\. If that doesn't help, you may have to resort to calling an
       embedded Perl interpreter - but that is expensive.


Q0507: What are the main differences between using an Exim filter and using
       \^procmail^\?

A0507: Exim filters and \^procmail^\ provide different facilities. Exim filters run
       at routing time, before any deliveries are done. A filter is like a
       ``\(.forward)\ file with conditions''. One of the benefits is de-duplication.
       Another is that if you forward, you are forwarding the original message.

       However, this does mean that pipes etc. are not run at filtering time,
       nor can you change the headers, because the message may have other
       recipients and Exim keeps only a single set of headers.

       \^procmail^\ runs at delivery time. This is for one recipient only, and so
       it can change headers, run pipes and check the results, etc. However, if
       it wants to forward, it has to create a new message containing a copy
       of the original message.

       It's your choice as to which of these you use. You can of course use
       both.


Q0508: How can I allow the use of relative paths in users' filter files when
       the directories concerned are not available from the password data?

A0508: You need to be running Exim 4.11 or later. You can then specify a value
       for \$home$\ by setting the router_home_directory option on the
       \%redirect%\ router.

       For earlier releases, there is no way to specify the value of \$home$\
       for a \%redirect%\ router; it either comes from the password data as a
       result of \check_local_user\, or is unset.


Q0509: How can I set up a filter file to detect and block virus attachments?

A0509: Exim's filter facilities aren't powerful enough to do much more than
       very crude testing. Most people that want virus checking are nowadays
       using one of the separate scanning programs such as \^exiscan^\ (see
       \?http://duncanthrax.net/exiscan/?\). There is some further information
       about scanning with Exim via \?http://www.timj.co.uk/linux/exim.php?\.


Q0510: Is it possible to write code for scanning messages in Python?

A0510: \^elspy^\ is a layer of glue code that enables you to write Python code
       to scan email messages at SMTP time. \^elspy^\ also includes a small
       Python library with common mail-scanning tools, including an interface
       to SpamAssassin and a simple but effective virus detector. You can
       optain \^elspy^\ from \?http://elspy.sourceforge.net/?\.


Q0511: Whenever my system filter uses a \mail\ command to send a message, I get
       the error \*User 0 set for address_reply transport is on the never_users
       list*\. What does this mean?

A0511: The system filter runs as \/root/\ in Exim 4, unless you set
       \system_filter_user\ to specify otherwise. When you set up a delivery
       direct from a system filter (an autoreply is a special kind of
       ``delivery'') the transport runs as the same user, unless it has a
       \user\ setting of its own. Normally, deliveries are not allowed to run
       as \/root/\ as a security precaution; this is implemented by the
       \never_users\ option.

       The easiest solution is to add this to your configuration:

==>      system_filter_user = exim

       The system filter then runs as \/exim/\ instead of \/root/\.
       Alternatively, you can arrange for autoreplies from the system filter to
       use a special transport of their own, and set the \user\ option on that
       transport.


Q0512: I'm trying to reference the ::Envelope-To:: header in my filter, but
       \$h_envelope-to:$\ is always empty.

A0512: ::Envelope-To:: is added at delivery time, by the transport. Therefore,
       the header doesn't exist at filter time. In a user filter, the values
       you probably want are in \$original_local_part$\ and
       \$original_domain$\. In a system filter, the complete list of all
       envelope recipients is in \$recipients$\.


Q0513: I want my system filter to freeze all mails greater than 500K in size,
       but to exclude those to a specific domain. However, I don't seem to be
       able to use \$domain$\ in a system filter.

A0513: You cannot do this in a system filter, because a single message may have
       multiple recipients, some in the special domain, and some not. That is
       also the reason why \$domain$\ is not set in a system filter.

       If you want to take actions on a per-recipient basis, you have to do it
       in a router. However, freezing is not appropriate, because freezing
       stops all deliveries. You could, however, delay delivery to all but the
       special domains by using something like this:

==>      delay_if_too_big:
           driver = redirect
           domains = !the.special.domain
           condition = ${if >{$message_size}{500K}{yes}{no}}
           allow_defer
           data = :defer: message too big.

       However, there isn't an easy way of ``releasing'' such messages at
       present.


Q0514: When I try to send to two addresses I get an error in the filter
       file \*malformed address: , e@fgh.com may not follow a@bcd.com*\. What
       is going on?

A0514: Have you got

==>      deliver "a@bcd.com, e@fgh.com"

       in your filter? If so, that is your problem. You should have

==>      deliver a@bcd.com
         deliver e@fgh.com

       Each \deliver\ command expects just one address.



6. DELIVERY

Q0601: What does the error \*Neither the xxx router nor the yyy transport set
       a uid for local delivery of...*\ mean?

A0601: Whenever Exim does a local delivery, it runs a process under a specific
       user and group id (uid and gid). For deliveries into mailboxes, and to
       pipes and files set up by forwarding, it normally picks up the uid/gid
       of the receiving user. However, if an address is directed to a pipe or a
       file by some other means, such an entry in the system alias file of the
       form

==>      majordomo: |/local/mail/majordomo ...

       then Exim has to be told what uid/gid to use for the delivery. This can
       be done either on the routerr that handles the address, or on the
       transport that actually does the delivery. If a pipe is going to run a
       setuid program, then it doesn't matter what uid Exim starts it out with,
       and so the most straightforward thing is to put

==>      user = exim

       on either the router or the transport. A setting on the transport
       overrides a setting on the router, so if the same transport is being
       used with several routers, you should set the user on it only if you
       want the same uid to be used in all cases.

       In the default configuration, the transports used for file and pipe
       deliveries are the ones called \address_file\ and \address_pipe\. You
       can specify different transports by setting, for example,

==>      pipe_transport = special_pipe_transport

       on the \%system_aliases%\ router. Then you can set up \%special_pipe_transport%\

==>      special_pipe_transport:
           driver = pipe
           user = ????

       which will be used only for pipe deliveries from that one router.
       What you put for the ???? is up to you, and depends on the particular
       circumstances.


Q0602: Exim keeps crashing with segmentation errors (signal 11 or 139) during
       delivery. This seems to happen when it is about to contact a remote
       host or when a delivery is deferred.

A0602: This could be a problem with Exim's databases. Try running a delivery
       with debugging turned on. If the last line of the debug output is
       something like this:

==>      locked /var/spool/exim/db/retry.lockfile

       the crash is happening inside the DBM library. Check that your DBM
       library is correctly installed. In particular, if you have installed a
       second DBM library onto a system that already had one, check that its
       version of \(ndbm.h)\ is being seen first. For example, if the new
       version is in \(/usr/local/include)\, check that there isn't another
       version in \(/usr/include)\. If you are using Berkeley db, you can set

==>      USE_DB=yes

       in your \(Local/Makefile)\ to avoid using \(ndbm.h)\ altogether. This is
       particularly relevant for version 2 (or later) of Berkeley db, because
       no \(ndbm.h)\ file is distributed with it. Another thing you can try is
       to run

==>      exim_dumpdb /var/spool/exim retry

       to see if it also crashes, or build the \^test_dbfn^\ tool and fiddle
       around with it. If both fail, it is most almost certainly a problem with
       your DBM library. You could try to update it, or force Exim to use
       another library. See the file \(doc/dbm.discuss.txt)\ for hints about
       this.


Q0603: How can mails that are being routed through routers that do not set
       \check_local_user\ be delivered under the uid of the recipient?

A0603: Q0601 contains background information on this. If you are using, say, an
       alias file to direct messages to specific mailboxes, you can use
       the \user\ option on either the router or the transport to set the uid.
       What you put in the setting depends on how the required uid is to be
       found. It could be looked up in a file or computed somehow from the
       local part, for example.


Q0604: I want to use MMDF-style mailboxes. How can I get Exim to append the
       ctrl-A characters that separate indvidual emails?

A0604: Set the \message_suffix\ option in the \%appendfile%\ transport. In fact,
       for MMDF mailboxes you need a prefix as well as a suffix to get it
       working right, so your transport should contain these settings:

==>      message_prefix = "\1\1\1\1\n"
         message_suffix = "\1\1\1\1\n"

       Also, you need to change the \check_string\ and \escape_string\ settings so
       that the escaping happens for lines in the message that happen to begin
       with the MMDF prefix or suffix string, rather than ``From'' (the default):

==>      check_string  = "\1\1\1\1\n"
         escape_string = "\1\1\1\1 \n"

       Adding a space to the line is sufficient to prevent it being taken as a
       separator.


Q0605: If a user's mailbox is over quota, is there a way for me to set it up so
       that the mail bounces to the sender and is not stored in the mail queue?

A0605: In the retry section of the configuration, put

==>      *@your.dom.ain        quota

       That is, provide no retry timings for over quota errors. They will then
       bounce immediately. Alternatively, you can set up retries for a short
       time only, or use something like this:

==>      *@your.dom.ain        quota_7d
         *@your.dom.ain        quota       F,2h,15m; F,3d,1h

       which bounces immediately if the user's mailbox hasn't been read for 7
       days, but otherwise tries for up to 3 days after the first quota
       failure.


Q0606: I'm using tmail to do local deliveries, but when I turned on the
       \use_crlf\ option on the \%pipe%\ transport (tmail prefers \"@\r@\n"\
       terminations) message bodies started to vanish.

A0606: You need to unset the \mesage_prefix\ option, or change it so that its
       default \"@\n"\ terminator becomes \"@\r@\n"\. For example, the
       transport could be:

==>      local_delivery_mbx:
	   driver = pipe
	   command = /usr/local/bin/tmail $local_part
	   user = exim
	   current_directory = /
           use_crlf
           message_prefix =

       The reason for this is as follows: tmail uses the line terminator on
       the first line it sees to determine whether lines are terminated by
       \"@\r@\n"\ or \"@\n"\. If the latter, it moans to stderr and changes subsequent
       \"@\n"\ terminators to \"@\r@\n"\. The default setting of the \message_prefix\
       option is \"From ...@\n"\, and this is unaffected by the \use_crlf\ option.
       If you don't change this, tmail sees the first line terminated by
       \"@\n"\ and prepends \"@\r"\ to the \"@\n"\ terminator on all subsequent
       lines. However, if \use_crlf\ is set, Exim makes all other lines
       \"@\r@\n"\ terminated, leading to doubled \"@\r@\r@\n"\ lines and
       corrupt mbx mailboxes.


Q0607: When I activate ``return receipt'' for example in Netscape Mailbox
       sending options, then I get an error message from Exim... something
       like \*not supported*\. Can I activate delivery confirmations?

A0607: Exim does not support any kind of delivery notification.

       (1) You can configure it to recognize headers such as
       \Return-receipt-to:\ if you wish.

       (2) Some people want MSN (message status notification). Such services
       are implemented in MUAs, and don't impact on the MTA at all.

       (3) I investigated the RFCs which describe the DSN (delivery status
       notification) system. However, I was unable to specify any sensible way
       of actually doing anything with the data. There were comments on the
       mailing list at the time; many people, including me, conclude that DSN
       is in practice unworkable. The killer problem is with forwarding and
       aliasing. Do you propagate the DSN data with the generated addresses?
       Do you send back a ``reached end of the DSN world'' or ``expanded'' message?
       Do you do this differently for different kinds of aliasing/forwarding?
       For a user who has a \(.forward)\ file with a single address in, this
       might seem easy - just propagate the data. But what if there are several
       forwardings? If you propagate the DSN data, the sender may get back
       several DSN messages - and should the sender really know about the
       detail of the receiver's forwarding arrangements? There isn't really
       any way to distinguish between a \(.forward)\ file that is forwarding
       and one that is a mini mailing list. And so on, and so on. There are so
       many questions that don't have obvious answers.


Q0608: What does the message \*retry time not reached [for any host]*\ on the log
       mean? Why won't Exim try to deliver the message?

A0608: That is not an error. It means exactly what it says. A previous attempt
       to deliver to that address failed with a temporary error, and Exim
       computed the earliest time at which to try again. This can apply to
       local as well as to remote deliveries. For remote deliveries, each host
       (if there are several) has its own retry time.

       If you are running on a dial-up host, the rest of this answer probably
       does not apply to you. Go and read Q1404 instead. If your host is
       permanently online, read on...

       Some MTAs have a retrying schedule for each message. Exim does not work
       like this. Retry timing is normally host-based for remote deliveries and
       address-based for local deliveries. (There are some exceptions for certain
       kinds of remote failure - see \*Errors in outgoing SMTP*\ in the manual.)

       If a new message arrives for a failing address and the retry time has
       not yet arrived, Exim will log \*retry time not reached*\ and leave the
       message on the queue, without attempting delivery. Similarly, if a queue
       runner notices the message before the time to retry has arrived, it
       writes the same log entry. When the retry time has past, Exim attempts
       delivery at the next queue run. If you want to know when that will be,
       run the exinext utility on the address, for example:

==>      exinext user@some.domain

       You can suppress these messages on the log by including \"-retry_defer"\
       in the setting of \log_selector\. You can force a delivery attempt on a
       specific message (overriding the retry time) by means of the -M option:

==>      exim -M 10hCET-0000Bf-00

       If you want to do this for the entire queue, use the \-qf-\ option.


Q0609: Exim seems to be sending the same message twice, according to the log,
       although there is a difference in capitalization of the local part of
       the address.

A0609: That is correct. The RFCs are explicit in stating that capitalization
       matters for local parts. For remote domains, Exim is not entitled to
       assume case independence of local parts. I know, it is utterly silly,
       and it causes a lot of grief, but that's what the rules say. Here is a
       quote from RFC 2821:

         ... a command verb, an argument value other than a mailbox local-part,
         and free form text MAY be encoded in upper case, lower case, or any
         mixture of upper and lower case with no impact on its meaning.  This
         is NOT true of a mailbox local-part.  The local-part of a mailbox
         MUST BE treated as case sensitive.  Therefore, SMTP implementations
         MUST take care to preserve the case of mailbox local-parts.  Mailbox
         domains are not case sensitive.  In particular, for some hosts the
         user "smith" is different from the user "Smith".  However, exploiting
         the case sensitivity of mailbox local-parts impedes interoperability
         and is discouraged.


Q0610: How can I force the next retry time for a host to be now?

A0610: You can change the retry time with the \^exim_fixdb^\ utility, but its
       interface is very clumsy. If you have a message for the host on the
       queue, the simplest thing to do is to force a delivery with the \-M-\
       command line option. If delivery succeeds, the retry data will get
       cleared. If the host is past the cutoff time, so that messages are
       bouncing immediately without trying a delivery, you can use \-odq-\ to
       put a message on the queue without a delivery attempt, and then use
       \-M-\ on it.


Q0611: I set up \"|/bin/grep Subject|/usr/bin/smbclient -M <netbiosname>"\ as an
       alias but it doesn't work.

A0611: That is a shell command line. Exim does not run pipe commands under a
       shell by default (for added security - and it saves a process). You
       need something like

==>      "|/bin/sh -c '/bin/grep Subject|/usr/bin/smbclient -M <netbiosname>'"


Q0612: Why does the \%pipe%\ transport add a line starting with \">From"\ to
       messages?

A0612: Actually, it adds a line starting with \"From"\ followed by a space.
       This is commonly referred to as the \"From_"\ line, to emphasize the
       fact that \"From"\ is followed by a space and not a colon. This is a
       pseudo-header line that contains the envelope sender address and the
       time of delivery. It originated as a separator line in Berkeley format
       mailboxes, but is also used in other contexts. (And yes, it is often
       confused with the ::From:: header line, and this causes a lot of grief.
       The use of \"From_"\ was one of the really bad email design decisions.)

       Exim's \%pipe%\ transport adds this pseudo-header line by default
       because \(/usr/ucb/vacation)\ needs it, and that is one of the the most
       common uses of piping. The \^procmail^\ local delivery agent also makes
       use of the \"From_"\ line. If you do not want it, change the setting of
       \message_prefix\ on the \%pipe%\ transport. For example, to remove the
       line altogether, use

==>      message_prefix =

       If you are not piping to \(/usr/ucb/vacation)\ or \^procmail^\, it is
       likely that you do not need a \"From_"\ line, and indeed it may cause
       problems if it is present.

       One user reported that this line gave trouble when a pipe was used to
       send messages to Courier's \^deliverquota^\ program. The line was
       retained with the message, and caused problems for MS Exchange 2000 when
       retrieving messages with its built-in POP collector. Specifically, it
       caused Exchange to not be able to recognise message attachments.


Q0613: I have set \fallback_hosts\ on my \%smtp%\ transport, but after the error
       \*sem@chat.ru cannot be resolved at this time*\ Exim isn't using them.

A0613: \fallback_hosts\ works only if an attempt at delivery to the original
       host(s) fails. In this case, Exim couldn't even resolve the domain
       \(chat.ru)\ to discover what the original hosts were, so it never got as far
       as the transport. However, see Q0315 for a possible solution.


Q0614: After the holidays my ISP has always hundreds of e-mails waiting for me.
       These are forced down Exim's throat in one go. Exim spawns a lot of
       kids, but is there some limit to the number of processes it creates?

A0614: Unless you have changed \smtp_accept_queue_per_connection\ it should
       spawn only that many processes per connection (default 10). Your ISP
       may be making many connections, of course. That is limited by
       \smtp_accept_max\.


Q0615: When a message in the queue got to 12h old, Exim wrote \*retry timeout
       exceeded*\ and removed all messages in the queue to this host - even
       recent messages. How I can avoid this behaviour? I only want to remove
       messages that have exceeded the maximum retry time.

A0615: Exim's retrying is host-based rather than message-based. The philosophy
       is that if a host has been down for a very long time, there is no point
       in keeping messages hanging around. However, you might like to check
       out \delay_after_cutoff\ in the \%smtp%\ transport. It doesn't do what you
       want, but it might help.


Q0616: Can Exim add a ::Content-Length:: header to messages it delivers?

A0616: You could include something like

==>      headers_remove = "content-length"
         headers_add = "Content-Length: $message_body_size"

       to the \%appendfile%\ transport. However, the use of ::Content-Length:: can
       cause several problems, and is not recommended unless you really know
       what you are doing. There is a discussion of the problems in
       \?http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/2.0/relnotes/demo/content-length.html?\.


Q0617: Exim seems to be trying to deliver a message every 10 minutes, though
       the retry rules specify longer times after a while, because it is
       writing a log entry every time, like this:

==>    1999-08-26 14:51:19 11IVsE-000MuP-00 == example@example.com T=smtp defer
       (-34): some host address lookups failed and retry time not reached for
       other hosts or connection limit reached

A0617: It is looking at the message every 10 minutes, but it isn't actually
       trying to deliver. It's looking up \(example.com)\ in the DNS and finding
       this information:

==>      example.com.                MX 10 example-com.isp.example.com.
         example.com.                MX  0 mail.example.com.
         mail.example.com.           A  202.77.183.45
         A lookup for example-com.isp.example.com. yielded NXDOMAIN

       The last line means that there is no address (A) record in the DNS for
       \(example-com.isp.example.com)\. That accounts for \*some host address
       lookups failed*\, but the retry time for \(mail.example.com)\ hasn't been
       reached, which accounts for \*retry time not reached for other hosts*\.


Q0618: I am trying to set exim up to have a automatic failover if it sees that
       the system that it is sending all mail to is down.

A0618: Add to the \%remote_smtp%\ transport the following:

==>      fallback_hosts = failover.server.name(s)

       If there are several names, they must be separated by colons.


Q0619: I can't get Exim to deliver over NFS. I get the error \*fcntl() failed:
       No locks available*\, though the lock daemon is running on the NFS server
       and other hosts are able to access it.

A0619: Check that you have \(lockd)\ running on the NFS client. This is not
       always running by default on some systems (Red Hat is believed to be one
       such system).


Q0620: Why does Exim bounce messages without even attempting delivery, giving
       the error \*retry time not reached for any host after a long failure
       period*\?

A0620: This message means that all hosts to which the message could be sent
       have been failing for so long that the end of the retry period
       (typically 4 or 5 days) has been reached. In this situation, Exim still
       computes a next time to retry, but any messages that arrive in the
       meantime are bounced straight away. You can alter this behaviour by
       unsetting the \delay_after_cutoff\ option on the smtp transport. Then Exim
       will try most messages for those hosts once before giving up.


Q0621: My \(.forward)\ file is \"|/usr/bin/procmail -f-"\ and mail gets delivered,
       but there was a bounce to the sender, sending him the output of procmail.
       How can I prevent this?

A0621: Exim's default configuration is set up like this:

==>      address_pipe:
           driver = pipe
           return_output

       The \return_output\ option requests that any output that the pipe
       produces be returned to the sender. That is the safest default. If you
       don't want this, you can either remove the option altogether, or change
       it to \return_fail_output\, to return output only if the command fails.
       Note that this will affect all pipes that users run, not just your
       procmail one. It might be better to arrange for procmail not to produce
       any output when it succeeds.


Q0622: Can I write an ordinary file when I run a perl script as a transport
       filter for the \%remote_smtp%\ and \%address_pipe%\ transports?

A0622: Yes, provided the file is writeable by the uid under which the transport
       runs (the Exim user in the case of the remote transport). However, if two
       messages are being delivered at once, their data will get mixed up in
       the file unless you implement your own locking scheme. If all you want
       to do is to take a copy of the message, another approach that avoids
       the locking problem is to use a system filter to set up an ``unseen''
       delivery to a file. If you only want the message's headers, you can
       set \message_filter_file_transport\ to point to a special \%appendfile%\
       transport that has \headers_only\ set.


Q0623: My \(/var/spool/mail)\ has grown drastically. Is there any possibility of
       using two directories?

A0623: You can use an expansion string to split mailboxes between two
       directories. For example,

==>      file = /var/spool/mail${nhash_2:$local_part}/$local_part

       which does a hash on the local part, producing either 0 or 1, thereby
       using \(mail0) or \(mail1)\. But remember, the MUAs that read these mailboxes
       also have to know where they are.


Q0624: Sendmail has a program called \^smrsh^\ that restricts what binaries
       can be run from sendmail aliases. Is there something like this in Exim ?

A0624: Check out the \allow_commands\ option in the \%pipe%\ transport.


Q0625: I wish to have large emails go out one at a time.

A0625: One possibility is to set up a router that defers all large messages,
       except in queue runs. Since queue runners deliver just one
       message at a time, if you limited the number of simultaneous queue
       runners to 1, you would get the effect you wanted. A suitable router
       might be

==>      defer_if_large_unless_queue_run:
           driver = redirect
           condition = ${if or{{queue_running}{<{$message_size}{200K}}}{no}{yes}}
           allow_defer
           data = :defer: too large for immediate delivery
           no_verify

       Of course, this would always delay any large message until the next
       queue runner, but if you run them fairly regularly, this shouldn't be a
       huge problem, and may even be desirable. Note the use of \no_verify\ to
       ensure that this router is not used when Exim is verifying addresses.


Q0626: Exim can route local parts independent of their case, but the Cyrus LMTP
       daemon requires the correct case. How can I fix this?

A0626: You need to rewrite the local part to the correct case before running
       the router that routes to Cyrus. For example, if you require all lower
       case, and your router is called \local_user\, put this router in front
       of it:

==>      lowercase_local:
           driver = redirect
           redirect_router = local_user
           domains = +local_domains
           data = ${lc:$local_part}@$domain

       The setting of \redirect_router\ causes processing of the rewritten
       address to start at the next router, instead of the first router. See
       also Q0630, and C045 for a more complete Cyrus configuration.


Q0627: Is there a command I can send to Exim to retry all queued messages
       regardless of their retry schedule?

A0627: The \-qff-\ option starts a queue runner that forces a delivery attempt
       for all messages, including frozen ones. If you use \-qf-\, frozen
       messages are skipped.


Q0628: I have the default retry rule, which I thought meant that Exim should
       keep trying for four days, but it seems to be bouncing some messages
       immediately.

A0628: See Q0615 and Q0620.


Q0629: I'm having trouble with quotas and Courier, because Exim is not handling
       maildirsize files.

A0629: You will do better to move the quota handling to Courier. Use \^maildrop^\
       as your MDA rather than direct Exim delivery.  This also has the
       advantage that if you give web access to the mail spool (over \^sqwebmail^\)
       you can then use the web front end to edit \^maildrop^\ filter files.


Q0630: How can I configure Exim to deliver to a Cyrus message store?