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. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
14 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
15 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
17 3. New "malware=" support for Avast.
19 4. New "spam=" variant option for Rspamd.
21 5. Assorted options on malware= and spam= scanners.
23 6. A commandline option to write a comment into the logfile.
25 7. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_SOCKS feature enabled, the smtp transport can
26 be configured to make connections via socks5 proxies.
28 8. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, support is included for
29 the transmission of UTF-8 envelope addresses.
31 9. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, an expansion item for a commonly
32 used encoding of Maildir folder names.
34 10. A logging option for slow DNS lookups.
36 11. New ${env {<variable>}} expansion.
38 12. A non-SMTP authenticator using information from TLS client certificates.
44 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
45 DANE smtp draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
46 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
49 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
50 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
51 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
52 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
53 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
54 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
56 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
57 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
58 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
68 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
69 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
70 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
71 proxy that is connecting to it.
73 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
74 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
75 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
76 detect and reject if those characters are present.
78 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
79 codepoints with valid ones.
81 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
82 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
83 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
84 be included in the command line.
86 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
87 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
88 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
89 verification cancels the encryption.
91 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
92 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
95 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
96 file when searching the queue.
98 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
100 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
102 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
103 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
104 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
107 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
109 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
111 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
112 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negociate
113 DSN features per RFC 3461.
119 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
120 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
121 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
122 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
123 SIEVE capability line.
125 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
126 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
127 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
128 followed by a newline, and no other text.
130 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
131 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
132 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
133 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
134 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
135 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
136 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
137 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
139 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
141 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
142 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
143 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
144 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
145 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
146 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
148 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
150 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
151 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
152 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
154 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
155 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
157 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
158 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
160 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
161 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
162 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
163 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
166 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
167 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are recieved on and
168 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
169 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
170 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
171 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
172 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
173 is negociated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
174 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
175 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
176 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
177 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
180 The Recieved-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
181 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
182 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
183 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
185 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
186 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
187 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
189 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
190 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
191 are present for now but deprecated.
193 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
195 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
196 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
198 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
199 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
200 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
201 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
202 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
203 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
204 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
205 unless this new option is set.
207 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
208 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
209 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
212 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
214 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
215 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
216 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
217 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
218 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
219 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
220 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
221 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
222 return results in a forced fail.
224 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
225 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
227 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
228 handled by routers/transports.
230 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
231 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
233 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
234 modifier (but not yet added to messsage).
236 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
238 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
240 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
241 particularly for debug_print as -bt commandline option does not
242 require privilege whereas -d does.
244 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
245 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
247 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
248 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
249 wrappers, for instance.
251 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
254 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
255 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
256 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
257 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
258 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
259 dmarc_enable_forensic.
261 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
262 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
263 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
265 23. New ACL modifer "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
268 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
269 characters in the string to \xNN form.
271 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
272 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
274 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
280 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
281 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
282 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
283 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
284 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
286 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
287 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
288 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
289 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
291 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
292 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
293 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
294 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
295 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
297 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
298 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
300 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
302 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
303 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
304 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
307 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
309 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
310 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
311 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
312 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
313 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
314 compatibility at the cost of session security.
316 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
317 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
318 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
319 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
320 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
322 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
323 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
325 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
326 for Exim as a server.
328 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
329 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
330 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
331 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
332 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
334 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
335 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
336 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
337 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
338 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
340 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
341 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
343 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
344 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
345 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
346 string, documentation for which is at:
347 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
349 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
351 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
352 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
354 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
355 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
356 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
357 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
358 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
360 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
362 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
363 identically to TXT record lookups.
365 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
367 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
368 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
369 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
371 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
372 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
373 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
374 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
377 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
378 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
379 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
385 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
386 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
388 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
389 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
391 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
392 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
394 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
395 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
396 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
398 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
399 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
400 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
401 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
407 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
408 or off in the resolver library.
414 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
415 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
416 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
417 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
418 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
420 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
421 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
422 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
424 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
425 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
427 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
428 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
429 including any header additions or removals from transport.
431 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
432 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
438 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
439 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
440 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
441 on content supplied by the attacker.
443 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
444 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
445 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
446 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
447 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
453 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
454 items below carefully
456 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
457 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
458 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
459 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
460 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
461 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
464 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
465 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
466 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
467 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
468 be able to take effect.
470 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
471 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
472 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
473 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
475 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
476 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
477 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
478 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
480 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
482 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
484 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
485 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
486 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
487 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
488 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
489 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
491 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
492 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
494 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
496 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
497 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
499 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
500 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
501 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
502 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
503 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
504 don't all make sense in all contexts:
507 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
508 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
509 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
511 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
512 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
513 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
514 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
515 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
516 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
517 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
518 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
519 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
520 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
523 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
524 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
525 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
527 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
529 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
531 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
532 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
533 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
534 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
535 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
538 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
539 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
541 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
542 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
543 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
544 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
545 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
546 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
548 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
549 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
550 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
551 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
552 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
553 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
554 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
555 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
561 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
562 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
564 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
566 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
567 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
570 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
571 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
572 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
573 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
574 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
575 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
576 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
577 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
578 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
579 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
581 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
582 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
584 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
585 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
586 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
592 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
593 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
594 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
595 for details on conditionally disabling)
597 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
599 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
600 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
601 and{} expansion operator).
603 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
606 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
607 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
609 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
610 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
611 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
613 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
614 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
615 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
616 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
618 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
621 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
627 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
633 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
636 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
637 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
638 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
641 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
643 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
644 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
645 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
648 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
650 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
651 192.168.6.7 (for example).
653 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
654 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
655 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
656 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
658 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
660 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
661 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
662 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
665 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
666 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
667 only by an admin user.
669 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
670 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
671 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
672 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
673 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
675 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
676 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
681 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
683 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
684 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
685 (max $sender_rate_limit)
687 [... some other logic and tests...]
689 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
690 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
691 (max $sender_rate_limit)
692 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
696 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
697 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
698 line termination character(s).
700 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
701 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
702 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
704 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
705 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
706 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
707 message is queued, the remainder are also.
709 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
710 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
711 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
712 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
713 log files) that make the situation even worse.
715 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
716 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
717 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
719 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
720 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
721 connection. The possible values are:
723 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
724 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
725 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
726 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
727 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
728 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
729 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
730 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
731 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
732 tls-failed TLS failed to start
734 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
735 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
736 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
737 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
738 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
741 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
742 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
743 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
745 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
746 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
747 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
749 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
751 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
752 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
753 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
755 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
756 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
757 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
759 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
761 In an updating lookup, you could then write
763 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
765 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
767 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
769 you can still update the master by
771 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
773 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
774 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
775 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
782 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
783 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
784 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
787 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
788 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
789 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
790 rather than the default "any" matching.
792 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
793 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
794 other parameters to be varied.
796 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
797 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
799 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
801 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
803 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
804 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
806 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
807 after the connection to the server has been made.
809 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
810 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
812 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
813 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
816 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
817 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
818 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
819 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
820 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
822 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
823 called forany and forall.
825 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
826 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
827 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
829 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
831 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
832 that makes it case-sensitive.
834 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
835 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
836 items, typically addresses.
838 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
839 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
840 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
843 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
844 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
846 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
849 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
856 No new features were added to 4.66.
862 No new features were added to 4.65.
868 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
869 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
870 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
873 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
874 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
876 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
877 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
878 number of authentication methods.
880 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
881 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
882 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
884 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
885 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
886 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
887 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
889 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
891 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
892 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
893 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
894 before doing the expansions.
896 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
897 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
900 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
901 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
902 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
904 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
905 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
907 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
908 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
909 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
910 available for compatibility.)
912 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
913 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
919 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
922 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
923 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
926 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
927 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
928 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
930 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
931 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
933 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
935 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
936 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
938 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
940 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
942 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
943 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
944 each messages value for each variable.
946 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
947 same criteria without --not).
953 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
954 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
955 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
956 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
957 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
958 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
960 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
962 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
963 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
964 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
967 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
968 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
969 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
971 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
972 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
973 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
974 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
980 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
981 the 4.60 release are:
983 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
985 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
987 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
988 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
989 for other things in complicated expansions.
991 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
993 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
994 resources used in pipe deliveries.
996 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
998 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
1000 There are a number of other additions too.
1006 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
1007 the 4.50 release are:
1009 . Support for SQLite.
1011 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
1013 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
1015 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
1017 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
1019 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
1021 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
1023 There are many more minor changes.
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