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. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
13 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
14 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
15 proxy that is connecting to it.
17 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
18 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
19 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
20 detect and reject if those characters are present.
22 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
23 codepoints with valid ones.
25 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
26 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
27 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoofile name can
28 be included in the command line.
30 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
31 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
32 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
33 verification cancels the encryption.
35 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
36 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
39 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
40 file when searching the queue.
42 8. EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3
49 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
50 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
51 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
52 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
53 SIEVE capability line.
55 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
56 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
57 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
58 followed by a newline, and no other text.
60 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
61 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
62 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
63 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
64 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
65 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
66 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
67 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
69 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
71 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
72 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
73 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
74 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
75 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
76 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
78 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
80 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
81 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
82 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
84 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
85 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
87 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
88 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
90 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
91 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
92 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
93 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
96 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
97 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are recieved on and
98 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
99 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
100 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
101 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
102 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
103 is negociated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
104 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
105 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
106 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
107 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
110 The Recieved-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
111 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
112 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
113 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
115 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
116 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
117 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
119 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
120 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
121 are present for now but deprecated.
123 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
125 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
126 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
128 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
129 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
130 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
131 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
132 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
133 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
134 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
135 unless this new option is set.
137 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
138 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
139 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
142 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
144 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
145 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
146 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
147 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
148 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
149 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
150 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
151 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
152 return results in a forced fail.
154 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
155 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
157 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
158 handled by routers/transports.
160 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
161 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
163 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
164 modifier (but not yet added to messsage).
166 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
168 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
170 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
171 particularly for debug_print as -bt commandline option does not
172 require privilege whereas -d does.
174 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
175 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
177 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
178 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
179 wrappers, for instance.
181 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
184 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
185 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
186 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
187 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
188 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
189 dmarc_enable_forensic.
191 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
192 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
193 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
195 23. New ACL modifer "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
198 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
199 characters in the string to \xNN form.
201 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
202 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
204 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
210 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
211 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
212 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
213 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
214 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
216 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
217 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
218 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
219 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
221 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
222 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
223 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
224 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
225 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
227 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
228 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
230 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
232 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
233 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
234 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
237 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
239 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
240 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
241 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
242 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
243 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
244 compatibility at the cost of session security.
246 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
247 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
248 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
249 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
250 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
252 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
253 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
255 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
256 for Exim as a server.
258 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
259 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
260 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
261 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
262 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
264 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
265 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
266 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
267 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
268 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
270 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
271 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
273 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
274 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
275 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
276 string, documentation for which is at:
277 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
279 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
281 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
282 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
284 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
285 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
286 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
287 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
288 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
290 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
292 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
293 identically to TXT record lookups.
295 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
297 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
298 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
299 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
301 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
302 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
303 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
304 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
307 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
308 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
309 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
315 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
316 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
318 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
319 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
321 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
322 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
324 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
325 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
326 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
328 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
329 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
330 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
331 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
337 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
338 or off in the resolver library.
344 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
345 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
346 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
347 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
348 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
350 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
351 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
352 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
354 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
355 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
357 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
358 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
359 including any header additions or removals from transport.
361 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
362 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
368 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
369 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
370 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
371 on content supplied by the attacker.
373 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
374 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
375 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
376 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
377 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
383 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
384 items below carefully
386 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
387 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
388 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
389 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
390 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
391 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
394 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
395 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
396 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
397 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
398 be able to take effect.
400 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
401 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
402 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
403 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
405 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
406 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
407 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
408 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
410 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
412 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
414 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
415 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
416 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
417 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
418 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
419 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
421 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
422 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
424 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
426 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
427 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
429 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
430 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
431 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
432 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
433 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
434 don't all make sense in all contexts:
437 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
438 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
439 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
441 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
442 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
443 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
444 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
445 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
446 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
447 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
448 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
449 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
450 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
453 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
454 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
455 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
457 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
459 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
461 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
462 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
463 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
464 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
465 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
468 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
469 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
471 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
472 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
473 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
474 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
475 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
476 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
478 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
479 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
480 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
481 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
482 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
483 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
484 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
485 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
491 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
492 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
494 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
496 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
497 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
500 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
501 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
502 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
503 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
504 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
505 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
506 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
507 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
508 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
509 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
511 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
512 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
514 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
515 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
516 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
522 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
523 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
524 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
525 for details on conditionally disabling)
527 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
529 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
530 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
531 and{} expansion operator).
533 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
536 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
537 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
539 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
540 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
541 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
543 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
544 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
545 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
546 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
548 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
551 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
557 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
563 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
566 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
567 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
568 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
571 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
573 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
574 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
575 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
578 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
580 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
581 192.168.6.7 (for example).
583 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
584 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
585 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
586 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
588 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
590 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
591 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
592 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
595 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
596 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
597 only by an admin user.
599 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
600 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
601 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
602 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
603 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
605 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
606 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
611 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
613 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
614 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
615 (max $sender_rate_limit)
617 [... some other logic and tests...]
619 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
620 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
621 (max $sender_rate_limit)
622 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
626 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
627 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
628 line termination character(s).
630 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
631 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
632 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
634 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
635 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
636 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
637 message is queued, the remainder are also.
639 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
640 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
641 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
642 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
643 log files) that make the situation even worse.
645 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
646 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
647 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
649 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
650 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
651 connection. The possible values are:
653 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
654 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
655 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
656 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
657 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
658 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
659 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
660 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
661 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
662 tls-failed TLS failed to start
664 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
665 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
666 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
667 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
668 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
671 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
672 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
673 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
675 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
676 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
677 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
679 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
681 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
682 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
683 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
685 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
686 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
687 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
689 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
691 In an updating lookup, you could then write
693 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
695 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
697 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
699 you can still update the master by
701 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
703 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
704 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
705 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
712 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
713 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
714 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
717 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
718 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
719 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
720 rather than the default "any" matching.
722 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
723 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
724 other parameters to be varied.
726 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
727 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
729 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
731 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
733 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
734 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
736 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
737 after the connection to the server has been made.
739 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
740 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
742 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
743 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
746 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
747 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
748 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
749 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
750 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
752 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
753 called forany and forall.
755 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
756 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
757 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
759 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
761 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
762 that makes it case-sensitive.
764 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
765 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
766 items, typically addresses.
768 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
769 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
770 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
773 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
774 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
776 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
779 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
786 No new features were added to 4.66.
792 No new features were added to 4.65.
798 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
799 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
800 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
803 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
804 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
806 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
807 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
808 number of authentication methods.
810 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
811 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
812 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
814 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
815 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
816 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
817 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
819 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
821 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
822 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
823 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
824 before doing the expansions.
826 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
827 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
830 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
831 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
832 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
834 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
835 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
837 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
838 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
839 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
840 available for compatibility.)
842 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
843 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
849 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
852 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
853 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
856 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
857 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
858 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
860 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
861 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
863 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
865 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
866 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
868 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
870 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
872 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
873 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
874 each messages value for each variable.
876 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
877 same criteria without --not).
883 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
884 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
885 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
886 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
887 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
888 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
890 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
892 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
893 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
894 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
897 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
898 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
899 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
901 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
902 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
903 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
904 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
910 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
911 the 4.60 release are:
913 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
915 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
917 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
918 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
919 for other things in complicated expansions.
921 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
923 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
924 resources used in pipe deliveries.
926 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
928 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
930 There are a number of other additions too.
936 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
937 the 4.50 release are:
939 . Support for SQLite.
941 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
943 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
945 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
947 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
949 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
951 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
953 There are many more minor changes.
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