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.
16 1. The new perl_taintmode option allows to run the embedded perl
17 interpreter in taint mode.
19 2. New log_selector: dnssec, adds a "DS" tag to acceptance and delivery lines.
21 3. Speculative debugging, via a "kill" option to the "control=debug" ACL
24 4. New expansion item ${sha3:<string>} / ${sha3_<N>:<string>}.
25 N can be 224, 256 (default), 384, 512.
26 With GnuTLS 3.5.0 or later, only.
28 5. Facility for named queues: A command-line argument can specify
29 the queue name for a queue operation, and an ACL modifier can set
30 the queue to be used for a message. A $queue_name variable gives
33 6. New expansion operators base32/base32d.
35 7. The CHUNKING ESMTP extension from RFC 3030. May give some slight
36 performance increase and network load decrease. Main config option
37 chunking_advertise_hosts, and smtp transport option hosts_try_chunking
40 8. LMDB lookup support, as Experimental. Patch supplied by Andrew Colin Kissa.
42 9. Expansion operator escape8bit, like escape but not touching newline etc..
44 10. Feature macros, generated from compile options. All start with "_HAVE_"
45 and go on with some roughly recognisable name. Driver macros, for
46 router, transport and authentication drivers; names starting with "_DRIVER_".
47 Option macros, for each configuration-file option; all start with "_OPT_".
48 Use the "-bP macros" command-line option to see what is present.
50 11. Integer values for options can take a "G" multiplier.
52 12. defer=pass option for the ACL control cutthrough_delivery, to reflect 4xx
53 returns from the target back to the initiator, rather than spooling the
56 13. New built-in constants available for tls_dhparam and default changed.
58 14. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_QUEUEFILE, a queuefile transport, for writing
59 out copies of the message spool files for use by 3rd-party scanners.
61 15. A new option on the smtp transport, hosts_try_fastopen. If the system
62 supports it (on Linux it must be enabled in the kernel by the sysadmin)
63 try to use RFC 7413 "TCP Fast Open". No data is sent on the SYN segment
64 but it permits a peer that also supports the facility to send its SMTP
65 banner immediately after the SYN,ACK segment rather then waiting for
66 another ACK - so saving up to one roundtrip time. Because it requires
67 previous communication with the peer (we save a cookie from it) this
68 will only become active on frequently-contacted destinations.
70 16. A new syslog_pid option to suppress PID duplication in syslog lines.
76 1. The ACL conditions regex and mime_regex now capture substrings
77 into numeric variables $regex1 to 9, like the "match" expansion condition.
79 2. New $callout_address variable records the address used for a spam=,
80 malware= or verify= callout.
82 3. Transports now take a "max_parallel" option, to limit concurrency.
84 4. Expansion operators ${ipv6norm:<string>} and ${ipv6denorm:<string>}.
85 The latter expands to a 8-element colon-sep set of hex digits including
86 leading zeroes. A trailing ipv4-style dotted-decimal set is converted
87 to hex. Pure ipv4 addresses are converted to IPv4-mapped IPv6.
88 The former operator strips leading zeroes and collapses the longest
89 set of 0-groups to a double-colon.
91 5. New "-bP config" support, to dump the effective configuration.
93 6. New $dkim_key_length variable.
95 7. New base64d and base64 expansion items (the existing str2b64 being a
96 synonym of the latter). Add support in base64 for certificates.
98 8. New main configuration option "bounce_return_linesize_limit" to
99 avoid oversize bodies in bounces. The default value matches RFC
102 9. New $initial_cwd expansion variable.
108 1. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
110 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
111 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
113 3. New "malware=" support for Avast.
115 4. New "spam=" variant option for Rspamd.
117 5. Assorted options on malware= and spam= scanners.
119 6. A command-line option to write a comment into the logfile.
121 7. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_SOCKS feature enabled, the smtp transport can
122 be configured to make connections via socks5 proxies.
124 8. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, support is included for
125 the transmission of UTF-8 envelope addresses.
127 9. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, an expansion item for a commonly
128 used encoding of Maildir folder names.
130 10. A logging option for slow DNS lookups.
132 11. New ${env {<variable>}} expansion.
134 12. A non-SMTP authenticator using information from TLS client certificates.
136 13. Main option "tls_eccurve" for selecting an Elliptic Curve for TLS.
137 Patch originally by Wolfgang Breyha.
139 14. Main option "dns_trust_aa" for trusting your local nameserver at the
140 same level as DNSSEC.
146 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
147 DANE SMTP draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
148 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
149 domain of the sender.
151 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
152 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
153 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
154 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
155 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
156 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
158 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
159 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
160 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
170 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
171 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
172 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
173 proxy that is connecting to it.
175 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
176 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
177 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
178 detect and reject if those characters are present.
180 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
181 codepoints with valid ones.
183 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
184 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
185 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
186 be included in the command line.
188 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
189 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
190 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
191 verification cancels the encryption.
193 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
194 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
197 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
198 file when searching the queue.
200 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
202 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
204 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
205 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
206 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
209 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
211 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
213 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
214 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negociate
215 DSN features per RFC 3461.
221 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
222 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
223 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
224 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
225 SIEVE capability line.
227 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
228 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
229 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
230 followed by a newline, and no other text.
232 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
233 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
234 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
235 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
236 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
237 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
238 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
239 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
241 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
243 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
244 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
245 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
246 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
247 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
248 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
250 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
252 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
253 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
254 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
256 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
257 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
259 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
260 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
262 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
263 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
264 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
265 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
268 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
269 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are recieved on and
270 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
271 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
272 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
273 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
274 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
275 is negociated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
276 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
277 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
278 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
279 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
282 The Recieved-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
283 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
284 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
285 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
287 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
288 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
289 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
291 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
292 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
293 are present for now but deprecated.
295 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
297 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
298 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
300 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
301 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
302 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
303 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
304 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
305 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
306 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
307 unless this new option is set.
309 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
310 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
311 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
314 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
316 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
317 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
318 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
319 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
320 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
321 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
322 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
323 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
324 return results in a forced fail.
326 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
327 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
329 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
330 handled by routers/transports.
332 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
333 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
335 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
336 modifier (but not yet added to message).
338 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
340 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
342 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
343 particularly for debug_print as -bt command-line option does not
344 require privilege whereas -d does.
346 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
347 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
349 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
350 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
351 wrappers, for instance.
353 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
356 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
357 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
358 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
359 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
360 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
361 dmarc_enable_forensic.
363 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
364 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
365 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
367 23. New ACL modifer "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
370 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
371 characters in the string to \xNN form.
373 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
374 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
376 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
382 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
383 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
384 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
385 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
386 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
388 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
389 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
390 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
391 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
393 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
394 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
395 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
396 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
397 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
399 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
400 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
402 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
404 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
405 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
406 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
409 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
411 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
412 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
413 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
414 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
415 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
416 compatibility at the cost of session security.
418 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
419 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
420 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
421 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
422 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
424 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
425 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
427 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
428 for Exim as a server.
430 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
431 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
432 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
433 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
434 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
436 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
437 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
438 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
439 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
440 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
442 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
443 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
445 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
446 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
447 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
448 string, documentation for which is at:
449 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
451 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
453 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
454 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
456 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
457 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
458 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
459 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
460 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
462 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
464 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
465 identically to TXT record lookups.
467 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
469 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
470 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
471 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
473 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
474 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
475 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
476 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
479 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
480 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
481 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
487 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
488 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
490 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
491 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
493 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
494 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
496 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
497 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
498 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
500 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
501 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
502 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
503 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
509 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
510 or off in the resolver library.
516 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
517 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
518 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
519 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
520 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
522 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
523 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
524 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
526 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
527 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
529 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
530 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
531 including any header additions or removals from transport.
533 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
534 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
540 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
541 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
542 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
543 on content supplied by the attacker.
545 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
546 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
547 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
548 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
549 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
555 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
556 items below carefully
558 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
559 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
560 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
561 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
562 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
563 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
566 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
567 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
568 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
569 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
570 be able to take effect.
572 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
573 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
574 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
575 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
577 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
578 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
579 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
580 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
582 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
584 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
586 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
587 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
588 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
589 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
590 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
591 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
593 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
594 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
596 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
598 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
599 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
601 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
602 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
603 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
604 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
605 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
606 don't all make sense in all contexts:
609 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
610 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
611 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
613 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
614 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
615 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
616 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
617 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
618 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
619 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
620 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
621 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
622 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
625 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
626 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
627 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
629 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
631 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
633 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
634 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
635 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
636 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
637 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
640 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
641 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
643 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
644 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
645 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
646 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
647 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
648 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
650 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
651 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
652 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
653 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
654 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
655 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
656 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
657 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
663 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
664 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
666 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
668 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
669 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
672 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
673 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
674 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
675 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
676 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
677 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
678 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
679 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
680 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
681 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
683 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
684 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
686 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
687 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
688 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
694 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
695 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
696 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
697 for details on conditionally disabling)
699 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
701 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
702 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
703 and{} expansion operator).
705 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
708 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
709 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
711 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
712 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
713 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
715 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
716 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
717 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
718 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
720 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
723 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
729 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
735 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
738 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
739 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
740 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
743 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
745 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
746 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
747 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
750 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
752 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
753 192.168.6.7 (for example).
755 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
756 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
757 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
758 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
760 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
762 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
763 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
764 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
767 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
768 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
769 only by an admin user.
771 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
772 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
773 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
774 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
775 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
777 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
778 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
783 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
785 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
786 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
787 (max $sender_rate_limit)
789 [... some other logic and tests...]
791 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
792 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
793 (max $sender_rate_limit)
794 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
798 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
799 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
800 line termination character(s).
802 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
803 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
804 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
806 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
807 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
808 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
809 message is queued, the remainder are also.
811 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
812 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
813 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
814 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
815 log files) that make the situation even worse.
817 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
818 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
819 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
821 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
822 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
823 connection. The possible values are:
825 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
826 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
827 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
828 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
829 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
830 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
831 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
832 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
833 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
834 tls-failed TLS failed to start
836 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
837 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
838 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
839 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
840 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
843 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
844 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
845 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
847 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
848 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
849 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
851 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
853 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
854 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
855 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
857 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
858 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
859 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
861 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
863 In an updating lookup, you could then write
865 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
867 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
869 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
871 you can still update the master by
873 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
875 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
876 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
877 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
884 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
885 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
886 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
889 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
890 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
891 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
892 rather than the default "any" matching.
894 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
895 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
896 other parameters to be varied.
898 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
899 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
901 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
903 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
905 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
906 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
908 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
909 after the connection to the server has been made.
911 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
912 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
914 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
915 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
918 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
919 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
920 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
921 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
922 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
924 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
925 called forany and forall.
927 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
928 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
929 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
931 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
933 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
934 that makes it case-sensitive.
936 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
937 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
938 items, typically addresses.
940 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
941 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
942 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
945 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
946 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
948 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
951 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
958 No new features were added to 4.66.
964 No new features were added to 4.65.
970 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
971 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
972 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
975 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
976 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
978 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
979 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
980 number of authentication methods.
982 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
983 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
984 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
986 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
987 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
988 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
989 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
991 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
993 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
994 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
995 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
996 before doing the expansions.
998 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
999 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
1002 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
1003 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
1004 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
1006 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
1007 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
1009 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
1010 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
1011 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
1012 available for compatibility.)
1014 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
1015 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
1021 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
1024 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
1025 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
1028 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
1029 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
1030 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
1032 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
1033 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
1035 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
1037 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
1038 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
1040 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
1042 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
1044 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
1045 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
1046 each messages value for each variable.
1048 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
1049 same criteria without --not).
1055 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
1056 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
1057 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
1058 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
1059 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
1060 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
1062 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
1064 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
1065 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
1066 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
1069 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
1070 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
1071 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
1073 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
1074 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
1075 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
1076 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
1082 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
1083 the 4.60 release are:
1085 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
1087 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
1089 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
1090 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
1091 for other things in complicated expansions.
1093 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
1095 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
1096 resources used in pipe deliveries.
1098 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
1100 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
1102 There are a number of other additions too.
1108 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
1109 the 4.50 release are:
1111 . Support for SQLite.
1113 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
1115 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
1117 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
1119 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
1121 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
1123 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
1125 There are many more minor changes.
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