From time to time, experimental features may be added to Exim. While a feature is experimental, there will be a build-time option whose name starts "EXPERIMENTAL_" that must be set in order to include the feature. This file contains information about experimental features, all of which are unstable and liable to incompatible change. Brightmail AntiSpam (BMI) support -------------------------------------------------------------- Brightmail AntiSpam is a commercial package. Please see http://www.brightmail.com for more information on the product. For the sake of clarity, we'll refer to it as "BMI" from now on. 0) BMI concept and implementation overview In contrast to how spam-scanning with SpamAssassin is implemented in exiscan-acl, BMI is more suited for per -recipient scanning of messages. However, each messages is scanned only once, but multiple "verdicts" for multiple recipients can be returned from the BMI server. The exiscan implementation passes the message to the BMI server just before accepting it. It then adds the retrieved verdicts to the messages header file in the spool. These verdicts can then be queried in routers, where operation is per-recipient instead of per-message. To use BMI, you need to take the following steps: 1) Compile Exim with BMI support 2) Set up main BMI options (top section of Exim config file) 3) Set up ACL control statement (ACL section of the config file) 4) Set up your routers to use BMI verdicts (routers section of the config file). 5) (Optional) Set up per-recipient opt-in information. These four steps are explained in more details below. 1) Adding support for BMI at compile time To compile with BMI support, you need to link Exim against the Brightmail client SDK, consisting of a library (libbmiclient_single.so) and a header file (bmi_api.h). You'll also need to explicitly set a flag in the Makefile to include BMI support in the Exim binary. Both can be achieved with these lines in Local/Makefile: EXPERIMENTAL_BRIGHTMAIL=yes CFLAGS=-I/path/to/the/dir/with/the/includefile EXTRALIBS_EXIM=-L/path/to/the/dir/with/the/library -lbmiclient_single If you use other CFLAGS or EXTRALIBS_EXIM settings then merge the content of these lines with them. Note for BMI6.x users: You'll also have to add -lxml2_single to the EXTRALIBS_EXIM line. Users of 5.5x do not need to do this. You should also include the location of libbmiclient_single.so in your dynamic linker configuration file (usually /etc/ld.so.conf) and run "ldconfig" afterwards, or else the produced Exim binary will not be able to find the library file. 2) Setting up BMI support in the Exim main configuration To enable BMI support in the main Exim configuration, you should set the path to the main BMI configuration file with the "bmi_config_file" option, like this: bmi_config_file = /opt/brightmail/etc/brightmail.cfg This must go into section 1 of Exim's configuration file (You can put it right on top). If you omit this option, it defaults to /opt/brightmail/etc/brightmail.cfg. Note for BMI6.x users: This file is in XML format in V6.xx and its name is /opt/brightmail/etc/bmiconfig.xml. So BMI 6.x users MUST set the bmi_config_file option. 3) Set up ACL control statement To optimize performance, it makes sense only to process messages coming from remote, untrusted sources with the BMI server. To set up a messages for processing by the BMI server, you MUST set the "bmi_run" control statement in any ACL for an incoming message. You will typically do this in an "accept" block in the "acl_check_rcpt" ACL. You should use the "accept" block(s) that accept messages from remote servers for your own domain(s). Here is an example that uses the "accept" blocks from Exim's default configuration file: accept domains = +local_domains endpass verify = recipient control = bmi_run accept domains = +relay_to_domains endpass verify = recipient control = bmi_run If bmi_run is not set in any ACL during reception of the message, it will NOT be passed to the BMI server. 4) Setting up routers to use BMI verdicts When a message has been run through the BMI server, one or more "verdicts" are present. Different recipients can have different verdicts. Each recipient is treated individually during routing, so you can query the verdicts by recipient at that stage. From Exim's view, a verdict can have the following outcomes: o deliver the message normally o deliver the message to an alternate location o do not deliver the message To query the verdict for a recipient, the implementation offers the following tools: - Boolean router preconditions. These can be used in any router. For a simple implementation of BMI, these may be all that you need. The following preconditions are available: o bmi_deliver_default This precondition is TRUE if the verdict for the recipient is to deliver the message normally. If the message has not been processed by the BMI server, this variable defaults to TRUE. o bmi_deliver_alternate This precondition is TRUE if the verdict for the recipient is to deliver the message to an alternate location. You can get the location string from the $bmi_alt_location expansion variable if you need it. See further below. If the message has not been processed by the BMI server, this variable defaults to FALSE. o bmi_dont_deliver This precondition is TRUE if the verdict for the recipient is NOT to deliver the message to the recipient. You will typically use this precondition in a top-level blackhole router, like this: # don't deliver messages handled by the BMI server bmi_blackhole: driver = redirect bmi_dont_deliver data = :blackhole: This router should be on top of all others, so messages that should not be delivered do not reach other routers at all. If the message has not been processed by the BMI server, this variable defaults to FALSE. - A list router precondition to query if rules "fired" on the message for the recipient. Its name is "bmi_rule". You use it by passing it a colon-separated list of rule numbers. You can use this condition to route messages that matched specific rules. Here is an example: # special router for BMI rule #5, #8 and #11 bmi_rule_redirect: driver = redirect bmi_rule = 5:8:11 data = postmaster@mydomain.com - Expansion variables. Several expansion variables are set during routing. You can use them in custom router conditions, for example. The following variables are available: o $bmi_base64_verdict This variable will contain the BASE64 encoded verdict for the recipient being routed. You can use it to add a header to messages for tracking purposes, for example: localuser: driver = accept check_local_user headers_add = X-Brightmail-Verdict: $bmi_base64_verdict transport = local_delivery If there is no verdict available for the recipient being routed, this variable contains the empty string. o $bmi_base64_tracker_verdict This variable will contain a BASE64 encoded subset of the verdict information concerning the "rules" that fired on the message. You can add this string to a header, commonly named "X-Brightmail-Tracker". Example: localuser: driver = accept check_local_user headers_add = X-Brightmail-Tracker: $bmi_base64_tracker_verdict transport = local_delivery If there is no verdict available for the recipient being routed, this variable contains the empty string. o $bmi_alt_location If the verdict is to redirect the message to an alternate location, this variable will contain the alternate location string returned by the BMI server. In its default configuration, this is a header-like string that can be added to the message with "headers_add". If there is no verdict available for the recipient being routed, or if the message is to be delivered normally, this variable contains the empty string. o $bmi_deliver This is an additional integer variable that can be used to query if the message should be delivered at all. You should use router preconditions instead if possible. $bmi_deliver is '0': the message should NOT be delivered. $bmi_deliver is '1': the message should be delivered. IMPORTANT NOTE: Verdict inheritance. The message is passed to the BMI server during message reception, using the target addresses from the RCPT TO: commands in the SMTP transaction. If recipients get expanded or re-written (for example by aliasing), the new address(es) inherit the verdict from the original address. This means that verdicts also apply to all "child" addresses generated from top-level addresses that were sent to the BMI server. 5) Using per-recipient opt-in information (Optional) The BMI server features multiple scanning "profiles" for individual recipients. These are usually stored in a LDAP server and are queried by the BMI server itself. However, you can also pass opt-in data for each recipient from the MTA to the BMI server. This is particularly useful if you already look up recipient data in Exim anyway (which can also be stored in a SQL database or other source). This implementation enables you to pass opt-in data to the BMI server in the RCPT ACL. This works by setting the 'bmi_optin' modifier in a block of that ACL. If should be set to a list of comma-separated strings that identify the features which the BMI server should use for that particular recipient. Ideally, you would use the 'bmi_optin' modifier in the same ACL block where you set the 'bmi_run' control flag. Here is an example that will pull opt-in data for each recipient from a flat file called '/etc/exim/bmi_optin_data'. The file format: user1@mydomain.com: : user2@thatdomain.com: The example: accept domains = +relay_to_domains endpass verify = recipient bmi_optin = ${lookup{$local_part@$domain}lsearch{/etc/exim/bmi_optin_data}} control = bmi_run Of course, you can also use any other lookup method that Exim supports, including LDAP, Postgres, MySQL, Oracle etc., as long as the result is a list of colon-separated opt-in strings. For a list of available opt-in strings, please contact your Brightmail representative. SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme) Support -------------------------------------------------------------- Exiscan currently includes SRS support via Miles Wilton's libsrs_alt library. The current version of the supported library is 0.5, there are reports of 1.0 working. In order to use SRS, you must get a copy of libsrs_alt from https://opsec.eu/src/srs/ (not the original source, which has disappeared.) Unpack the tarball, then refer to MTAs/README.EXIM to proceed. You need to set EXPERIMENTAL_SRS=yes in your Local/Makefile. DCC Support -------------------------------------------------------------- Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse; http://www.rhyolite.com/dcc/ *) Building exim In order to build exim with DCC support add EXPERIMENTAL_DCC=yes to your Makefile. (Re-)build/install exim. exim -d should show EXPERIMENTAL_DCC under "Support for". *) Configuration In the main section of exim.cf add at least dccifd_address = /usr/local/dcc/var/dccifd or dccifd_address = In the DATA ACL you can use the new condition dcc = * After that "$dcc_header" contains the X-DCC-Header. Return values are: fail for overall "R", "G" from dccifd defer for overall "T" from dccifd accept for overall "A", "S" from dccifd dcc = */defer_ok works as for spamd. The "$dcc_result" variable contains the overall result from DCC answer. There will an X-DCC: header added to the mail. Usually you'll use defer !dcc = * to greylist with DCC. If you set, in the main section, dcc_direct_add_header = true then the dcc header will be added "in deep" and if the spool file was already written it gets removed. This forces Exim to write it again if needed. This helps to get the DCC Header through to eg. SpamAssassin. If you want to pass even more headers in the middle of the DATA stage you can set $acl_m_dcc_add_header to tell the DCC routines to add more information; eg, you might set this to some results from ClamAV. Be careful. Header syntax is not checked and is added "as is". In case you've troubles with sites sending the same queue items from several hosts and fail to get through greylisting you can use $acl_m_dcc_override_client_ip Setting $acl_m_dcc_override_client_ip to an IP address overrides the default of $sender_host_address. eg. use the following ACL in DATA stage: warn set acl_m_dcc_override_client_ip = \ ${lookup{$sender_helo_name}nwildlsearch{/etc/mail/multipleip_sites}{$value}{}} condition = ${if def:acl_m_dcc_override_client_ip} log_message = dbg: acl_m_dcc_override_client_ip set to \ $acl_m_dcc_override_client_ip Then set something like # cat /etc/mail/multipleip_sites mout-xforward.gmx.net 82.165.159.12 mout.gmx.net 212.227.15.16 Use a reasonable IP. eg. one the sending cluster actually uses. DMARC Support -------------------------------------------------------------- DMARC combines feedback from SPF, DKIM, and header From: in order to attempt to provide better indicators of the authenticity of an email. This document does not explain the fundamentals, you should read and understand how it works by visiting the website at http://www.dmarc.org/. DMARC support is added via the libopendmarc library. Visit: http://sourceforge.net/projects/opendmarc/ to obtain a copy, or find it in your favorite rpm package repository. If building from source, this description assumes that headers will be in /usr/local/include, and that the libraries are in /usr/local/lib. 1. To compile Exim with DMARC support, you must first enable SPF. Please read the Local/Makefile comments on enabling the SUPPORT_SPF feature. You must also have DKIM support, so you cannot set the DISABLE_DKIM feature. Once both of those conditions have been met you can enable DMARC in Local/Makefile: EXPERIMENTAL_DMARC=yes LDFLAGS += -lopendmarc # CFLAGS += -I/usr/local/include # LDFLAGS += -L/usr/local/lib The first line sets the feature to include the correct code, and the second line says to link the libopendmarc libraries into the exim binary. The commented out lines should be uncommented if you built opendmarc from source and installed in the default location. Adjust the paths if you installed them elsewhere, but you do not need to uncomment them if an rpm (or you) installed them in the package controlled locations (/usr/include and /usr/lib). 2. Use the following global settings to configure DMARC: Required: dmarc_tld_file Defines the location of a text file of valid top level domains the opendmarc library uses during domain parsing. Maintained by Mozilla, the most current version can be downloaded from a link at http://publicsuffix.org/list/. Optional: dmarc_history_file Defines the location of a file to log results of dmarc verification on inbound emails. The contents are importable by the opendmarc tools which will manage the data, send out DMARC reports, and expire the data. Make sure the directory of this file is writable by the user exim runs as. dmarc_forensic_sender The email address to use when sending a forensic report detailing alignment failures if a sender domain's dmarc record specifies it and you have configured Exim to send them. Default: do-not-reply@$default_hostname 3. By default, the DMARC processing will run for any remote, non-authenticated user. It makes sense to only verify DMARC status of messages coming from remote, untrusted sources. You can use standard conditions such as hosts, senders, etc, to decide that DMARC verification should *not* be performed for them and disable DMARC with a control setting: control = dmarc_disable_verify A DMARC record can also specify a "forensic address", which gives exim an email address to submit reports about failed alignment. Exim does not do this by default because in certain conditions it results in unintended information leakage (what lists a user might be subscribed to, etc). You must configure exim to submit forensic reports to the owner of the domain. If the DMARC record contains a forensic address and you specify the control statement below, then exim will send these forensic emails. It's also advised that you configure a dmarc_forensic_sender because the default sender address construction might be inadequate. control = dmarc_enable_forensic (AGAIN: You can choose not to send these forensic reports by simply not putting the dmarc_enable_forensic control line at any point in your exim config. If you don't tell it to send them, it will not send them.) There are no options to either control. Both must appear before the DATA acl. 4. You can now run DMARC checks in incoming SMTP by using the "dmarc_status" ACL condition in the DATA ACL. You are required to call the spf condition first in the ACLs, then the "dmarc_status" condition. Putting this condition in the ACLs is required in order for a DMARC check to actually occur. All of the variables are set up before the DATA ACL, but there is no actual DMARC check that occurs until a "dmarc_status" condition is encountered in the ACLs. The dmarc_status condition takes a list of strings on its right-hand side. These strings describe recommended action based on the DMARC check. To understand what the policy recommendations mean, refer to the DMARC website above. Valid strings are: o accept The DMARC check passed and the library recommends accepting the email. o reject The DMARC check failed and the library recommends rejecting the email. o quarantine The DMARC check failed and the library recommends keeping it for further inspection. o none The DMARC check passed and the library recommends no specific action, neutral. o norecord No policy section in the DMARC record for this sender domain. o nofrom Unable to determine the domain of the sender. o temperror Library error or dns error. o off The DMARC check was disabled for this email. You can prefix each string with an exclamation mark to invert its meaning, for example "!accept" will match all results but "accept". The string list is evaluated left-to-right in a short-circuit fashion. When a string matches the outcome of the DMARC check, the condition succeeds. If none of the listed strings matches the outcome of the DMARC check, the condition fails. Of course, you can also use any other lookup method that Exim supports, including LDAP, Postgres, MySQL, etc, as long as the result is a list of colon-separated strings. Performing the check sets up information used by the ${authresults } expansion item. Several expansion variables are set before the DATA ACL is processed, and you can use them in this ACL. The following expansion variables are available: o $dmarc_status This is a one word status indicating what the DMARC library thinks of the email. It is a combination of the results of DMARC record lookup and the SPF/DKIM/DMARC processing results (if a DMARC record was found). The actual policy declared in the DMARC record is in a separate expansion variable. o $dmarc_status_text This is a slightly longer, human readable status. o $dmarc_used_domain This is the domain which DMARC used to look up the DMARC policy record. o $dmarc_domain_policy This is the policy declared in the DMARC record. Valid values are "none", "reject" and "quarantine". It is blank when there is any error, including no DMARC record. A now-redundant variable $dmarc_ar_header has now been withdrawn. Use the ${authresults } expansion instead. 5. How to enable DMARC advanced operation: By default, Exim's DMARC configuration is intended to be non-intrusive and conservative. To facilitate this, Exim will not create any type of logging files without explicit configuration by you, the admin. Nor will Exim send out any emails/reports about DMARC issues without explicit configuration by you, the admin (other than typical bounce messages that may come about due to ACL processing or failure delivery issues). In order to log statistics suitable to be imported by the opendmarc tools, you need to: a. Configure the global setting dmarc_history_file. b. Configure cron jobs to call the appropriate opendmarc history import scripts and truncating the dmarc_history_file. In order to send forensic reports, you need to: a. Configure the global setting dmarc_forensic_sender. b. Configure, somewhere before the DATA ACL, the control option to enable sending DMARC forensic reports. 6. Example usage: (RCPT ACL) warn domains = +local_domains hosts = +local_hosts control = dmarc_disable_verify warn !domains = +screwed_up_dmarc_records control = dmarc_enable_forensic warn condition = (lookup if destined to mailing list) set acl_m_mailing_list = 1 (DATA ACL) warn dmarc_status = accept : none : off !authenticated = * log_message = DMARC DEBUG: $dmarc_status $dmarc_used_domain warn dmarc_status = !accept !authenticated = * log_message = DMARC DEBUG: '$dmarc_status' for $dmarc_used_domain warn dmarc_status = quarantine !authenticated = * set $acl_m_quarantine = 1 # Do something in a transport with this flag variable deny condition = ${if eq{$dmarc_domain_policy}{reject}} condition = ${if eq{$acl_m_mailing_list}{1}} message = Messages from $dmarc_used_domain break mailing lists deny dmarc_status = reject !authenticated = * message = Message from $dmarc_used_domain failed sender's DMARC policy, REJECT warn add_header = :at_start:${authresults {$primary_hostname}} DSN extra information --------------------- If compiled with EXPERIMENTAL_DSN_INFO extra information will be added to DSN fail messages ("bounces"), when available. The intent is to aid tracing of specific failing messages, when presented with a "bounce" complaint and needing to search logs. The remote MTA IP address, with port number if nonstandard. Example: Remote-MTA: X-ip; [127.0.0.1]:587 Rationale: Several addresses may correspond to the (already available) dns name for the remote MTA. The remote MTA connect-time greeting. Example: X-Remote-MTA-smtp-greeting: X-str; 220 the.local.host.name ESMTP Exim x.yz Tue, 2 Mar 1999 09:44:33 +0000 Rationale: This string sometimes presents the remote MTA's idea of its own name, and sometimes identifies the MTA software. The remote MTA response to HELO or EHLO. Example: X-Remote-MTA-helo-response: X-str; 250-the.local.host.name Hello localhost [127.0.0.1] Limitations: Only the first line of a multiline response is recorded. Rationale: This string sometimes presents the remote MTA's view of the peer IP connecting to it. The reporting MTA detailed diagnostic. Example: X-Exim-Diagnostic: X-str; SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:: 550 hard error Rationale: This string sometimes give extra information over the existing (already available) Diagnostic-Code field. Note that non-RFC-documented field names and data types are used. LMDB Lookup support ------------------- LMDB is an ultra-fast, ultra-compact, crash-proof key-value embedded data store. It is modeled loosely on the BerkeleyDB API. You should read about the feature set as well as operation modes at https://symas.com/products/lightning-memory-mapped-database/ LMDB single key lookup support is provided by linking to the LMDB C library. The current implementation does not support writing to the LMDB database. Visit https://github.com/LMDB/lmdb to download the library or find it in your operating systems package repository. If building from source, this description assumes that headers will be in /usr/local/include, and that the libraries are in /usr/local/lib. 1. In order to build exim with LMDB lookup support add or uncomment EXPERIMENTAL_LMDB=yes to your Local/Makefile. (Re-)build/install exim. exim -d should show Experimental_LMDB in the line "Support for:". EXPERIMENTAL_LMDB=yes LDFLAGS += -llmdb # CFLAGS += -I/usr/local/include # LDFLAGS += -L/usr/local/lib The first line sets the feature to include the correct code, and the second line says to link the LMDB libraries into the exim binary. The commented out lines should be uncommented if you built LMDB from source and installed in the default location. Adjust the paths if you installed them elsewhere, but you do not need to uncomment them if an rpm (or you) installed them in the package controlled locations (/usr/include and /usr/lib). 2. Create your LMDB files, you can use the mdb_load utility which is part of the LMDB distribution our your favourite language bindings. 3. Add the single key lookups to your exim.conf file, example lookups are below. ${lookup{$sender_address_domain}lmdb{/var/lib/baruwa/data/db/relaydomains.mdb}{$value}} ${lookup{$sender_address_domain}lmdb{/var/lib/baruwa/data/db/relaydomains.mdb}{$value}fail} ${lookup{$sender_address_domain}lmdb{/var/lib/baruwa/data/db/relaydomains.mdb}} Queuefile transport ------------------- Queuefile is a pseudo transport which does not perform final delivery. It simply copies the exim spool files out of the spool directory into an external directory retaining the exim spool format. The spool files can then be processed by external processes and then requeued into exim spool directories for final delivery. The motivation/inspiration for the transport is to allow external processes to access email queued by exim and have access to all the information which would not be available if the messages were delivered to the process in the standard email formats. The mailscanner package is one of the processes that can take advantage of this transport to filter email. The transport can be used in the same way as the other existing transports, i.e by configuring a router to route mail to a transport configured with the queuefile driver. The transport only takes one option: * directory - This is used to specify the directory messages should be copied to. Expanded. The generic transport options (body_only, current_directory, disable_logging, debug_print, delivery_date_add, envelope_to_add, event_action, group, headers_add, headers_only, headers_remove, headers_rewrite, home_directory, initgroups, max_parallel, message_size_limit, rcpt_include_affixes, retry_use_local_part, return_path, return_path_add, shadow_condition, shadow_transport, transport_filter, transport_filter_timeout, user) are ignored. Sample configuration: (Router) scan: driver = accept transport = scan (Transport) scan: driver = queuefile directory = /var/spool/baruwa-scanner/input In order to build exim with Queuefile transport support add or uncomment EXPERIMENTAL_QUEUEFILE=yes to your Local/Makefile. (Re-)build/install exim. exim -d should show Experimental_QUEUEFILE in the line "Support for:". ARC support ----------- Specification: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dmarc-arc-protocol-11 Note that this is not an RFC yet, so may change. ARC is intended to support the utility of SPF and DKIM in the presence of intermediaries in the transmission path - forwarders and mailinglists - by establishing a cryptographically-signed chain in headers. Normally one would only bother doing ARC-signing when functioning as an intermediary. One might do verify for local destinations. ARC uses the notion of a "ADministrative Management Domain" (ADMD). Described in RFC 5598 (section 2.3), this is essentially the set of mail-handling systems that the mail transits. A label should be chosen to identify the ADMD. Messages should be ARC-verified on entry to the ADMD, and ARC-signed on exit from it. Verification -- An ACL condition is provided to perform the "verifier actions" detailed in section 6 of the above specification. It may be called from the DATA ACL and succeeds if the result matches any of a given list. It also records the highest ARC instance number (the chain size) and verification result for later use in creating an Authentication-Results: standard header. verify = arc/ none:fail:pass add_header = :at_start:${authresults {}} Note that it would be wise to strip incoming messages of A-R headers that claim to be from our own . There are two new variables: $arc_state and $arc_state_reason. Receive log lines for an ARC pass will be tagged "ARC". Signing -- arc_sign = : : An option on the smtp transport, which constructs and prepends to the message an ARC set of headers. The textually-first Authentication-Results: header is used as a basis (you must have added one on entry to the ADMD). Expanded as a whole; if unset, empty or forced-failure then no signing is done. If it is set, all three elements must be non-empty. Caveats: * There must be an Authentication-Results header, presumably added by an ACL while receiving the message, for the same ADMD, for arc_sign to succeed. This requires careful coordination between inbound and outbound logic. * If passing a message to another system, such as a mailing-list manager (MLM), between receipt and sending, be wary of manipulations to headers made by the MLM. + For instance, Mailman with REMOVE_DKIM_HEADERS==3 might improve deliverability in a pre-ARC world, but that option also renames the Authentication-Results header, which breaks signing. * Even if you use multiple DKIM keys for different domains, the ARC concept should try to stick to one ADMD, so pick a primary domain and use that for AR headers and outbound signing. -------------------------------------------------------------- End of file --------------------------------------------------------------