1 $Cambridge: exim/doc/doc-txt/NewStuff,v 1.97 2006/03/16 11:51:09 ph10 Exp $
6 This file contains descriptions of new features that have been added to Exim,
7 but have not yet made it into the main manual (which is most conveniently
8 updated when there is a relatively large batch of changes). The doc/ChangeLog
9 file contains a listing of all changes, including bug fixes.
14 PH/01 There is a new global option called disable_ipv6, which does exactly what
15 its name implies. If set true, even if the Exim binary has IPv6 support,
16 no IPv6 activities take place. AAAA records are never looked up for host
17 names given in manual routing data or elsewhere. AAAA records that are
18 received from the DNS as additional data for MX records are ignored. Any
19 IPv6 addresses that are listed in local_interfaces, manualroute route
20 data, etc. are also ignored. If IP literals are enabled, the ipliteral
21 router declines to handle IPv6 literal addresses.
23 PH/02 There are now 20 of each type of ACL variable by default (instead of 10).
24 It is also possible to change the numbers by setting ACL_CVARS and/or
25 ACL_MVARS in Local/Makefile. Backward compatibility is maintained if you
26 upgrade to this release with existing messages containing ACL variable
27 settings on the queue. However, going in the other direction
28 (downgrading) will not be compatible; the values of ACL variables will be
31 PH/03 If quota_warn_message contains a From: header, Exim now refrains from
32 adding the default one. Similarly, if it contains a Reply-To: header, the
33 errors_reply_to option, if set, is not used.
35 PH/04 The variables $auth1, $auth2, $auth3 are now available in authenticators,
36 containing the same values as $1, $2, $3. The new variables are provided
37 because the numerical variables can be reset during string expansions
38 (for example, during a "match" operation) and so may lose the
39 authentication data. The preferred variables are now the new ones, with
40 the use of the numerical ones being deprecated, though the support will
41 not be removed, at least, not for a long time.
43 PH/05 The "control=freeze" ACL modifier can now be followed by /no_tell. If
44 the global option freeze_tell is set, it is ignored for the current
45 message (that is, nobody is told about the freezing), provided all the
46 "control=freeze" modifiers that are obeyed in the current message have
49 PH/06 In both GnuTLS and OpenSSL, an expansion of tls_privatekey that results
50 in an empty string is now treated as unset.
52 PH/07 There is a new log selector called sender_verify_fail, which is set by
53 default. If it is unset, the separate log line that gives details of a
54 sender verification failure is not written. Log lines for the rejection
55 of SMTP commands (e.g. RCPT) contain just "sender verify failed", so some
58 PH/08 The default for dns_check_names_pattern now allows slashes within names,
59 as there are now some PTR records that contain slashes. This check is
60 only to protect against broken name servers that fall over on strange
61 characters, so the fact that it applies to all lookups doesn't matter.
63 PH/09 The default for rfc4131_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
65 PH/10 When compiled on FreeBSD, NetBSD, or BSD/OS, the pipe transport has a new
66 Boolean option called use_classresources, defaulting false. If it is set
67 true, the setclassresources() function is used to set resource limits
68 when a pipe transport is run to perform a delivery. The limits for the
69 uid under which the pipe is to run are obtained from the login class
72 PH/11 If retry_interval_max is set greater than 24 hours, it is quietly reset
73 to 24 hours. This avoids potential overflow problems when processing G
74 and H retry rules, and it seems reasonable to require a retry at least
77 PH/12 When the plaintext authenticator is running as a client, the server
78 challenges are now checked to ensure they are valid base64 strings. The
79 default action on failure is to abort the authentication. However, if
80 client_ignore_invalid_base64 is set true, invalid responses are ignored.
82 PH/13 When the plaintext authenticator is running as a client, the challenges
83 from the server are placed in $auth1, $auth2, etc. as they are received.
84 Thus, the challege that is received in response to sending the first
85 string (with the AUTH command) can be used in the expansion of the second
86 string, and so on. Currently, up to 3 challenge strings are available in
87 this way. If an invalid base64 string is received when client_ignore_
88 invalid_base64 is set, an empty string is put in the $auth<n> variable.
90 PH/14 Messages created by the autoreply transport now contain a References:
91 header. This is constructed in accordance with rules that are described
92 in section 3.64 of RFC 2822, which states that replies should contain
93 such a header line, and section 3.14 of RFC 3834, which states that
94 automatic responses are not different in this respect. However, because
95 some mail processing software does not cope well with very long header
96 lines, no more than 12 message IDs are copied from the References: header
97 line in the incoming message. If there are more than 12, the first one
98 and then the final 11 are copied, before adding the message ID of the
101 PH/15 The smtp transport has a new option called authenticated_sender_force.
102 When set true, it allows the authenticated_sender option's value to be
103 used, even if Exim has not authenticated as a client.
105 PH/16 The expansion ${time_eval:<string>} converts an Exim time string such as
106 2d4h1m into a number of seconds.
108 PH/17 The ACL modifier control=allow_auth_unadvertised can be used to permit a
109 client host to use the SMTP AUTH command even when it has not been
110 advertised in response to EHLO. Furthermore, because there are apparently
111 some really broken clients that do this, Exim will even accept AUTH after
112 HELO when this control is set. It should only be used if you really need
113 it, and you should limit its use to those broken hosts that do not work
114 without it. For example:
116 warn hosts = 192.168.34.25
117 control = allow_auth_unadvertised
119 This control is permitted only in the connection and HELO ACLs.
121 PH/18 There is a new ACL modifier called "add_header" which does what its name
122 implies. It specifies one of more header lines that are to be added to an
123 incoming message, assuming, of course, that the message is ultimately
126 This modifier is permitted in the MAIL, RCPT, PREDATA, DATA, MIME, and
127 non-SMTP ACLs (in other words, those that are concerned with accepting a
128 message). Added header lines are accumulated during the MAIL, RCPT, and
129 PREDATA ACLs, with any duplicates being discarded. They are then added to
130 the message before processing the DATA and MIME ACLs, during which
131 further added header lines are accumulated, again with duplicates
132 discarded. Thus, it is possible to add two identical header lines to an
133 SMTP message, but only if one is added before DATA and one after.
135 In the case of non-SMTP messages, new headers are accumulated during the
136 non-SMTP ACL, and added to the message at the end.
138 The add_header modifier is available for use with all ACL verbs. In the
139 case of the WARN verb, add_header supersedes the use of "message" for
140 this purpose; for the other verbs, it provides a new facility. If both
141 add_header and "message" are present on a WARN verb, both are processed
142 according to their specifications.
144 The add_header modifier acts immediately it is encountered during the
145 processing of an ACL. This is different to the (now-deprecated) use of
146 "message" on a WARN verb, where the action is taken only if all the
147 conditions are true. Notice the difference between these two cases on a
150 deny add_header = ADDED: some text
153 deny <some condition>
154 add_header = ADDED: some text
156 In the first case, the header is always added, whether or not the current
157 recipient is rejected. In the second case, the header is added only if
158 the recipient is rejected.
160 If add_header appears more than once on an ACL statement, multiple
161 headers are added, provided that they have different content. (In the
162 case of WARN with "message", only the last value of "message" is used.)
164 The facility for specifying where the new header is to be inserted, as
165 described for WARN with "message" in section 39.19 of the 4.60 manual, is
168 PH/19 The following errors can now be detected in retry rules:
170 mail_4xx This is like rcpt_4xx, but applies to MAIL commands
172 data_4xx This is like rcpt_4xx, but applies to DATA commands and the
173 response code after the end of the data
175 lost_connection This error occurs when the server unexpectedly closes
176 the SMTP connection. There may, of course, legitmate reasons
177 for this (host died, network died), but if it repeats a lot
178 for the same host, it indicates something odd.
180 tls_required The server was required to use TLS (hosts_require_tls),
181 but either did not offer it, or responded with 4xx to
182 STARTTLS, or there was a problem setting up the TLS connection
184 Note that a 5xx response to STARTTLS is a permanent error.
186 PH/20 There are now two options for the exicyclog script:
188 -k <days> specifies the number of old logs to keep, overriding the
189 default that is set when Exim is built.
191 -l <path> specifies the log file path, in the same format as the
192 log_file_path option (e.g. /var/log/exim_%slog), again,
193 overriding the script's default - which is to find the setting
194 from Exim's configuration.
200 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
201 the 4.50 release are:
203 . Support for SQLite.
205 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
207 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
209 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
211 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
213 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
215 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
217 There are many more minor changes.
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