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.
21 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
22 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
23 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
24 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
25 SIEVE capability line.
27 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
28 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
29 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
30 followed by a newline, and no other text.
32 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
33 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
34 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
35 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
36 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
37 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
38 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
39 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
41 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
43 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
44 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
45 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
46 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
47 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
48 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
50 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
52 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
53 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
54 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
56 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
57 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
59 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
60 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
62 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
63 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
64 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
65 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
68 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
69 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are recieved on and
70 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
71 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
72 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
73 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
74 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
75 is negociated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
76 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
77 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
78 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
79 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
82 The Recieved-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
83 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
84 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
85 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
87 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
88 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
89 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
91 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
92 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
93 are present for now but deprecated.
95 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
97 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
98 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
100 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
101 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
102 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
103 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
104 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
105 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
106 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
107 unless this new option is set.
109 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
110 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
111 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
114 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
116 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
117 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
118 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
119 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
120 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
121 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
122 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
123 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
124 return results in a forced fail.
126 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
127 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
129 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
130 handled by routers/transports.
132 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
133 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
135 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
136 modifier (but not yet added to messsage).
138 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
140 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
142 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
143 particularly for debug_print as -bt commandline option does not
144 require privilege whereas -d does.
146 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
147 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
149 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
150 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
151 wrappers, for instance.
153 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
156 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
157 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
158 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
159 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
160 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
161 dmarc_enable_forensic.
163 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
164 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
165 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
167 23. New ACL modifer "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
170 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
171 characters in the string to \xNN form.
173 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
174 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
176 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
182 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
183 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
184 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
185 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
186 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
188 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
189 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
190 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
191 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
193 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
194 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
195 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
196 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
197 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
199 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
200 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
202 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
204 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
205 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
206 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
209 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
211 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
212 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
213 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
214 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
215 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
216 compatibility at the cost of session security.
218 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
219 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
220 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
221 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
222 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
224 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
225 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
227 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
228 for Exim as a server.
230 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
231 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
232 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
233 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
234 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
236 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
237 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
238 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
239 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
240 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
242 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
243 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
245 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
246 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
247 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
248 string, documentation for which is at:
249 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
251 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
253 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
254 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
256 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
257 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
258 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
259 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
260 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
262 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
264 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
265 identically to TXT record lookups.
267 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
269 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
270 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
271 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
273 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
274 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
275 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
276 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
279 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
280 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
281 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
287 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
288 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
290 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
291 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
293 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
294 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
296 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
297 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
298 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
300 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
301 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
302 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
303 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
309 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
310 or off in the resolver library.
316 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
317 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
318 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
319 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
320 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
322 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
323 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
324 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
326 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
327 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
329 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
330 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
331 including any header additions or removals from transport.
333 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
334 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
340 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
341 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
342 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
343 on content supplied by the attacker.
345 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
346 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
347 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
348 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
349 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
355 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
356 items below carefully
358 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
359 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
360 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
361 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
362 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
363 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
366 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
367 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
368 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
369 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
370 be able to take effect.
372 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
373 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
374 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
375 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
377 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
378 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
379 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
380 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
382 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
384 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
386 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
387 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
388 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
389 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
390 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
391 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
393 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
394 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
396 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
398 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
399 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
401 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
402 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
403 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
404 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
405 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
406 don't all make sense in all contexts:
409 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
410 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
411 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
413 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
414 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
415 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
416 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
417 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
418 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
419 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
420 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
421 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
422 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
425 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
426 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
427 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
429 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
431 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
433 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
434 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
435 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
436 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
437 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
440 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
441 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
443 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
444 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
445 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
446 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
447 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
448 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
450 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
451 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
452 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
453 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
454 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
455 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
456 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
457 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
463 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
464 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
466 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
468 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
469 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
472 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
473 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
474 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
475 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
476 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
477 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
478 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
479 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
480 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
481 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
483 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
484 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
486 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
487 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
488 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
494 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
495 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
496 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
497 for details on conditionally disabling)
499 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
501 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
502 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
503 and{} expansion operator).
505 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
508 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
509 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
511 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
512 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
513 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
515 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
516 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
517 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
518 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
520 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
523 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
529 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
535 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
538 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
539 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
540 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
543 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
545 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
546 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
547 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
550 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
552 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
553 192.168.6.7 (for example).
555 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
556 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
557 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
558 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
560 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
562 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
563 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
564 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
567 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
568 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
569 only by an admin user.
571 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
572 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
573 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
574 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
575 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
577 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
578 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
583 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
585 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
586 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
587 (max $sender_rate_limit)
589 [... some other logic and tests...]
591 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
592 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
593 (max $sender_rate_limit)
594 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
598 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
599 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
600 line termination character(s).
602 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
603 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
604 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
606 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
607 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
608 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
609 message is queued, the remainder are also.
611 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
612 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
613 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
614 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
615 log files) that make the situation even worse.
617 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
618 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
619 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
621 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
622 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
623 connection. The possible values are:
625 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
626 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
627 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
628 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
629 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
630 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
631 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
632 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
633 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
634 tls-failed TLS failed to start
636 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
637 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
638 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
639 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
640 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
643 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
644 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
645 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
647 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
648 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
649 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
651 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
653 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
654 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
655 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
657 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
658 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
659 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
661 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
663 In an updating lookup, you could then write
665 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
667 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
669 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
671 you can still update the master by
673 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
675 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
676 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
677 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
684 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
685 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
686 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
689 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
690 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
691 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
692 rather than the default "any" matching.
694 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
695 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
696 other parameters to be varied.
698 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
699 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
701 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
703 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
705 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
706 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
708 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
709 after the connection to the server has been made.
711 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
712 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
714 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
715 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
718 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
719 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
720 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
721 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
722 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
724 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
725 called forany and forall.
727 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
728 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
729 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
731 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
733 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
734 that makes it case-sensitive.
736 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
737 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
738 items, typically addresses.
740 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
741 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
742 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
745 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
746 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
748 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
751 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
758 No new features were added to 4.66.
764 No new features were added to 4.65.
770 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
771 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
772 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
775 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
776 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
778 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
779 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
780 number of authentication methods.
782 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
783 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
784 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
786 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
787 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
788 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
789 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
791 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
793 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
794 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
795 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
796 before doing the expansions.
798 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
799 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
802 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
803 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
804 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
806 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
807 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
809 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
810 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
811 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
812 available for compatibility.)
814 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
815 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
821 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
824 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
825 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
828 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
829 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
830 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
832 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
833 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
835 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
837 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
838 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
840 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
842 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
844 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
845 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
846 each messages value for each variable.
848 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
849 same criteria without --not).
855 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
856 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
857 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
858 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
859 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
860 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
862 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
864 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
865 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
866 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
869 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
870 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
871 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
873 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
874 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
875 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
876 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
882 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
883 the 4.60 release are:
885 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
887 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
889 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
890 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
891 for other things in complicated expansions.
893 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
895 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
896 resources used in pipe deliveries.
898 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
900 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
902 There are a number of other additions too.
908 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
909 the 4.50 release are:
911 . Support for SQLite.
913 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
915 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
917 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
919 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
921 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
923 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
925 There are many more minor changes.
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