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 * GnuTLS will now attempt to use TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.1 before TLS 1.0 and SSL3,
33 if supported by your GnuTLS library. Use the existing
34 "gnutls_require_protocols" option to downgrade this if that will be a
35 problem. Prior to this release, supported values were "TLS1" and "SSL3",
36 so you should be able to update configuration prior to update.
42 * The integrated support for dynamically loadable lookup modules has an ABI
43 change from the modules supported by some OS vendors through an unofficial
44 patch. Don't try to mix & match.
46 * Some parts of the build system are now beginning to assume that the host
47 environment is POSIX. If you're building on a system where POSIX tools are
48 not the default, you might have an easier time if you switch to the POSIX
49 tools. Feel free to report non-POSIX issues as a request for a feature
50 enhancement, but if the POSIX variants are available then the fix will
51 probably just involve some coercion. See the README instructions for
52 building on such hosts.
58 * The Exim run-time user can no longer be root; this was always
59 strongly discouraged, but is now prohibited both at build and
60 run-time. If you need Exim to run routinely as root, you'll need to
61 patch the source and accept the risk. Here be dragons.
63 * Exim will no longer accept a configuration file owned by the Exim
64 run-time user, unless that account is explicitly the value in
65 CONFIGURE_OWNER, which we discourage. Exim now checks to ensure that
66 files are not writable by other accounts.
68 * The ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY build option is no longer optional and is forced
69 on; the Exim user can, by default, no longer use -C/-D and retain privilege.
70 Two new build options mitigate this.
72 * TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST defines a file containing a whitelist of config
73 files that are trusted to be selected by the Exim user; one per line.
74 This is the recommended approach going forward.
76 * WHITELIST_D_MACROS defines a colon-separated list of macro names which
77 the Exim run-time user may safely pass without dropping privileges.
78 Because changes to this involve a recompile, this is not the recommended
79 approach but may ease transition. The values of the macros, when
80 overridden, are constrained to match this regex: ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$
82 * The system_filter_user option now defaults to the Exim run-time user,
83 rather than root. You can still set it explicitly to root and this
84 can be done with prior versions too, letting you roll versions
85 without needing to change this configuration option.
87 * ClamAV must be at least version 0.95 unless WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM is
88 defined at build time.
94 1. Experimental Yahoo! Domainkeys support has been dropped in this release.
95 It has been superceded by a native implementation of its successor DKIM.
97 2. Up to version 4.69, Exim came with an embedded version of the PCRE library.
98 As of 4.70, this is no longer the case. To compile Exim, you will need PCRE
99 installed. Most OS distributions have ready-made library and develoment
106 1. The internal implementation of the database keys that are used for ACL
107 ratelimiting has been tidied up. This means that an update to 4.68 might cause
108 Exim to "forget" previous rates that it had calculated, and reset them to zero.
114 1. Callouts were setting the name used for EHLO/HELO from $smtp_active_
115 hostname. This is wrong, because it relates to the incoming message (and
116 probably the interface on which it is arriving) and not to the outgoing
117 callout (which could be using a different interface). This has been
118 changed to use the value of the helo_data option from the smtp transport
119 instead - this is what is used when a message is actually being sent. If
120 there is no remote transport (possible with a router that sets up host
121 addresses), $smtp_active_hostname is used. This change is mentioned here in
122 case somebody is relying on the use of $smtp_active_hostname.
124 2. A bug has been fixed that might just possibly be something that is relied on
125 in some configurations. In expansion items such as ${if >{xxx}{yyy}...} an
126 empty string (that is {}) was being interpreted as if it was {0} and therefore
127 treated as the number zero. From release 4.64, such strings cause an error
128 because a decimal number, possibly followed by K or M, is required (as has
129 always been documented).
131 3. There has been a change to the GnuTLS support (ChangeLog/PH/20) to improve
132 Exim's performance. Unfortunately, this has the side effect of being slightly
133 non-upwards compatible for versions 4.50 and earlier. If you are upgrading from
134 one of these earlier versions and you use GnuTLS, you must remove the file
135 called gnutls-params in Exim's spool directory. If you don't do this, you will
138 TLS error on connection from ... (DH params import): Base64 decoding error.
140 Removing the file causes Exim to recompute the relevant encryption parameters
141 and cache them in the new format that was introduced for release 4.51 (May
142 2005). If you are upgrading from release 4.51 or later, there should be no
149 When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL, or
150 in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the start
151 of the message for an SMTP error code. This consists of three digits followed
152 by a space, optionally followed by an extended code of the form n.n.n, also
153 followed by a space. If this is the case and the very first digit is the same
154 as the default error code, the code from the message is used instead. If the
155 very first digit is incorrect, a panic error is logged, and the default code is
156 used. This is an incompatible change, but it is not expected to affect many (if
157 any) configurations. It is possible to suppress the use of the supplied code in
158 a redirect router by setting the smtp_error_code option false. In this case,
159 any SMTP code is quietly ignored.
165 1. The default number of ACL variables of each type has been increased to 20,
166 and it's possible to compile Exim with more. You can safely upgrade to this
167 release if you already have messages on the queue with saved ACL variable
168 values. However, if you downgrade from this release with messages on the queue,
169 any saved ACL values they may have will be lost.
171 2. The default value for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
177 There was a problem with 4.52/TF/02 in that a "name=" option on control=
178 submission terminated at the next slash, thereby not allowing for slashes in
179 the name. This has been changed so that "name=" takes the rest of the string as
180 its data. It must therefore be the last option.
186 If you are using the experimental Domain Keys support, you must upgrade to
187 at least libdomainkeys 0.67 in order to run this release of Exim.
193 1. The format in which GnuTLS parameters are cached (in the file gnutls-params
194 in the spool directory) has been changed. The new format can also be generated
195 externally, so it is now possible to update the values from outside Exim. This
196 has been implemented in an upwards, BUT NOT downwards, compatible manner.
197 Upgrading should be seamless: when Exim finds that it cannot understand an
198 existing cache file, it generates new parameters and writes them to the cache
199 in the new format. If, however, you downgrade from 4.51 to a previous release,
200 you MUST delete the gnutls-params file in the spool directory, because the
201 older Exim will not recognize the new format.
203 2. When doing a callout as part of verifying an address, Exim was not paying
204 attention to any local part prefix or suffix that was matched by the router
205 that accepted the address. It now behaves in the same way as it does for
206 delivery: the affixes are removed from the local part unless
207 rcpt_include_affixes is set on the transport. If you have a configuration that
208 uses prefixes or suffixes on addresses that could be used for callouts, and you
209 want the affixes to be retained, you must make sure that rcpt_include_affixes
210 is set on the transport.
212 3. Bounce and delay warning messages no longer contain details of delivery
213 errors, except for explicit messages (e.g. generated by :fail:) and SMTP
214 responses from remote hosts.
220 The exicyclog script has been updated to use three-digit numbers in rotated log
221 files if the maximum number to keep is greater than 99. If you are already
222 keeping more than 99, there will be an incompatible change when you upgrade.
223 You will probably want to rename your old log files to the new form before
224 running the new exicyclog.
230 RFC 3848 specifies standard names for the "with" phrase in Received: header
231 lines when AUTH and/or TLS are in use. This is the "received protocol"
232 field. Exim used to use "asmtp" for authenticated SMTP, without any
233 indication (in the protocol name) for TLS use. Now it follows the RFC and
234 uses "esmtpa" if the connection is authenticated, "esmtps" if it is
235 encrypted, and "esmtpsa" if it is both encrypted and authenticated. These names
236 appear in log lines as well as in Received: header lines.
242 Change 4.31/2 gave problems to data ACLs and local_scan() functions that
243 expected to see a Received: header. I have changed to yet another scheme. The
244 Received: header is now generated after the body is received, but before the
245 ACL or local_scan() is called. After they have run, the timestamp in the
246 Received: header is updated.
248 Thus, change (a) of 4.31/2 has been reversed, but change (b) is still true,
249 which is lucky, since I decided it was a bug fix.
255 If an expansion in a condition on a "warn" statement fails because a lookup
256 defers, the "warn" statement is abandoned, and the next ACL statement is
257 processed. Previously this caused the whole ACL to be aborted.
263 Change 4.31/2 has been reversed, as it proved contentious. Recipient callout
264 verification now uses <> in the MAIL command by default, as it did before. A
265 new callout option, "use_sender", has been added to request the other
272 1. If you compile Exim to use GnuTLS, it now requires the use of release 1.0.0
273 or greater. The interface to the obsolete 0.8.x releases is no longer
274 supported. There is one externally visible change: the format for the
275 display of Distinguished Names now uses commas as a separator rather than a
276 slash. This is to comply with RFC 2253.
278 2. When a message is received, the Received: header line is now generated when
279 reception is complete, instead of at the start of reception. For messages
280 that take a long time to come in, this changes the meaning of the timestamp.
281 There are several side-effects of this change:
283 (a) If a message is rejected by a DATA or non-SMTP ACL, or by local_scan(),
284 the logged header lines no longer include the local Received: line,
285 because it has not yet been created. If the message is a non-SMTP one,
286 and the error is processed by sending a message to the sender, the copy
287 of the original message that is returned does not have an added
290 (b) When a filter file is tested using -bf, no additional Received: header
291 is added to the test message. After some thought, I decided that this
294 The contents of $received_for are not affected by this change. This
295 variable still contains the single recipient of a message, copied after
296 addresses have been rewritten, but before local_scan() is run.
298 2. Recipient callout verification, like sender verification, was using <> in
299 the MAIL FROM command. This isn't really the right thing, since the actual
300 sender may affect whether the remote host accepts the recipient or not. I
301 have changed it to use the actual sender in the callout; this means that
302 the cache record is now keyed on a recipient/sender pair, not just the
303 recipient address. There doesn't seem to be a real danger of callout loops,
304 since a callout by the remote host to check the sender would use <>.
310 1. I have abolished timeout_DNS as an error that can be detected in retry
311 rules, because it has never worked. Despite the fact that it has been
312 documented since at least release 1.62, there was no code to support it.
313 If you have used it in your retry rules, you will now get a warning message
314 to the log and panic log. It is now treated as plain "timeout".
316 2. After discussion on the mailing list, Exim no longer adds From:, Date:, or
317 Message-Id: header lines to messages that do not originate locally, that is,
318 messages that have an associated sending host address.
320 3. When looking up a host name from an IP address, Exim now tries the DNS
321 first, and only if that fails does it use gethostbyaddr() (or equivalent).
322 This change was made because on some OS, not all the names are given for
323 addresses with multiple PTR records via the gethostbyaddr() interface. The
324 order of lookup can be changed by setting host_lookup_order.
330 1. The new FIXED_NEVER_USERS build-time option creates a list of "never users"
331 that cannot be overridden. The default in the distributed EDITME is "root".
332 If for some reason you were (against advice) running deliveries as root, you
333 will have to ensure that FIXED_NEVER_USERS is not set in your
336 2. The ${quote: operator now quotes an empty string, which it did not before.
338 3. Version 4.23 saves the contents of the ACL variables with the message, so
339 that they can be used later. If one of these variables contains a newline,
340 there will be a newline character in the spool that will not be interpreted
341 correctely by a previous version of Exim. (Exim ignores keyed spool file
342 items that it doesn't understand - precisely for this kind of problem - but
343 it expects them all to be on one line.)
345 So the bottom line is: if you have newlines in your ACL variables, you
346 cannot retreat from 4.23.
352 1. The idea of the "warn" ACL verb is that it adds a header or writes to the
353 log only when "message" or "log_message" are set. However, if one of the
354 conditions was an address verification, or a call to a nested ACL, the
355 messages generated by the underlying test were being passed through. This
356 no longer happens. The underlying message is available in $acl_verify_
357 message for both "message" and "log_message" expansions, so it can be
358 passed through if needed.
360 2. The way that the $h_ (and $header_) expansions work has been changed by the
361 addition of RFC 2047 decoding. See the main documentation (the NewStuff file
362 until release 4.30, then the manual) for full details. Briefly, there are
365 $rh_xxx: and $rheader_xxx: give the original content of the header
366 line(s), with no processing at all.
368 $bh_xxx: and $bheader_xxx: remove leading and trailing white space, and
369 then decode base64 or quoted-printable "words" within the header text,
370 but do not do charset translation.
372 $h_xxx: and $header_xxx: attempt to translate the $bh_ string to a
373 standard character set.
375 If you have previously been using $h_ expansions to access the raw
376 characters, you should change to $rh_ instead.
378 3. When Exim creates an RFC 2047 encoded word in a header line, it labels it
379 with the default character set from the headers_charset option instead of
380 always using iso-8859-1.
382 4. If TMPDIR is defined in Local/Makefile (default in src/EDITME is
383 TMPDIR="/tmp"), Exim checks for the presence of an environment variable
384 called TMPDIR, and if it finds it is different, it changes its value.
386 5. Following a discussion on the list, the rules by which Exim recognises line
387 endings on incoming messages have been changed. The -dropcr and drop_cr
388 options are now no-ops, retained only for backwards compatibility. The
389 following line terminators are recognized: LF CRLF CR. However, special
390 processing applies to CR:
392 (i) The sequence CR . CR does *not* terminate an incoming SMTP message,
393 nor a local message in the state where . is a terminator.
395 (ii) If a bare CR is encountered in a header line, an extra space is added
396 after the line terminator so as not to end the header. The reasoning
397 behind this is that bare CRs in header lines are most likely either
398 to be mistakes, or people trying to play silly games.
400 6. The code for using daemon_smtp_port, local_interfaces, and the -oX options
401 has been reorganized. It is supposed to be backwards compatible, but it is
402 mentioned here just in case I've screwed up.
409 1. I have tidied and re-organized the code that uses alarm() for imposing time
410 limits on various things. It shouldn't affect anything, but if you notice
411 processes getting stuck, it may be that I've broken something.
413 2. The "arguments" log selector now also logs the current working directory
416 3. An incompatible change has been made to the appendfile transport. This
417 affects the case when it is used for file deliveries that are set up by
418 .forward and filter files. Previously, any settings of the "file" or
419 "directory" options were ignored. It is hoped that, like the address_file
420 transport in the default configuration, these options were never in fact set
421 on such transports, because they were of no use.
423 Now, if either of these options is set, it is used. The path that is passed
424 by the router is in $address_file (this is not new), so it can be used as
425 part of a longer path, or modified in any other way that expansion permits.
427 If neither "file" nor "directory" is set, the behaviour is unchanged.
429 4. Related to the above: in a filter, if a "save" command specifies a non-
430 absolute path, the value of $home/ is pre-pended. This no longer happens if
431 $home is unset or is set to an empty string.
433 5. Multiple file deliveries from a filter or .forward file can never be
434 batched; the value of batch_max on the transport is ignored for file
435 deliveries. I'm assuming that nobody ever actually set batch_max on the
436 address_file transport - it would have had odd effects previously.
438 6. DESTDIR is the more common variable that ROOT for use when installing
439 software under a different root filing system. The Exim install script now
440 recognizes DESTDIR first; if it is not set, ROOT is used.
442 7. If DESTDIR is set when installing Exim, it no longer prepends its value to
443 the path of the system aliases file that appears in the default
444 configuration (when a default configuration is installed). If an aliases
445 file is actually created, its name *does* use the prefix.
451 1. The default for the maximum number of unknown SMTP commands that Exim will
452 accept before dropping a connection has been reduced from 5 to 3. However, you
453 can now change the value by setting smtp_max_unknown_commands.
455 2. The ${quote: operator has been changed so that it turns newline and carriage
456 return characters into \n and \r, respectively.
458 3. The file names used for maildir messages now include the microsecond time
459 fraction as well as the time in seconds, to cope with systems where the process
460 id can be re-used within the same second. The format is now
462 <time>.H<microsec>P<pid>.<host>
464 This should be a compatible change, but is noted here just in case.
466 4. The rules for creating message ids have changed, to cope with systems where
467 the process id can be re-used within the same second. The format, however, is
468 unchanged, so this should not cause any problems, except as noted in the next
471 5. The maximum value for localhost_number has been reduced from 255 to 16, in
472 order to implement the new message id rules. For operating systems that have
473 case-insensitive file systems (Cygwin and Darwin), the limit is 10.
475 6. verify = header_syntax was allowing unqualified addresses in all cases. Now
476 it allows them only for locally generated messages and from hosts that match
477 sender_unqualified_hosts or recipient_unqualified_hosts, respectively.
479 7. For reasons lost in the mists of time, when a pipe transport was run, the
480 environment variable MESSAGE_ID was set to the message ID preceded by 'E' (the
481 form used in Message-ID: header lines). The 'E' has been removed.
487 1. The handling of lines in the configuration file has changed. Previously,
488 macro expansion was applied to logical lines, after continuations had been
489 joined on. This meant that it could not be used in .include lines, which are
490 handled as physical rather than logical lines. Macro expansion is now done on
491 physical lines rather than logical lines. This means there are two
494 (a) A macro that expands to # to turn a line into a comment now applies only
495 to the physical line where it appears. Previously, it would have caused
496 any following continuations also to be ignored.
498 (b) A macro name can no longer be split over the boundary between a line and
499 its continuation. Actually, this is more of a bug fix. :-)
501 2. The -D command line option must now all be within one command line item.
502 This makes it possible to use -D to set a macro to the empty string by commands
508 Previously, these items would have moved on to the next item on the command
509 line. To include spaces in a macro definition item, quotes must be used, in
510 which case you can also have spaces after -D and surrounding the equals. For
513 exim '-D ABC = something' ...
515 3. The way that addresses that redirect to themselves are handled has been
516 changed, in order to fix an obscure bug. This should not cause any problems
517 except in the case of wanting to go back from a 4.11 (or later) release to an
518 earlier release. If there are undelivered messages on the spool that contain
519 addresses which redirect to themselves, and the redirected addresses have
520 already been delivered, you might get a duplicate delivery if you revert to an
523 4. The default way of looking up IP addresses for hosts in the manualroute and
524 queryprogram routers has been changed. If "byname" or "bydns" is explicitly
525 specified, there is no change, but if no method is specified, Exim now behaves
528 First, a DNS lookup is done. If this yields anything other than
529 HOST_NOT_FOUND, that result is used. Otherwise, Exim goes on to try a call to
530 getipnodebyname() (or gethostbyname() on older systems) and the result of the
531 lookup is the result of that call.
533 This change has been made because it has been discovered that on some systems,
534 if a DNS lookup called via getipnodebyname() times out, HOST_NOT_FOUND is
535 returned instead of TRY_AGAIN. Thus, it is safest to try a DNS lookup directly
536 first, and only if that gives a definite "no such host" to try the local
539 5. In fixing the minor security problem with pid_file_path, I have removed some
540 backwards-compatible (undocumented) code which was present to ease conversion
541 from Exim 3. In Exim 4, pid_file_path is a literal; in Exim 3 it was allowed to
542 contain "%s", which was replaced by the port number for daemons listening on
543 non-standard ports. In Exim 4, such daemons do not write a pid file. The
544 backwards compatibility feature was to replace "%s" by nothing if it occurred
545 in an Exim 4 setting of pid_file_path. The bug was in this code. I have solved
546 the problem by removing the backwards compatibility feature. Thus, if you still
547 have "%s" somewhere in a setting of pid_file_path, you should remove it.
549 6. There has been an extension to lsearch files. The keys in these files may
550 now be quoted in order to allow for whitespace and colons in them. This means
551 that if you were previously using keys that began with a doublequote, you will
552 now have to wrap them with extra quotes and escape the internal quotes. The
553 possibility that anybody is actually doing this seems extremely remote, but it
554 is documented just in case.
560 The build-time parameter EXIWHAT_KILL_ARG has been renamed EXIWHAT_KILL_SIGNAL
561 to better reflect its function. The OS-specific files have been updated. Only
562 if you have explicitly set this in your Makefile (highly unlikely) do you need
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