1 This document contains detailed information about incompatibilities that might
2 be encountered when upgrading from one release of Exim to another. The
3 information is in reverse order of release numbers. Mostly these are relatively
4 small points, and the configuration file is normally upwards compatible, but
5 there have been two big upheavals...
8 **************************************************************************
9 * There was a big reworking of the way mail routing works for release *
10 * 4.00. Previously used "directors" were abolished, and all routing is *
11 * now done by routers. Policy controls for incoming mail are now done by *
12 * Access Control Lists instead of separate options. All this means that *
13 * pre-4.00 configuration files have to be massively converted. If you *
14 * are coming from a 3.xx release, please read the document in the file *
15 * doc/Exim4.upgrade, and allow some time to complete the upgrade. *
17 * There was a big reworking of the way domain/host/net/address lists are *
18 * handled at release 3.00. If you are coming from a pre-3.00 release, it *
19 * might be easier to start again from a default configuration. Otherwise *
20 * you need to read doc/Exim3.upgrade and do a double conversion of your *
21 * configuration file. *
22 **************************************************************************
25 The rest of this document contains information about changes in 4.xx releases
26 that might affect a running system.
32 * OpenSSL: oldest supported release series is now 1.0.2, which is the oldest
33 supported by the OpenSSL project. If you can build Exim with an older
34 release series, congratulations. If you can't, then upgrade.
35 The file doc/openssl.txt contains instructions for installing a current
36 OpenSSL outside the system library paths and building Exim to use it.
42 * The "demime" ACL condition, deprecated for the past 10 years, has
45 * Old GnuTLS configuration options "gnutls_require_kx", "gnutls_require_mac",
46 and "gnutls_require_protocols" have now been removed. (Inoperative from
47 4.80, per below; logging warnings since 4.83, again per below).
53 * SPF condition results renamed "permerror" and "temperror". The old
54 names are still accepted for back-compatability, for this release.
56 * TLS details are now logged on rejects, subject to log selectors.
58 * Items in headers_remove lists must now have any embedded list-separators
61 * Attempted use of the deprecated options "gnutls_require_kx" et. al.
62 now result in logged warning.
68 * New option gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11 defaults false; if you have GnuTLS 2.12.0
69 or later and do want PKCS11 modules to be autoloaded, then set this option.
71 * A per-transport wait-<name> database is no longer updated if the transport
72 sets "connection_max_messages" to 1, as it can not be used and causes
73 unnecessary serialisation and load. External tools tracking the state of
74 Exim by the hints databases may need modification to take this into account.
76 * The av_scanner option can now accept multiple clamd TCP targets, all other
77 setting limitations remain.
83 * BEWARE backwards-incompatible changes in SSL libraries, thus the version
84 bump. See points below for details.
85 Also an LDAP data returned format change.
87 * The value of $tls_peerdn is now print-escaped when written to the spool file
88 in a -tls_peerdn line, and unescaped when read back in. We received reports
89 of values with embedded newlines, which caused spool file corruption.
91 If you have a corrupt spool file and you wish to recover the contents after
92 upgrading, then lock the message, replace the new-lines that should be part
93 of the -tls_peerdn line with the two-character sequence \n and then unlock
94 the message. No tool has been provided as we believe this is a rare
97 * For OpenSSL, SSLv2 is now disabled by default. (GnuTLS does not support
98 SSLv2). RFC 6176 prohibits SSLv2 and some informal surveys suggest no
99 actual usage. You can re-enable with the "openssl_options" Exim option,
100 in the main configuration section. Note that supporting SSLv2 exposes
101 you to ciphersuite downgrade attacks.
103 * With OpenSSL 1.0.1+, Exim now supports TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2. If built
104 against 1.0.1a then you will get a warning message and the
105 "openssl_options" value will not parse "no_tlsv1_1": the value changes
106 incompatibly between 1.0.1a and 1.0.1b, because the value chosen for 1.0.1a
107 is infelicitous. We advise avoiding 1.0.1a.
109 "openssl_options" gains "no_tlsv1_1", "no_tlsv1_2" and "no_compression".
111 COMPATIBILITY WARNING: The default value of "openssl_options" is no longer
112 "+dont_insert_empty_fragments". We default to "+no_sslv2".
113 That old default was grandfathered in from before openssl_options became a
114 configuration option.
115 Empty fragments are inserted by default through TLS1.0, to partially defend
116 against certain attacks; TLS1.1+ change the protocol so that this is not
117 needed. The DIEF SSL option was required for some old releases of mail
118 clients which did not gracefully handle the empty fragments, and was
119 initially set in Exim release 4.31 (see ChangeLog, item 37).
121 If you still have affected mail-clients, and you see SSL protocol failures
122 with this release of Exim, set:
123 openssl_options = +dont_insert_empty_fragments
124 in the main section of your Exim configuration file. You're trading off
125 security for compatibility. Exim is now defaulting to higher security and
126 rewarding more modern clients.
128 If the option tls_dhparams is set and the parameters loaded from the file
129 have a bit-count greater than the new option tls_dh_max_bits, then the file
130 will now be ignored. If this affects you, raise the tls_dh_max_bits limit.
131 We suspect that most folks are using dated defaults and will not be affected.
133 * Ldap lookups returning multi-valued attributes now separate the attributes
134 with only a comma, not a comma-space sequence. Also, an actual comma within
135 a returned attribute is doubled. This makes it possible to parse the
136 attribute as a comma-separated list. Note the distinction from multiple
137 attributes being returned, where each one is a name=value pair.
139 If you are currently splitting the results from LDAP upon a comma, then you
140 should check carefully to see if adjustments are needed.
142 This change lets cautious folks distinguish "comma used as separator for
143 joining values" from "comma inside the data".
145 * accept_8bitmime now defaults on, which is not RFC compliant but is better
146 suited to today's Internet. See http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html for a
147 sane rationale. Those who wish to be strictly RFC compliant, or know that
148 they need to talk to servers that are not 8-bit-clean, now need to take
149 explicit configuration action to default this option off. This is not a
150 new option, you can safely force it off before upgrading, to decouple
151 configuration changes from the binary upgrade while remaining RFC compliant.
153 * The GnuTLS support has been mostly rewritten, to use APIs which don't cause
154 deprecation warnings in GnuTLS 2.12.x. As part of this, these three options
155 are no longer supported:
159 gnutls_require_protocols
161 Their functionality is entirely subsumed into tls_require_ciphers. In turn,
162 tls_require_ciphers is no longer an Exim list and is not parsed by Exim, but
163 is instead given to gnutls_priority_init(3), which expects a priority string;
164 this behaviour is much closer to the OpenSSL behaviour. See:
166 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
168 for fuller documentation of the strings parsed. The three gnutls_require_*
169 options are still parsed by Exim and, for this release, silently ignored.
170 A future release will add warnings, before a later still release removes
171 parsing entirely and the presence of the options will be a configuration
174 Note that by default, GnuTLS will not accept RSA-MD5 signatures in chains.
175 A tls_require_ciphers value of NORMAL:%VERIFY_ALLOW_SIGN_RSA_MD5 may
176 re-enable support, but this is not supported by the Exim maintainers.
177 Our test suite no longer includes MD5-based certificates.
179 This rewrite means that Exim will continue to build against GnuTLS in the
180 future, brings Exim closer to other GnuTLS applications and lets us add
181 support for SNI and other features more readily. We regret that it wasn't
182 feasible to retain the three dropped options.
184 * If built with TLS support, then Exim will now validate the value of
185 the main section tls_require_ciphers option at start-up. Before, this
186 would cause a STARTTLS 4xx failure, now it causes a failure to start.
187 Running with a broken configuration which causes failures that may only
188 be left in the logs has been traded off for something more visible. This
189 change makes an existing problem more prominent, but we do not believe
190 anyone would deliberately be running with an invalid tls_require_ciphers
193 This also means that library linkage issues caused by conflicts of some
194 kind might take out the main daemon, not just the delivery or receiving
195 process. Conceivably some folks might prefer to continue delivering
196 mail plaintext when their binary is broken in this way, if there is a
197 server that is a candidate to receive such mails that does not advertise
198 STARTTLS. Note that Exim is typically a setuid root binary and given
199 broken linkage problems that cause segfaults, we feel it is safer to
200 fail completely. (The check is not done as root, to ensure that problems
201 here are not made worse by the check).
203 * The "tls_dhparam" option has been updated, so that it can now specify a
204 path or an identifier for a standard DH prime from one of a few RFCs.
205 The default for OpenSSL is no longer to not use DH but instead to use
206 one of these standard primes. The default for GnuTLS is no longer to use
207 a file in the spool directory, but to use that same standard prime.
208 The option is now used by GnuTLS too. If it points to a path, then
209 GnuTLS will use that path, instead of a file in the spool directory;
210 GnuTLS will attempt to create it if it does not exist.
212 To preserve the previous behaviour of generating files in the spool
213 directory, set "tls_dhparam = historic". Since prior releases of Exim
214 ignored tls_dhparam when using GnuTLS, this can safely be done before
222 * GnuTLS will now attempt to use TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.1 before TLS 1.0 and SSL3,
223 if supported by your GnuTLS library. Use the existing
224 "gnutls_require_protocols" option to downgrade this if that will be a
225 problem. Prior to this release, supported values were "TLS1" and "SSL3",
226 so you should be able to update configuration prior to update.
228 [nb: gnutls_require_protocols removed in Exim 4.80, instead use
229 tls_require_ciphers to provide a priority string; see notes above]
231 * The match_<type>{string1}{string2} expansion conditions no longer subject
232 string2 to string expansion, unless Exim was built with the new
233 "EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS" option. Too many people have inadvertently created
234 insecure configurations that way. If you need the functionality and turn on
235 that build option, please let the developers know, and know why, so we can
236 try to provide a safer mechanism for you.
238 The match{}{} expansion condition (for regular expressions) is NOT affected.
239 For match_<type>{s1}{s2}, all list functionality is unchanged. The only
240 change is that a '$' appearing in s2 will not trigger expansion, but instead
241 will be treated as a literal $ sign; the effect is very similar to having
242 wrapped s2 with \N...\N. If s2 contains a named list and the list definition
243 uses $expansions then those _will_ be processed as normal. It is only the
244 point at which s2 is read where expansion is inhibited.
246 If you are trying to test if two email addresses are equal, use eqi{s1}{s2}.
247 If you are testing if the address in s1 occurs in the list of items given
248 in s2, either use the new inlisti{s1}{s2} condition (added in 4.77) or use
249 the pre-existing forany{s2}{eqi{$item}{s1}} condition.
255 * The integrated support for dynamically loadable lookup modules has an ABI
256 change from the modules supported by some OS vendors through an unofficial
257 patch. Don't try to mix & match.
259 * Some parts of the build system are now beginning to assume that the host
260 environment is POSIX. If you're building on a system where POSIX tools are
261 not the default, you might have an easier time if you switch to the POSIX
262 tools. Feel free to report non-POSIX issues as a request for a feature
263 enhancement, but if the POSIX variants are available then the fix will
264 probably just involve some coercion. See the README instructions for
265 building on such hosts.
271 * The Exim run-time user can no longer be root; this was always
272 strongly discouraged, but is now prohibited both at build and
273 run-time. If you need Exim to run routinely as root, you'll need to
274 patch the source and accept the risk. Here be dragons.
276 * Exim will no longer accept a configuration file owned by the Exim
277 run-time user, unless that account is explicitly the value in
278 CONFIGURE_OWNER, which we discourage. Exim now checks to ensure that
279 files are not writeable by other accounts.
281 * The ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY build option is no longer optional and is forced
282 on; the Exim user can, by default, no longer use -C/-D and retain privilege.
283 Two new build options mitigate this.
285 * TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST defines a file containing a whitelist of config
286 files that are trusted to be selected by the Exim user; one per line.
287 This is the recommended approach going forward.
289 * WHITELIST_D_MACROS defines a colon-separated list of macro names which
290 the Exim run-time user may safely pass without dropping privileges.
291 Because changes to this involve a recompile, this is not the recommended
292 approach but may ease transition. The values of the macros, when
293 overridden, are constrained to match this regex: ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$
295 * The system_filter_user option now defaults to the Exim run-time user,
296 rather than root. You can still set it explicitly to root and this
297 can be done with prior versions too, letting you roll versions
298 without needing to change this configuration option.
300 * ClamAV must be at least version 0.95 unless WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM is
301 defined at build time.
307 1. Experimental Yahoo! Domainkeys support has been dropped in this release.
308 It has been superceded by a native implementation of its successor DKIM.
310 2. Up to version 4.69, Exim came with an embedded version of the PCRE library.
311 As of 4.70, this is no longer the case. To compile Exim, you will need PCRE
312 installed. Most OS distributions have ready-made library and development
319 1. The internal implementation of the database keys that are used for ACL
320 ratelimiting has been tidied up. This means that an update to 4.68 might cause
321 Exim to "forget" previous rates that it had calculated, and reset them to zero.
327 1. Callouts were setting the name used for EHLO/HELO from $smtp_active_
328 hostname. This is wrong, because it relates to the incoming message (and
329 probably the interface on which it is arriving) and not to the outgoing
330 callout (which could be using a different interface). This has been
331 changed to use the value of the helo_data option from the smtp transport
332 instead - this is what is used when a message is actually being sent. If
333 there is no remote transport (possible with a router that sets up host
334 addresses), $smtp_active_hostname is used. This change is mentioned here in
335 case somebody is relying on the use of $smtp_active_hostname.
337 2. A bug has been fixed that might just possibly be something that is relied on
338 in some configurations. In expansion items such as ${if >{xxx}{yyy}...} an
339 empty string (that is {}) was being interpreted as if it was {0} and therefore
340 treated as the number zero. From release 4.64, such strings cause an error
341 because a decimal number, possibly followed by K or M, is required (as has
342 always been documented).
344 3. There has been a change to the GnuTLS support (ChangeLog/PH/20) to improve
345 Exim's performance. Unfortunately, this has the side effect of being slightly
346 non-upwards compatible for versions 4.50 and earlier. If you are upgrading from
347 one of these earlier versions and you use GnuTLS, you must remove the file
348 called gnutls-params in Exim's spool directory. If you don't do this, you will
351 TLS error on connection from ... (DH params import): Base64 decoding error.
353 Removing the file causes Exim to recompute the relevant encryption parameters
354 and cache them in the new format that was introduced for release 4.51 (May
355 2005). If you are upgrading from release 4.51 or later, there should be no
362 When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL, or
363 in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the start
364 of the message for an SMTP error code. This consists of three digits followed
365 by a space, optionally followed by an extended code of the form n.n.n, also
366 followed by a space. If this is the case and the very first digit is the same
367 as the default error code, the code from the message is used instead. If the
368 very first digit is incorrect, a panic error is logged, and the default code is
369 used. This is an incompatible change, but it is not expected to affect many (if
370 any) configurations. It is possible to suppress the use of the supplied code in
371 a redirect router by setting the smtp_error_code option false. In this case,
372 any SMTP code is quietly ignored.
378 1. The default number of ACL variables of each type has been increased to 20,
379 and it's possible to compile Exim with more. You can safely upgrade to this
380 release if you already have messages on the queue with saved ACL variable
381 values. However, if you downgrade from this release with messages on the queue,
382 any saved ACL values they may have will be lost.
384 2. The default value for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
390 There was a problem with 4.52/TF/02 in that a "name=" option on control=
391 submission terminated at the next slash, thereby not allowing for slashes in
392 the name. This has been changed so that "name=" takes the rest of the string as
393 its data. It must therefore be the last option.
399 If you are using the experimental Domain Keys support, you must upgrade to
400 at least libdomainkeys 0.67 in order to run this release of Exim.
406 1. The format in which GnuTLS parameters are cached (in the file gnutls-params
407 in the spool directory) has been changed. The new format can also be generated
408 externally, so it is now possible to update the values from outside Exim. This
409 has been implemented in an upwards, BUT NOT downwards, compatible manner.
410 Upgrading should be seamless: when Exim finds that it cannot understand an
411 existing cache file, it generates new parameters and writes them to the cache
412 in the new format. If, however, you downgrade from 4.51 to a previous release,
413 you MUST delete the gnutls-params file in the spool directory, because the
414 older Exim will not recognize the new format.
416 2. When doing a callout as part of verifying an address, Exim was not paying
417 attention to any local part prefix or suffix that was matched by the router
418 that accepted the address. It now behaves in the same way as it does for
419 delivery: the affixes are removed from the local part unless
420 rcpt_include_affixes is set on the transport. If you have a configuration that
421 uses prefixes or suffixes on addresses that could be used for callouts, and you
422 want the affixes to be retained, you must make sure that rcpt_include_affixes
423 is set on the transport.
425 3. Bounce and delay warning messages no longer contain details of delivery
426 errors, except for explicit messages (e.g. generated by :fail:) and SMTP
427 responses from remote hosts.
433 The exicyclog script has been updated to use three-digit numbers in rotated log
434 files if the maximum number to keep is greater than 99. If you are already
435 keeping more than 99, there will be an incompatible change when you upgrade.
436 You will probably want to rename your old log files to the new form before
437 running the new exicyclog.
443 RFC 3848 specifies standard names for the "with" phrase in Received: header
444 lines when AUTH and/or TLS are in use. This is the "received protocol"
445 field. Exim used to use "asmtp" for authenticated SMTP, without any
446 indication (in the protocol name) for TLS use. Now it follows the RFC and
447 uses "esmtpa" if the connection is authenticated, "esmtps" if it is
448 encrypted, and "esmtpsa" if it is both encrypted and authenticated. These names
449 appear in log lines as well as in Received: header lines.
455 Change 4.31/2 gave problems to data ACLs and local_scan() functions that
456 expected to see a Received: header. I have changed to yet another scheme. The
457 Received: header is now generated after the body is received, but before the
458 ACL or local_scan() is called. After they have run, the timestamp in the
459 Received: header is updated.
461 Thus, change (a) of 4.31/2 has been reversed, but change (b) is still true,
462 which is lucky, since I decided it was a bug fix.
468 If an expansion in a condition on a "warn" statement fails because a lookup
469 defers, the "warn" statement is abandoned, and the next ACL statement is
470 processed. Previously this caused the whole ACL to be aborted.
476 Change 4.31/2 has been reversed, as it proved contentious. Recipient callout
477 verification now uses <> in the MAIL command by default, as it did before. A
478 new callout option, "use_sender", has been added to request the other
485 1. If you compile Exim to use GnuTLS, it now requires the use of release 1.0.0
486 or greater. The interface to the obsolete 0.8.x releases is no longer
487 supported. There is one externally visible change: the format for the
488 display of Distinguished Names now uses commas as a separator rather than a
489 slash. This is to comply with RFC 2253.
491 2. When a message is received, the Received: header line is now generated when
492 reception is complete, instead of at the start of reception. For messages
493 that take a long time to come in, this changes the meaning of the timestamp.
494 There are several side-effects of this change:
496 (a) If a message is rejected by a DATA or non-SMTP ACL, or by local_scan(),
497 the logged header lines no longer include the local Received: line,
498 because it has not yet been created. If the message is a non-SMTP one,
499 and the error is processed by sending a message to the sender, the copy
500 of the original message that is returned does not have an added
503 (b) When a filter file is tested using -bf, no additional Received: header
504 is added to the test message. After some thought, I decided that this
507 The contents of $received_for are not affected by this change. This
508 variable still contains the single recipient of a message, copied after
509 addresses have been rewritten, but before local_scan() is run.
511 2. Recipient callout verification, like sender verification, was using <> in
512 the MAIL FROM command. This isn't really the right thing, since the actual
513 sender may affect whether the remote host accepts the recipient or not. I
514 have changed it to use the actual sender in the callout; this means that
515 the cache record is now keyed on a recipient/sender pair, not just the
516 recipient address. There doesn't seem to be a real danger of callout loops,
517 since a callout by the remote host to check the sender would use <>.
523 1. I have abolished timeout_DNS as an error that can be detected in retry
524 rules, because it has never worked. Despite the fact that it has been
525 documented since at least release 1.62, there was no code to support it.
526 If you have used it in your retry rules, you will now get a warning message
527 to the log and panic log. It is now treated as plain "timeout".
529 2. After discussion on the mailing list, Exim no longer adds From:, Date:, or
530 Message-Id: header lines to messages that do not originate locally, that is,
531 messages that have an associated sending host address.
533 3. When looking up a host name from an IP address, Exim now tries the DNS
534 first, and only if that fails does it use gethostbyaddr() (or equivalent).
535 This change was made because on some OS, not all the names are given for
536 addresses with multiple PTR records via the gethostbyaddr() interface. The
537 order of lookup can be changed by setting host_lookup_order.
543 1. The new FIXED_NEVER_USERS build-time option creates a list of "never users"
544 that cannot be overridden. The default in the distributed EDITME is "root".
545 If for some reason you were (against advice) running deliveries as root, you
546 will have to ensure that FIXED_NEVER_USERS is not set in your
549 2. The ${quote: operator now quotes an empty string, which it did not before.
551 3. Version 4.23 saves the contents of the ACL variables with the message, so
552 that they can be used later. If one of these variables contains a newline,
553 there will be a newline character in the spool that will not be interpreted
554 correctly by a previous version of Exim. (Exim ignores keyed spool file
555 items that it doesn't understand - precisely for this kind of problem - but
556 it expects them all to be on one line.)
558 So the bottom line is: if you have newlines in your ACL variables, you
559 cannot retreat from 4.23.
565 1. The idea of the "warn" ACL verb is that it adds a header or writes to the
566 log only when "message" or "log_message" are set. However, if one of the
567 conditions was an address verification, or a call to a nested ACL, the
568 messages generated by the underlying test were being passed through. This
569 no longer happens. The underlying message is available in $acl_verify_
570 message for both "message" and "log_message" expansions, so it can be
571 passed through if needed.
573 2. The way that the $h_ (and $header_) expansions work has been changed by the
574 addition of RFC 2047 decoding. See the main documentation (the NewStuff file
575 until release 4.30, then the manual) for full details. Briefly, there are
578 $rh_xxx: and $rheader_xxx: give the original content of the header
579 line(s), with no processing at all.
581 $bh_xxx: and $bheader_xxx: remove leading and trailing white space, and
582 then decode base64 or quoted-printable "words" within the header text,
583 but do not do charset translation.
585 $h_xxx: and $header_xxx: attempt to translate the $bh_ string to a
586 standard character set.
588 If you have previously been using $h_ expansions to access the raw
589 characters, you should change to $rh_ instead.
591 3. When Exim creates an RFC 2047 encoded word in a header line, it labels it
592 with the default character set from the headers_charset option instead of
593 always using iso-8859-1.
595 4. If TMPDIR is defined in Local/Makefile (default in src/EDITME is
596 TMPDIR="/tmp"), Exim checks for the presence of an environment variable
597 called TMPDIR, and if it finds it is different, it changes its value.
599 5. Following a discussion on the list, the rules by which Exim recognises line
600 endings on incoming messages have been changed. The -dropcr and drop_cr
601 options are now no-ops, retained only for backwards compatibility. The
602 following line terminators are recognized: LF CRLF CR. However, special
603 processing applies to CR:
605 (i) The sequence CR . CR does *not* terminate an incoming SMTP message,
606 nor a local message in the state where . is a terminator.
608 (ii) If a bare CR is encountered in a header line, an extra space is added
609 after the line terminator so as not to end the header. The reasoning
610 behind this is that bare CRs in header lines are most likely either
611 to be mistakes, or people trying to play silly games.
613 6. The code for using daemon_smtp_port, local_interfaces, and the -oX options
614 has been reorganized. It is supposed to be backwards compatible, but it is
615 mentioned here just in case I've screwed up.
622 1. I have tidied and re-organized the code that uses alarm() for imposing time
623 limits on various things. It shouldn't affect anything, but if you notice
624 processes getting stuck, it may be that I've broken something.
626 2. The "arguments" log selector now also logs the current working directory
629 3. An incompatible change has been made to the appendfile transport. This
630 affects the case when it is used for file deliveries that are set up by
631 .forward and filter files. Previously, any settings of the "file" or
632 "directory" options were ignored. It is hoped that, like the address_file
633 transport in the default configuration, these options were never in fact set
634 on such transports, because they were of no use.
636 Now, if either of these options is set, it is used. The path that is passed
637 by the router is in $address_file (this is not new), so it can be used as
638 part of a longer path, or modified in any other way that expansion permits.
640 If neither "file" nor "directory" is set, the behaviour is unchanged.
642 4. Related to the above: in a filter, if a "save" command specifies a non-
643 absolute path, the value of $home/ is pre-pended. This no longer happens if
644 $home is unset or is set to an empty string.
646 5. Multiple file deliveries from a filter or .forward file can never be
647 batched; the value of batch_max on the transport is ignored for file
648 deliveries. I'm assuming that nobody ever actually set batch_max on the
649 address_file transport - it would have had odd effects previously.
651 6. DESTDIR is the more common variable that ROOT for use when installing
652 software under a different root filing system. The Exim install script now
653 recognizes DESTDIR first; if it is not set, ROOT is used.
655 7. If DESTDIR is set when installing Exim, it no longer prepends its value to
656 the path of the system aliases file that appears in the default
657 configuration (when a default configuration is installed). If an aliases
658 file is actually created, its name *does* use the prefix.
664 1. The default for the maximum number of unknown SMTP commands that Exim will
665 accept before dropping a connection has been reduced from 5 to 3. However, you
666 can now change the value by setting smtp_max_unknown_commands.
668 2. The ${quote: operator has been changed so that it turns newline and carriage
669 return characters into \n and \r, respectively.
671 3. The file names used for maildir messages now include the microsecond time
672 fraction as well as the time in seconds, to cope with systems where the process
673 id can be re-used within the same second. The format is now
675 <time>.H<microsec>P<pid>.<host>
677 This should be a compatible change, but is noted here just in case.
679 4. The rules for creating message ids have changed, to cope with systems where
680 the process id can be re-used within the same second. The format, however, is
681 unchanged, so this should not cause any problems, except as noted in the next
684 5. The maximum value for localhost_number has been reduced from 255 to 16, in
685 order to implement the new message id rules. For operating systems that have
686 case-insensitive file systems (Cygwin and Darwin), the limit is 10.
688 6. verify = header_syntax was allowing unqualified addresses in all cases. Now
689 it allows them only for locally generated messages and from hosts that match
690 sender_unqualified_hosts or recipient_unqualified_hosts, respectively.
692 7. For reasons lost in the mists of time, when a pipe transport was run, the
693 environment variable MESSAGE_ID was set to the message ID preceded by 'E' (the
694 form used in Message-ID: header lines). The 'E' has been removed.
700 1. The handling of lines in the configuration file has changed. Previously,
701 macro expansion was applied to logical lines, after continuations had been
702 joined on. This meant that it could not be used in .include lines, which are
703 handled as physical rather than logical lines. Macro expansion is now done on
704 physical lines rather than logical lines. This means there are two
707 (a) A macro that expands to # to turn a line into a comment now applies only
708 to the physical line where it appears. Previously, it would have caused
709 any following continuations also to be ignored.
711 (b) A macro name can no longer be split over the boundary between a line and
712 its continuation. Actually, this is more of a bug fix. :-)
714 2. The -D command line option must now all be within one command line item.
715 This makes it possible to use -D to set a macro to the empty string by commands
721 Previously, these items would have moved on to the next item on the command
722 line. To include spaces in a macro definition item, quotes must be used, in
723 which case you can also have spaces after -D and surrounding the equals. For
726 exim '-D ABC = something' ...
728 3. The way that addresses that redirect to themselves are handled has been
729 changed, in order to fix an obscure bug. This should not cause any problems
730 except in the case of wanting to go back from a 4.11 (or later) release to an
731 earlier release. If there are undelivered messages on the spool that contain
732 addresses which redirect to themselves, and the redirected addresses have
733 already been delivered, you might get a duplicate delivery if you revert to an
736 4. The default way of looking up IP addresses for hosts in the manualroute and
737 queryprogram routers has been changed. If "byname" or "bydns" is explicitly
738 specified, there is no change, but if no method is specified, Exim now behaves
741 First, a DNS lookup is done. If this yields anything other than
742 HOST_NOT_FOUND, that result is used. Otherwise, Exim goes on to try a call to
743 getipnodebyname() (or gethostbyname() on older systems) and the result of the
744 lookup is the result of that call.
746 This change has been made because it has been discovered that on some systems,
747 if a DNS lookup called via getipnodebyname() times out, HOST_NOT_FOUND is
748 returned instead of TRY_AGAIN. Thus, it is safest to try a DNS lookup directly
749 first, and only if that gives a definite "no such host" to try the local
752 5. In fixing the minor security problem with pid_file_path, I have removed some
753 backwards-compatible (undocumented) code which was present to ease conversion
754 from Exim 3. In Exim 4, pid_file_path is a literal; in Exim 3 it was allowed to
755 contain "%s", which was replaced by the port number for daemons listening on
756 non-standard ports. In Exim 4, such daemons do not write a pid file. The
757 backwards compatibility feature was to replace "%s" by nothing if it occurred
758 in an Exim 4 setting of pid_file_path. The bug was in this code. I have solved
759 the problem by removing the backwards compatibility feature. Thus, if you still
760 have "%s" somewhere in a setting of pid_file_path, you should remove it.
762 6. There has been an extension to lsearch files. The keys in these files may
763 now be quoted in order to allow for whitespace and colons in them. This means
764 that if you were previously using keys that began with a doublequote, you will
765 now have to wrap them with extra quotes and escape the internal quotes. The
766 possibility that anybody is actually doing this seems extremely remote, but it
767 is documented just in case.
773 The build-time parameter EXIWHAT_KILL_ARG has been renamed EXIWHAT_KILL_SIGNAL
774 to better reflect its function. The OS-specific files have been updated. Only
775 if you have explicitly set this in your Makefile (highly unlikely) do you need
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