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 Git before the documentation is updated. Once
7 the documentation is updated, this file is reduced to a short list.
12 1. ${l_header:<name>} and ${l_h:<name>} expansion items, giving a colon-sep
13 list when there are multiple headers having a given name. This matters
14 when individual headers are wrapped onto multiple lines; with previous
15 facilities hard to parse.
17 2. The ${readsocket } expansion item now takes a "tls" option, doing the
20 3. EXPERIMENTAL_REQUIRETLS. See the experimental.spec file.
22 4. If built with SUPPORT_I18N a "utf8_downconvert" option on the smtp transport.
27 1. Dual-certificate stacks on servers now support OCSP stapling, under GnuTLS
28 version 3.5.6 or later.
30 2. DANE is now supported under GnuTLS version 3.0.0 or later. Both GnuTLS and
31 OpenSSL versions are moved to mainline support from Experimental.
32 New SMTP transport option "dane_require_tls_ciphers".
34 3. Feature macros for the compiled-in set of malware scanner interfaces.
36 4. SPF support is promoted from Experimental to mainline status. The template
37 src/EDITME makefile does not enable its inclusion.
39 5. Logging control for DKIM verification. The existing DKIM log line is
40 controlled by a "dkim_verbose" selector which is _not_ enabled by default.
41 A new tag "DKIM=<domain>" is added to <= lines by default, controlled by
42 a "dkim" log_selector.
44 6. Receive duration on <= lines, under a new log_selector "receive_time".
46 7. Options "ipv4_only" and "ipv4_prefer" on the dnslookup router and on
47 routing rules in the manualroute router.
49 8. Expansion item ${sha3:<string>} / ${sha3_<N>:<string>} now also supported
50 under OpenSSL version 1.1.1 or later.
52 9. DKIM operations can now use the Ed25519 algorithm in addition to RSA, under
53 GnuTLS 3.6.0 or OpenSSL 1.1.1 or later.
55 10. Builtin feature-macros _CRYPTO_HASH_SHA3 and _CRYPTO_SIGN_ED25519, library
58 11. "exim -bP macro <name>" returns caller-usable status.
60 12. Expansion item ${authresults {<machine>}} for creating an
61 Authentication-Results: header.
63 13. EXPERIMENTAL_ARC. See the experimental.spec file.
64 See also new util/renew-opendmarc-tlds.sh script for use with DMARC/ARC.
66 14: A dane:fail event, intended to facilitate reporting.
68 15. "Lightweight" support for Redis Cluster. Requires redis_servers list to
69 contain all the servers in the cluster, all of which must be reachable from
70 the running exim instance. If the cluster has master/slave replication, the
71 list must contain all the master and slave servers.
73 16. Add an option to the Avast scanner interface: "pass_unscanned". This
74 allows to treat unscanned files as clean. Files may be unscanned for
75 several reasons: decompression bombs, broken archives.
81 1. PKG_CONFIG_PATH can now be set in Local/Makefile;
82 wildcards will be expanded, values are collapsed.
84 2. The ${readsocket } expansion now takes an option to not shutdown the
85 connection after sending the query string. The default remains to do so.
87 3. An smtp transport option "hosts_noproxy_tls" to control whether multiple
88 deliveries on a single TCP connection can maintain a TLS connection
89 open. By default disabled for all hosts, doing so saves the cost of
90 making new TLS sessions, at the cost of having to proxy the data via
91 another process. Logging is also affected.
93 4. A malware connection type for the FPSCAND protocol.
95 5. An option for recipient verify callouts to hold the connection open for
96 further recipients and for delivery.
98 6. The reproducible build $SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH environment variable is now
101 7. Optionally, an alternate format for spool data-files which matches the
102 wire format - meaning more efficient reception and transmission (at the
103 cost of difficulty with standard Unix tools). Only used for messages
104 received using the ESMTP CHUNKING option, and when a new main-section
105 option "spool_wireformat" (false by default) is set.
107 8. New main configuration option "commandline_checks_require_admin" to
108 restrict who can use various introspection options.
110 9. New option modifier "no_check" for quota and quota_filecount
111 appendfile transport.
113 10. Variable $smtp_command_history returning a comma-sep list of recent
116 11. Millisecond timetamps in logs, on log_selector "millisec". Also affects
117 log elements QT, DT and D, and timstamps in debug output.
119 12. TCP Fast Open logging. As a server, logs when the SMTP banner was sent
120 while still in SYN_RECV state; as a client logs when the connection
121 is opened with a TFO cookie.
123 13. DKIM support for multiple signing, by domain and/or key-selector.
124 DKIM support for multiple hashes, and for alternate-identity tags.
125 Builtin macro with default list of signed headers.
126 Better syntax for specifying oversigning.
127 The DKIM ACL can override verification status, and status is visible in
130 14. Exipick understands -C|--config for an alternative Exim
133 15. TCP Fast Open used, with data-on-SYN, for client SMTP via SOCKS5 proxy,
134 for ${readsocket } expansions, and for ClamAV.
136 16. The "-be" expansion test mode now supports macros. Macros are expanded
137 in test lines, and new macros can be defined.
139 17. Support for server-side dual-certificate-stacks (eg. RSA + ECDSA).
145 1. Allow relative config file names for ".include"
147 2. A main-section config option "debug_store" to control the checks on
148 variable locations during store-reset. Normally false but can be enabled
149 when a memory corrution issue is suspected on a production system.
155 1. The new perl_taintmode option allows to run the embedded perl
156 interpreter in taint mode.
158 2. New log_selector: dnssec, adds a "DS" tag to acceptance and delivery lines.
160 3. Speculative debugging, via a "kill" option to the "control=debug" ACL
163 4. New expansion item ${sha3:<string>} / ${sha3_<N>:<string>}.
164 N can be 224, 256 (default), 384, 512.
165 With GnuTLS 3.5.0 or later, only.
167 5. Facility for named queues: A command-line argument can specify
168 the queue name for a queue operation, and an ACL modifier can set
169 the queue to be used for a message. A $queue_name variable gives
172 6. New expansion operators base32/base32d.
174 7. The CHUNKING ESMTP extension from RFC 3030. May give some slight
175 performance increase and network load decrease. Main config option
176 chunking_advertise_hosts, and smtp transport option hosts_try_chunking
179 8. LMDB lookup support, as Experimental. Patch supplied by Andrew Colin Kissa.
181 9. Expansion operator escape8bit, like escape but not touching newline etc..
183 10. Feature macros, generated from compile options. All start with "_HAVE_"
184 and go on with some roughly recognisable name. Driver macros, for
185 router, transport and authentication drivers; names starting with "_DRIVER_".
186 Option macros, for each configuration-file option; all start with "_OPT_".
187 Use the "-bP macros" command-line option to see what is present.
189 11. Integer values for options can take a "G" multiplier.
191 12. defer=pass option for the ACL control cutthrough_delivery, to reflect 4xx
192 returns from the target back to the initiator, rather than spooling the
195 13. New built-in constants available for tls_dhparam and default changed.
197 14. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_QUEUEFILE, a queuefile transport, for writing
198 out copies of the message spool files for use by 3rd-party scanners.
200 15. A new option on the smtp transport, hosts_try_fastopen. If the system
201 supports it (on Linux it must be enabled in the kernel by the sysadmin)
202 try to use RFC 7413 "TCP Fast Open". No data is sent on the SYN segment
203 but it permits a peer that also supports the facility to send its SMTP
204 banner immediately after the SYN,ACK segment rather then waiting for
205 another ACK - so saving up to one roundtrip time. Because it requires
206 previous communication with the peer (we save a cookie from it) this
207 will only become active on frequently-contacted destinations.
209 16. A new syslog_pid option to suppress PID duplication in syslog lines.
215 1. The ACL conditions regex and mime_regex now capture substrings
216 into numeric variables $regex1 to 9, like the "match" expansion condition.
218 2. New $callout_address variable records the address used for a spam=,
219 malware= or verify= callout.
221 3. Transports now take a "max_parallel" option, to limit concurrency.
223 4. Expansion operators ${ipv6norm:<string>} and ${ipv6denorm:<string>}.
224 The latter expands to a 8-element colon-sep set of hex digits including
225 leading zeroes. A trailing ipv4-style dotted-decimal set is converted
226 to hex. Pure ipv4 addresses are converted to IPv4-mapped IPv6.
227 The former operator strips leading zeroes and collapses the longest
228 set of 0-groups to a double-colon.
230 5. New "-bP config" support, to dump the effective configuration.
232 6. New $dkim_key_length variable.
234 7. New base64d and base64 expansion items (the existing str2b64 being a
235 synonym of the latter). Add support in base64 for certificates.
237 8. New main configuration option "bounce_return_linesize_limit" to
238 avoid oversize bodies in bounces. The default value matches RFC
241 9. New $initial_cwd expansion variable.
247 1. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
249 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
250 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
252 3. New "malware=" support for Avast.
254 4. New "spam=" variant option for Rspamd.
256 5. Assorted options on malware= and spam= scanners.
258 6. A command-line option to write a comment into the logfile.
260 7. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_SOCKS feature enabled, the smtp transport can
261 be configured to make connections via socks5 proxies.
263 8. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, support is included for
264 the transmission of UTF-8 envelope addresses.
266 9. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, an expansion item for a commonly
267 used encoding of Maildir folder names.
269 10. A logging option for slow DNS lookups.
271 11. New ${env {<variable>}} expansion.
273 12. A non-SMTP authenticator using information from TLS client certificates.
275 13. Main option "tls_eccurve" for selecting an Elliptic Curve for TLS.
276 Patch originally by Wolfgang Breyha.
278 14. Main option "dns_trust_aa" for trusting your local nameserver at the
279 same level as DNSSEC.
285 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
286 DANE SMTP draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
287 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
288 domain of the sender.
290 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
291 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
292 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
293 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
294 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
295 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
297 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
298 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
299 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
309 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
310 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
311 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
312 proxy that is connecting to it.
314 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
315 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
316 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
317 detect and reject if those characters are present.
319 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
320 codepoints with valid ones.
322 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
323 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
324 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
325 be included in the command line.
327 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
328 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
329 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
330 verification cancels the encryption.
332 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
333 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
336 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
337 file when searching the queue.
339 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
341 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
343 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
344 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
345 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
348 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
350 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
352 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
353 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negotiate
354 DSN features per RFC 3461.
360 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
361 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
362 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
363 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
364 SIEVE capability line.
366 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
367 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
368 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
369 followed by a newline, and no other text.
371 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
372 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
373 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
374 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
375 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
376 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
377 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
378 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
380 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
382 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
383 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
384 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
385 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
386 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
387 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
389 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
391 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
392 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
393 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
395 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
396 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
398 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
399 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
401 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
402 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
403 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
404 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
407 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
408 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are received on and
409 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
410 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
411 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
412 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
413 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
414 is negotiated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
415 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
416 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
417 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
418 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
421 The Received-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
422 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
423 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
424 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
426 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
427 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
428 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
430 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
431 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
432 are present for now but deprecated.
434 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
436 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
437 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
439 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
440 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
441 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
442 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
443 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
444 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
445 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
446 unless this new option is set.
448 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
449 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
450 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
453 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
455 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
456 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
457 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
458 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
459 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
460 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
461 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
462 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
463 return results in a forced fail.
465 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
466 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
468 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
469 handled by routers/transports.
471 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
472 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
474 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
475 modifier (but not yet added to message).
477 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
479 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
481 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
482 particularly for debug_print as -bt command-line option does not
483 require privilege whereas -d does.
485 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
486 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
488 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
489 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
490 wrappers, for instance.
492 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
495 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
496 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
497 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
498 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
499 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
500 dmarc_enable_forensic. The default for the dmarc_tld_file option is
501 "/etc/exim/opendmarc.tlds" and can be changed via EDITME.
503 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
504 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
505 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
507 23. New ACL modifier "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
510 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
511 characters in the string to \xNN form.
513 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
514 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
516 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
522 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
523 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
524 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
525 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
526 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
528 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
529 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
530 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
531 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
533 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
534 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
535 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
536 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
537 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
539 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
540 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
542 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
544 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
545 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
546 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
549 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
551 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
552 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
553 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
554 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
555 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
556 compatibility at the cost of session security.
558 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
559 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
560 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
561 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
562 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
564 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
565 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
567 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
568 for Exim as a server.
570 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
571 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
572 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
573 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
574 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
576 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
577 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
578 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
579 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
580 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
582 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
583 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
585 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
586 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
587 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
588 string, documentation for which is at:
589 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
591 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
593 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
594 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
596 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
597 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
598 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
599 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
600 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
602 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
604 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
605 identically to TXT record lookups.
607 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
609 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
610 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
611 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
613 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
614 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
615 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
616 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
619 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
620 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
621 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
627 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
628 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
630 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
631 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
633 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
634 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
636 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
637 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
638 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
640 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
641 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
642 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
643 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
649 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
650 or off in the resolver library.
656 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
657 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
658 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
659 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
660 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
662 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
663 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
664 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
666 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
667 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
669 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
670 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
671 including any header additions or removals from transport.
673 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
674 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
680 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
681 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
682 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
683 on content supplied by the attacker.
685 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
686 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
687 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
688 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
689 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
695 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
696 items below carefully
698 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
699 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
700 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
701 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
702 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
703 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
706 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
707 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
708 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
709 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
710 be able to take effect.
712 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
713 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
714 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
715 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
717 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
718 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
719 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
720 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
722 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
724 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
726 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
727 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
728 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
729 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
730 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
731 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
733 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
734 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
736 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
738 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
739 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
741 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
742 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
743 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
744 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
745 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
746 don't all make sense in all contexts:
749 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
750 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
751 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
753 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
754 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
755 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
756 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
757 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
758 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
759 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
760 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
761 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
762 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
765 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
766 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
767 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
769 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
771 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
773 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
774 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
775 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
776 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
777 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
780 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
781 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
783 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
784 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
785 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
786 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
787 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
788 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
790 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
791 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
792 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
793 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
794 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
795 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
796 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
797 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
803 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
804 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
806 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
808 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
809 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
812 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
813 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
814 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
815 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
816 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
817 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
818 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
819 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
820 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
821 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
823 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
824 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
826 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
827 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
828 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
834 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
835 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
836 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
837 for details on conditionally disabling)
839 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
841 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
842 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
843 and{} expansion operator).
845 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
848 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
849 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
851 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
852 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
853 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
855 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
856 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
857 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
858 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
860 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
863 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
869 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
875 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
878 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
879 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
880 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
883 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
885 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
886 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
887 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
890 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
892 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
893 192.168.6.7 (for example).
895 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
896 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
897 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
898 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
900 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
902 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
903 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
904 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
907 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
908 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
909 only by an admin user.
911 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
912 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
913 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
914 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
915 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
917 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
918 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
923 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
925 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
926 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
927 (max $sender_rate_limit)
929 [... some other logic and tests...]
931 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
932 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
933 (max $sender_rate_limit)
934 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
938 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
939 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
940 line termination character(s).
942 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
943 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
944 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
946 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
947 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
948 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
949 message is queued, the remainder are also.
951 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
952 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
953 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
954 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
955 log files) that make the situation even worse.
957 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
958 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
959 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
961 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
962 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
963 connection. The possible values are:
965 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
966 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
967 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
968 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
969 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
970 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
971 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
972 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
973 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
974 tls-failed TLS failed to start
976 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
977 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
978 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
979 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
980 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
983 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
984 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
985 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
987 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
988 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
989 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
991 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
993 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
994 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
995 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
997 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
998 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
999 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
1001 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
1003 In an updating lookup, you could then write
1005 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
1007 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
1009 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
1011 you can still update the master by
1013 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
1015 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
1016 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
1017 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
1024 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
1025 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
1026 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
1029 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
1030 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
1031 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
1032 rather than the default "any" matching.
1034 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
1035 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
1036 other parameters to be varied.
1038 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
1039 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
1041 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
1043 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
1045 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
1046 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
1048 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
1049 after the connection to the server has been made.
1051 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
1052 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
1054 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
1055 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
1058 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
1059 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
1060 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
1061 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
1062 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
1064 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
1065 called forany and forall.
1067 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
1068 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
1069 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
1071 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
1073 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
1074 that makes it case-sensitive.
1076 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
1077 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
1078 items, typically addresses.
1080 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
1081 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
1082 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
1085 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
1086 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
1088 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
1091 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
1098 No new features were added to 4.66.
1104 No new features were added to 4.65.
1110 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
1111 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
1112 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
1115 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
1116 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
1118 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
1119 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
1120 number of authentication methods.
1122 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
1123 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
1124 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
1126 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
1127 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
1128 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
1129 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
1131 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
1133 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
1134 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
1135 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
1136 before doing the expansions.
1138 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
1139 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
1142 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
1143 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
1144 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
1146 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
1147 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
1149 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
1150 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
1151 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
1152 available for compatibility.)
1154 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
1155 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
1161 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
1164 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
1165 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
1168 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
1169 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
1170 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
1172 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
1173 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
1175 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
1177 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
1178 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
1180 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
1182 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
1184 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
1185 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
1186 each messages value for each variable.
1188 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
1189 same criteria without --not).
1195 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
1196 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
1197 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
1198 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
1199 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
1200 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
1202 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
1204 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
1205 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
1206 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
1209 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
1210 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
1211 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
1213 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
1214 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
1215 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
1216 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
1222 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
1223 the 4.60 release are:
1225 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
1227 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
1229 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
1230 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
1231 for other things in complicated expansions.
1233 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
1235 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
1236 resources used in pipe deliveries.
1238 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
1240 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
1242 There are a number of other additions too.
1248 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
1249 the 4.50 release are:
1251 . Support for SQLite.
1253 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
1255 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
1257 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
1259 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
1261 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
1263 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
1265 There are many more minor changes.
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