4 This file contains descriptions of new features that have been added to Exim.
5 Before a formal release, there may be quite a lot of detail so that people can
6 test from the snapshots or the CVS before the documentation is updated. Once
7 the documentation is updated, this file is reduced to a short list.
12 1. The new perl_taintmode option allows to run the embedded perl
13 interpreter in taint mode.
15 2. New log_selector: dnssec, adds a "DS" tag to acceptance and delivery lines.
17 3. Speculative debugging, via a "kill" option to the "control=debug" ACL
20 4. New expansion item ${sha3:<string>} / ${sha3_<N>:<string>}.
21 N can be 224, 256 (default), 384, 512.
22 With GnuTLS 3.5.0 or later, only.
24 5. Facility for named queues: A commandline argument can specify
25 the queue name for a queue operation, and an ACL modifier can set
26 the queue to be used for a message. A $queue_name variable gives
29 6. New expansion operators base32/base32d.
31 7. The CHUNKING ESMTP extension from RFC 3030. May give some slight
32 performance increase and network load decrease. Main config option
33 chunking_advertise_hosts, and smtp transport option hosts_try_chunking
36 8. LMDB lookup support, as Experimental. Patch supplied by Andrew Colin Kissa.
38 9. Expansion operator escape8bit, like escape but not touching newline etc..
44 1. The ACL conditions regex and mime_regex now capture substrings
45 into numeric variables $regex1 to 9, like the "match" expansion condition.
47 2. New $callout_address variable records the address used for a spam=,
48 malware= or verify= callout.
50 3. Transports now take a "max_parallel" option, to limit concurrency.
52 4. Expansion operators ${ipv6norm:<string>} and ${ipv6denorm:<string>}.
53 The latter expands to a 8-element colon-sep set of hex digits including
54 leading zeroes. A trailing ipv4-style dotted-decimal set is converted
55 to hex. Pure ipv4 addresses are converted to IPv4-mapped IPv6.
56 The former operator strips leading zeroes and collapses the longest
57 set of 0-groups to a double-colon.
59 5. New "-bP config" support, to dump the effective configuration.
61 6. New $dkim_key_length variable.
63 7. New base64d and base64 expansion items (the existing str2b64 being a
64 synonym of the latter). Add support in base64 for certificates.
66 8. New main configuration option "bounce_return_linesize_limit" to
67 avoid oversize bodies in bounces. The dafault value matches RFC
70 9. New $initial_cwd expansion variable.
76 1. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
78 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
79 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
81 3. New "malware=" support for Avast.
83 4. New "spam=" variant option for Rspamd.
85 5. Assorted options on malware= and spam= scanners.
87 6. A commandline option to write a comment into the logfile.
89 7. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_SOCKS feature enabled, the smtp transport can
90 be configured to make connections via socks5 proxies.
92 8. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, support is included for
93 the transmission of UTF-8 envelope addresses.
95 9. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, an expansion item for a commonly
96 used encoding of Maildir folder names.
98 10. A logging option for slow DNS lookups.
100 11. New ${env {<variable>}} expansion.
102 12. A non-SMTP authenticator using information from TLS client certificates.
104 13. Main option "tls_eccurve" for selecting an Elliptic Curve for TLS.
105 Patch originally by Wolfgang Breyha.
107 14. Main option "dns_trust_aa" for trusting your local nameserver at the
108 same level as DNSSEC.
114 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
115 DANE smtp draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
116 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
117 domain of the sender.
119 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
120 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
121 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
122 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
123 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
124 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
126 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
127 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
128 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
138 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
139 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
140 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
141 proxy that is connecting to it.
143 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
144 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
145 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
146 detect and reject if those characters are present.
148 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
149 codepoints with valid ones.
151 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
152 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
153 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
154 be included in the command line.
156 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
157 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
158 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
159 verification cancels the encryption.
161 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
162 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
165 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
166 file when searching the queue.
168 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
170 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
172 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
173 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
174 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
177 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
179 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
181 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
182 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negociate
183 DSN features per RFC 3461.
189 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
190 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
191 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
192 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
193 SIEVE capability line.
195 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
196 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
197 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
198 followed by a newline, and no other text.
200 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
201 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
202 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
203 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
204 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
205 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
206 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
207 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
209 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
211 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
212 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
213 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
214 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
215 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
216 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
218 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
220 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
221 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
222 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
224 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
225 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
227 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
228 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
230 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
231 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
232 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
233 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
236 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
237 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are recieved on and
238 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
239 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
240 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
241 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
242 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
243 is negociated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
244 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
245 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
246 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
247 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
250 The Recieved-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
251 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
252 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
253 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
255 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
256 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
257 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
259 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
260 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
261 are present for now but deprecated.
263 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
265 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
266 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
268 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
269 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
270 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
271 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
272 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
273 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
274 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
275 unless this new option is set.
277 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
278 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
279 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
282 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
284 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
285 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
286 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
287 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
288 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
289 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
290 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
291 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
292 return results in a forced fail.
294 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
295 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
297 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
298 handled by routers/transports.
300 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
301 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
303 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
304 modifier (but not yet added to message).
306 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
308 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
310 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
311 particularly for debug_print as -bt commandline option does not
312 require privilege whereas -d does.
314 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
315 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
317 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
318 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
319 wrappers, for instance.
321 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
324 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
325 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
326 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
327 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
328 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
329 dmarc_enable_forensic.
331 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
332 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
333 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
335 23. New ACL modifer "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
338 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
339 characters in the string to \xNN form.
341 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
342 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
344 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
350 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
351 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
352 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
353 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
354 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
356 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
357 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
358 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
359 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
361 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
362 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
363 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
364 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
365 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
367 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
368 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
370 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
372 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
373 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
374 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
377 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
379 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
380 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
381 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
382 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
383 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
384 compatibility at the cost of session security.
386 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
387 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
388 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
389 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
390 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
392 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
393 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
395 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
396 for Exim as a server.
398 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
399 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
400 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
401 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
402 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
404 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
405 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
406 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
407 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
408 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
410 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
411 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
413 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
414 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
415 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
416 string, documentation for which is at:
417 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
419 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
421 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
422 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
424 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
425 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
426 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
427 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
428 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
430 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
432 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
433 identically to TXT record lookups.
435 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
437 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
438 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
439 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
441 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
442 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
443 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
444 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
447 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
448 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
449 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
455 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
456 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
458 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
459 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
461 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
462 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
464 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
465 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
466 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
468 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
469 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
470 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
471 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
477 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
478 or off in the resolver library.
484 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
485 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
486 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
487 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
488 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
490 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
491 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
492 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
494 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
495 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
497 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
498 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
499 including any header additions or removals from transport.
501 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
502 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
508 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
509 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
510 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
511 on content supplied by the attacker.
513 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
514 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
515 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
516 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
517 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
523 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
524 items below carefully
526 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
527 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
528 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
529 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
530 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
531 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
534 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
535 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
536 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
537 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
538 be able to take effect.
540 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
541 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
542 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
543 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
545 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
546 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
547 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
548 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
550 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
552 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
554 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
555 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
556 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
557 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
558 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
559 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
561 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
562 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
564 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
566 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
567 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
569 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
570 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
571 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
572 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
573 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
574 don't all make sense in all contexts:
577 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
578 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
579 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
581 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
582 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
583 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
584 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
585 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
586 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
587 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
588 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
589 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
590 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
593 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
594 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
595 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
597 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
599 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
601 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
602 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
603 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
604 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
605 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
608 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
609 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
611 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
612 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
613 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
614 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
615 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
616 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
618 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
619 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
620 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
621 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
622 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
623 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
624 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
625 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
631 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
632 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
634 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
636 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
637 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
640 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
641 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
642 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
643 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
644 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
645 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
646 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
647 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
648 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
649 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
651 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
652 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
654 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
655 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
656 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
662 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
663 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
664 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
665 for details on conditionally disabling)
667 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
669 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
670 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
671 and{} expansion operator).
673 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
676 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
677 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
679 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
680 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
681 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
683 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
684 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
685 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
686 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
688 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
691 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
697 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
703 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
706 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
707 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
708 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
711 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
713 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
714 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
715 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
718 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
720 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
721 192.168.6.7 (for example).
723 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
724 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
725 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
726 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
728 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
730 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
731 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
732 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
735 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
736 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
737 only by an admin user.
739 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
740 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
741 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
742 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
743 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
745 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
746 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
751 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
753 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
754 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
755 (max $sender_rate_limit)
757 [... some other logic and tests...]
759 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
760 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
761 (max $sender_rate_limit)
762 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
766 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
767 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
768 line termination character(s).
770 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
771 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
772 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
774 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
775 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
776 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
777 message is queued, the remainder are also.
779 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
780 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
781 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
782 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
783 log files) that make the situation even worse.
785 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
786 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
787 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
789 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
790 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
791 connection. The possible values are:
793 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
794 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
795 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
796 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
797 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
798 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
799 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
800 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
801 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
802 tls-failed TLS failed to start
804 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
805 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
806 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
807 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
808 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
811 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
812 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
813 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
815 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
816 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
817 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
819 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
821 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
822 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
823 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
825 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
826 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
827 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
829 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
831 In an updating lookup, you could then write
833 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
835 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
837 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
839 you can still update the master by
841 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
843 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
844 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
845 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
852 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
853 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
854 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
857 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
858 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
859 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
860 rather than the default "any" matching.
862 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
863 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
864 other parameters to be varied.
866 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
867 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
869 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
871 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
873 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
874 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
876 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
877 after the connection to the server has been made.
879 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
880 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
882 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
883 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
886 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
887 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
888 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
889 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
890 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
892 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
893 called forany and forall.
895 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
896 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
897 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
899 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
901 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
902 that makes it case-sensitive.
904 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
905 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
906 items, typically addresses.
908 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
909 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
910 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
913 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
914 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
916 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
919 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
926 No new features were added to 4.66.
932 No new features were added to 4.65.
938 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
939 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
940 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
943 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
944 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
946 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
947 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
948 number of authentication methods.
950 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
951 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
952 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
954 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
955 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
956 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
957 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
959 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
961 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
962 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
963 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
964 before doing the expansions.
966 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
967 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
970 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
971 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
972 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
974 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
975 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
977 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
978 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
979 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
980 available for compatibility.)
982 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
983 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
989 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
992 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
993 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
996 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
997 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
998 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
1000 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
1001 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
1003 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
1005 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
1006 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
1008 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
1010 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
1012 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
1013 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
1014 each messages value for each variable.
1016 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
1017 same criteria without --not).
1023 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
1024 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
1025 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
1026 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
1027 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
1028 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
1030 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
1032 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
1033 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
1034 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
1037 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
1038 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
1039 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
1041 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
1042 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
1043 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
1044 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
1050 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
1051 the 4.60 release are:
1053 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
1055 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
1057 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
1058 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
1059 for other things in complicated expansions.
1061 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
1063 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
1064 resources used in pipe deliveries.
1066 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
1068 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
1070 There are a number of other additions too.
1076 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
1077 the 4.50 release are:
1079 . Support for SQLite.
1081 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
1083 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
1085 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
1087 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
1089 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
1091 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
1093 There are many more minor changes.
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