Fix typo in pcre/Makefile.

[exim.git] / doc / doc-docbook / spec.ascd

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
$Cambridge: exim/doc/doc-docbook/spec.ascd,v 1.1 2005/06/16 10:32:31 ph10 Exp $

This is the primary source of the Exim Manual. It is an AsciiDoc document
that is converted into DocBook XML for subsequent conversion into printing
and online formats. The markup used herein is traditional AsciiDoc markup,
with some extras. The markup is summarized in a file called AdMarkup.txt. A
private AsciiDoc configuration file specifies how the extra markup is to be
translated into DocBook XML. You MUST use this private AsciiDoc markup if you
want to get sensible results from processing this document.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I am abusing the <abstract> DocBook element as the only trivial way of getting
this information onto the title verso page in the printed renditions. A better
title page would be a useful improvement. The <abstract> element is removed by
preprocessing for the HTML renditions, and the whole <docbookinfo> element is
removed for ascii output formats.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Specification of the Exim Mail Transfer Agent
=============================================
:abstract:        University of Cambridge Computing Service, New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England
:author:          Philip Hazel
:copyright:       University of Cambridge
:cpyear:          2005
:date:            13 May 2005
:doctitleabbrev:  The Exim MTA
:revision:        4.50


//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
***WARNING*** Do not put anything, not even a titleabbrev, setting before
the first chapter (luckily it does not need one) because if you do, AsciiDoc
creates an empty <preface> element, which we do not want.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Introduction
------------

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
These are definitions of AsciiDoc "attributes" that are in effect "variables"
whose values can be substituted. The first makes index entries shorter. The
second avoids problems with literal asterisks getting tangled up with bold
emphasis quotes. The others are here for convenience of editing.

***WARNING*** The positioning of these definitions, after the first Chapter
title, seems to be important. If they are placed earlier, they give rise to
incorrect XML.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

:ACL:             access control lists (ACLs)
:star:            *
:previousversion: 4.40
:version:         4.50


////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
This chunk of literal XML implements index entries of the form "x, see y" and
"x, see also y". It didn't seem worth inventing AsciiDoc markup for this,
because is it not something that is likely to change often.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>$1, $2, etc.</primary>
  <see><emphasis>numerical variables</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>address</primary>
  <secondary>rewriting</secondary>
  <see><emphasis>rewriting</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>CR character</primary>
  <see><emphasis>carriage return</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>CRL</primary>
  <see><emphasis>certificate revocation list</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>delivery</primary>
  <secondary>failure report</secondary>
  <see><emphasis>bounce message</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>dialup</primary>
  <see><emphasis>intermittently connected hosts</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>exiscan</primary>
  <see><emphasis>content scanning</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>failover</primary>
  <see><emphasis>fallback</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>fallover</primary>
  <see><emphasis>fallback</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>filter</primary>
  <secondary>Sieve</secondary>
  <see><emphasis>Sieve filter</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>ident</primary>
  <see><emphasis>RFC 1413</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>LF character</primary>
  <see><emphasis>linefeed</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>maximum</primary>
  <see><emphasis>limit</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>no_<emphasis>xxx</emphasis></primary>
  <see>entry for xxx</see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>NUL</primary>
  <see><emphasis>binary zero</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>passwd file</primary>
  <see><emphasis>/etc/passwd</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>process id</primary>
  <see><emphasis>pid</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>RBL</primary>
  <see><emphasis>DNS list</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>redirection</primary>
  <see><emphasis>address redirection</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>return path</primary>
  <seealso><emphasis>envelope sender</emphasis></seealso>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>scanning</primary>
  <see><emphasis>content scanning</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>SSL</primary>
  <see><emphasis>TLS</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>string</primary>
  <secondary>expansion</secondary>
  <see><emphasis>expansion</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>top bit</primary>
  <see><emphasis>8-bit characters</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>variables</primary>
  <see><emphasis>expansion, variables</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
<indexterm role="concept">
  <primary>zero, binary</primary>
  <see><emphasis>binary zero</emphasis></see>
</indexterm>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
OK, now we start with the real data for this first chapter.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Exim is a mail transfer agent (MTA) for hosts that are running Unix or
Unix-like operating systems. It was designed on the assumption that it would be
run on hosts that are permanently connected to the Internet. However, it can be
used on intermittently connected hosts with suitable configuration adjustments.

Configuration files currently exist for the following operating systems: AIX,
BSD/OS (aka BSDI), Darwin (Mac OS X), DGUX, FreeBSD, GNU/Hurd, GNU/Linux,
HI-OSF (Hitachi), HP-UX, IRIX, MIPS RISCOS, NetBSD, OpenBSD, QNX, SCO, SCO
SVR4.2 (aka UNIX-SV), Solaris (aka SunOS5), SunOS4, Tru64-Unix (formerly
Digital UNIX, formerly DEC-OSF1), Ultrix, and Unixware. Some of these operating
systems are no longer current and cannot easily be tested, so the configuration
files may no longer work in practice.

There are also configuration files for compiling Exim in the Cygwin environment
that can be installed on systems running Windows. However, this document does
not contain any information about running Exim in the Cygwin environment.

The terms and conditions for the use and distribution of Exim are contained in
the file _NOTICE_. Exim is distributed under the terms of the GNU General
Public Licence, a copy of which may be found in the file _LICENCE_.

The use, supply or promotion of Exim for the purpose of sending bulk,
unsolicited electronic mail is incompatible with the basic aims of the program,
which revolve around the free provision of a service that enhances the quality
of personal communications. The author of Exim regards indiscriminate
mass-mailing as an antisocial, irresponsible abuse of the Internet.

Exim owes a great deal to Smail 3 and its author, Ron Karr. Without the
experience of running and working on the Smail 3 code, I could never have
contemplated starting to write a new MTA. Many of the ideas and user interfaces
were originally taken from Smail 3, though the actual code of Exim is entirely
new, and has developed far beyond the initial concept.

Many people, both in Cambridge and around the world, have contributed to the
development and the testing of Exim, and to porting it to various operating
systems. I am grateful to them all. The distribution now contains a file called
_ACKNOWLEDGMENTS_, in which I have started recording the names of
contributors.



Exim documentation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[revisionflag="changed"]
cindex:[documentation]
This edition of the Exim specification applies to version {version} of Exim.
Substantive changes from the {previousversion} edition are marked in some
renditions of the document; this paragraph is so marked if the rendition is
capable of showing a change indicator.

This document is very much a reference manual; it is not a tutorial. The reader
is expected to have some familiarity with the SMTP mail transfer protocol and
with general Unix system administration. Although there are some discussions
and examples in places, the information is mostly organized in a way that makes
it easy to look up, rather than in a natural order for sequential reading.
Furthermore, the manual aims to cover every aspect of Exim in detail, including
a number of rarely-used, special-purpose features that are unlikely to be of
very wide interest.

cindex:[books about Exim]
An ``easier'' discussion of Exim which provides more in-depth explanatory,
introductory, and tutorial material can be found in a book entitled
'The Exim SMTP Mail Server', published by UIT Cambridge
(*http://www.uit.co.uk/exim-book/[]*).

This book also contains a chapter that gives a general introduction to SMTP and
Internet mail. Inevitably, however, the book is unlikely to be fully up-to-date
with the latest release of Exim. (Note that the earlier book about Exim,
published by O'Reilly, covers Exim 3, and many things have changed in Exim 4.)

cindex:[_doc/NewStuff_]
cindex:[_doc/ChangeLog_]
cindex:[change log]
As the program develops, there may be features in newer versions that have not
yet made it into this document, which is updated only when the most significant
digit of the fractional part of the version number changes. Specifications of
new features that are not yet in this manual are placed in the file
_doc/NewStuff_ in the Exim distribution.

Some features may be classified as ``experimental''. These may change
incompatibly while they are developing, or even be withdrawn. For this reason,
they are not documented in this manual. Information about experimental features
can be found in the file _doc/experimental.txt_.

All changes to the program (whether new features, bug fixes, or other kinds of
change) are noted briefly in the file called _doc/ChangeLog_.

cindex:[_doc/spec.txt_]
This specification itself is available as an ASCII file in _doc/spec.txt_ so
that it can easily be searched with a text editor. Other files in the _doc_
directory are:

[frame="none"]
`--------------------`------------------------------------------
_OptionLists.txt_    list of all options in alphabetical order
_dbm.discuss.txt_    discussion about DBM libraries
_exim.8_             a man page of Exim's command line options
_experimental.txt_   documentation of experimental features
_filter.txt_         specification of the filter language
_pcrepattern.txt_    specification of PCRE regular expressions
_pcretest.txt_       specification of the PCRE testing program
_Exim3.upgrade_      upgrade notes from release 2 to release 3
_Exim4.upgrade_      upgrade notes from release 3 to release 4
----------------------------------------------------------------

The main specification and the specification of the filtering language are also
available in other formats (HTML, PostScript, PDF, and Texinfo). Section
<<SECTavail>> below tells you how to get hold of these.



FTP and web sites
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[web site]
cindex:[FTP site]
The primary distribution site for Exim is currently the University of
Cambridge's FTP site, whose contents are described in 'Where to find the Exim
distribution' below. In addition, there is a web site and an FTP site at
%exim.org%. These are now also hosted at the University of Cambridge. The
%exim.org% site was previously hosted for a number of years by Energis Squared,
formerly Planet Online Ltd, whose support I gratefully acknowledge.

As well as Exim distribution tar files, the Exim web site contains a number of
differently formatted versions of the documentation, including the
cindex:[FAQ] FAQ in both text and HTML formats. The HTML version comes with
a keyword-in-context index. A recent addition to the online information is the
cindex:[wiki]
Exim wiki (*http://www.exim.org/eximwiki/[]*).
We hope that this will make it easier for Exim users to contribute examples,
tips, and know-how for the benefit of others.



Mailing lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[mailing lists,for Exim users]
The following are the three main Exim mailing lists:

[frame="none"]
`-------------------------------`----------------------------------------
'exim-users@exim.org'           general discussion list
'exim-dev@exim.org'             discussion of bugs, enhancements, etc.
'exim-announce@exim.org'        moderated, low volume announcements list
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can subscribe to these lists, change your existing subscriptions, and view
or search the archives via the mailing lists link on the Exim home page. The
'exim-users' mailing list is also forwarded to
*http://www.egroups.com/list/exim-users[]*, an archiving system with searching
capabilities.


Exim training
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[training courses]
From time to time (approximately annually at the time of writing),
lecture-based training courses are run by the author of Exim in Cambridge, UK.
Details can be found on the web site
*http://www-tus.csx.cam.ac.uk/courses/exim/[]*.


Bug reports
~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[bug reports]
cindex:[reporting bugs]
Reports of obvious bugs should be emailed to 'bugs@exim.org'. However, if
you are unsure whether some behaviour is a bug or not, the best thing to do is
to post a message to the 'exim-users' mailing list and have it discussed.



[[SECTavail]]
Where to find the Exim distribution
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[FTP site]
cindex:[distribution,ftp site]
The master ftp site for the Exim distribution is

&&&
*ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/email/exim[]*
&&&

This is mirrored by

&&&
*ftp://ftp.exim.org/pub/exim[]*
&&&

The file references that follow are relative to the _exim_ directories at these
sites. There are now quite a number of independent mirror sites around the
world. Those that I know about are listed in the file called _Mirrors_.

Within the _exim_ directory there are subdirectories called _exim3_ (for
previous Exim 3 distributions), _exim4_ (for the latest Exim 4
distributions), and _Testing_ for testing versions. In the _exim4_
subdirectory, the current release can always be found in files called

&&&
_exim-n.nn.tar.gz_
_exim-n.nn.tar.bz2_
&&&

where 'n.nn' is the highest such version number in the directory. The two
files contain identical data; the only difference is the type of compression.
The _.bz2_ file is usually a lot smaller than the _.gz_ file.

cindex:[distribution,signing details]
cindex:[distribution,public key]
cindex:[public key for signed distribution]
The distributions are currently signed with Philip Hazel's GPG key. The
corresponding public key is available from a number of keyservers, and there is
also a copy in the file _Public-Key_. The signatures for the tar bundles are
in:

&&&
_exim-n.nn.tar.gz.sig_
_exim-n.nn.tar.bz2.sig_
&&&

For each released version, the log of changes is made separately available in a
separate file in the directory _ChangeLogs_ so that it is possible to
find out what has changed without having to download the entire distribution.

cindex:[documentation,available formats]
The main distribution contains ASCII versions of this specification and other
documentation; other formats of the documents are available in separate files
inside the _exim4_ directory of the FTP site:

&&&
_exim-html-n.nn.tar.gz_
_exim-pdf-n.nn.tar.gz_
_exim-postscript-n.nn.tar.gz_
_exim-texinfo-n.nn.tar.gz_
&&&

These tar files contain only the _doc_ directory, not the complete
distribution, and are also available in _.bz2_ as well as _.gz_ forms.
cindex:[FAQ]
The FAQ is available for downloading in two different formats in these files:

&&&
_exim4/FAQ.txt.gz_
_exim4/FAQ.html.tar.gz_
&&&

The first of these is a single ASCII file that can be searched with a text
editor. The second is a directory of HTML files, normally accessed by starting
at _index.html_. The HTML version of the FAQ (which is also included in the
HTML documentation tarbundle) includes a keyword-in-context index, which is
often the most convenient way of finding your way around.


Wish list
~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[wish list]
A wish list is maintained, containing ideas for new features that have been
submitted. From time to time the file is exported to the ftp site into the file
_exim4/WishList_. Items are removed from the list if they get implemented.



Contributed material
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[contributed material]
At the ftp site, there is a directory called _Contrib_ that contains
miscellaneous files contributed to the Exim community by Exim users. There is
also a collection of contributed configuration examples in
_exim4/config.samples.tar.gz_. These samples are referenced from the FAQ.



Limitations
~~~~~~~~~~~
- cindex:[limitations of Exim]
Exim is designed for use as an Internet MTA, and therefore handles addresses
in RFC 2822 domain format only.
cindex:[bang paths,not handled by Exim]
It cannot handle UUCP ``bang paths'', though simple two-component bang paths can
be converted by a straightforward rewriting configuration. This restriction
does not prevent Exim from being interfaced to UUCP as a transport mechanism,
provided that domain addresses are used.

- cindex:[domainless addresses]
cindex:[address,without domain]
Exim insists that every address it handles has a domain attached. For incoming
local messages, domainless addresses are automatically qualified with a
configured domain value. Configuration options specify from which remote
systems unqualified addresses are acceptable. These are then qualified on
arrival.

- cindex:[transport,external]
cindex:[external transports]
The only external transport currently implemented is an SMTP transport over a
TCP/IP network (using sockets, including support for IPv6). However, a pipe
transport is available, and there are facilities for writing messages to files
and pipes, optionally in 'batched SMTP' format; these facilities can be used
to send messages to some other transport mechanism such as UUCP, provided it
can handle domain-style addresses. Batched SMTP input is also catered for.

- Exim is not designed for storing mail for dial-in hosts. When the volumes of
such mail are large, it is better to get the messages ``delivered'' into files
(that is, off Exim's queue) and subsequently passed on to the dial-in hosts by
other means.

- Although Exim does have basic facilities for scanning incoming messages, these
are not comprehensive enough to do full virus or spam scanning. Such operations
are best carried out using additional specialized software packages. If you
compile Exim with the content-scanning extension, straightforward interfaces to
a number of common scanners are provided.





Run time configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Exim's run time configuration is held in a single text file that is divided
into a number of sections. The entries in this file consist of keywords and
values, in the style of Smail 3 configuration files. A default configuration
file which is suitable for simple online installations is provided in the
distribution, and is described in chapter <<CHAPdefconfil>> below.



Calling interface
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,command line interface]
Like many MTAs, Exim has adopted the Sendmail command line interface so that it
can be a straight replacement for _/usr/lib/sendmail_ or
_/usr/sbin/sendmail_ when sending mail, but you do not need to know anything
about Sendmail in order to run Exim. For actions other than sending messages,
Sendmail-compatible options also exist, but those that produce output (for
example, %-bp%, which lists the messages on the queue) do so in Exim's own
format. There are also some additional options that are compatible with Smail
3, and some further options that are new to Exim. Chapter <<CHAPcommandline>>
documents all Exim's command line options. This information is automatically
made into the man page that forms part of the Exim distribution.

Control of messages on the queue can be done via certain privileged command
line options. There is also an optional monitor program called 'eximon', which
displays current information in an X window, and which contains a menu
interface to Exim's command line administration options.



Terminology
~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[terminology definitions]
cindex:[body of message,definition of]
The 'body' of a message is the actual data that the sender wants to transmit.
It is the last part of a message, and is separated from the 'header' (see
below) by a blank line.

cindex:[bounce message,definition of]
When a message cannot be delivered, it is normally returned to the sender in a
delivery failure message or a ``non-delivery report'' (NDR). The term 'bounce'
is commonly used for this action, and the error reports are often called
'bounce messages'. This is a convenient shorthand for ``delivery failure error
report''. Such messages have an empty sender address in the message's
'envelope' (see below) to ensure that they cannot themselves give rise to
further bounce messages.

The term 'default' appears frequently in this manual. It is used to qualify a
value which is used in the absence of any setting in the configuration. It may
also qualify an action which is taken unless a configuration setting specifies
otherwise.

The term 'defer' is used when the delivery of a message to a specific
destination cannot immediately take place for some reason (a remote host may be
down, or a user's local mailbox may be full). Such deliveries are 'deferred'
until a later time.

The word 'domain' is sometimes used to mean all but the first component of a
host's name. It is 'not' used in that sense here, where it normally
refers to the part of an email address following the @ sign.

cindex:[envelope, definition of]
cindex:[sender,definition of]
A message in transit has an associated 'envelope', as well as a header and a
body. The envelope contains a sender address (to which bounce messages should
be delivered), and any number of recipient addresses. References to the
sender or the recipients of a message usually mean the addresses in the
envelope. An MTA uses these addresses for delivery, and for returning bounce
messages, not the addresses that appear in the header lines.

cindex:[message header, definition of]
cindex:[header section,definition of]
The 'header' of a message is the first part of a message's text, consisting
of a number of lines, each of which has a name such as 'From:', 'To:',
'Subject:', etc. Long header lines can be split over several text lines by
indenting the continuations. The header is separated from the body by a blank
line.

cindex:[local part,definition of]
cindex:[domain,definition of]
The term 'local part', which is taken from RFC 2822, is used to refer to that
part of an email address that precedes the @ sign. The part that follows the
@ sign is called the 'domain' or 'mail domain'.

cindex:[local delivery,definition of]
cindex:[remote delivery, definition of]
The terms 'local delivery' and 'remote delivery' are used to distinguish
delivery to a file or a pipe on the local host from delivery by SMTP over
TCP/IP to a remote host.

cindex:[return path,definition of]
'Return path' is another name that is used for the sender address in a
message's envelope.

cindex:[queue,definition of]
The term 'queue' is used to refer to the set of messages awaiting delivery,
because this term is in widespread use in the context of MTAs. However, in
Exim's case the reality is more like a pool than a queue, because there is
normally no ordering of waiting messages.

cindex:[queue runner,definition of]
The term 'queue runner' is used to describe a process that scans the queue
and attempts to deliver those messages whose retry times have come. This term
is used by other MTAs, and also relates to the command %runq%, but in Exim
the waiting messages are normally processed in an unpredictable order.

cindex:[spool directory,definition of]
The term 'spool directory' is used for a directory in which Exim keeps the
messages on its queue -- that is, those that it is in the process of
delivering. This should not be confused with the directory in which local
mailboxes are stored, which is called a ``spool directory'' by some people. In
the Exim documentation, ``spool'' is always used in the first sense.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Incorporated code
-----------------
cindex:[incorporated code]
cindex:[regular expressions,library]
cindex:[PCRE]
A number of pieces of external code are included in the Exim distribution.

- Regular expressions are supported in the main Exim program and in the Exim
monitor using the freely-distributable PCRE library, copyright (c) University
of Cambridge. The source is distributed in the directory _src/pcre_. However,
this is a cut-down version of PCRE. If you want to use the PCRE library in
other programs, you should obtain and install the full version from
*ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre[]*.

- cindex:[cdb,acknowledgement]
Support for the cdb (Constant DataBase) lookup method is provided by code
contributed by Nigel Metheringham of (at the time he contributed it) Planet
Online Ltd. which contains the following statements:
+
Copyright (c) 1998 Nigel Metheringham, Planet Online Ltd
+
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.
+
This code implements Dan Bernstein's Constant DataBase (cdb) spec. Information,
the spec and sample code for cdb can be obtained from
*http://www.pobox.com/{tl}djb/cdb.html[]*. This implementation borrows some code
from Dan Bernstein's implementation (which has no license restrictions applied
to it).
+
The implementation is completely contained within the code of Exim.
It does not link against an external cdb library.

- cindex:[SPA authentication]
cindex:[Samba project]
cindex:[Microsoft Secure Password Authentication]
Client support for Microsoft's 'Secure Password Authentication' is provided
by code contributed by Marc Prud'hommeaux. Server support was contributed by
Tom Kistner. This includes code taken from the Samba project, which is released
under the Gnu GPL.

- cindex:[Cyrus]
cindex:['pwcheck' daemon]
cindex:['pwauthd' daemon]
Support for calling the Cyrus 'pwcheck' and 'saslauthd' daemons is provided
by code taken from the Cyrus-SASL library and adapted by Alexander S.
Sabourenkov. The permission notice appears below, in accordance with the
conditions expressed therein.
+
Copyright (c) 2001 Carnegie Mellon University.  All rights reserved.
+
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
+
. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
distribution.

. The name ``Carnegie Mellon University'' must not be used to
endorse or promote products derived from this software without
prior written permission. For permission or any other legal
details, please contact
+
&&&
Office of Technology Transfer
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA  15213-3890
(412) 268-4387, fax: (412) 268-7395
tech-transfer@andrew.cmu.edu
&&&

. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following
acknowledgment:
+
'This product includes software developed by Computing Services
at Carnegie Mellon University (*http://www.cmu.edu/computing/[]*).'
+
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO
THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY
AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY BE LIABLE
FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN
AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

. cindex:[monitor]
cindex:[X-windows]
cindex:[Athena]
The Exim Monitor program, which is an X-Window application, includes
modified versions of the Athena StripChart and TextPop widgets.
This code is copyright by DEC and MIT, and their permission notice appears
below, in accordance with the conditions expressed therein.
+
Copyright 1987, 1988 by Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts,
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
+
All Rights Reserved
+
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,
provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that
both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
supporting documentation, and that the names of Digital or MIT not be
used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the
software without specific, written prior permission.
+
DIGITAL DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING
ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL
DIGITAL BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR
ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION,
ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS
SOFTWARE.

. Many people have contributed code fragments, some large, some small, that were
not covered by any specific licence requirements. It is assumed that the
contributors are happy to see their code incoporated into Exim under the GPL.





////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[titleabbrev="Receiving and delivering mail"]
How Exim receives and delivers mail
-----------------------------------


Overall philosophy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[design philosophy]
Exim is designed to work efficiently on systems that are permanently connected
to the Internet and are handling a general mix of mail. In such circumstances,
most messages can be delivered immediately. Consequently, Exim does not
maintain independent queues of messages for specific domains or hosts, though
it does try to send several messages in a single SMTP connection after a host
has been down, and it also maintains per-host retry information.



Policy control
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[policy control,overview]
Policy controls are now an important feature of MTAs that are connected to the
Internet. Perhaps their most important job is to stop MTAs being abused as
``open relays'' by misguided individuals who send out vast amounts of unsolicited
junk, and want to disguise its source. Exim provides flexible facilities for
specifying policy controls on incoming mail:

- cindex:[{ACL},introduction]
Exim 4 (unlike previous versions of Exim) implements policy controls on
incoming mail by means of 'Access Control Lists' (ACLs). Each list is a
series of statements that may either grant or deny access. ACLs can be used at
several places in the SMTP dialogue while receiving a message from a remote
host. However, the most common places are after each RCPT command, and at
the very end of the message. The sysadmin can specify conditions for accepting
or rejecting individual recipients or the entire message, respectively, at
these two points (see chapter <<CHAPACL>>). Denial of access results in an SMTP
error code.

- An ACL is also available for locally generated, non-SMTP messages. In this
case, the only available actions are to accept or deny the entire message.

- When Exim is compiled with the content-scanning extension, facilities are
provided in the ACL mechanism for passing the message to external virus and/or
spam scanning software. The result of such a scan is passed back to the ACL,
which can then use it to decide what to do with the message.

- When a message has been received, either from a remote host or from the local
host, but before the final acknowledgement has been sent, a locally supplied C
function called 'local_scan()' can be run to inspect the message and decide
whether to accept it or not (see chapter <<CHAPlocalscan>>). If the message is
accepted, the list of recipients can be modified by the function.

- Using the 'local_scan()' mechanism is another way of calling external
scanner software. The %SA-Exim% add-on package works this way. It does not
require Exim to be compiled with the content-scanning extension.

- After a message has been accepted, a further checking mechanism is available in
the form of the 'system filter' (see chapter <<CHAPsystemfilter>>). This runs
at the start of every delivery process.



User filters
~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[filter,introduction]
cindex:[Sieve filter]
In a conventional Exim configuration, users are able to run private filters by
setting up appropriate _.forward_ files in their home directories. See
chapter <<CHAPredirect>> (about the ^redirect^ router) for the configuration
needed to support this, and the separate document entitled 'Exim's interfaces
to mail filtering' for user details. Two different kinds of filtering are
available:

- Sieve filters are written in the standard filtering language that is defined
by RFC 3028.

- Exim filters are written in a syntax that is unique to Exim, but which is more
powerful than Sieve, which it pre-dates.

User filters are run as part of the routing process, described below.



[[SECTmessiden]]
Message identification
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[message ids, details of format]
cindex:[format,of message id]
cindex:[id of message]
cindex:[base62]
cindex:[base36]
cindex:[Darwin]
cindex:[Cygwin]
Every message handled by Exim is given a 'message id' which is sixteen
characters long. It is divided into three parts, separated by hyphens, for
example `16VDhn-0001bo-D3`. Each part is a sequence of letters and digits,
normally encoding numbers in base 62. However, in the Darwin operating
system (Mac OS X) and when Exim is compiled to run under Cygwin, base 36
(avoiding the use of lower case letters) is used instead, because the message
id is used to construct file names, and the names of files in those systems are
not case-sensitive.

cindex:[pid (process id),re-use of]
The detail of the contents of the message id have changed as Exim has evolved.
Earlier versions relied on the operating system not re-using a process id (pid)
within one second. On modern operating systems, this assumption can no longer
be made, so the algorithm had to be changed. To retain backward compatibility,
the format of the message id was retained, which is why the following rules are
somewhat eccentric:

- The first six characters of the message id are the time at which the message
started to be received, to a granularity of one second. That is, this field
contains the number of seconds since the start of the epoch (the normal Unix
way of representing the date and time of day).

- After the first hyphen, the next six characters are the id of the process that
received the message.

- There are two different possibilities for the final two characters:

. cindex:[%localhost_number%]
If %localhost_number% is not set, this value is the fractional part of the
time of reception, normally in units of 1/2000 of a second, but for systems
that must use base 36 instead of base 62 (because of case-insensitive file
systems), the units are 1/1000 of a second.

. If %localhost_number% is set, it is multiplied by 200 (100) and added to
the fractional part of the time, which in this case is in units of 1/200
(1/100) of a second.

After a message has been received, Exim waits for the clock to tick at the
appropriate resolution before proceeding, so that if another message is
received by the same process, or by another process with the same (re-used)
pid, it is guaranteed that the time will be different. In most cases, the clock
will already have ticked while the message was being received.


Receiving mail
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[receiving mail]
cindex:[message,reception]
The only way Exim can receive mail from a remote host is using SMTP over
TCP/IP, in which case the sender and recipient addresses are tranferred using
SMTP commands. However, from a locally running process (such as a user's MUA),
there are several possibilities:

- If the process runs Exim with the %-bm% option, the message is read
non-interactively (usually via a pipe), with the recipients taken from the
command line, or from the body of the message if %-t% is also used.

- If the process runs Exim with the %-bS% option, the message is also read
non-interactively, but in this case the recipients are listed at the start of
the message in a series of SMTP RCPT commands, terminated by a DATA
command. This is so-called ``batch SMTP'' format,
but it isn't really SMTP. The SMTP commands are just another way of passing
envelope addresses in a non-interactive submission.

- If the process runs Exim with the %-bs% option, the message is read
interactively, using the SMTP protocol. A two-way pipe is normally used for
passing data between the local process and the Exim process.
This is ``real'' SMTP and is handled in the same way as SMTP over TCP/IP. For
example, the ACLs for SMTP commands are used for this form of submission.

- A local process may also make a TCP/IP call to the host's loopback address
(127.0.0.1) or any other of its IP addresses. When receiving messages, Exim
does not treat the loopback address specially. It treats all such connections
in the same way as connections from other hosts.


cindex:[message sender, constructed by Exim]
cindex:[sender,constructed by Exim]
In the three cases that do not involve TCP/IP, the sender address is
constructed from the login name of the user that called Exim and a default
qualification domain (which can be set by the %qualify_domain% configuration
option). For local or batch SMTP, a sender address that is passed using the
SMTP MAIL command is ignored. However, the system administrator may allow
certain users (``trusted users'') to specify a different sender address
unconditionally, or all users to specify certain forms of different sender
address. The %-f% option or the SMTP MAIL command is used to specify these
different addresses. See section <<SECTtrustedadmin>> for details of trusted
users, and the %untrusted_set_sender% option for a way of allowing untrusted
users to change sender addresses.

Messages received by either of the non-interactive mechanisms are subject to
checking by the non-SMTP ACL, if one is defined. Messages received using SMTP
(either over TCP/IP, or interacting with a local process) can be checked by a
number of ACLs that operate at different times during the SMTP session. Either
individual recipients, or the entire message, can be rejected if local policy
requirements are not met. The 'local_scan()' function (see chapter
<<CHAPlocalscan>>) is run for all incoming messages.

Exim can be configured not to start a delivery process when a message is
received; this can be unconditional, or depend on the number of incoming SMTP
connections or the system load. In these situations, new messages wait on the
queue until a queue runner process picks them up. However, in standard
configurations under normal conditions, delivery is started as soon as a
message is received.





Handling an incoming message
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[spool directory,files that hold a message]
cindex:[file,how a message is held]
When Exim accepts a message, it writes two files in its spool directory. The
first contains the envelope information, the current status of the message, and
the header lines, and the second contains the body of the message. The names of
the two spool files consist of the message id, followed by `-H` for the
file containing the envelope and header, and `-D` for the data file.

cindex:[spool directory,_input_ sub-directory]
By default all these message files are held in a single directory called
_input_ inside the general Exim spool directory. Some operating systems do
not perform very well if the number of files in a directory gets very large; to
improve performance in such cases, the %split_spool_directory% option can be
used. This causes Exim to split up the input files into 62 sub-directories
whose names are single letters or digits.

The envelope information consists of the address of the message's sender and
the addresses of the recipients. This information is entirely separate from
any addresses contained in the header lines. The status of the message includes
a list of recipients who have already received the message. The format of the
first spool file is described in chapter <<CHAPspool>>.

cindex:[rewriting,addresses]
Address rewriting that is specified in the rewrite section of the configuration
(see chapter <<CHAPrewrite>>) is done once and for all on incoming addresses,
both in the header lines and the envelope, at the time the message is accepted.
If during the course of delivery additional addresses are generated (for
example, via aliasing), these new addresses are rewritten as soon as they are
generated. At the time a message is actually delivered (transported) further
rewriting can take place; because this is a transport option, it can be
different for different forms of delivery. It is also possible to specify the
addition or removal of certain header lines at the time the message is
delivered (see chapters <<CHAProutergeneric>> and <<CHAPtransportgeneric>>).



Life of a message
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[message,life of]
cindex:[message,frozen]
A message remains in the spool directory until it is completely delivered to
its recipients or to an error address, or until it is deleted by an
administrator or by the user who originally created it. In cases when delivery
cannot proceed -- for example, when a message can neither be delivered to its
recipients nor returned to its sender, the message is marked ``frozen'' on the
spool, and no more deliveries are attempted.

cindex:[frozen messages,thawing]
cindex:[message,thawing frozen]
An administrator can ``thaw'' such messages when the problem has been corrected,
and can also freeze individual messages by hand if necessary. In addition, an
administrator can force a delivery error, causing a bounce message to be sent.

cindex:[%auto_thaw%]
There is an option called %auto_thaw%, which can be used to cause Exim to
retry frozen messages after a certain time. When this is set, no message will
remain on the queue for ever, because the delivery timeout will eventually be
reached. Delivery failure reports (bounce messages) that reach this timeout are
discarded.

cindex:[%timeout_frozen_after%]
There is also an option called %timeout_frozen_after%, which discards frozen
messages after a certain time.

cindex:[message,log file for]
cindex:[log,file for each message]
While Exim is working on a message, it writes information about each delivery
attempt to the main log file. This includes successful, unsuccessful, and
delayed deliveries for each recipient (see chapter <<CHAPlog>>). The log lines
are also written to a separate 'message log' file for each message. These
logs are solely for the benefit of the administrator, and are normally deleted
along with the spool files when processing of a message is complete.
The use of individual message logs can be disabled by setting
%no_message_logs%; this might give an improvement in performance on very
busy systems.

cindex:[journal file]
cindex:[file,journal]
All the information Exim itself needs to set up a delivery is kept in the first
spool file, along with the header lines. When a successful delivery occurs, the
address is immediately written at the end of a journal file, whose name is the
message id followed by `-J`. At the end of a delivery run, if there are some
addresses left to be tried again later, the first spool file (the `-H` file)
is updated to indicate which these are, and the journal file is then deleted.
Updating the spool file is done by writing a new file and renaming it, to
minimize the possibility of data loss.

Should the system or the program crash after a successful delivery but before
the spool file has been updated, the journal is left lying around. The next
time Exim attempts to deliver the message, it reads the journal file and
updates the spool file before proceeding. This minimizes the chances of double
deliveries caused by crashes.



[[SECTprocaddress]]
Processing an address for delivery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[drivers,definition of]
cindex:[router,definition of]
cindex:[transport,definition of]
The main delivery processing elements of Exim are called 'routers' and
'transports', and collectively these are known as 'drivers'. Code for a
number of them is provided in the source distribution, and compile-time options
specify which ones are included in the binary. Run time options specify which
ones are actually used for delivering messages.

cindex:[drivers,instance definition]
Each driver that is specified in the run time configuration is an 'instance'
of that particular driver type. Multiple instances are allowed; for example,
you can set up several different ^smtp^ transports, each with different
option values that might specify different ports or different timeouts. Each
instance has its own identifying name. In what follows we will normally use the
instance name when discussing one particular instance (that is, one specific
configuration of the driver), and the generic driver name when discussing
the driver's features in general.

A 'router' is a driver that operates on an address, either determining how
its delivery should happen, by routing it to a specific transport, or
converting the address into one or more new addresses (for example, via an
alias file). A router may also explicitly choose to fail an address, causing it
to be bounced.

A 'transport' is a driver that transmits a copy of the message from Exim's
spool to some destination. There are two kinds of transport: for a 'local'
transport, the destination is a file or a pipe on the local host, whereas for a
'remote' transport the destination is some other host. A message is passed
to a specific transport as a result of successful routing. If a message has
several recipients, it may be passed to a number of different transports.

cindex:[preconditions,definition of]
An address is processed by passing it to each configured router instance in
turn, subject to certain preconditions, until a router accepts the address or
specifies that it should be bounced. We will describe this process in more
detail shortly. As a simple example, the diagram below illustrates how each
recipient address in a message is processed in a small configuration of three
routers that are configured in various ways.

To make this a more concrete example, we'll describe it in terms of some actual
routers, but remember, this is only an example. You can configure Exim's
routers in many different ways, and there may be any number of routers in a
configuration.

The first router that is specified in a configuration is often one that handles
addresses in domains that are not recognized specially by the local host. These
are typically addresses for arbitrary domains on the Internet. A precondition
is set up which looks for the special domains known to the host (for example,
its own domain name), and the router is run for addresses that do 'not'
match. Typically, this is a router that looks up domains in the DNS in order to
find the hosts to which this address routes. If it succeeds, the address is
queued for a suitable SMTP transport; if it does not succeed, the router is
configured to fail the address.

///
The example pictured could be a configuration of this type. The second and
third routers can only be run for addresses for which the preconditions for
the first router are not met. If one of these preconditions checks the
domain, the second and third routers are run only for domains that are somehow
special to the local host.
///

The second router does redirection -- also known as aliasing and forwarding.
When it generates one or more new addresses from the original, each of them is
routed independently from the start. Otherwise, the router may cause an address
to fail, or it may simply decline to handle the address, in which case the
address is passed to the next router.

The final router in many configurations is one that checks to see if the
address belongs to a local mailbox. The precondition may involve a check to
see if the local part is the name of a login account, or it may look up the
local part in a file or a database. If its preconditions are not met, or if
the router declines, we have reached the end of the routers. When this happens,
the address is bounced.



Processing an address for verification
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[router,for verification]
cindex:[verifying address, overview]
As well as being used to decide how to deliver to an address, Exim's routers
are also used for 'address verification'. Verification can be requested as
one of the checks to be performed in an ACL for incoming messages, on both
sender and recipient addresses, and it can be tested using the %-bv% and
%-bvs% command line options.

When an address is being verified, the routers are run in ``verify mode''. This
does not affect the way the routers work, but it is a state that can be
detected. By this means, a router can be skipped or made to behave differently
when verifying. A common example is a configuration in which the first router
sends all messages to a message-scanning program, unless they have been
previously scanned. Thus, the first router accepts all addresses without any
checking, making it useless for verifying. Normally, the %no_verify% option
would be set for such a router, causing it to be skipped in verify mode.




[[SECTrunindrou]]
Running an individual router
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[router,running details]
cindex:[preconditions,checking]
cindex:[router,result of running]
As explained in the example above, a number of preconditions are checked before
running a router. If any are not met, the router is skipped, and the address is
passed to the next router. When all the preconditions on a router 'are' met,
the router is run. What happens next depends on the outcome, which is one of
the following:

- 'accept': The router accepts the address, and either queues it for a
transport, or generates one or more ``child'' addresses. Processing the original
address ceases,
cindex:[%unseen% option]
unless the %unseen% option is set on the router. This option
can be used to set up multiple deliveries with different routing (for example,
for keeping archive copies of messages). When %unseen% is set, the address is
passed to the next router. Normally, however, an 'accept' return marks the
end of routing.
+
cindex:[case of local parts]
cindex:[address duplicate, discarding]
If child addresses are generated, Exim checks to see whether they are
duplicates of any existing recipient addresses. During this check, local parts
are treated as case-sensitive. Duplicate addresses are discarded. Each of the
remaining child addresses is then processed independently, starting with the
first router by default. It is possible to change this by setting the
%redirect_router% option to specify which router to start at for child
addresses. Unlike %pass_router% (see below) the router specified by
%redirect_router% may be anywhere in the router configuration.

- 'pass': The router recognizes the address, but cannot handle it itself. It
requests that the address be passed to another router. By default the address
is passed to the next router, but this can be changed by setting the
%pass_router% option. However, (unlike %redirect_router%) the named router
must be below the current router (to avoid loops).

- 'decline': The router declines to accept the address because it does not
recognize it at all. By default, the address is passed to the next router, but
this can be prevented by setting the %no_more% option. When %no_more% is set,
all the remaining routers are skipped.

- 'fail': The router determines that the address should fail, and queues it for
the generation of a bounce message. There is no further processing of the
original address unless %unseen% is set on the router.

- 'defer': The router cannot handle the address at the present time. (A database
may be offline, or a DNS lookup may have timed out.) No further processing of
the address happens in this delivery attempt. It is tried again next time the
message is considered for delivery.

- 'error': There is some error in the router (for example, a syntax error in
its configuration). The action is as for defer.

If an address reaches the end of the routers without having been accepted by
any of them, it is bounced as unrouteable.
The default error message in this situation is ``unrouteable address'', but you
can set your own message by making use of the %cannot_route_message% option.
This can be set for any router; the value from the last router that ``saw''
the address is used.

Sometimes while routing you want to fail a delivery when some conditions are
met but others are not, instead of passing the address on for further routing.
You can do this by having a second router that explicitly fails the delivery
when the relevant conditions are met. The ^redirect^ router has a ``fail''
facility for this purpose.




[[SECTrouprecon]]
Router preconditions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[router preconditions, order of processing]
cindex:[preconditions,order of processing]
The preconditions that are tested for each router are listed below, in the
order in which they are tested. The individual configuration options are
described in more detail in chapter <<CHAProutergeneric>>.

- The %local_part_prefix% and %local_part_suffix% options can specify that
the local parts handled by the router may or must have certain prefixes and/or
suffixes. If a mandatory affix (prefix or suffix) is not present, the router is
skipped. These conditions are tested first. When an affix is present, it is
removed from the local part before further processing, including the evaluation
of any other conditions.

- Routers can be designated for use only when not verifying an address, that is,
only when routing it for delivery (or testing its delivery routing). If the
%verify% option is set false, the router is skipped when Exim is verifying an
address.
Setting the %verify% option actually sets two options, %verify_sender% and
%verify_recipient%, which independently control the use of the router for
sender and recipient verification. You can set these options directly if
you want a router to be used for only one type of verification.

- If the %address_test% option is set false, the router is skipped when Exim is
run with the %-bt% option to test an address routing. This can be helpful when
the first router sends all new messages to a scanner of some sort; it makes it
possible to use %-bt% to test subsequent delivery routing without having to
simulate the effect of the scanner.

- Routers can be designated for use only when verifying an address, as
opposed to routing it for delivery. The %verify_only% option controls this.

- Certain routers can be explicitly skipped when running the routers to check an
address given in the SMTP EXPN command (see the %expn% option).

- If the %domains% option is set, the domain of the address must be in the set of
domains that it defines.

- If the %local_parts% option is set, the local part of the address must be in
the set of local parts that it defines. If %local_part_prefix% or
%local_part_suffix% is in use, the prefix or suffix is removed from the local
part before this check. If you want to do precondition tests on local parts
that include affixes, you can do so by using a %condition% option (see below)
that uses the variables $local_part$, $local_part_prefix$, and
$local_part_suffix$ as necessary.

- If the %check_local_user% option is set, the local part must be the name of
an account on the local host.
If this check succeeds, the uid and gid of the local user are placed in
$local_user_uid$ and $local_user_gid$; these values can be used in the
remaining preconditions.

- If the %router_home_directory% option is set, it is expanded at this point,
because it overrides the value of $home$. If this expansion were left till
later, the value of $home$ as set by %check_local_user% would be used in
subsequent tests. Having two different values of $home$ in the same router
could lead to confusion.

- If the %senders% option is set, the envelope sender address must be in the set
of addresses that it defines.

- If the %require_files% option is set, the existence or non-existence of
specified files is tested.

- cindex:[customizing,precondition]
If the %condition% option is set, it is evaluated and tested. This option uses
an expanded string to allow you to set up your own custom preconditions.
Expanded strings are described in chapter <<CHAPexpand>>.


Note that %require_files% comes near the end of the list, so you cannot use it
to check for the existence of a file in which to lookup up a domain, local
part, or sender. However, as these options are all expanded, you can use the
%exists% expansion condition to make such tests within each condition. The
%require_files% option is intended for checking files that the router may be
going to use internally, or which are needed by a specific transport (for
example, _.procmailrc_).



Delivery in detail
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[delivery,in detail]
When a message is to be delivered, the sequence of events is as follows:

- If a system-wide filter file is specified, the message is passed to it. The
filter may add recipients to the message, replace the recipients, discard the
message, cause a new message to be generated, or cause the message delivery to
fail. The format of the system filter file is the same as for Exim user filter
files, described in the separate document entitled
'Exim's interfaces to mail filtering'.
cindex:[Sieve filter,not available for system filter]
(*Note*: Sieve cannot be used for system filter files.)
+
Some additional features are available in system filters -- see chapter
<<CHAPsystemfilter>> for details. Note that a message is passed to the system
filter only once per delivery attempt, however many recipients it has. However,
if there are several delivery attempts because one or more addresses could not
be immediately delivered, the system filter is run each time. The filter
condition %first_delivery% can be used to detect the first run of the system
filter.

- Each recipient address is offered to each configured router in turn, subject
to its preconditions, until one is able to handle it. If no router can handle
the address, that is, if they all decline, the address is failed. Because
routers can be targeted at particular domains, several locally handled domains
can be processed entirely independently of each other.

- cindex:[routing,loops in]
cindex:[loop,while routing]
A router that accepts an address may set up a local or a remote transport for
it. However, the transport is not run at this time. Instead, the address is
placed on a list for the particular transport, to be run later. Alternatively,
the router may generate one or more new addresses (typically from alias,
forward, or filter files). New addresses are fed back into this process from
the top, but in order to avoid loops, a router ignores any address which has an
identically-named ancestor that was processed by itself.

- When all the routing has been done, addresses that have been successfully
handled are passed to their assigned transports. When local transports are
doing real local deliveries, they handle only one address at a time, but if a
local transport is being used as a pseudo-remote transport (for example, to
collect batched SMTP messages for transmission by some other means) multiple
addresses can be handled. Remote transports can always handle more than one
address at a time, but can be configured not to do so, or to restrict multiple
addresses to the same domain.

- Each local delivery to a file or a pipe runs in a separate process under a
non-privileged uid, and these deliveries are run one at a time. Remote
deliveries also run in separate processes, normally under a uid that is private
to Exim (``the Exim user''), but in this case, several remote deliveries can be
run in parallel. The maximum number of simultaneous remote deliveries for any
one message is set by the %remote_max_parallel% option.
The order in which deliveries are done is not defined, except that all local
deliveries happen before any remote deliveries.

- cindex:[queue runner]
When it encounters a local delivery during a queue run, Exim checks its retry
database to see if there has been a previous temporary delivery failure for the
address before running the local transport. If there was a previous failure,
Exim does not attempt a new delivery until the retry time for the address is
reached. However, this happens only for delivery attempts that are part of a
queue run. Local deliveries are always attempted when delivery immediately
follows message reception, even if retry times are set for them. This makes for
better behaviour if one particular message is causing problems (for example,
causing quota overflow, or provoking an error in a filter file).

- cindex:[delivery,retry in remote transports]
Remote transports do their own retry handling, since an address may be
deliverable to one of a number of hosts, each of which may have a different
retry time. If there have been previous temporary failures and no host has
reached its retry time, no delivery is attempted, whether in a queue run or
not. See chapter <<CHAPretry>> for details of retry strategies.

- If there were any permanent errors, a bounce message is returned to an
appropriate address (the sender in the common case), with details of the error
for each failing address. Exim can be configured to send copies of bounce
messages to other addresses.

- cindex:[delivery,deferral]
If one or more addresses suffered a temporary failure, the message is left on
the queue, to be tried again later. Delivery of these addresses is said to be
'deferred'.

- When all the recipient addresses have either been delivered or bounced,
handling of the message is complete. The spool files and message log are
deleted, though the message log can optionally be preserved if required.




Retry mechanism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[delivery,retry mechanism]
cindex:[retry,description of mechanism]
cindex:[queue runner]
Exim's mechanism for retrying messages that fail to get delivered at the first
attempt is the queue runner process. You must either run an Exim daemon that
uses the %-q% option with a time interval to start queue runners at regular
intervals, or use some other means (such as 'cron') to start them. If you do
not arrange for queue runners to be run, messages that fail temporarily at the
first attempt will remain on your queue for ever. A queue runner process works
it way through the queue, one message at a time, trying each delivery that has
passed its retry time.
You can run several queue runners at once.

Exim uses a set of configured rules to determine when next to retry the failing
address (see chapter <<CHAPretry>>). These rules also specify when Exim should
give up trying to deliver to the address, at which point it generates a bounce
message. If no retry rules are set for a particular host, address, and error
combination, no retries are attempted, and temporary errors are treated as
permanent.



Temporary delivery failure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[delivery,temporary failure]
There are many reasons why a message may not be immediately deliverable to a
particular address. Failure to connect to a remote machine (because it, or the
connection to it, is down) is one of the most common. Temporary failures may be
detected during routing as well as during the transport stage of delivery.
Local deliveries may be delayed if NFS files are unavailable, or if a mailbox
is on a file system where the user is over quota. Exim can be configured to
impose its own quotas on local mailboxes; where system quotas are set they will
also apply.

If a host is unreachable for a period of time, a number of messages may be
waiting for it by the time it recovers, and sending them in a single SMTP
connection is clearly beneficial. Whenever a delivery to a remote host is
deferred,

cindex:[hints database]
Exim makes a note in its hints database, and whenever a successful
SMTP delivery has happened, it looks to see if any other messages are waiting
for the same host. If any are found, they are sent over the same SMTP
connection, subject to a configuration limit as to the maximum number in any
one connection.




Permanent delivery failure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[delivery,permanent failure]
cindex:[bounce message,when generated]
When a message cannot be delivered to some or all of its intended recipients, a
bounce message is generated. Temporary delivery failures turn into permanent
errors when their timeout expires. All the addresses that fail in a given
delivery attempt are listed in a single message. If the original message has
many recipients, it is possible for some addresses to fail in one delivery
attempt and others to fail subsequently, giving rise to more than one bounce
message. The wording of bounce messages can be customized by the administrator.
See chapter <<CHAPemsgcust>> for details.

cindex:['X-Failed-Recipients:' header line]
Bounce messages contain an 'X-Failed-Recipients:' header line that lists the
failed addresses, for the benefit of programs that try to analyse such messages
automatically.

cindex:[bounce message,recipient of]
A bounce message is normally sent to the sender of the original message, as
obtained from the message's envelope. For incoming SMTP messages, this is the
address given in the MAIL command. However, when an address is
expanded via a forward or alias file, an alternative address can be specified
for delivery failures of the generated addresses. For a mailing list expansion
(see section <<SECTmailinglists>>) it is common to direct bounce messages to the
manager of the list.




Failures to deliver bounce messages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[bounce message,failure to deliver]
If a bounce message (either locally generated or received from a remote host)
itself suffers a permanent delivery failure, the message is left on the queue,
but it is frozen, awaiting the attention of an administrator. There are options
which can be used to make Exim discard such failed messages, or to keep them
for only a short time (see %timeout_frozen_after% and
%ignore_bounce_errors_after%).





////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Building and installing Exim
----------------------------

cindex:[building Exim]

Unpacking
~~~~~~~~~
Exim is distributed as a gzipped or bzipped tar file which, when upacked,
creates a directory with the name of the current release (for example,
_exim-{version}_) into which the following files are placed:

[frame="none"]
`--------------------`--------------------------------------------------------
_ACKNOWLEDGMENTS_    contains some acknowledgments
_CHANGES_            contains a reference to where changes are documented
_LICENCE_            the GNU General Public Licence
_Makefile_           top-level make file
_NOTICE_             conditions for the use of Exim
_README_             list of files, directories and simple build instructions
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other files whose names begin with _README_ may also be present. The
following subdirectories are created:

[frame="none"]
`--------------------`------------------------------------------------
_Local_              an empty directory for local configuration files
_OS_                 OS-specific files
_doc_                documentation files
_exim_monitor_       source files for the Exim monitor
_scripts_            scripts used in the build process
_src_                remaining source files
_util_               independent utilities
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The main utility programs are contained in the _src_ directory, and are built
with the Exim binary. The _util_ directory contains a few optional scripts
that may be useful to some sites.


Multiple machine architectures and operating systems
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[building Exim,multiple OS/architectures]
The building process for Exim is arranged to make it easy to build binaries for
a number of different architectures and operating systems from the same set of
source files. Compilation does not take place in the _src_ directory. Instead,
a 'build directory' is created for each architecture and operating system.

cindex:[symbolic link,to build directory]
Symbolic links to the sources are installed in this directory, which is where
the actual building takes place.

In most cases, Exim can discover the machine architecture and operating system
for itself, but the defaults can be overridden if necessary.


[[SECTdb]]
DBM libraries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DBM libraries, discussion of]
cindex:[hints database,DBM files used for]
Even if you do not use any DBM files in your configuration, Exim still needs a
DBM library in order to operate, because it uses indexed files for its hints
databases. Unfortunately, there are a number of DBM libraries in existence, and
different operating systems often have different ones installed.

cindex:[Solaris,DBM library for]
cindex:[IRIX, DBM library for]
cindex:[BSD, DBM library for]
cindex:[Linux, DBM library for]
If you are using Solaris, IRIX, one of the modern BSD systems, or a modern
Linux distribution, the DBM configuration should happen automatically, and you
may be able to ignore this section. Otherwise, you may have to learn more than
you would like about DBM libraries from what follows.

cindex:['ndbm' DBM library]
Licensed versions of Unix normally contain a library of DBM functions operating
via the 'ndbm' interface, and this is what Exim expects by default. Free
versions of Unix seem to vary in what they contain as standard. In particular,
some early versions of Linux have no default DBM library, and different
distributors have chosen to bundle different libraries with their packaged
versions. However, the more recent releases seem to have standardised on the
Berkeley DB library.

Different DBM libraries have different conventions for naming the files they
use. When a program opens a file called _dbmfile_, there are four
possibilities:

. A traditional 'ndbm' implementation, such as that supplied as part of
Solaris, operates on two files called _dbmfile.dir_ and _dbmfile.pag_.

. cindex:['gdbm' DBM library]
The GNU library, 'gdbm', operates on a single file. If used via its 'ndbm'
compatibility interface it makes two different hard links to it with names
_dbmfile.dir_ and _dbmfile.pag_, but if used via its native interface, the
file name is used unmodified.

. cindex:[Berkeley DB library]
The Berkeley DB package, if called via its 'ndbm' compatibility interface,
operates on a single file called _dbmfile.db_, but otherwise looks to the
programmer exactly the same as the traditional 'ndbm' implementation.

. If the Berkeley package is used in its native mode, it operates on a single
file called _dbmfile_; the programmer's interface is somewhat different to
the traditional 'ndbm' interface.

. To complicate things further, there are several very different versions of the
Berkeley DB package. Version 1.85 was stable for a very long time, releases
2.'x' and 3.'x' were current for a while, but the latest versions are now
numbered 4.'x'. Maintenance of some of the earlier releases has ceased. All
versions of Berkeley DB can be obtained from
+
&&&
*http://www.sleepycat.com/[]*
&&&

. cindex:['tdb' DBM library]
Yet another DBM library, called 'tdb', has become available from
+
&&&
*http://download.sourceforge.net/tdb[]*
&&&
+
It has its own interface, and also operates on a single file.

cindex:[USE_DB]
cindex:[DBM libraries, configuration for building]
Exim and its utilities can be compiled to use any of these interfaces. In order
to use any version of the Berkeley DB package in native mode, you must set
USE_DB in an appropriate configuration file (typically
_Local/Makefile_). For example:

  USE_DB=yes

Similarly, for gdbm you set USE_GDBM, and for tdb you set USE_TDB. An
error is diagnosed if you set more than one of these.

At the lowest level, the build-time configuration sets none of these options,
thereby assuming an interface of type (1). However, some operating system
configuration files (for example, those for the BSD operating systems and
Linux) assume type (4) by setting USE_DB as their default, and the
configuration files for Cygwin set USE_GDBM. Anything you set in
_Local/Makefile_, however, overrides these system defaults.

As well as setting USE_DB, USE_GDBM, or USE_TDB, it may also be
necessary to set DBMLIB, to cause inclusion of the appropriate library, as
in one of these lines:

  DBMLIB = -ldb
  DBMLIB = -ltdb

Settings like that will work if the DBM library is installed in the standard
place. Sometimes it is not, and the library's header file may also not be in
the default path. You may need to set INCLUDE to specify where the header
file is, and to specify the path to the library more fully in DBMLIB, as in
this example:

  INCLUDE=-I/usr/local/include/db-4.1
  DBMLIB=/usr/local/lib/db-4.1/libdb.a


There is further detailed discussion about the various DBM libraries in the
file _doc/dbm.discuss.txt_ in the Exim distribution.



Pre-building configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[building Exim,pre-building configuration]
cindex:[configuration for building Exim]
cindex:[_Local/Makefile_]
cindex:[_src/EDITME_]
Before building Exim, a local configuration file that specifies options
independent of any operating system has to be created with the name
_Local/Makefile_. A template for this file is supplied as the file
_src/EDITME_, and it contains full descriptions of all the option settings
therein. These descriptions are therefore not repeated here. If you are
building Exim for the first time, the simplest thing to do is to copy
_src/EDITME_ to _Local/Makefile_, then read it and edit it appropriately.

There are three settings that you must supply, because Exim will not build
without them. They are the location of the run time configuration file
(CONFIGURE_FILE), the directory in which Exim binaries will be installed
(BIN_DIRECTORY), and the identity of the Exim user (EXIM_USER and
maybe EXIM_GROUP as well). The value of CONFIGURE_FILE can in fact be
a colon-separated list of file names; Exim uses the first of them that exists.

There are a few other parameters that can be specified either at build time or
at run time, to enable the same binary to be used on a number of different
machines. However, if the locations of Exim's spool directory and log file
directory (if not within the spool directory) are fixed, it is recommended that
you specify them in _Local/Makefile_ instead of at run time, so that errors
detected early in Exim's execution (such as a malformed configuration file) can
be logged.

cindex:[content scanning,specifying at build time]
Exim's interfaces for calling virus and spam scanning sofware directly from
access control lists are not compiled by default. If you want to include these
facilities, you need to set

  WITH_CONTENT_SCAN=yes

in your _Local/Makefile_. For details of the facilities themselves, see
chapter <<CHAPexiscan>>.


cindex:[_Local/eximon.conf_]
cindex:[_exim_monitor/EDITME_]
If you are going to build the Exim monitor, a similar configuration process is
required. The file _exim_monitor/EDITME_ must be edited appropriately for
your installation and saved under the name _Local/eximon.conf_. If you are
happy with the default settings described in _exim_monitor/EDITME_,
_Local/eximon.conf_ can be empty, but it must exist.

This is all the configuration that is needed in straightforward cases for known
operating systems. However, the building process is set up so that it is easy
to override options that are set by default or by operating-system-specific
configuration files, for example to change the name of the C compiler, which
defaults to %gcc%. See section <<SECToverride>> below for details of how to do
this.



Support for iconv()
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['iconv()' support]
The contents of header lines in messages may be encoded according to the rules
described RFC 2047. This makes it possible to transmit characters that are not
in the ASCII character set, and to label them as being in a particular
character set. When Exim is inspecting header lines by means of the %\$h_%
mechanism, it decodes them, and translates them into a specified character set
(default ISO-8859-1). The translation is possible only if the operating system
supports the 'iconv()' function.

However, some of the operating systems that supply 'iconv()' do not support
very many conversions. The GNU %libiconv% library (available from
*http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/[]*) can be installed on such systems to
remedy this deficiency, as well as on systems that do not supply 'iconv()' at
all. After installing %libiconv%, you should add

  HAVE_ICONV=yes

to your _Local/Makefile_ and rebuild Exim.



[[SECTinctlsssl]]
Including TLS/SSL encryption support
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[TLS,including support for TLS]
cindex:[encryption,including support for]
cindex:[SUPPORT_TLS]
cindex:[OpenSSL,building Exim with]
cindex:[GnuTLS,building Exim with]
Exim can be built to support encrypted SMTP connections, using the STARTTLS
command as per RFC 2487. It can also support legacy clients that expect to
start a TLS session immediately on connection to a non-standard port (see the
%tls_on_connect_ports% runtime option and the %-tls-on-connect% command
line option).

If you want to build Exim with TLS support, you must first install either the
OpenSSL or GnuTLS library. There is no cryptographic code in Exim itself for
implementing SSL.

If OpenSSL is installed, you should set

  SUPPORT_TLS=yes
  TLS_LIBS=-lssl -lcrypto

in _Local/Makefile_. You may also need to specify the locations of the
OpenSSL library and include files. For example:

  SUPPORT_TLS=yes
  TLS_LIBS=-L/usr/local/openssl/lib -lssl -lcrypto
  TLS_INCLUDE=-I/usr/local/openssl/include/

cindex:[USE_GNUTLS]
If GnuTLS is installed, you should set

  SUPPORT_TLS=yes
  USE_GNUTLS=yes
  TLS_LIBS=-lgnutls -ltasn1 -lgcrypt

in _Local/Makefile_, and again you may need to specify the locations of the
library and include files. For example:

  SUPPORT_TLS=yes
  USE_GNUTLS=yes
  TLS_LIBS=-L/usr/gnu/lib -lgnutls -ltasn1 -lgcrypt
  TLS_INCLUDE=-I/usr/gnu/include

You do not need to set TLS_INCLUDE if the relevant directory is already
specified in INCLUDE. Details of how to configure Exim to make use of TLS
are given in chapter <<CHAPTLS>>.




Use of tcpwrappers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[tcpwrappers, building Exim to support]
cindex:[USE_TCP_WRAPPERS]
Exim can be linked with the 'tcpwrappers' library in order to check incoming
SMTP calls using the 'tcpwrappers' control files. This may be a convenient
alternative to Exim's own checking facilities for installations that are
already making use of 'tcpwrappers' for other purposes. To do this, you should
set USE_TCP_WRAPPERS in _Local/Makefile_, arrange for the file
_tcpd.h_ to be available at compile time, and also ensure that the library
_libwrap.a_ is available at link time, typically by including %-lwrap% in
EXTRALIBS_EXIM. For example, if 'tcpwrappers' is installed in
_/usr/local_, you might have

  USE_TCP_WRAPPERS=yes
  CFLAGS=-O -I/usr/local/include
  EXTRALIBS_EXIM=-L/usr/local/lib -lwrap

in _Local/Makefile_. The name to use in the 'tcpwrappers' control files is
``exim''. For example, the line

  exim : LOCAL  192.168.1.  .friendly.domain.example

in your _/etc/hosts.allow_ file allows connections from the local host, from
the subnet 192.168.1.0/24, and from all hosts in 'friendly.domain.example'.
All other connections are denied. Consult the 'tcpwrappers' documentation for
further details.



Including support for IPv6
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[IPv6,including support for]
Exim contains code for use on systems that have IPv6 support. Setting
`HAVE_IPV6=YES` in _Local/Makefile_ causes the IPv6 code to be included;
it may also be necessary to set IPV6_INCLUDE and IPV6_LIBS on systems
where the IPv6 support is not fully integrated into the normal include and
library files.

Two different types of DNS record for handling IPv6 addresses have been
defined. AAAA records (analagous to A records for IPv4) are in use, and are
currently seen as the mainstream. Another record type called A6 was proposed
as better than AAAA because it had more flexibility. However, it was felt to be
over-complex, and its status was reduced to ``experimental''. It is not known
if anyone is actually using A6 records. Exim has support for A6 records, but
this is included only if you set `SUPPORT_A6=YES` in _Local/Makefile_. The
support has not been tested for some time.



The building process
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[build directory]
Once _Local/Makefile_ (and _Local/eximon.conf_, if required) have been
created, run 'make' at the top level. It determines the architecture and
operating system types, and creates a build directory if one does not exist.
For example, on a Sun system running Solaris 8, the directory
_build-SunOS5-5.8-sparc_ is created.
cindex:[symbolic link,to source files]
Symbolic links to relevant source files are installed in the build directory.

*Warning*: The %-j% (parallel) flag must not be used with 'make'; the
building process fails if it is set.

If this is the first time 'make' has been run, it calls a script that builds
a make file inside the build directory, using the configuration files from the
_Local_ directory. The new make file is then passed to another instance of
'make'. This does the real work, building a number of utility scripts, and
then compiling and linking the binaries for the Exim monitor (if configured), a
number of utility programs, and finally Exim itself. The command 'make
makefile' can be used to force a rebuild of the make file in the build
directory, should this ever be necessary.

If you have problems building Exim, check for any comments there may be in the
_README_ file concerning your operating system, and also take a look at the
FAQ, where some common problems are covered.




[[SECToverride]]
Overriding build-time options for Exim
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[build-time options, overriding]
The main make file that is created at the beginning of the building process
consists of the concatenation of a number of files which set configuration
values, followed by a fixed set of 'make' instructions. If a value is set
more than once, the last setting overrides any previous ones. This provides a
convenient way of overriding defaults. The files that are concatenated are, in
order:

&&&
_OS/Makefile-Default_
_OS/Makefile-_<'ostype'>
_Local/Makefile_
_Local/Makefile-_<'ostype'>
_Local/Makefile-_<'archtype'>
_Local/Makefile-_<'ostype'>-<'archtype'>
_OS/Makefile-Base_
&&&

cindex:[_Local/Makefile_]
cindex:[building Exim,operating system type]
cindex:[building Exim,architecture type]
where <'ostype'> is the operating system type and <'archtype'> is the
architecture type. _Local/Makefile_ is required to exist, and the building
process fails if it is absent. The other three _Local_ files are optional,
and are often not needed.

The values used for <'ostype'> and <'archtype'> are obtained from scripts
called _scripts/os-type_ and _scripts/arch-type_ respectively. If either of
the environment variables EXIM_OSTYPE or EXIM_ARCHTYPE is set, their
values are used, thereby providing a means of forcing particular settings.
Otherwise, the scripts try to get values from the %uname% command. If this
fails, the shell variables OSTYPE and ARCHTYPE are inspected. A number
of 'ad hoc' transformations are then applied, to produce the standard names
that Exim expects. You can run these scripts directly from the shell in order
to find out what values are being used on your system.


_OS/Makefile-Default_ contains comments about the variables that are set
therein. Some (but not all) are mentioned below. If there is something that
needs changing, review the contents of this file and the contents of the make
file for your operating system (_OS/Makefile-<ostype>_) to see what the
default values are.


cindex:[building Exim,overriding default settings]
If you need to change any of the values that are set in _OS/Makefile-Default_
or in _OS/Makefile-<ostype>_, or to add any new definitions, you do not
need to change the original files. Instead, you should make the changes by
putting the new values in an appropriate _Local_ file. For example,
cindex:[Tru64-Unix build-time settings]
when building Exim in many releases of the Tru64-Unix (formerly Digital UNIX,
formerly DEC-OSF1) operating system, it is necessary to specify that the C
compiler is called 'cc' rather than 'gcc'. Also, the compiler must be
called with the option %-std1%, to make it recognize some of the features of
Standard C that Exim uses. (Most other compilers recognize Standard C by
default.) To do this, you should create a file called _Local/Makefile-OSF1_
containing the lines

  CC=cc
  CFLAGS=-std1

If you are compiling for just one operating system, it may be easier to put
these lines directly into _Local/Makefile_.

Keeping all your local configuration settings separate from the distributed
files makes it easy to transfer them to new versions of Exim simply by copying
the contents of the _Local_ directory.


cindex:[NIS lookup type,including support for]
cindex:[NIS+ lookup type,including support for]
cindex:[LDAP,including support for]
cindex:[lookup,inclusion in binary]
Exim contains support for doing LDAP, NIS, NIS+, and other kinds of file
lookup, but not all systems have these components installed, so the default is
not to include the relevant code in the binary. All the different kinds of file
and database lookup that Exim supports are implemented as separate code modules
which are included only if the relevant compile-time options are set. In the
case of LDAP, NIS, and NIS+, the settings for _Local/Makefile_ are:

  LOOKUP_LDAP=yes
  LOOKUP_NIS=yes
  LOOKUP_NISPLUS=yes

and similar settings apply to the other lookup types. They are all listed in
_src/EDITME_. In most cases the relevant include files and interface
libraries need to be installed before compiling Exim.
cindex:[cdb,including support for]
However, in the case of cdb, which is included in the binary only if

  LOOKUP_CDB=yes

is set, the code is entirely contained within Exim, and no external include
files or libraries are required. When a lookup type is not included in the
binary, attempts to configure Exim to use it cause run time configuration
errors.

cindex:[Perl,including support for]
Exim can be linked with an embedded Perl interpreter, allowing Perl
subroutines to be called during string expansion. To enable this facility,

  EXIM_PERL=perl.o

must be defined in _Local/Makefile_. Details of this facility are given in
chapter <<CHAPperl>>.

cindex:[X11 libraries, location of]
The location of the X11 libraries is something that varies a lot between
operating systems, and of course there are different versions of X11 to cope
with. Exim itself makes no use of X11, but if you are compiling the Exim
monitor, the X11 libraries must be available.
The following three variables are set in _OS/Makefile-Default_:

  X11=/usr/X11R6
  XINCLUDE=-I$(X11)/include
  XLFLAGS=-L$(X11)/lib

These are overridden in some of the operating-system configuration files. For
example, in _OS/Makefile-SunOS5_ there is

  X11=/usr/openwin
  XINCLUDE=-I$(X11)/include
  XLFLAGS=-L$(X11)/lib -R$(X11)/lib

If you need to override the default setting for your operating system, place a
definition of all three of these variables into your
_Local/Makefile-<ostype>_ file.

cindex:[EXTRALIBS]
If you need to add any extra libraries to the link steps, these can be put in a
variable called EXTRALIBS, which appears in all the link commands, but by
default is not defined. In contrast, EXTRALIBS_EXIM is used only on the
command for linking the main Exim binary, and not for any associated utilities.

cindex:[DBM libraries, configuration for building]
There is also DBMLIB, which appears in the link commands for binaries that
use DBM functions (see also section <<SECTdb>>). Finally, there is
EXTRALIBS_EXIMON, which appears only in the link step for the Exim monitor
binary, and which can be used, for example, to include additional X11
libraries.

cindex:[configuration file,editing]
The make file copes with rebuilding Exim correctly if any of the configuration
files are edited. However, if an optional configuration file is deleted, it is
necessary to touch the associated non-optional file (that is, _Local/Makefile_
or _Local/eximon.conf_) before rebuilding.


OS-specific header files
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[_os.h_]
cindex:[building Exim,OS-specific C header files]
The _OS_ directory contains a number of files with names of the form
_os.h-<ostype>_. These are system-specific C header files that should not
normally need to be changed. There is a list of macro settings that are
recognized in the file _OS/os.configuring_, which should be consulted if you
are porting Exim to a new operating system.



Overriding build-time options for the monitor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[building Eximon,overriding default options]
A similar process is used for overriding things when building the Exim monitor,
where the files that are involved are

&&&
_OS/eximon.conf-Default_
_OS/eximon.conf-_<'ostype'>
_Local/eximon.conf_
_Local/eximon.conf-_<'ostype'>
_Local/eximon.conf-_<'archtype'>
_Local/eximon.conf-_<'ostype'>-<'archtype'>
&&&

cindex:[_Local/eximon.conf_]
As with Exim itself, the final three files need not exist, and in this case the
_OS/eximon.conf-<ostype>_ file is also optional. The default values in
_OS/eximon.conf-Default_ can be overridden dynamically by setting environment
variables of the same name, preceded by EXIMON_. For example, setting
EXIMON_LOG_DEPTH in the environment overrides the value of
LOG_DEPTH at run time.




Installing Exim binaries and scripts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[installing Exim]
cindex:[BIN_DIRECTORY]
The command 'make install' runs the 'exim_install' script with no
arguments. The script copies binaries and utility scripts into the directory
whose name is specified by the BIN_DIRECTORY setting in
_Local/Makefile_.

cindex:[CONFIGURE_FILE]
Exim's run time configuration file is named by the CONFIGURE_FILE setting
in _Local/Makefile_. If this names a single file, and the file does not
exist, the default configuration file _src/configure.default_ is copied there
by the installation script. If a run time configuration file already exists, it
is left alone. If CONFIGURE_FILE is a colon-separated list, naming several
alternative files, no default is installed.

cindex:[system aliases file]
cindex:[_/etc/aliases_]
One change is made to the default configuration file when it is installed: the
default configuration contains a router that references a system aliases file.
The path to this file is set to the value specified by
SYSTEM_ALIASES_FILE in _Local/Makefile_ (_/etc/aliases_ by default).
If the system aliases file does not exist, the installation script creates it,
and outputs a comment to the user.

The created file contains no aliases, but it does contain comments about the
aliases a site should normally have. Mail aliases have traditionally been
kept in _/etc/aliases_. However, some operating systems are now using
_/etc/mail/aliases_. You should check if yours is one of these, and change
Exim's configuration if necessary.

The default configuration uses the local host's name as the only local domain,
and is set up to do local deliveries into the shared directory _/var/mail_,
running as the local user. System aliases and _.forward_ files in users' home
directories are supported, but no NIS or NIS+ support is configured. Domains
other than the name of the local host are routed using the DNS, with delivery
over SMTP.

cindex:[setuid,installing Exim with]
The install script copies files only if they are newer than the files they are
going to replace. The Exim binary is required to be owned by root and have the
'setuid' bit set, for normal configurations. Therefore, you must run 'make
install' as root so that it can set up the Exim binary in this way. However, in
some special situations (for example, if a host is doing no local deliveries)
it may be possible to run Exim without making the binary setuid root (see
chapter <<CHAPsecurity>> for details).

It is possible to install Exim for special purposes (such as building a binary
distribution) in a private part of the file system. You can do this by a
command such as

  make DESTDIR=/some/directory/ install

This has the effect of pre-pending the specified directory to all the file
paths, except the name of the system aliases file that appears in the default
configuration. (If a default alias file is created, its name 'is' modified.)
For backwards compatibility, ROOT is used if DESTDIR is not set,
but this usage is deprecated.

cindex:[installing Exim,what is not installed]
Running 'make install' does not copy the Exim 4 conversion script
'convert4r4', or the 'pcretest' test program. You will probably run the
first of these only once (if you are upgrading from Exim 3), and the second
isn't really part of Exim. None of the documentation files in the _doc_
directory are copied, except for the info files when you have set
INFO_DIRECTORY, as described in section <<SECTinsinfdoc>> below.

For the utility programs, old versions are renamed by adding the suffix _.O_
to their names. The Exim binary itself, however, is handled differently. It is
installed under a name that includes the version number and the compile number,
for example _exim-{version}-1_. The script then arranges for a symbolic link
called _exim_ to point to the binary. If you are updating a previous version
of Exim, the script takes care to ensure that the name _exim_ is never absent
from the directory (as seen by other processes).

cindex:[installing Exim,testing the script]
If you want to see what the 'make install' will do before running it for
real, you can pass the %-n% option to the installation script by this command:

  make INSTALL_ARG=-n install

The contents of the variable INSTALL_ARG are passed to the installation
script. You do not need to be root to run this test. Alternatively, you can run
the installation script directly, but this must be from within the build
directory. For example, from the top-level Exim directory you could use this
command:

  (cd build-SunOS5-5.5.1-sparc; ../scripts/exim_install -n)

cindex:[installing Exim,install script options]
There are two other options that can be supplied to the installation script.

- %-no_chown% bypasses the call to change the owner of the installed binary
to root, and the call to make it a setuid binary.

- %-no_symlink% bypasses the setting up of the symbolic link _exim_ to the
installed binary.

INSTALL_ARG can be used to pass these options to the script. For example:

  make INSTALL_ARG=-no_symlink install


The installation script can also be given arguments specifying which files are
to be copied. For example, to install just the Exim binary, and nothing else,
without creating the symbolic link, you could use:

  make INSTALL_ARG='-no_symlink exim' install




[[SECTinsinfdoc]]
Installing info documentation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[installing Exim,'info' documentation]
Not all systems use the GNU 'info' system for documentation, and for this
reason, the Texinfo source of Exim's documentation is not included in the main
distribution. Instead it is available separately from the ftp site (see section
<<SECTavail>>).

If you have defined INFO_DIRECTORY in _Local/Makefile_ and the Texinfo
source of the documentation is found in the source tree, running 'make
install' automatically builds the info files and installs them.



Setting up the spool directory
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[spool directory,creating]
When it starts up, Exim tries to create its spool directory if it does not
exist. The Exim uid and gid are used for the owner and group of the spool
directory. Sub-directories are automatically created in the spool directory as
necessary.




Testing
~~~~~~~
cindex:[testing,installation]
Having installed Exim, you can check that the run time configuration file is
syntactically valid by running the following command, which assumes that the
Exim binary directory is within your PATH environment variable:

  exim -bV

If there are any errors in the configuration file, Exim outputs error messages.
Otherwise it outputs the version number and build date,
the DBM library that is being used, and information about which drivers and
other optional code modules are included in the binary.
Some simple routing tests can be done by using the address testing option. For
example,

  exim -bt <local username>

should verify that it recognizes a local mailbox, and

  exim -bt <remote address>

a remote one. Then try getting it to deliver mail, both locally and remotely.
This can be done by passing messages directly to Exim, without going through a
user agent. For example:

  exim -v postmaster@your.domain.example
  From: user@your.domain.example
  To: postmaster@your.domain.example
  Subject: Testing Exim

  This is a test message.
  ^D

The %-v% option causes Exim to output some verification of what it is doing.
In this case you should see copies of three log lines, one for the message's
arrival, one for its delivery, and one containing ``Completed''.

cindex:[delivery,problems with]
If you encounter problems, look at Exim's log files ('mainlog' and
'paniclog') to see if there is any relevant information there. Another source
of information is running Exim with debugging turned on, by specifying the
%-d% option. If a message is stuck on Exim's spool, you can force a delivery
with debugging turned on by a command of the form

  exim -d -M <message-id>

You must be root or an ``admin user'' in order to do this. The %-d% option
produces rather a lot of output, but you can cut this down to specific areas.
For example, if you use %-d-all+route% only the debugging information relevant
to routing is included. (See the %-d% option in chapter <<CHAPcommandline>> for
more details.)

cindex:[``sticky'' bit]
cindex:[lock files]
One specific problem that has shown up on some sites is the inability to do
local deliveries into a shared mailbox directory, because it does not have the
``sticky bit'' set on it. By default, Exim tries to create a lock file before
writing to a mailbox file, and if it cannot create the lock file, the delivery
is deferred. You can get round this either by setting the ``sticky bit'' on the
directory, or by setting a specific group for local deliveries and allowing
that group to create files in the directory (see the comments above the
^local_delivery^ transport in the default configuration file). Another
approach is to configure Exim not to use lock files, but just to rely on
'fcntl()' locking instead. However, you should do this only if all user
agents also use 'fcntl()' locking. For further discussion of locking issues,
see chapter <<CHAPappendfile>>.

One thing that cannot be tested on a system that is already running an MTA is
the receipt of incoming SMTP mail on the standard SMTP port. However, the
%-oX% option can be used to run an Exim daemon that listens on some other
port, or 'inetd' can be used to do this. The %-bh% option and the
'exim_checkaccess' utility can be used to check out policy controls on
incoming SMTP mail.

Testing a new version on a system that is already running Exim can most easily
be done by building a binary with a different CONFIGURE_FILE setting. From
within the run time configuration, all other file and directory names
that Exim uses can be altered, in order to keep it entirely clear of the
production version.


Replacing another MTA with Exim
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[replacing another MTA]
Building and installing Exim for the first time does not of itself put it in
general use. The name by which the system's MTA is called by mail user agents
is either _/usr/sbin/sendmail_, or _/usr/lib/sendmail_ (depending on the
operating system), and it is necessary to make this name point to the 'exim'
binary in order to get the user agents to pass messages to Exim. This is
normally done by renaming any existing file and making _/usr/sbin/sendmail_
or _/usr/lib/sendmail_

cindex:[symbolic link,to 'exim' binary]
a symbolic link to the 'exim' binary. It is a good idea to remove any setuid
privilege and executable status from the old MTA. It is then necessary to stop
and restart the mailer daemon, if one is running.

cindex:[FreeBSD, MTA indirection]
cindex:[_/etc/mail/mailer.conf_]
Some operating systems have introduced alternative ways of switching MTAs. For
example, if you are running FreeBSD, you need to edit the file
_/etc/mail/mailer.conf_ instead of setting up a symbolic link as just
described. A typical example of the contents of this file for running Exim is
as follows:

  sendmail            /usr/exim/bin/exim
  send-mail           /usr/exim/bin/exim
  mailq               /usr/exim/bin/exim -bp
  newaliases          /usr/bin/true


Once you have set up the symbolic link, or edited _/etc/mail/mailer.conf_,
your Exim installation is ``live''. Check it by sending a message from your
favourite user agent.

You should consider what to tell your users about the change of MTA. Exim may
have different capabilities to what was previously running, and there are
various operational differences such as the text of messages produced by
command line options and in bounce messages. If you allow your users to make
use of Exim's filtering capabilities, you should make the document entitled
'Exim's interface to mail filtering'
available to them.



Upgrading Exim
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[upgrading Exim]
If you are already running Exim on your host, building and installing a new
version automatically makes it available to MUAs, or any other programs that
call the MTA directly. However, if you are running an Exim daemon, you do need
to send it a HUP signal, to make it re-exec itself, and thereby pick up the new
binary. You do not need to stop processing mail in order to install a new
version of Exim.



Stopping the Exim daemon on Solaris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[Solaris,stopping Exim on]
The standard command for stopping the mailer daemon on Solaris is

  /etc/init.d/sendmail stop

If _/usr/lib/sendmail_ has been turned into a symbolic link, this script
fails to stop Exim because it uses the command 'ps -e' and greps the output
for the text ``sendmail''; this is not present because the actual program name
(that is, ``exim'') is given by the 'ps' command with these options. A solution
is to replace the line that finds the process id with something like

  pid=`cat /var/spool/exim/exim-daemon.pid`

to obtain the daemon's pid directly from the file that Exim saves it in.

Note, however, that stopping the daemon does not ``stop Exim''. Messages can
still be received from local processes, and if automatic delivery is configured
(the normal case), deliveries will still occur.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPcommandline]]
The Exim command line
---------------------
cindex:[command line,options]
cindex:[options,command line]
Exim's command line takes the standard Unix form of a sequence of options,
each starting with a hyphen character, followed by a number of arguments. The
options are compatible with the main options of Sendmail, and there are also
some additional options, some of which are compatible with Smail 3. Certain
combinations of options do not make sense, and provoke an error if used.
The form of the arguments depends on which options are set.


Setting options by program name
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['mailq']
If Exim is called under the name 'mailq', it behaves as if the option %-bp%
were present before any other options.
The %-bp% option requests a listing of the contents of the mail queue on the
standard output.
This feature is for compatibility with some systems that contain a command of
that name in one of the standard libraries, symbolically linked to
_/usr/sbin/sendmail_ or _/usr/lib/sendmail_.

cindex:['rsmtp']
If Exim is called under the name 'rsmtp' it behaves as if the option %-bS%
were present before any other options, for compatibility with Smail. The %-bS%
option is used for reading in a number of messages in batched SMTP format.

cindex:['rmail']
If Exim is called under the name 'rmail' it behaves as if the %-i% and
%-oee% options were present before any other options, for compatibility with
Smail. The name 'rmail' is used as an interface by some UUCP systems.

cindex:['runq']
cindex:[queue runner]
If Exim is called under the name 'runq' it behaves as if the option %-q% were
present before any other options, for compatibility with Smail. The %-q%
option causes a single queue runner process to be started.

cindex:['newaliases']
cindex:[alias file,building]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,calling Exim as 'newaliases']
If Exim is called under the name 'newaliases' it behaves as if the option
%-bi% were present before any other options, for compatibility with Sendmail.
This option is used for rebuilding Sendmail's alias file. Exim does not have
the concept of a single alias file, but can be configured to run a given
command if called with the %-bi% option.


[[SECTtrustedadmin]]
Trusted and admin users
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some Exim options are available only to 'trusted users' and others are
available only to 'admin users'. In the description below, the phrases ``Exim
user'' and ``Exim group'' mean the user and group defined by EXIM_USER and
EXIM_GROUP in _Local/Makefile_ or set by the %exim_user% and
%exim_group% options. These do not necessarily have to use the name ``exim''.

- cindex:[trusted user,definition of]
cindex:[user, trusted definition of]
The trusted users are root, the Exim user, any user listed in the
%trusted_users% configuration option, and any user whose current group or any
supplementary group is one of those listed in the %trusted_groups%
configuration option. Note that the Exim group is not automatically trusted.
+
cindex:[``From'' line]
cindex:[envelope sender]
Trusted users are always permitted to use the %-f% option or a leading ``From ''
line to specify the envelope sender of a message that is passed to Exim through
the local interface (see the %-bm% and %-f% options below). See the
%untrusted_set_sender% option for a way of permitting non-trusted users to
set envelope senders.
+
cindex:['From:' header line]
cindex:['Sender:' header line]
For a trusted user, there is never any check on the contents of the 'From:'
header line, and a 'Sender:' line is never added. Furthermore, any existing
'Sender:' line in incoming local (non-TCP/IP) messages is not removed.
+
Trusted users may also specify a host name, host address, interface address,
protocol name, ident value, and authentication data when submitting a message
locally. Thus, they are able to insert messages into Exim's queue locally that
have the characteristics of messages received from a remote host. Untrusted
users may in some circumstances use %-f%, but can never set the other values
that are available to trusted users.

- cindex:[user, admin definition of]
cindex:[admin user,definition of]
The admin users are root, the Exim user, and any user that is a member of the
Exim group or of any group listed in the %admin_groups% configuration option.
The current group does not have to be one of these groups.
+
Admin users are permitted to list the queue, and to carry out certain
operations on messages, for example, to force delivery failures. It is also
necessary to be an admin user in order to see the full information provided by
the Exim monitor, and full debugging output.
+
By default, the use of the %-M%, %-q%, %-R%, and %-S% options to cause Exim
to attempt delivery of messages on its queue is restricted to admin users.
However, this restriction can be relaxed by setting the %prod_requires_admin%
option false (that is, specifying %no_prod_requires_admin%).
+
Similarly, the use of the %-bp% option to list all the messages in the queue
is restricted to admin users unless %queue_list_requires_admin% is set
false.


*Warning*: If you configure your system so that admin users are able to
edit Exim's configuration file, you are giving those users an easy way of
getting root. There is further discussion of this issue at the start of chapter
<<CHAPconf>>.




Command line options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The command options are described in alphabetical order below.

///
We insert a stylized DocBook comment here, to identify the start of the command
line options. This is for the benefit of the Perl script that automatically
creates a man page for the options.
///

++++
<!-- === Start of command line options === -->
++++


*{hh}*::
oindex:[{hh}]
cindex:[options, command line; terminating]
This is a pseudo-option whose only purpose is to terminate the options and
therefore to cause subsequent command line items to be treated as arguments
rather than options, even if they begin with hyphens.

*--help*::
oindex:[%{hh}help%]
This option causes Exim to output a few sentences stating what it is.
The same output is generated if the Exim binary is called with no options and
no arguments.

*-B*<'type'>::
oindex:[%-B%]
cindex:[8-bit characters]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,8-bit characters]
This is a Sendmail option for selecting 7 or 8 bit processing. Exim is 8-bit
clean; it ignores this option.

*-bd*::
oindex:[%-bd%]
cindex:[daemon]
cindex:[SMTP listener]
cindex:[queue runner]
This option runs Exim as a daemon, awaiting incoming SMTP connections. Usually
the %-bd% option is combined with the %-q%<'time'> option, to specify that
the daemon should also initiate periodic queue runs.
+
The %-bd% option can be used only by an admin user. If either of the %-d%
(debugging) or %-v% (verifying) options are set, the daemon does not
disconnect from the controlling terminal. When running this way, it can be
stopped by pressing ctrl-C.
+
By default, Exim listens for incoming connections to the standard SMTP port on
all the host's running interfaces. However, it is possible to listen on other
ports, on multiple ports, and only on specific interfaces. Chapter
<<CHAPinterfaces>> contains a description of the options that control this.
+
When a listening daemon
cindex:[daemon,process id (pid)]
cindex:[pid (process id),of daemon]
is started without the use of %-oX% (that is, without overriding the normal
configuration), it writes its process id to a file called _exim-daemon.pid_ in
Exim's spool directory. This location can be overridden by setting
PID_FILE_PATH in _Local/Makefile_. The file is written while Exim is still
running as root.
+
When %-oX% is used on the command line to start a listening daemon, the
process id is not written to the normal pid file path. However, %-oP% can be
used to specify a path on the command line if a pid file is required.
+
The SIGHUP signal
cindex:[SIGHUP]
can be used to cause the daemon to re-exec itself. This should be done whenever
Exim's configuration file, or any file that is incorporated into it by means of
the %.include% facility, is changed, and also whenever a new version of Exim is
installed. It is not necessary to do this when other files that are referenced
from the configuration (for example, alias files) are changed, because these
are reread each time they are used.

*-bdf*::
oindex:[%-bdf%]
This option has the same effect as %-bd% except that it never disconnects from
the controlling terminal, even when no debugging is specified.

*-be*::
oindex:[%-be%]
cindex:[testing,string expansion]
cindex:[expansion,testing]
Run Exim in expansion testing mode. Exim discards its root privilege, to
prevent ordinary users from using this mode to read otherwise inaccessible
files. If no arguments are given, Exim runs interactively, prompting for lines
of data.
+
If Exim was built with USE_READLINE=yes in _Local/Makefile_, it tries
to load the %libreadline% library dynamically whenever the %-be% option is
used without command line arguments. If successful, it uses the 'readline()'
function, which provides extensive line-editing facilities, for reading the
test data. A line history is supported.
+
Long expansion expressions can be split over several lines by using backslash
continuations. As in Exim's run time configuration, whitespace at the start of
continuation lines is ignored. Each argument or data line is passed through the
string expansion mechanism, and the result is output. Variable values from the
configuration file (for example, $qualify_domain$) are available, but no
message-specific values (such as $domain$) are set, because no message is
being processed.

*-bF*~<'filename'>::
oindex:[%-bF%]
cindex:[system filter,testing]
cindex:[testing,system filter]
This option is the same as %-bf% except that it assumes that the filter being
tested is a system filter. The additional commands that are available only in
system filters are recognized.

*-bf*~<'filename'>::
oindex:[%-bf%]
cindex:[filter,testing]
cindex:[testing,filter file]
cindex:[forward file,testing]
cindex:[testing,forward file]
cindex:[Sieve filter,testing]
This option runs Exim in user filter testing mode; the file is the filter file
to be tested, and a test message must be supplied on the standard input. If
there are no message-dependent tests in the filter, an empty file can be
supplied.
+
If you want to test a system filter file, use %-bF% instead of %-bf%. You can
use both %-bF% and %-bf% on the same command, in order to
test a system filter and a user filter in the same run. For example:

  exim -bF /system/filter -bf /user/filter </test/message
+
This is helpful when the system filter adds header lines or sets filter
variables that are used by the user filter.
+
If the test filter file does not begin with one of the special lines

  # Exim filter
  # Sieve filter
+
it is taken to be a normal _.forward_ file, and is tested for validity under
that interpretation. See sections <<SECTitenonfilred>> to <<SECTspecitredli>> for a
description of the possible contents of non-filter redirection lists.
+
The result of an Exim command that uses %-bf%, provided no errors are
detected, is a list of the actions that Exim would try to take if presented
with the message for real. More details of filter testing are given in the
separate document entitled 'Exim's interfaces to mail filtering'.
+
When testing a filter file,
cindex:[``From'' line]
cindex:[envelope sender]
cindex:[%-f% option,for filter testing]
the envelope sender can be set by the %-f% option,
or by a ``From '' line at the start of the test message. Various parameters that
would normally be taken from the envelope recipient address of the message can
be set by means of additional command line options (see the next four options).

*-bfd*~<'domain'>::
oindex:[%-bfd%]
This sets the domain of the recipient address when a filter file is being
tested by means of the %-bf% option. The default is the value of
$qualify_domain$.

*-bfl*~<'local~part'>::
oindex:[%-bfl%]
This sets the local part of the recipient address when a filter file is being
tested by means of the %-bf% option. The default is the username of the
process that calls Exim. A local part should be specified with any prefix or
suffix stripped, because that is how it appears to the filter when a message is
actually being delivered.

*-bfp*~<'prefix'>::
oindex:[%-bfp%]
This sets the prefix of the local part of the recipient address when a filter
file is being tested by means of the %-bf% option. The default is an empty
prefix.

*-bfs*~<'suffix'>::
oindex:[%-bfs%]
This sets the suffix of the local part of the recipient address when a filter
file is being tested by means of the %-bf% option. The default is an empty
suffix.

*-bh*~<'IP~address'>::
oindex:[%-bh%]
cindex:[testing,incoming SMTP]
cindex:[SMTP,testing incoming]
cindex:[testing,relay control]
cindex:[relaying,testing configuration]
cindex:[policy control,testing]
cindex:[debugging,%-bh% option]
This option runs a fake SMTP session as if from the given IP address, using the
standard input and output. The IP address may include a port number at the end,
after a full stop. For example:

  exim -bh 10.9.8.7.1234
  exim -bh fe80::a00:20ff:fe86:a061.5678
+
When an IPv6 address is given, it is converted into canonical form. In the case
of the second example above, the value of $sender_host_address$ after
conversion to the canonical form is `fe80:0000:0000:0a00:20ff:fe86:a061.5678`.
+
Comments as to what is going on are written to the standard error file. These
include lines beginning with ``LOG'' for anything that would have been logged.
This facility is provided for testing configuration options for incoming
messages, to make sure they implement the required policy. For example, you can
test your relay controls using %-bh%.
+
*Warning 1*:
cindex:[RFC 1413]
You cannot test features of the configuration that rely on
ident (RFC 1413) callouts. These cannot be done when testing using
%-bh% because there is no incoming SMTP connection.
+
*Warning 2*: Address verification callouts (see section <<SECTcallver>>) are
also skipped when testing using %-bh%. If you want these callouts to occur,
use %-bhc% instead.
+
Messages supplied during the testing session are discarded, and nothing is
written to any of the real log files. There may be pauses when DNS (and other)
lookups are taking place, and of course these may time out. The %-oMi% option
can be used to specify a specific IP interface and port if this is important.
+
The 'exim_checkaccess' utility is a ``packaged'' version of %-bh% whose
output just states whether a given recipient address from a given host is
acceptable or not. See section <<SECTcheckaccess>>.

*-bhc*~<'IP~address'>::
oindex:[%-bhc%]
This option operates in the same way as %-bh%, except that address
verification callouts are performed if required. This includes consulting and
updating the callout cache database.

*-bi*::
oindex:[%-bi%]
cindex:[alias file,building]
cindex:[building alias file]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-bi% option]
Sendmail interprets the %-bi% option as a request to rebuild its alias file.
Exim does not have the concept of a single alias file, and so it cannot mimic
this behaviour. However, calls to _/usr/lib/sendmail_ with the %-bi% option
tend to appear in various scripts such as NIS make files, so the option must be
recognized.
+
If %-bi% is encountered, the command specified by the %bi_command%
configuration option is run, under the uid and gid of the caller of Exim. If
the %-oA% option is used, its value is passed to the command as an argument.
The command set by %bi_command% may not contain arguments. The command can use
the 'exim_dbmbuild' utility, or some other means, to rebuild alias files if
this is required. If the %bi_command% option is not set, calling Exim with
%-bi% is a no-op.

*-bm*::
oindex:[%-bm%]
cindex:[local message reception]
This option runs an Exim receiving process that accepts an incoming,
locally-generated message on the current input. The recipients are given as the
command arguments (except when %-t% is also present -- see below). Each
argument can be a comma-separated list of RFC 2822 addresses. This is the
default option for selecting the overall action of an Exim call; it is assumed
if no other conflicting option is present.
+
If any addresses in the message are unqualified (have no domain), they are
qualified by the values of the %qualify_domain% or %qualify_recipient%
options, as appropriate. The %-bnq% option (see below) provides a way of
suppressing this for special cases.
+
Policy checks on the contents of local messages can be enforced by means of
the non-SMTP ACL. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for details.
+
The return code
cindex:[return code,for %-bm%]
is zero if the message is successfully accepted. Otherwise, the
action is controlled by the %-oe'x'% option setting -- see below.
+
The format
cindex:[message,format]
cindex:[format,message]
cindex:[``From'' line]
cindex:[UUCP,``From'' line]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,``From'' line]
of the message must be as defined in RFC 2822, except that, for
compatibility with Sendmail and Smail, a line in one of the forms

  From sender Fri Jan  5 12:55 GMT 1997
  From sender Fri, 5 Jan 97 12:55:01
+
(with the weekday optional, and possibly with additional text after the date)
is permitted to appear at the start of the message. There appears to be no
authoritative specification of the format of this line. Exim recognizes it by
matching against the regular expression defined by the %uucp_from_pattern%
option, which can be changed if necessary.
+
The
cindex:[%-f% option,overriding ``From'' line]
specified sender is treated as if it were given as the argument to the
%-f% option, but if a %-f% option is also present, its argument is used in
preference to the address taken from the message. The caller of Exim must be a
trusted user for the sender of a message to be set in this way.

*-bnq*::
oindex:[%-bnq%]
cindex:[address qualification, suppressing]
By default, Exim automatically qualifies unqualified addresses (those
without domains) that appear in messages that are submitted locally (that
is, not over TCP/IP). This qualification applies both to addresses in
envelopes, and addresses in header lines. Sender addresses are qualified using
%qualify_domain%, and recipient addresses using %qualify_recipient% (which
defaults to the value of %qualify_domain%).
+
Sometimes, qualification is not wanted. For example, if %-bS% (batch SMTP) is
being used to re-submit messages that originally came from remote hosts after
content scanning, you probably do not want to qualify unqualified addresses in
header lines. (Such lines will be present only if you have not enabled a header
syntax check in the appropriate ACL.)
+
The %-bnq% option suppresses all qualification of unqualified addresses in
messages that originate on the local host. When this is used, unqualified
addresses in the envelope provoke errors (causing message rejection) and
unqualified addresses in header lines are left alone.


*-bP*::
oindex:[%-bP%]
cindex:[configuration options, extracting]
cindex:[options,configuration -- extracting]
If this option is given with no arguments, it causes the values of all Exim's
main configuration options to be written to the standard output. The values
of one or more specific options can be requested by giving their names as
arguments, for example:

  exim -bP qualify_domain hold_domains
+
However, any option setting that is preceded by the word ``hide'' in the
configuration file is not shown in full, except to an admin user. For other
users, the output is as in this example:

  mysql_servers = <value not displayable>
+
If %configure_file% is given as an argument, the name of the run time
configuration file is output.
If a list of configuration files was supplied, the value that is output here
is the name of the file that was actually used.
+
cindex:[daemon,process id (pid)]
cindex:[pid (process id),of daemon]
If %log_file_path% or %pid_file_path% are given, the names of the directories
where log files and daemon pid files are written are output, respectively. If
these values are unset, log files are written in a sub-directory of the spool
directory called %log%, and the pid file is written directly into the spool
directory.
+
If %-bP% is followed by a name preceded by `+`, for example,

  exim -bP +local_domains
+
it searches for a matching named list of any type (domain, host, address, or
local part) and outputs what it finds.
+
If
cindex:[options,router -- extracting]
cindex:[options,transport -- extracting]
one of the words %router%, %transport%, or %authenticator% is given,
followed by the name of an appropriate driver instance, the option settings for
that driver are output. For example:

  exim -bP transport local_delivery
+
The generic driver options are output first, followed by the driver's private
options. A list of the names of drivers of a particular type can be obtained by
using one of the words %router_list%, %transport_list%, or
%authenticator_list%, and a complete list of all drivers with their option
settings can be obtained by using %routers%, %transports%, or %authenticators%.


*-bp*::
oindex:[%-bp%]
cindex:[queue,listing messages on]
cindex:[listing,messages on the queue]
This option requests a listing of the contents of the mail queue on the
standard output. If the %-bp% option is followed by a list of message ids,
just those messages are listed. By default, this option can be used only by an
admin user. However, the %queue_list_requires_admin% option can be set false
to allow any user to see the queue.
+
Each message on the queue is displayed as in the following example:

  25m  2.9K 0t5C6f-0000c8-00 <alice@wonderland.fict.example>
            red.king@looking-glass.fict.example
            <other addresses>
+
The
cindex:[message,size in queue listing]
cindex:[size,of message]
first line contains the length of time the message has been on the queue
(in this case 25 minutes), the size of the message (2.9K), the unique local
identifier for the message, and the message sender, as contained in the
envelope. For bounce messages, the sender address is empty, and appears as
``<>''. If the message was submitted locally by an untrusted user who overrode
the default sender address, the user's login name is shown in parentheses
before the sender address.
+
If
cindex:[frozen messages,in queue listing]
the message is frozen (attempts to deliver it are suspended) then the text
``\*\*\* frozen \*\*\*'' is displayed at the end of this line.
+
The recipients of the message (taken from the envelope, not the headers) are
displayed on subsequent lines. Those addresses to which the message has already
been delivered are marked with the letter D. If an original address gets
expanded into several addresses via an alias or forward file, the original is
displayed with a D only when deliveries for all of its child addresses are
complete.


*-bpa*::
oindex:[%-bpa%]
This option operates like %-bp%, but in addition it shows delivered addresses
that were generated from the original top level address(es) in each message by
alias or forwarding operations. These addresses are flagged with ``+D'' instead
of just ``D''.


*-bpc*::
oindex:[%-bpc%]
cindex:[queue,count of messages on]
This option counts the number of messages on the queue, and writes the total
to the standard output. It is restricted to admin users, unless
%queue_list_requires_admin% is set false.


*-bpr*::
oindex:[%-bpr%]
This option operates like %-bp%, but the output is not sorted into
chronological order of message arrival. This can speed it up when there are
lots of messages on the queue, and is particularly useful if the output is
going to be post-processed in a way that doesn't need the sorting.

*-bpra*::
oindex:[%-bpra%]
This option is a combination of %-bpr% and %-bpa%.

*-bpru*::
oindex:[%-bpru%]
This option is a combination of %-bpr% and %-bpu%.


*-bpu*::
oindex:[%-bpu%]
This option operates like %-bp% but shows only undelivered top-level addresses
for each message displayed. Addresses generated by aliasing or forwarding are
not shown, unless the message was deferred after processing by a router with
the %one_time% option set.


*-brt*::
oindex:[%-brt%]
cindex:[testing,retry configuration]
cindex:[retry,configuration testing]
This option is for testing retry rules, and it must be followed by up to three
arguments. It causes Exim to look for a retry rule that matches the values
and to write it to the standard output. For example:

  exim -brt bach.comp.mus.example
  Retry rule: *.comp.mus.example  F,2h,15m; F,4d,30m;
+
See chapter <<CHAPretry>> for a description of Exim's retry rules. The first
argument, which is required, can be a complete address in the form
'local_part@domain', or it can be just a domain name. The second argument is
an optional second domain name; if no retry rule is found for the first
argument, the second is tried. This ties in with Exim's behaviour when looking
for retry rules for remote hosts -- if no rule is found that matches the host,
one that matches the mail domain is sought. The final argument is the name of a
specific delivery error, as used in setting up retry rules, for example
``quota_3d''.

*-brw*::
oindex:[%-brw%]
cindex:[testing,rewriting]
cindex:[rewriting,testing]
This option is for testing address rewriting rules, and it must be followed by
a single argument, consisting of either a local part without a domain, or a
complete address with a fully qualified domain. Exim outputs how this address
would be rewritten for each possible place it might appear. See chapter
<<CHAPrewrite>> for further details.

*-bS*::
oindex:[%-bS%]
cindex:[SMTP,batched incoming]
cindex:[batched SMTP input]
This option is used for batched SMTP input, which is an alternative interface
for non-interactive local message submission. A number of messages can be
submitted in a single run. However, despite its name, this is not really SMTP
input. Exim reads each message's envelope from SMTP commands on the standard
input, but generates no responses. If the caller is trusted, or
%untrusted_set_sender% is set, the senders in the SMTP MAIL commands are
believed; otherwise the sender is always the caller of Exim.
+
The message itself is read from the standard input, in SMTP format (leading
dots doubled), terminated by a line containing just a single dot. An error is
provoked if the terminating dot is missing. A further message may then follow.
+
As for other local message submissions, the contents of incoming batch SMTP
messages can be checked using the non-SMTP ACL (see chapter <<CHAPACL>>).
Unqualified addresses are automatically qualified using %qualify_domain% and
%qualify_recipient%, as appropriate, unless the %-bnq% option is used.
+
Some other SMTP commands are recognized in the input. HELO and EHLO act
as RSET; VRFY, EXPN, ETRN, and HELP act as NOOP;
QUIT quits, ignoring the rest of the standard input.
+
cindex:[return code,for %-bS%]
If any error is encountered, reports are written to the standard output and
error streams, and Exim gives up immediately. The return code is 0 if no error
was detected; it is 1 if one or more messages were accepted before the error
was detected; otherwise it is 2.
+
More details of input using batched SMTP are given in section
<<SECTincomingbatchedSMTP>>.

*-bs*::
oindex:[%-bs%]
cindex:[SMTP,local input]
cindex:[local SMTP input]
This option causes Exim to accept one or more messages by reading SMTP commands
on the standard input, and producing SMTP replies on the standard output. SMTP
policy controls, as defined in ACLs (see chapter <<CHAPACL>>) are applied.
Some user agents use this interface as a way of passing locally-generated
messages to the MTA.
+
In
cindex:[sender,source of]
this usage, if the caller of Exim is trusted, or %untrusted_set_sender% is
set, the senders of messages are taken from the SMTP MAIL commands.
Otherwise the content of these commands is ignored and the sender is set up as
the calling user. Unqualified addresses are automatically qualified using
%qualify_domain% and %qualify_recipient%, as appropriate, unless the %-bnq%
option is used.
+
cindex:[inetd]
The
%-bs% option is also used to run Exim from 'inetd', as an alternative to using
a listening daemon. Exim can distinguish the two cases by checking whether the
standard input is a TCP/IP socket. When Exim is called from 'inetd', the source
of the mail is assumed to be remote, and the comments above concerning senders
and qualification do not apply. In this situation, Exim behaves in exactly the
same way as it does when receiving a message via the listening daemon.

*-bt*::
oindex:[%-bt%]
cindex:[testing,addresses]
cindex:[address,testing]
This option runs Exim in address testing mode, in which each argument is taken
as an address to be tested for deliverability. The results are written to the
standard output. If a test fails, and the caller is not an admin user, no
details of the failure are output, because these might contain sensitive
information such as usernames and passwords for database lookups.
+
If no arguments are given, Exim runs in an interactive manner, prompting with a
right angle bracket for addresses to be tested.
+
Unlike the %-be% test option, you cannot arrange for Exim to use the
'readline()' function, because it is running as 'root' and there are
security issues.
+
Each address is handled as if it were the recipient address of a message
(compare the %-bv% option). It is passed to the routers and the result is
written to the standard output. However, any router that has
%no_address_test% set is bypassed. This can make %-bt% easier to use for
genuine routing tests if your first router passes everything to a scanner
program.
+
The
cindex:[return code,for %-bt%]
return code is 2 if any address failed outright; it is 1 if no address
failed outright but at least one could not be resolved for some reason. Return
code 0 is given only when all addresses succeed.
+
*Warning*: %-bt% can only do relatively simple testing. If any of the
routers in the configuration makes any tests on the sender address of a
message,
cindex:[%-f% option,for address testing]
you can use the %-f% option to set an appropriate sender when running
%-bt% tests. Without it, the sender is assumed to be the calling user at the
default qualifying domain. However, if you have set up (for example) routers
whose behaviour depends on the contents of an incoming message, you cannot test
those conditions using %-bt%. The %-N% option provides a possible way of
doing such tests.

*-bV*::
oindex:[%-bV%]
cindex:[version number of Exim, verifying]
This option causes Exim to write the current version number, compilation
number, and compilation date of the 'exim' binary to the standard output.
It also lists the DBM library this is being used, the optional modules (such as
specific lookup types), the drivers that are included in the binary, and the
name of the run time configuration file that is in use.
+
As part of its operation, %-bV% causes Exim to read and syntax check its
configuration file. However, this is a static check only. It cannot check
values that are to be expanded. For example, although a misspelt ACL verb is
detected, an error in the verb's arguments is not. You cannot rely on %-bV%
alone to discover (for example) all the typos in the configuration; some
realistic testing is needed. The %-bh% and %-N% options provide more dynamic
testing facilities.

*-bv*::
oindex:[%-bv%]
cindex:[verifying address, using %-bv%]
cindex:[address,verification]
This option runs Exim in address verification mode, in which each argument is
taken as an address to be verified. During normal operation, verification
happens mostly as a consequence processing a %verify% condition in an ACL (see
chapter <<CHAPACL>>). If you want to test an entire ACL, see the %-bh% option.
+
If verification fails, and the caller is not an admin user, no details of the
failure are output, because these might contain sensitive information such as
usernames and passwords for database lookups.
+
If no arguments are given, Exim runs in an interactive manner, prompting with a
right angle bracket for addresses to be verified.
+
Unlike the %-be% test option, you cannot arrange for Exim to use the
'readline()' function, because it is running as 'exim' and there are
security issues.
+
Verification differs from address testing (the %-bt% option) in that routers
that have %no_verify% set are skipped, and if the address is accepted by a
router that has %fail_verify% set, verification fails. The address is verified
as a recipient if %-bv% is used; to test verification for a sender address,
%-bvs% should be used.
+
If the %-v% option is not set, the output consists of a single line for each
address, stating whether it was verified or not, and giving a reason in the
latter case. Otherwise, more details are given of how the address has been
handled, and in the case of address redirection, all the generated addresses
are also considered. Without %-v%, generating more than one address by
redirection causes verification to end sucessfully.
+
The
cindex:[return code,for %-bv%]
return code is 2 if any address failed outright; it is 1 if no address
failed outright but at least one could not be resolved for some reason. Return
code 0 is given only when all addresses succeed.
+
If any of the routers in the configuration makes any tests on the sender
address of a message, you should use the %-f% option to set an appropriate
sender when running %-bv% tests. Without it, the sender is assumed to be the
calling user at the default qualifying domain.

*-bvs*::
oindex:[%-bvs%]
This option acts like %-bv%, but verifies the address as a sender rather
than a recipient address. This affects any rewriting and qualification that
might happen.

*-C*~<'filelist'>::
oindex:[%-C%]
cindex:[configuration file,alternate]
cindex:[CONFIGURE_FILE]
cindex:[alternate configuration file]
This option causes Exim to find the run time configuration file from the given
list instead of from the list specified by the CONFIGURE_FILE
compile-time setting. Usually, the list will consist of just a single file
name, but it can be a colon-separated list of names. In this case, the first
file that exists is used. Failure to open an existing file stops Exim from
proceeding any further along the list, and an error is generated.
+
When this option is used by a caller other than root or the Exim user, and the
list is different from the compiled-in list, Exim gives up its root privilege
immediately, and runs with the real and effective uid and gid set to those of
the caller. However, if ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is defined in
_Local/Makefile_, root privilege is retained for %-C% only if the caller of
Exim is root.
+
That is, the Exim user is no longer privileged in this regard. This build-time
option is not set by default in the Exim source distribution tarbundle.
However, if you are using a ``packaged'' version of Exim (source or binary), the
packagers might have enabled it.
+
Setting ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY locks out the possibility of testing a
configuration using %-C% right through message reception and delivery, even if
the caller is root. The reception works, but by that time, Exim is running as
the Exim user, so when it re-execs to regain privilege for the delivery, the
use of %-C% causes privilege to be lost. However, root can test reception and
delivery using two separate commands (one to put a message on the queue, using
%-odq%, and another to do the delivery, using %-M%).
+
If ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX is defined _in Local/Makefile_, it specifies a
prefix string with which any file named in a %-C% command line option
must start. In addition, the file name must not contain the sequence `/../`.
However, if the value of the %-C% option is identical to the value of
CONFIGURE_FILE in _Local/Makefile_, Exim ignores %-C% and proceeds as
usual. There is no default setting for ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX; when it is
unset, any file name can be used with %-C%.
+
ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX can be used to confine alternative configuration files
to a directory to which only root has access. This prevents someone who has
broken into the Exim account from running a privileged Exim with an arbitrary
configuration file.
+
The %-C% facility is useful for ensuring that configuration files are
syntactically correct, but cannot be used for test deliveries, unless the
caller is privileged, or unless it is an exotic configuration that does not
require privilege. No check is made on the owner or group of the files
specified by this option.

*-D*<'macro'>=<'value'>::
oindex:[%-D%]
cindex:[macro,setting on command line]
This option can be used to override macro definitions in the configuration file
(see section <<SECTmacrodefs>>). However, like %-C%, if it is used by an
unprivileged caller, it causes Exim to give up its root privilege.
If DISABLE_D_OPTION is defined in _Local/Makefile_, the use of %-D% is
completely disabled, and its use causes an immediate error exit.
+
The entire option (including equals sign if present) must all be within one
command line item. %-D% can be used to set the value of a macro to the empty
string, in which case the equals sign is optional. These two commands are
synonymous:

  exim -DABC  ...
  exim -DABC= ...
+
To include spaces in a macro definition item, quotes must be used. If you use
quotes, spaces are permitted around the macro name and the equals sign. For
example:

  exim '-D ABC = something' ...
+
%-D% may be repeated up to 10 times on a command line.

*-d*<'debug~options'>::
oindex:[%-d%]
cindex:[debugging,list of selectors]
cindex:[debugging,%-d% option]
This option causes debugging information to be written to the standard
error stream. It is restricted to admin users because debugging output may show
database queries that contain password information. Also, the details of users'
filter files should be protected. When %-d% is used, %-v% is assumed. If
%-d% is given on its own, a lot of standard debugging data is output. This can
be reduced, or increased to include some more rarely needed information, by
following %-d% with a string made up of names preceded by plus or minus
characters. These add or remove sets of debugging data, respectively. For
example, %-d+filter% adds filter debugging, whereas %-d-all+filter% selects
only filter debugging. The available debugging categories are:
+
&&&
`acl            ` ACL interpretation
`auth           ` authenticators
`deliver        ` general delivery logic
`dns            ` DNS lookups (see also resolver)
`dnsbl          ` DNS black list (aka RBL) code
`exec           ` arguments for ^^execv()^^ calls
`expand         ` detailed debugging for string expansions
`filter         ` filter handling
`hints_lookup   ` hints data lookups
`host_lookup    ` all types of name-to-IP address handling
`ident          ` ident lookup
`interface      ` lists of local interfaces
`lists          ` matching things in lists
`load           ` system load checks
`local_scan     ` can be used by ^^local_scan()^^ (see chapter <<CHAPlocalscan>>)
`lookup         ` general lookup code and all lookups
`memory         ` memory handling
`pid            ` add pid to debug output lines
`process_info   ` setting info for the process log
`queue_run      ` queue runs
`receive        ` general message reception logic
`resolver       ` turn on the DNS resolver's debugging output
`retry          ` retry handling
`rewrite        ` address rewriting
`route          ` address routing
`timestamp      ` add timestamp to debug output lines
`tls            ` TLS logic
`transport      ` transports
`uid            ` changes of uid/gid and looking up uid/gid
`verify         ` address verification logic
`all            ` all of the above, and also %-v%
&&&
+
The
cindex:[resolver, debugging output]
cindex:[DNS resolver, debugging output]
`resolver` option produces output only if the DNS resolver was compiled
with DEBUG enabled. This is not the case in some operating systems. Also,
unfortunately, debugging output from the DNS resolver is written to stdout
rather than stderr.
+
The default (%-d% with no argument) omits `expand`, `filter`,
`interface`, `load`, `memory`, `pid`, `resolver`, and `timestamp`.
However, the `pid` selector is forced when debugging is turned on for a
daemon, which then passes it on to any re-executed Exims. Exim also
automatically adds the pid to debug lines when several remote deliveries are
run in parallel.
+
The `timestamp` selector causes the current time to be inserted at the start
of all debug output lines. This can be useful when trying to track down delays
in processing.
+
If the %debug_print% option is set in any driver, it produces output whenever
any debugging is selected, or if %-v% is used.

*-dd*<'debug~options'>::
oindex:[%-dd%]
This option behaves exactly like %-d% except when used on a command that
starts a daemon process. In that case, debugging is turned off for the
subprocesses that the daemon creates. Thus, it is useful for monitoring the
behaviour of the daemon without creating as much output as full debugging does.

*-dropcr*::
oindex:[%-dropcr%]
This is an obsolete option that is now a no-op. It used to affect the way Exim
handled CR and LF characters in incoming messages. What happens now is
described in section <<SECTlineendings>>.

*-E*::
oindex:[%-E%]
cindex:[bounce message,generating]
This option specifies that an incoming message is a locally-generated delivery
failure report. It is used internally by Exim when handling delivery failures
and is not intended for external use. Its only effect is to stop Exim
generating certain messages to the postmaster, as otherwise message cascades
could occur in some situations. As part of the same option, a message id may
follow the characters %-E%. If it does, the log entry for the receipt of the
new message contains the id, following ``R='', as a cross-reference.

*-e*'x'::
oindex:[%-e'x'%]
There are a number of Sendmail options starting with %-oe% which seem to be
called by various programs without the leading %o% in the option. For example,
the %vacation% program uses %-eq%. Exim treats all options of the form
%-e'x'% as synonymous with the corresponding %-oe'x'% options.

*-F*~<'string'>::
oindex:[%-F%]
cindex:[sender,name]
cindex:[name,of sender]
This option sets the sender's full name for use when a locally-generated
message is being accepted. In the absence of this option, the user's 'gecos'
entry from the password data is used. As users are generally permitted to alter
their 'gecos' entries, no security considerations are involved. White space
between %-F% and the <'string'> is optional.

*-f*~<'address'>::
oindex:[%-f%]
cindex:[sender,address]
cindex:[address,sender]
cindex:[trusted user]
cindex:[envelope sender]
cindex:[user,trusted]
This option sets the address of the envelope sender of a locally-generated
message (also known as the return path). The option can normally be used only
by a trusted user, but %untrusted_set_sender% can be set to allow untrusted
users to use it.
+
Processes running as root or the Exim user are always trusted. Other
trusted users are defined by the %trusted_users% or %trusted_groups% options.
In the absence of %-f%, or if the caller is not trusted, the sender of a local
message is set to the caller's login name at the default qualify domain.
+
There is one exception to the restriction on the use of %-f%: an empty sender
can be specified by any user, trusted or not, to create a message that can
never provoke a bounce. An empty sender can be specified either as an empty
string, or as a pair of angle brackets with nothing between them, as in these
examples of shell commands:

  exim -f '<>' user@domain
  exim -f "" user@domain
+
In addition, the use of %-f% is not restricted when testing a filter file with
%-bf% or when testing or verifying addresses using the %-bt% or %-bv%
options.
+
Allowing untrusted users to change the sender address does not of itself make
it possible to send anonymous mail. Exim still checks that the 'From:' header
refers to the local user, and if it does not, it adds a 'Sender:' header,
though this can be overridden by setting %no_local_from_check%.
+
White
cindex:[``From'' line]
space between %-f% and the <'address'> is optional (that is, they can be given
as two arguments or one combined argument). The sender of a locally-generated
message can also be set (when permitted) by an initial ``From '' line in the
message -- see the description of %-bm% above -- but if %-f% is also present,
it overrides ``From''.

*-G*::
oindex:[%-G%]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-G% option ignored]
This is a Sendmail option which is ignored by Exim.

*-h*~<'number'>::
oindex:[%-h%]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-h% option ignored]
This option is accepted for compatibility with Sendmail, but has no effect. (In
Sendmail it overrides the ``hop count'' obtained by counting 'Received:'
headers.)

*-i*::
oindex:[%-i%]
cindex:[Solaris,'mail' command]
cindex:[dot in incoming, non-SMTP message]
This option, which has the same effect as %-oi%, specifies that a dot on a line
by itself should not terminate an incoming, non-SMTP message. I can find no
documentation for this option in Solaris 2.4 Sendmail, but the 'mailx' command
in Solaris 2.4 uses it. See also %-ti%.

*-M*~<'message~id'>~<'message~id'>~...::
oindex:[%-M%]
cindex:[forcing delivery]
cindex:[delivery,forcing attempt]
cindex:[frozen messages,forcing delivery]
This option requests Exim to run a delivery attempt on each message in turn. If
any of the messages are frozen, they are automatically thawed before the
delivery attempt. The settings of %queue_domains%, %queue_smtp_domains%, and
%hold_domains% are ignored.
+
Retry
cindex:[hints database,overriding retry hints]
hints for any of the addresses are overridden -- Exim tries to deliver even if
the normal retry time has not yet been reached. This option requires the caller
to be an admin user. However, there is an option called %prod_requires_admin%
which can be set false to relax this restriction (and also the same requirement
for the %-q%, %-R%, and %-S% options).

*-Mar*~<'message~id'>~<'address'>~<'address'>~...::
oindex:[%-Mar%]
cindex:[message,adding recipients]
cindex:[recipient,adding]
This option requests Exim to add the addresses to the list of recipients of the
message (``ar'' for ``add recipients''). The first argument must be a message id,
and the remaining ones must be email addresses. However, if the message is
active (in the middle of a delivery attempt), it is not altered. This option
can be used only by an admin user.

*-MC*~<'transport'>~<'hostname'>~<'sequence~number'>~<'message~id'>::
oindex:[%-MC%]
cindex:[SMTP,passed connection]
cindex:[SMTP,multiple deliveries]
cindex:[multiple SMTP deliveries]
This option is not intended for use by external callers. It is used internally
by Exim to invoke another instance of itself to deliver a waiting message using
an existing SMTP connection, which is passed as the standard input. Details are
given in chapter <<CHAPSMTP>>. This must be the final option, and the caller must
be root or the Exim user in order to use it.

*-MCA*::
oindex:[%-MCA%]
This option is not intended for use by external callers. It is used internally
by Exim in conjunction with the %-MC% option. It signifies that the connection
to the remote host has been authenticated.

*-MCP*::
oindex:[%-MCP%]
This option is not intended for use by external callers. It is used internally
by Exim in conjunction with the %-MC% option. It signifies that the server to
which Exim is connected supports pipelining.

*-MCQ*~<'process~id'>~<'pipe~fd'>::
oindex:[%-MCQ%]
This option is not intended for use by external callers. It is used internally
by Exim in conjunction with the %-MC% option when the original delivery was
started by a queue runner. It passes on the process id of the queue runner,
together with the file descriptor number of an open pipe. Closure of the pipe
signals the final completion of the sequence of processes that are passing
messages through the same SMTP connection.

*-MCS*::
oindex:[%-MCS%]
This option is not intended for use by external callers. It is used internally
by Exim in conjunction with the %-MC% option, and passes on the fact that the
SMTP SIZE option should be used on messages delivered down the existing
connection.

*-MCT*::
oindex:[%-MCT%]
This option is not intended for use by external callers. It is used internally
by Exim in conjunction with the %-MC% option, and passes on the fact that the
host to which Exim is connected supports TLS encryption.

*-Mc*~<'message~id'>~<'message~id'>~...::
oindex:[%-Mc%]
cindex:[hints database,not overridden by %-Mc%]
cindex:[delivery,manually started -- not forced]
This option requests Exim to run a delivery attempt on each message in turn,
but unlike the %-M% option, it does check for retry hints, and respects any
that are found. This option is not very useful to external callers. It is
provided mainly for internal use by Exim when it needs to re-invoke itself in
order to regain root privilege for a delivery (see chapter <<CHAPsecurity>>).
However, %-Mc% can be useful when testing, in order to run a delivery that
respects retry times and other options such as %hold_domains% that are
overridden when %-M% is used. Such a delivery does not count as a queue run.
If you want to run a specific delivery as if in a queue run, you should use
%-q% with a message id argument. A distinction between queue run deliveries
and other deliveries is made in one or two places.

*-Mes*~<'message~id'>~<'address'>::
oindex:[%-Mes%]
cindex:[message,changing sender]
cindex:[sender,changing]
This option requests Exim to change the sender address in the message to the
given address, which must be a fully qualified address or ``<>'' (``es'' for ``edit
sender''). There must be exactly two arguments. The first argument must be a
message id, and the second one an email address. However, if the message is
active (in the middle of a delivery attempt), its status is not altered. This
option can be used only by an admin user.

*-Mf*~<'message~id'>~<'message~id'>~...::
oindex:[%-Mf%]
cindex:[freezing messages]
cindex:[message,manually freezing]
This option requests Exim to mark each listed message as ``frozen''. This
prevents any delivery attempts taking place until the message is ``thawed'',
either manually or as a result of the %auto_thaw% configuration option.
However, if any of the messages are active (in the middle of a delivery
attempt), their status is not altered. This option can be used only by an admin
user.

*-Mg*~<'message~id'>~<'message~id'>~...::
oindex:[%-Mg%]
cindex:[giving up on messages]
cindex:[message,abandoning delivery attempts]
cindex:[delivery,abandoning further attempts]
This option requests Exim to give up trying to deliver the listed messages,
including any that are frozen. However, if any of the messages are active,
their status is not altered. For non-bounce messages, a delivery error message
is sent to the sender, containing the text ``cancelled by administrator''.
Bounce messages are just discarded. This option can be used only by an admin
user.

*-Mmad*~<'message~id'>~<'message~id'>~...::
oindex:[%-Mmad%]
cindex:[delivery,cancelling all]
This option requests Exim to mark all the recipient addresses in the messages
as already delivered (``mad'' for ``mark all delivered''). However, if any
message is active (in the middle of a delivery attempt), its status is not
altered. This option can be used only by an admin user.

*-Mmd*~<'message~id'>~<'address'>~<'address'>~...::
oindex:[%-Mmd%]
cindex:[delivery,cancelling by address]
cindex:[recipient,removing]
cindex:[removing recipients]
This option requests Exim to mark the given addresses as already delivered
(``md'' for ``mark delivered''). The first argument must be a message id, and
the remaining ones must be email addresses. These are matched to recipient
addresses in the message in a case-sensitive manner. If the message is active
(in the middle of a delivery attempt), its status is not altered. This option
can be used only by an admin user.

*-Mrm*~<'message~id'>~<'message~id'>~...::
oindex:[%-Mrm%]
cindex:[removing messages]
cindex:[abandoning mail]
cindex:[message,manually discarding]
This option requests Exim to remove the given messages from the queue. No
bounce messages are sent; each message is simply forgotten. However, if any of
the messages are active, their status is not altered. This option can be used
only by an admin user or by the user who originally caused the message to be
placed on the queue.

*-Mt*~<'message~id'>~<'message~id'>~...::
oindex:[%-Mt%]
cindex:[thawing messages]
cindex:[unfreezing messages]
cindex:[frozen messages,thawing]
cindex:[message,thawing frozen]
This option requests Exim to ``thaw'' any of the listed messages that are
``frozen'', so that delivery attempts can resume. However, if any of the messages
are active, their status is not altered. This option can be used only by an
admin user.

*-Mvb*~<'message~id'>::
oindex:[%-Mvb%]
cindex:[listing,message body]
cindex:[message,listing body of]
This option causes the contents of the message body (-D) spool file to be
written to the standard output. This option can be used only by an admin user.

*-Mvh*~<'message~id'>::
oindex:[%-Mvh%]
cindex:[listing,message headers]
cindex:[header lines,listing]
cindex:[message,listing header lines]
This option causes the contents of the message headers (-H) spool file to be
written to the standard output. This option can be used only by an admin user.

*-Mvl*~<'message~id'>::
oindex:[%-Mvl%]
cindex:[listing,message log]
cindex:[message,listing message log]
This option causes the contents of the message log spool file to be written to
the standard output. This option can be used only by an admin user.

*-m*::
oindex:[%-m%]
This is apparently a synonym for %-om% that is accepted by Sendmail, so Exim
treats it that way too.

*-N*::
oindex:[%-N%]
cindex:[debugging,%-N% option]
cindex:[debugging,suppressing delivery]
This is a debugging option that inhibits delivery of a message at the transport
level. It implies %-v%. Exim goes through many of the motions of delivery --
it just doesn't actually transport the message, but instead behaves as if it
had successfully done so. However, it does not make any updates to the retry
database, and the log entries for deliveries are flagged with ``\*>'' rather
than ``=>''.
+
Because %-N% discards any message to which it applies, only root or the Exim
user are allowed to use it with %-bd%, %-q%, %-R% or %-M%. In other words,
an ordinary user can use it only when supplying an incoming message to which it
will apply. Although transportation never fails when %-N% is set, an address
may be deferred because of a configuration problem on a transport, or a routing
problem. Once %-N% has been used for a delivery attempt, it sticks to the
message, and applies to any subsequent delivery attempts that may happen for
that message.

*-n*::
oindex:[%-n%]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-n% option ignored]
This option is interpreted by Sendmail to mean ``no aliasing''. It is ignored by
Exim.

*-O*~<'data'>::
oindex:[%-O%]
This option is interpreted by Sendmail to mean `set option`. It is ignored by
Exim.

*-oA*~<'file~name'>::
oindex:[%-oA%]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-oA% option]
This option is used by Sendmail in conjunction with %-bi% to specify an
alternative alias file name. Exim handles %-bi% differently; see the
description above.

*-oB*~<'n'>::
oindex:[%-oB%]
cindex:[SMTP,passed connection]
cindex:[SMTP,multiple deliveries]
cindex:[multiple SMTP deliveries]
This is a debugging option which limits the maximum number of messages that can
be delivered down one SMTP connection, overriding the value set in any ^smtp^
transport. If <'n'> is omitted, the limit is set to 1.

*-odb*::
oindex:[%-odb%]
cindex:[background delivery]
cindex:[delivery,in the background]
This option applies to all modes in which Exim accepts incoming messages,
including the listening daemon. It requests ``background'' delivery of such
messages, which means that the accepting process automatically starts a
delivery process for each message received, but does not wait for the delivery
processes to finish.
+
When all the messages have been received, the reception process exits,
leaving the delivery processes to finish in their own time. The standard output
and error streams are closed at the start of each delivery process.
This is the default action if none of the %-od% options are present.
+
If one of the queueing options in the configuration file
(%queue_only% or %queue_only_file%, for example) is in effect, %-odb%
overrides it if %queue_only_override% is set true, which is the default
setting. If %queue_only_override% is set false, %-odb% has no effect.

*-odf*::
oindex:[%-odf%]
cindex:[foreground delivery]
cindex:[delivery,in the foreground]
This option requests ``foreground'' (synchronous) delivery when Exim has accepted
a locally-generated message. (For the daemon it is exactly the same as
%-odb%.) A delivery process is automatically started to deliver the
message, and Exim waits for it to complete before proceeding.
+
The original Exim reception process does not finish until the delivery
process for the final message has ended. The standard error stream is left open
during deliveries.
+
However, like %-odb%, this option has no effect if %queue_only_override% is
false and one of the queueing options in the configuration file is in effect.
+
If there is a temporary delivery error during foreground delivery, the
message is left on the queue for later delivery, and the original reception
process exists. See chapter <<CHAPnonqueueing>> for a way of setting up a
restricted configuration that never queues messages.


*-odi*::
oindex:[%-odi%]
This option is synonymous with %-odf%. It is provided for compatibility with
Sendmail.

*-odq*::
oindex:[%-odq%]
cindex:[non-immediate delivery]
cindex:[delivery,suppressing immediate]
cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
This option applies to all modes in which Exim accepts incoming messages,
including the listening daemon. It specifies that the accepting process should
not automatically start a delivery process for each message received. Messages
are placed on the queue, and remain there until a subsequent queue runner
process encounters them. There are several configuration options (such as
%queue_only%) that can be used to queue incoming messages under certain
conditions. This option overrides all of them and also %-odqs%. It always
forces queueing.

*-odqs*::
oindex:[%-odqs%]
cindex:[SMTP,delaying delivery]
This option is a hybrid between %-odb%/%-odi% and %-odq%.
However, like %-odb% and %-odi%, this option has no effect if
%queue_only_override% is false and one of the queueing options in the
configuration file is in effect.
+
When %-odqs% does operate, a delivery process is started for each incoming
message, in the background by default, but in the foreground if %-odi% is also
present. The recipient addresses are routed, and local deliveries are done in
the normal way. However, if any SMTP deliveries are required, they are not done
at this time, so the message remains on the queue until a subsequent queue
runner process encounters it. Because routing was done, Exim knows which
messages are waiting for which hosts, and so a number of messages for the same
host can be sent in a single SMTP connection. The %queue_smtp_domains%
configuration option has the same effect for specific domains. See also the
%-qq% option.

*-oee*::
oindex:[%-oee%]
cindex:[error,reporting]
If an error is detected while a non-SMTP message is being received (for
example, a malformed address), the error is reported to the sender in a mail
message.
+
Provided
cindex:[return code,for %-oee%]
this error message is successfully sent, the Exim receiving process
exits with a return code of zero. If not, the return code is 2 if the problem
is that the original message has no recipients, or 1 any other error. This is
the default %-oe'x'% option if Exim is called as 'rmail'.

*-oem*::
oindex:[%-oem%]
cindex:[error,reporting]
cindex:[return code,for %-oem%]
This is the same as %-oee%, except that Exim always exits with a non-zero
return code, whether or not the error message was successfully sent.
This is the default %-oe'x'% option, unless Exim is called as 'rmail'.

*-oep*::
oindex:[%-oep%]
cindex:[error,reporting]
If an error is detected while a non-SMTP message is being received, the
error is reported by writing a message to the standard error file (stderr).
cindex:[return code,for %-oep%]
The return code is 1 for all errors.

*-oeq*::
oindex:[%-oeq%]
cindex:[error,reporting]
This option is supported for compatibility with Sendmail, but has the same
effect as %-oep%.

*-oew*::
oindex:[%-oew%]
cindex:[error,reporting]
This option is supported for compatibility with Sendmail, but has the same
effect as %-oem%.

*-oi*::
oindex:[%-oi%]
cindex:[dot in incoming, non-SMTP message]
This option, which has the same effect as %-i%, specifies that a dot on a line
by itself should not terminate an incoming, non-SMTP message.
Otherwise, a single dot does terminate, though Exim does no special processing
for other lines that start with a dot.
This option is set by default if Exim is called as 'rmail'. See also %-ti%.

*-oitrue*::
oindex:[%-oitrue%]
This option is treated as synonymous with %-oi%.

*-oMa*~<'host~address'>::
oindex:[%-oMa%]
cindex:[sender host address, specifying for local message]
A number of options starting with %-oM% can be used to set values associated
with remote hosts on locally-submitted messages (that is, messages not received
over TCP/IP). These options can be used by any caller in conjunction with the
%-bh%, %-be%, %-bf%, %-bF%, %-bt%, or %-bv% testing options. In other
circumstances, they are ignored unless the caller is trusted.
+
The %-oMa% option sets the sender host address. This may include a port number
at the end, after a full stop (period). For example:

  exim -bs -oMa 10.9.8.7.1234
+
An alternative syntax is to enclose the IP address in square brackets,
followed by a colon and the port number:

  exim -bs -oMa [10.9.8.7]:1234
+
The IP address is placed in the $sender_host_address$ variable, and the
port, if present, in $sender_host_port$.

*-oMaa*~<'name'>::
oindex:[%-oMaa%]
cindex:[authentication name, specifying for local message]
See %-oMa% above for general remarks about the %-oM% options. The %-oMaa%
option sets the value of $sender_host_authenticated$ (the authenticator
name). See chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>> for a discussion of SMTP authentication.

*-oMai*~<'string'>::
oindex:[%-oMai%]
cindex:[authentication id, specifying for local message]
See %-oMa% above for general remarks about the %-oM% options. The %-oMai%
option sets the value of $authenticated_id$ (the id that was authenticated).
This overrides the default value (the caller's login id) for messages from
local sources. See chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>> for a discussion of authenticated
ids.

*-oMas*~<'address'>::
oindex:[%-oMas%]
cindex:[authentication sender, specifying for local message]
See %-oMa% above for general remarks about the %-oM% options. The %-oMas%
option sets the authenticated sender value in $authenticated_sender$. It
overrides the sender address that is created from the caller's login id for
messages from local sources. See chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>> for a discussion of
authenticated senders.

*-oMi*~<'interface~address'>::
oindex:[%-oMi%]
cindex:[interface address, specifying for local message]
See %-oMa% above for general remarks about the %-oM% options. The %-oMi% option
sets the IP interface address value. A port number may be included, using the
same syntax as for %-oMa%. The interface address is placed in
$interface_address$ and the port number, if present, in $interface_port$.

*-oMr*~<'protocol~name'>::
oindex:[%-oMr%]
cindex:[protocol,incoming -- specifying for local message]
See %-oMa% above for general remarks about the %-oM% options. The %-oMr% option
sets the received protocol value that is stored in $received_protocol$.
However, this applies only when %-bs% is not used. For interactive SMTP input
(%-bs%), the protocol is always ``local-'' followed by one of the standard SMTP
protocol names (see the description of $received_protocol$ in section
<<SECTexpvar>>). For %-bS% (batch SMTP) however, the protocol can be set by
<<%-oMr%.

*-oMs*~<'host~name'>::
oindex:[%-oMs%]
cindex:[sender host name, specifying for local message]
See %-oMa% above for general remarks about the %-oM% options. The %-oMs% option
sets the sender host name in $sender_host_name$. When this option is present,
Exim does not attempt to look up a host name from an IP address; it uses the
name it is given.

*-oMt*~<'ident~string'>::
oindex:[%-oMt%]
cindex:[sender ident string, specifying for local message]
See %-oMa% above for general remarks about the %-oM% options. The %-oMt% option
sets the sender ident value in $sender_ident$. The default setting for local
callers is the login id of the calling process.

*-om*::
oindex:[%-om%]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-om% option ignored]
In Sendmail, this option means ``me too'', indicating that the sender of a
message should receive a copy of the message if the sender appears in an alias
expansion. Exim always does this, so the option does nothing.

*-oo*::
oindex:[%-oo%]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-oo% option ignored]
This option is ignored. In Sendmail it specifies ``old style headers'', whatever
that means.

*-oP*~<'path'>::
oindex:[%-oP%]
cindex:[pid (process id),of daemon]
cindex:[daemon,process id (pid)]
This option is useful only in conjunction with %-bd% or %-q% with a time
value. The option specifies the file to which the process id of the daemon is
written. When %-oX% is used with %-bd%, or when %-q% with a time is used
without %-bd%, this is the only way of causing Exim to write a pid file,
because in those cases, the normal pid file is not used.

*-or*~<'time'>::
oindex:[%-or%]
cindex:[timeout,for non-SMTP input]
This option sets a timeout value for incoming non-SMTP messages. If it is not
set, Exim will wait forever for the standard input. The value can also be set
by the %receive_timeout% option. The format used for specifying times is
described in section <<SECTtimeformat>>.

*-os*~<'time'>::
oindex:[%-os%]
cindex:[timeout,for SMTP input]
cindex:[SMTP timeout, input]
This option sets a timeout value for incoming SMTP messages. The timeout
applies to each SMTP command and block of data. The value can also be set by
the %smtp_receive_timeout% option; it defaults to 5 minutes. The format used
for specifying times is described in section <<SECTtimeformat>>.

*-ov*::
oindex:[%-ov%]
This option has exactly the same effect as %-v%.

*-oX*~<'number~or~string'>::
oindex:[%-oX%]
cindex:[TCP/IP,setting listening ports]
cindex:[TCP/IP,setting listening interfaces]
cindex:[port,receiving TCP/IP]
This option is relevant only when the %-bd% (start listening daemon) option is
also given. It controls which ports and interfaces the daemon uses. Details of
the syntax, and how it interacts with configuration file options, are given in
chapter <<CHAPinterfaces>>. When %-oX% is used to start a daemon, no pid file is
written unless %-oP% is also present to specify a pid file name.

*-pd*::
oindex:[%-pd%]
cindex:[Perl,starting the interpreter]
This option applies when an embedded Perl interpreter is linked with Exim (see
chapter <<CHAPperl>>). It overrides the setting of the %perl_at_start% option,
forcing the starting of the interpreter to be delayed until it is needed.

*-ps*::
oindex:[%-ps%]
cindex:[Perl,starting the interpreter]
This option applies when an embedded Perl interpreter is linked with Exim (see
chapter <<CHAPperl>>). It overrides the setting of the %perl_at_start% option,
forcing the starting of the interpreter to occur as soon as Exim is started.

*-p*<'rval'>:<'sval'>::
oindex:[%-p%]
For compatibility with Sendmail, this option is equivalent to

  -oMr <rval> -oMs <sval>
+
It sets the incoming protocol and host name (for trusted callers). The
host name and its colon can be omitted when only the protocol is to be set.
Note the Exim already has two private options, %-pd% and %-ps%, that refer to
embedded Perl. It is therefore impossible to set a protocol value of `p` or
`s` using this option (but that does not seem a real limitation).

*-q*::
oindex:[%-q%]
cindex:[queue runner,starting manually]
This option is normally restricted to admin users. However, there is a
configuration option called %prod_requires_admin% which can be set false to
relax this restriction (and also the same requirement for the %-M%, %-R%, and
%-S% options).
+
The
cindex:[queue runner,description of operation]
%-q% option starts one queue runner process. This scans the queue of
waiting messages, and runs a delivery process for each one in turn. It waits
for each delivery process to finish before starting the next one. A delivery
process may not actually do any deliveries if the retry times for the addresses
have not been reached. Use %-qf% (see below) if you want to override this.
+
If
cindex:[SMTP,passed connection]
cindex:[SMTP,multiple deliveries]
cindex:[multiple SMTP deliveries]
the delivery process spawns other processes to deliver other messages down
passed SMTP connections, the queue runner waits for these to finish before
proceeding.
+
When all the queued messages have been considered, the original queue runner
process terminates. In other words, a single pass is made over the waiting
mail, one message at a time. Use %-q% with a time (see below) if you want this
to be repeated periodically.
+
Exim processes the waiting messages in an unpredictable order. It isn't very
random, but it is likely to be different each time, which is all that matters.
If one particular message screws up a remote MTA, other messages to the same
MTA have a chance of getting through if they get tried first.
+
It is possible to cause the messages to be processed in lexical message id
order, which is essentially the order in which they arrived, by setting the
%queue_run_in_order% option, but this is not recommended for normal use.

*-q*<'qflags'>::
The %-q% option may be followed by one or more flag letters that change its
behaviour. They are all optional, but if more than one is present, they must
appear in the correct order. Each flag is described in a separate item below.

*-qq...*::
oindex:[%-qq%]
cindex:[queue,double scanning]
cindex:[queue,routing]
cindex:[routing,whole queue before delivery]
An option starting with %-qq% requests a two-stage queue run. In the first
stage, the queue is scanned as if the %queue_smtp_domains% option matched
every domain. Addresses are routed, local deliveries happen, but no remote
transports are run.
+
The
cindex:[hints database,remembering routing]
hints database that remembers which messages are waiting for specific hosts is
updated, as if delivery to those hosts had been deferred. After this is
complete, a second, normal queue scan happens, with routing and delivery taking
place as normal. Messages that are routed to the same host should mostly be
delivered down a single SMTP
cindex:[SMTP,passed connection]
cindex:[SMTP,multiple deliveries]
cindex:[multiple SMTP deliveries]
connection because of the hints that were set up during the first queue scan.
This option may be useful for hosts that are connected to the Internet
intermittently.

*-q[q]i...*::
oindex:[%-qi%]
cindex:[queue,initial delivery]
If the 'i' flag is present, the queue runner runs delivery processes only for
those messages that haven't previously been tried. ('i' stands for ``initial
delivery''.) This can be helpful if you are putting messages on the queue using
%-odq% and want a queue runner just to process the new messages.

*-q[q][i]f...*::
oindex:[%-qf%]
cindex:[queue,forcing delivery]
cindex:[delivery,forcing in queue run]
If one 'f' flag is present, a delivery attempt is forced for each non-frozen
message, whereas without %f% only those non-frozen addresses that have passed
their retry times are tried.

*-q[q][i]ff...*::
oindex:[%-qff%]
cindex:[frozen messages,forcing delivery]
If 'ff' is present, a delivery attempt is forced for every message, whether
frozen or not.

*-q[q][i][f[f]]l*::
oindex:[%-ql%]
cindex:[queue,local deliveries only]
The 'l' (the letter ``ell'') flag specifies that only local deliveries are to be
done. If a message requires any remote deliveries, it remains on the queue for
later delivery.

*-q*<'qflags'>~<'start~id'>~<'end~id'>::
cindex:[queue,delivering specific messages]
When scanning the queue, Exim can be made to skip over messages whose ids are
lexically less than a given value by following the %-q% option with a starting
message id. For example:

  exim -q 0t5C6f-0000c8-00
+
Messages that arrived earlier than `0t5C6f-0000c8-00` are not inspected. If a
second message id is given, messages whose ids are lexically greater than it
are also skipped. If the same id is given twice, for example,

  exim -q 0t5C6f-0000c8-00 0t5C6f-0000c8-00
+
just one delivery process is started, for that message. This differs from %-M%
in that retry data is respected, and it also differs from %-Mc% in that it
counts as a delivery from a queue run. Note that the selection mechanism does
not affect the order in which the messages are scanned. There are also other
ways of selecting specific sets of messages for delivery in a queue run -- see
%-R% and %-S%.

*-q*<'qflags'><'time'>::
cindex:[queue runner,starting periodically]
cindex:[periodic queue running]
When a time value is present, the %-q% option causes Exim to run as a daemon,
starting a queue runner process at intervals specified by the given time value
(whose format is described in section <<SECTtimeformat>>). This form of the %-q%
option is commonly combined with the %-bd% option, in which case a single
daemon process handles both functions. A common way of starting up a combined
daemon at system boot time is to use a command such as

  /usr/exim/bin/exim -bd -q30m
+
Such a daemon listens for incoming SMTP calls, and also starts a queue runner
process every 30 minutes.
+
When a daemon is started by %-q% with a time value, but without %-bd%, no pid
file is written unless one is explicitly requested by the %-oP% option.

*-qR*<'rsflags'>~<'string'>::
oindex:[%-qR%]
This option is synonymous with %-R%. It is provided for Sendmail compatibility.

*-qS*<'rsflags'>~<'string'>::
oindex:[%-qS%]
This option is synonymous with %-S%.

*-R*<'rsflags'>~<'string'>::
oindex:[%-R%]
cindex:[queue runner,for specific recipients]
cindex:[delivery,to given domain]
cindex:[domain,delivery to]
The <'rsflags'> may be empty, in which case the white space before the string
is optional, unless the string is 'f', 'ff', 'r', 'rf', or 'rff', which are the
possible values for <'rsflags'>. White space is required if <'rsflags'> is not
empty.
+
This option is similar to %-q% with no time value, that is, it causes Exim to
perform a single queue run, except that, when scanning the messages on the
queue, Exim processes only those that have at least one undelivered recipient
address containing the given string, which is checked in a case-independent
way. If the <'rsflags'> start with 'r', <'string'> is interpreted as a regular
expression; otherwise it is a literal string.
+
Once a message is selected, all its addresses are processed. For the first
selected message, Exim overrides any retry information and forces a delivery
attempt for each undelivered address. This means that if delivery of any
address in the first message is successful, any existing retry information is
deleted, and so delivery attempts for that address in subsequently selected
messages (which are processed without forcing) will run. However, if delivery
of any address does not succeed, the retry information is updated, and in
subsequently selected messages, the failing address will be skipped.
+
If the <'rsflags'> contain 'f' or 'ff', the delivery forcing applies to all
selected messages, not just the first;
cindex:[frozen messages,forcing delivery]
frozen messages are included when 'ff' is present.
+
The %-R% option makes it straightforward to initiate delivery of all messages
to a given domain after a host has been down for some time. When the SMTP
command ETRN is accepted by its ACL (see chapter <<CHAPACL>>), its default
effect is to run Exim with the %-R% option, but it can be configured to run an
arbitrary command instead.

*-r*::
oindex:[%-r%]
This is a documented (for Sendmail) obsolete alternative name for %-f%.

*-S*<'rsflags'>~<'string'>::
oindex:[%-S%]
cindex:[delivery,from given sender]
cindex:[queue runner,for specific senders]
This option acts like %-R% except that it checks the string against each
message's sender instead of against the recipients. If %-R% is also set, both
conditions must be met for a message to be selected. If either of the options
has 'f' or 'ff' in its flags, the associated action is taken.

*-Tqt*~<'times'>::
oindex:[%-Tqt%]
This an option that is exclusively for use by the Exim testing suite. It is not
recognized when Exim is run normally. It allows for the setting up of explicit
``queue times'' so that various warning/retry features can be tested.

*-t*::
oindex:[%-t%]
cindex:[recipient,extracting from header lines]
cindex:['Bcc:' header line]
cindex:['Cc:' header line]
cindex:['To:' header line]
When Exim is receiving a locally-generated, non-SMTP message on its standard
input, the %-t% option causes the recipients of the message to be obtained
from the 'To:', 'Cc:', and 'Bcc:' header lines in the message instead of from
the command arguments. The addresses are extracted before any rewriting takes
place.
+
If
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-t% option]
the command has any arguments, they specify addresses to which the message
is 'not' to be delivered. That is, the argument addresses are removed from
the recipients list obtained from the headers. This is compatible with Smail 3
and in accordance with the documented behaviour of several versions of
Sendmail, as described in man pages on a number of operating systems (e.g.
Solaris 8, IRIX 6.5, HP-UX 11). However, some versions of Sendmail 'add'
argument addresses to those obtained from the headers, and the O'Reilly
Sendmail book documents it that way. Exim can be made to add argument addresses
instead of subtracting them by setting the option
%extract_addresses_remove_arguments% false.
+
If a 'Bcc:' header line is present, it is removed from the message unless
there is no 'To:' or 'Cc:', in which case a 'Bcc:' line with no data is
created. This is necessary for conformity with the original RFC 822 standard;
the requirement has been removed in RFC 2822, but that is still very new.
+
If
cindex:[%Resent-% header lines,with %-t%]
there are any %Resent-% header lines in the message, Exim extracts
recipients from all 'Resent-To:', 'Resent-Cc:', and 'Resent-Bcc:' header
lines instead of from 'To:', 'Cc:', and 'Bcc:'. This is for compatibility
with Sendmail and other MTAs. (Prior to release 4.20, Exim gave an error if
%-t% was used in conjunction with %Resent-% header lines.)
+
RFC 2822 talks about different sets of %Resent-% header lines (for when a
message is resent several times). The RFC also specifies that they should be
added at the front of the message, and separated by 'Received:' lines. It is
not at all clear how %-t% should operate in the present of multiple sets,
nor indeed exactly what constitutes a ``set''.
In practice, it seems that MUAs do not follow the RFC. The %Resent-% lines are
often added at the end of the header, and if a message is resent more than
once, it is common for the original set of %Resent-% headers to be renamed as
%X-Resent-% when a new set is added. This removes any possible ambiguity.

*-ti*::
oindex:[%-ti%]
This option is exactly equivalent to %-t% %-i%. It is provided for
compatibility with Sendmail.

*-tls-on-connect*::
oindex:[%-tls-on-connect%]
cindex:[TLS,use without STARTTLS]
cindex:[TLS,automatic start]
This option is available when Exim is compiled with TLS support. It forces all
incoming SMTP connections to behave as if the incoming port is listed in the
%tls_on_connect_ports% option. See section <<SECTsupobssmt>> and chapter
<<CHAPTLS>> for further details.


*-U*::
oindex:[%-U%]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-U% option ignored]
Sendmail uses this option for ``initial message submission'', and its
documentation states that in future releases, it may complain about
syntactically invalid messages rather than fixing them when this flag is not
set. Exim ignores this option.

*-v*::
oindex:[%-v%]
This option causes Exim to write information to the standard error stream,
describing what it is doing. In particular, it shows the log lines for
receiving and delivering a message, and if an SMTP connection is made, the SMTP
dialogue is shown. Some of the log lines shown may not actually be written to
the log if the setting of %log_selector% discards them. Any relevant selectors
are shown with each log line. If none are shown, the logging is unconditional.

*-x*::
oindex:[%-x%]
AIX uses %-x% for a private purpose (``mail from a local mail program has
National Language Support extended characters in the body of the mail item'').
It sets %-x% when calling the MTA from its %mail% command. Exim ignores this
option.

///
We insert a stylized DocBook comment here, to identify the end of the command
line options. This is for the benefit of the Perl script that automatically
creates a man page for the options.
///

++++
<!-- === End of command line options === -->
++++





////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


[[CHAPconf]]
[titleabbrev="The runtime configuration file"]
The Exim run time configuration file
------------------------------------

cindex:[run time configuration]
cindex:[configuration file,general description]
cindex:[CONFIGURE_FILE]
cindex:[configuration file,errors in]
cindex:[error,in configuration file]
cindex:[return code,for bad configuration]
Exim uses a single run time configuration file that is read whenever an Exim
binary is executed. Note that in normal operation, this happens frequently,
because Exim is designed to operate in a distributed manner, without central
control.

If a syntax error is detected while reading the configuration file, Exim
writes a message on the standard error, and exits with a non-zero return code.
The message is also written to the panic log. *Note*: only simple syntax
errors can be detected at this time. The values of any expanded options are
not checked until the expansion happens, even when the expansion does not
actually alter the string.



The name of the configuration file is compiled into the binary for security
reasons, and is specified by the CONFIGURE_FILE compilation option. In
most configurations, this specifies a single file. However, it is permitted to
give a colon-separated list of file names, in which case Exim uses the first
existing file in the list.

cindex:[EXIM_USER]
cindex:[EXIM_GROUP]
cindex:[CONFIGURE_OWNER]
cindex:[CONFIGURE_GROUP]
cindex:[configuration file,ownership]
cindex:[ownership,configuration file]
The run time configuration file must be owned by root or by the user that is
specified at compile time by the EXIM_USER option, or by the user that is
specified at compile time by the CONFIGURE_OWNER option (if set). The
configuration file must not be world-writeable or group-writeable, unless its
group is the one specified at compile time by the EXIM_GROUP option

or by the CONFIGURE_GROUP option.


*Warning*: In a conventional configuration, where the Exim binary is setuid
to root, anybody who is able to edit the run time configuration file has an
easy way to run commands as root. If you make your mail administrators members
of the Exim group, but do not trust them with root, make sure that the run time
configuration is not group writeable.

A default configuration file, which will work correctly in simple situations,
is provided in the file _src/configure.default_. If CONFIGURE_FILE
defines just one file name, the installation process copies the default
configuration to a new file of that name if it did not previously exist. If
CONFIGURE_FILE is a list, no default is automatically installed. Chapter
<<CHAPdefconfil>> is a ``walk-through'' discussion of the default configuration.



Using a different configuration file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[configuration file,alternate]
A one-off alternate configuration can be specified by the %-C% command line
option, which may specify a single file or a list of files. However, when %-C%
is used, Exim gives up its root privilege, unless called by root or the Exim
user (or unless the argument for %-C% is identical to the built-in value from
CONFIGURE_FILE). %-C% is useful mainly for checking the syntax of
configuration files before installing them. No owner or group checks are done
on a configuration file specified by %-C%.

The privileged use of %-C% by the Exim user can be locked out by setting
ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY in _Local/Makefile_ when building Exim. However,
if you do this, you also lock out the possibility of testing a
configuration using %-C% right through message reception and delivery, even if
the caller is root. The reception works, but by that time, Exim is running as
the Exim user, so when it re-execs to regain privilege for the delivery, the
use of %-C% causes privilege to be lost. However, root can test reception and
delivery using two separate commands (one to put a message on the queue, using
%-odq%, and another to do the delivery, using %-M%).

If ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX is defined _in Local/Makefile_, it specifies a
prefix string with which any file named in a %-C% command line option must
start. In addition, the file name must not contain the sequence `/../`. There
is no default setting for ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX; when it is unset, any file
name can be used with %-C%.

One-off changes to a configuration can be specified by the %-D% command line
option, which defines and overrides values for macros used inside the
configuration file. However, like %-C%, the use of this option by a
non-privileged user causes Exim to discard its root privilege.
If DISABLE_D_OPTION is defined in _Local/Makefile_, the use of %-D% is
completely disabled, and its use causes an immediate error exit.

Some sites may wish to use the same Exim binary on different machines that
share a file system, but to use different configuration files on each machine.
If CONFIGURE_FILE_USE_NODE is defined in _Local/Makefile_, Exim first
looks for a file whose name is the configuration file name followed by a dot
and the machine's node name, as obtained from the 'uname()' function. If this
file does not exist, the standard name is tried. This processing occurs for
each file name in the list given by CONFIGURE_FILE or %-C%.

In some esoteric situations different versions of Exim may be run under
different effective uids and the CONFIGURE_FILE_USE_EUID is defined to
help with this. See the comments in _src/EDITME_ for details.



[[SECTconffilfor]]
Configuration file format
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[configuration file,format of]
cindex:[format,configuration file]
Exim's configuration file is divided into a number of different parts. General
option settings must always appear at the start of the file. The other parts
are all optional, and may appear in any order. Each part other than the first
is introduced by the word ``begin'' followed by the name of the part. The
optional parts are:

- 'ACL': Access control lists for controlling incoming SMTP mail.

- cindex:[AUTH,configuration]
'authenticators': Configuration settings for the authenticator drivers. These
are concerned with the SMTP AUTH command (see chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>>).

- 'routers': Configuration settings for the router drivers. Routers process
addresses and determine how the message is to be delivered.

- 'transports': Configuration settings for the transport drivers. Transports
define mechanisms for copying messages to destinations.

- 'retry': Retry rules, for use when a message cannot be immediately delivered.

- 'rewrite': Global address rewriting rules, for use when a message arrives and
when new addresses are generated during delivery.

- 'local_scan': Private options for the 'local_scan()' function. If you
want to use this feature, you must set

  LOCAL_SCAN_HAS_OPTIONS=yes
+
in _Local/Makefile_ before building Exim. Full details of the
'local_scan()' facility are given in chapter <<CHAPlocalscan>>.

cindex:[configuration file,leading whitespace in]
cindex:[configuration file,trailing whitespace in]
cindex:[whitespace,in configuration file]
Leading and trailing whitespace in configuration lines is always ignored.

Blank lines in the file, and lines starting with a # character (ignoring
leading white space) are treated as comments and are ignored. *Note*: a
# character other than at the beginning of a line is not treated specially,
and does not introduce a comment.

Any non-comment line can be continued by ending it with a backslash. Note that
the general rule for whitespace means that trailing white space after the
backslash is ignored, and leading white space at the start of continuation
lines is also ignored. Comment lines beginning with # (but not empty lines) may
appear in the middle of a sequence of continuation lines.

A convenient way to create a configuration file is to start from the
default, which is supplied in _src/configure.default_, and add, delete, or
change settings as required.

The ACLs, retry rules, and rewriting rules have their own syntax which is
described in chapters <<CHAPACL>>, <<CHAPretry>>, and <<CHAPrewrite>>,
respectively. The other parts of the configuration file have some syntactic
items in common, and these are described below, from section <<SECTcos>>
onwards. Before that, the inclusion, macro, and conditional facilities are
described.



File inclusions in the configuration file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[inclusions in configuration file]
cindex:[configuration file,including other files]
cindex:[.include in configuration file]
cindex:[.include_if_exists in configuration file]
You can include other files inside Exim's run time configuration file by
using this syntax:

  .include <file name>

or

  .include_if_exists <file name>

on a line by itself. Double quotes round the file name are optional. If you use
the first form, a configuration error occurs if the file does not exist; the
second form does nothing for non-existent files.

Includes may be nested to any depth, but remember that Exim reads its
configuration file often, so it is a good idea to keep them to a minimum.
If you change the contents of an included file, you must HUP the daemon,
because an included file is read only when the configuration itself is read.

The processing of inclusions happens early, at a physical line level, so, like
comment lines, an inclusion can be used in the middle of an option setting,
for example:

....
hosts_lookup = a.b.c \
               .include /some/file
....

Include processing happens after macro processing (see below). Its effect is to
process the lines of the file as if they occurred inline where the inclusion
appears.



[[SECTmacrodefs]]
Macros in the configuration file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[macro,description of]
cindex:[configuration file,macros]
If a line in the main part of the configuration (that is, before the first
``begin'' line) begins with an upper case letter, it is taken as a macro
definition, and must be of the form

&&&
<'name'> = <'rest of line'>
&&&

The name must consist of letters, digits, and underscores, and need not all be
in upper case, though that is recommended. The rest of the line, including any
continuations, is the replacement text, and has leading and trailing white
space removed. Quotes are not removed. The replacement text can never end with
a backslash character, but this doesn't seem to be a serious limitation.

Once a macro is defined, all subsequent lines in the file (and any included
files) are scanned for the macro name; if there are several macros, the line is
scanned for each in turn, in the order in which they are defined. The
replacement text is not re-scanned for the current macro, though it is scanned
for subsequently defined macros. For this reason, a macro name may not contain
the name of a previously defined macro as a substring. You could, for example,
define

&&&
`ABCD_XYZ = `<'something'>
`ABCD = `<'something else'>
&&&

but putting the definitions in the opposite order would provoke a configuration
error.

Macro expansion is applied to individual lines from the file, before checking
for line continuation or file inclusion (see below). If a line consists solely
of a macro name, and the expansion of the macro is empty, the line is ignored.
A macro at the start of a line may turn the line into a comment line or a
`.include` line.

As an example of macro usage, consider a configuration where aliases are looked
up in a MySQL database. It helps to keep the file less cluttered if long
strings such as SQL statements are defined separately as macros, for example:

....
ALIAS_QUERY = select mailbox from user where \
              login=${quote_mysql:$local_part};
....

This can then be used in a ^redirect^ router setting like this:

  data = ${lookup mysql{ALIAS_QUERY}}

In earlier versions of Exim macros were sometimes used for domain, host, or
address lists. In Exim 4 these are handled better by named lists -- see section
<<SECTnamedlists>>.

Macros in the configuration file can be overridden by the %-D% command line
option, but Exim gives up its root privilege when %-D% is used, unless called
by root or the Exim user.



Conditional skips in the configuration file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[configuration file,conditional skips]
cindex:[.ifdef]
You can use the directives `.ifdef`, `.ifndef`, `.elifdef`,
`.elifndef`, `.else`, and `.endif` to dynamically include or exclude
portions of the configuration file. The processing happens whenever the file is
read (that is, when an Exim binary starts to run).

The implementation is very simple. Instances of the first four directives must
be followed by text that includes the names of one or macros. The condition
that is tested is whether or not any macro substitution has taken place in the
line. Thus:

  .ifdef AAA
  message_size_limit = 50M
  .else
  message_size_limit = 100M
  .endif

sets a message size limit of 50M if the macro `AAA` is defined, and 100M
otherwise. If there is more than one macro named on the line, the condition
is true if any of them are defined. That is, it is an ``or'' condition. To
obtain an ``and'' condition, you need to use nested `.ifdef`##s.

Although you can use a macro expansion to generate one of these directives,
it is not very useful, because the condition ``there was a macro substitution
in this line'' will always be true.

Text following `.else` and `.endif` is ignored, and can be used as comment
to clarify complicated nestings.



[[SECTcos]]
Common option syntax
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[common option syntax]
cindex:[syntax of common options]
cindex:[configuration file,common option syntax]
For the main set of options, driver options, and 'local_scan()' options,
each setting is on a line by itself, and starts with a name consisting of
lower-case letters and underscores. Many options require a data value, and in
these cases the name must be followed by an equals sign (with optional white
space) and then the value. For example:

  qualify_domain = mydomain.example.com

Some option settings may contain sensitive data, for example, passwords for
accessing databases. To stop non-admin users from using the %-bP% command line
option to read these values, you can precede the option settings with the word
``hide''. For example:

  hide mysql_servers = localhost/users/admin/secret-password

For non-admin users, such options are displayed like this:

  mysql_servers = <value not displayable>

If ``hide'' is used on a driver option, it hides the value of that option on all
instances of the same driver.

The following sections describe the syntax used for the different data types
that are found in option settings.


Boolean options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[format,boolean]
cindex:[boolean configuration values]
Options whose type is given as boolean are on/off switches. There are two
different ways of specifying such options: with and without a data value. If
the option name is specified on its own without data, the switch is turned on;
if it is preceded by ``no_'' or ``not_'' the switch is turned off. However,
boolean options may optionally be followed by an equals sign and one of the
words ``true'', ``false'', ``yes'', or ``no'', as an alternative syntax. For example,
the following two settings have exactly the same effect:

  queue_only
  queue_only = true

The following two lines also have the same (opposite) effect:

  no_queue_only
  queue_only = false

You can use whichever syntax you prefer.




Integer values
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[integer configuration values]
cindex:[format,integer]
If an integer data item starts with the characters ``0x'', the remainder of it
is interpreted as a hexadecimal number. Otherwise, it is treated as octal if it
starts with the digit 0, and decimal if not. If an integer value is followed by
the letter K, it is multiplied by 1024; if it is followed by the letter M, it
is multiplied by 1024x1024.

When the values of integer option settings are output, values which are an
exact multiple of 1024 or 1024x1024 are
sometimes, but not always,
printed using the letters K and M. The printing style is independent of the
actual input format that was used.


Octal integer values
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[integer format]
cindex:[format,octal integer]
The value of an option specified as an octal integer is always interpreted in
octal, whether or not it starts with the digit zero. Such options are always
output in octal.



Fixed point number values
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[fixed point configuration values]
cindex:[format,fixed point]
A fixed point number consists of a decimal integer, optionally followed by a
decimal point and up to three further digits.



[[SECTtimeformat]]
Time interval values
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[time interval,specifying in configuration]
cindex:[format,time interval]
A time interval is specified as a sequence of numbers, each followed by one of
the following letters, with no intervening white space:

[frame="none"]
`-`-----`--------
  %s%   seconds
  %m%   minutes
  %h%   hours
  %d%   days
  %w%   weeks
-----------------

For example, ``3h50m'' specifies 3 hours and 50 minutes. The values of time
intervals are output in the same format. Exim does not restrict the values; it
is perfectly acceptable, for example, to specify ``90m'' instead of ``1h30m''.



[[SECTstrings]]
String values
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[string,format of configuration values]
cindex:[format,string]
If a string data item does not start with a double-quote character, it is taken
as consisting of the remainder of the line plus any continuation lines,
starting at the first character after any leading white space, with trailing
white space characters removed, and with no interpretation of the characters in
the string. Because Exim removes comment lines (those beginning with #) at an
early stage, they can appear in the middle of a multi-line string. The
following settings are therefore equivalent:

....
trusted_users = uucp:mail

trusted_users = uucp:\
                # This comment line is ignored
                mail
....

cindex:[string,quoted]
cindex:[escape characters in quoted strings]
If a string does start with a double-quote, it must end with a closing
double-quote, and any backslash characters other than those used for line
continuation are interpreted as escape characters, as follows:

[frame="none"]
`-`----------------------`--------------------------------------------------
  `\\`                   single backslash
  `\n`                   newline
  `\r`                   carriage return
  `\t`                   tab
  `\`<'octal digits'>    up to 3 octal digits specify one character
  `\x`<'hex digits'>     up to 2 hexadecimal digits specify one character
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

If a backslash is followed by some other character, including a double-quote
character, that character replaces the pair.

Quoting is necessary only if you want to make use of the backslash escapes to
insert special characters, or if you need to specify a value with leading or
trailing spaces. These cases are rare, so quoting is almost never needed in
current versions of Exim. In versions of Exim before 3.14, quoting was required
in order to continue lines, so you may come across older configuration files
and examples that apparently quote unnecessarily.


Expanded strings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[string expansion, definition of]
cindex:[expansion,definition of]
Some strings in the configuration file are subjected to 'string expansion',
by which means various parts of the string may be changed according to the
circumstances (see chapter <<CHAPexpand>>). The input syntax for such strings is
as just described; in particular, the handling of backslashes in quoted strings
is done as part of the input process, before expansion takes place. However,
backslash is also an escape character for the expander, so any backslashes that
are required for that reason must be doubled if they are within a quoted
configuration string.


User and group names
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[user name,format of]
cindex:[format,user name]
cindex:[group,name format]
cindex:[format,group name]
User and group names are specified as strings, using the syntax described
above, but the strings are interpreted specially. A user or group name must
either consist entirely of digits, or be a name that can be looked up using the
'getpwnam()' or 'getgrnam()' function, as appropriate.


[[SECTlistconstruct]]
List construction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[list,syntax of in configuration]
cindex:[format,list item in configuration]
cindex:[string list, definition]
The data for some configuration options is a list of items, with colon as the
default separator. Many of these options are shown with type ``string list'' in
the descriptions later in this document. Others are listed as ``domain list'',
``host list'', ``address list'', or ``local part list''. Syntactically, they are all
the same; however, those other than ``string list'' are subject to particular
kinds of interpretation, as described in chapter <<CHAPdomhosaddlists>>.

In all these cases, the entire list is treated as a single string as far as the
input syntax is concerned. The %trusted_users% setting in section
<<SECTstrings>> above is an example. If a colon is actually needed in an item in
a list, it must be entered as two colons. Leading and trailing white space on
each item in a list is ignored. This makes it possible to include items that
start with a colon, and in particular, certain forms of IPv6 address. For
example, the list

  local_interfaces = 127.0.0.1 : ::::1

+contains two IP addresses, the IPv4 address 127.0.0.1 and the IPv6 address
1.

cindex:[list separator, changing]
cindex:[IPv6,addresses in lists]
Doubling colons in IPv6 addresses is an unwelcome chore, so a mechanism was
introduced to allow the separator character to be changed. If a list begins
with a left angle bracket, followed by any punctuation character, that
character is used instead of colon as the list separator. For example, the list
above can be rewritten to use a semicolon separator like this:

  local_interfaces = <; 127.0.0.1 ; ::1

This facility applies to all lists, with the exception of the list in
%log_file_path%. It is recommended that the use of non-colon separators be
confined to circumstances where they really are needed.



[[SECTempitelis]]
Empty items in lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[list,empty item in]
An empty item at the end of a list is always ignored. In other words, trailing
separator characters are ignored. Thus, the list in

  senders = user@domain :

contains only a single item. If you want to include an empty string as one item
in a list, it must not be the last item. For example, this list contains three
items, the second of which is empty:

  senders = user1@domain : : user2@domain

*Note*: there must be whitespace between the two colons, as otherwise they
are interpreted as representing a single colon data character (and the list
would then contain just one item). If you want to specify a list that contains
just one, empty item, you can do it as in this example:

  senders = :

In this case, the first item is empty, and the second is discarded because it
is at the end of the list.




[[SECTfordricon]]
Format of driver configurations
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[drivers,configuration format]
There are separate parts in the configuration for defining routers, transports,
and authenticators. In each part, you are defining a number of driver
instances, each with its own set of options. Each driver instance is defined by
a sequence of lines like this:

&&&
<'instance name'>:
  <'option'>
  ...
  <'option'>
&&&

In the following example, the instance name is ^localuser^, and it is
followed by three options settings:

  localuser:
    driver = accept
    check_local_user
    transport = local_delivery

For each driver instance, you specify which Exim code module it uses -- by the
setting of the %driver% option -- and (optionally) some configuration settings.
For example, in the case of transports, if you want a transport to deliver with
SMTP you would use the ^smtp^ driver; if you want to deliver to a local file
you would use the ^appendfile^ driver. Each of the drivers is described in
detail in its own separate chapter later in this manual.

You can have several routers, transports, or authenticators that are based on
the same underlying driver (each must have a different name).

The order in which routers are defined is important, because addresses are
passed to individual routers one by one, in order. The order in which
transports are defined does not matter at all. The order in which
authenticators are defined is used only when Exim, as a client, is searching
them to find one that matches an authentication mechanism offered by the
server.

cindex:[generic options]
cindex:[options, generic -- definition of]
Within a driver instance definition, there are two kinds of option:
'generic' and 'private'. The generic options are those that apply to all
drivers of the same type (that is, all routers, all transports or all
authenticators).
The %driver% option is a generic option that must appear in every definition.

cindex:[private options]
The private options are special for each driver, and none need appear, because
they all have default values.

The options may appear in any order, except that the %driver% option must
precede any private options, since these depend on the particular driver. For
this reason, it is recommended that %driver% always be the first option.

Driver instance names, which are used for reference in log entries and
elsewhere, can be any sequence of letters, digits, and underscores (starting
with a letter) and must be unique among drivers of the same type. A router and
a transport (for example) can each have the same name, but no two router
instances can have the same name. The name of a driver instance should not be
confused with the name of the underlying driver module. For example, the
configuration lines:

  remote_smtp:
    driver = smtp

create an instance of the ^smtp^ transport driver whose name is
^remote_smtp^. The same driver code can be used more than once, with
different instance names and different option settings each time. A second
instance of the ^smtp^ transport, with different options, might be defined
thus:

  special_smtp:
    driver = smtp
    port = 1234
    command_timeout = 10s

The names ^remote_smtp^ and ^special_smtp^ would be used to reference
these transport instances from routers, and these names would appear in log
lines.

Comment lines may be present in the middle of driver specifications. The full
list of option settings for any particular driver instance, including all the
defaulted values, can be extracted by making use of the %-bP% command line
option.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPdefconfil]]
The default configuration file
------------------------------
cindex:[configuration file,default ``walk through'']
cindex:[default,configuration file ``walk through'']
The default configuration file supplied with Exim as _src/configure.default_
is sufficient for a host with simple mail requirements. As an introduction to
the way Exim is configured, this chapter ``walks through'' the default
configuration, giving brief explanations of the settings. Detailed descriptions
of the options are given in subsequent chapters. The default configuration file
itself contains extensive comments about ways you might want to modify the
initial settings. However, note that there are many options that are not
mentioned at all in the default configuration.



Main configuration settings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The main (global) configuration option settings must always come first in the
file. The first thing you'll see in the file, after some initial comments, is
the line

  # primary_hostname =

This is a commented-out setting of the %primary_hostname% option. Exim needs
to know the official, fully qualified name of your host, and this is where you
can specify it. However, in most cases you do not need to set this option. When
it is unset, Exim uses the 'uname()' system function to obtain the host name.

The first three non-comment configuration lines are as follows:

  domainlist local_domains = @
  domainlist relay_to_domains =
  hostlist   relay_from_hosts = 127.0.0.1

These are not, in fact, option settings. They are definitions of two named
domain lists and one named host list. Exim allows you to give names to lists of
domains, hosts, and email addresses, in order to make it easier to manage the
configuration file (see section <<SECTnamedlists>>).

The first line defines a domain list called 'local_domains'; this is used
later in the configuration to identify domains that are to be delivered
on the local host.

cindex:[@ in a domain list]
There is just one item in this list, the string ``@''. This is a special form of
entry which means ``the name of the local host''. Thus, if the local host is
called 'a.host.example', mail to 'any.user@a.host.example' is expected to
be delivered locally. Because the local host's name is referenced indirectly,
the same configuration file can be used on different hosts.

The second line defines a domain list called 'relay_to_domains', but the
list itself is empty. Later in the configuration we will come to the part that
controls mail relaying through the local host; it allows relaying to any
domains in this list. By default, therefore, no relaying on the basis of a mail
domain is permitted.

The third line defines a host list called 'relay_from_hosts'. This list is
used later in the configuration to permit relaying from any host or IP address
that matches the list. The default contains just the IP address of the IPv4
loopback interface, which means that processes on the local host are able to
submit mail for relaying by sending it over TCP/IP to that interface. No other
hosts are permitted to submit messages for relaying.

Just to be sure there's no misunderstanding: at this point in the configuration
we aren't actually setting up any controls. We are just defining some domains
and hosts that will be used in the controls that are specified later.

The next configuration line is a genuine option setting:

  acl_smtp_rcpt = acl_check_rcpt

This option specifies an 'Access Control List' (ACL) which is to be used
during an incoming SMTP session for every recipient of a message (every
RCPT command). The name of the list is 'acl_check_rcpt', and we will
come to its definition below, in the ACL section of the configuration. ACLs
control which recipients are accepted for an incoming message -- if a
configuration does not provide an ACL to check recipients, no SMTP mail can be
accepted.

Two commented-out options settings are next:

  # qualify_domain =
  # qualify_recipient =

The first of these specifies a domain that Exim uses when it constructs a
complete email address from a local login name. This is often needed when Exim
receives a message from a local process. If you do not set %qualify_domain%,
the value of %primary_hostname% is used. If you set both of these options, you
can have different qualification domains for sender and recipient addresses. If
you set only the first one, its value is used in both cases.

cindex:[domain literal,recognizing format]
The following line must be uncommented if you want Exim to recognize
addresses of the form 'user@[10.11.12.13]' that is, with a ``domain literal''
(an IP address) instead of a named domain.

  # allow_domain_literals

The RFCs still require this form, but many people think that in the modern
Internet it makes little sense to permit mail to be sent to specific hosts by
quoting their IP addresses. This ancient format has been used by people who
try to abuse hosts by using them for unwanted relaying. However, some
people believe there are circumstances (for example, messages addressed to
'postmaster') where domain literals are still useful.

The next configuration line is a kind of trigger guard:

  never_users = root

It specifies that no delivery must ever be run as the root user. The normal
convention is to set up 'root' as an alias for the system administrator. This
setting is a guard against slips in the configuration.
The list of users specified by %never_users% is not, however, the complete
list; the build-time configuration in _Local/Makefile_ has an option called
FIXED_NEVER_USERS specifying a list that cannot be overridden. The
contents of %never_users% are added to this list. By default
FIXED_NEVER_USERS also specifies root.

When a remote host connects to Exim in order to send mail, the only information
Exim has about the host's identity is its IP address. The next configuration
line,

  host_lookup = *

specifies that Exim should do a reverse DNS lookup on all incoming connections,
in order to get a host name. This improves the quality of the logging
information, but if you feel it is too expensive, you can remove it entirely,
or restrict the lookup to hosts on ``nearby'' networks.
Note that it is not always possible to find a host name from an IP address,
because not all DNS reverse zones are maintained, and sometimes DNS servers are
unreachable.

The next two lines are concerned with 'ident' callbacks, as defined by RFC
1413 (hence their names):

  rfc1413_hosts = *
  rfc1413_query_timeout = 30s

These settings cause Exim to make ident callbacks for all incoming SMTP calls.
You can limit the hosts to which these calls are made, or change the timeout
that is used. If you set the timeout to zero, all ident calls are disabled.
Although they are cheap and can provide useful information for tracing problem
messages, some hosts and firewalls have problems with ident calls. This can
result in a timeout instead of an immediate refused connection, leading to
delays on starting up an incoming SMTP session.

When Exim receives messages over SMTP connections, it expects all addresses to
be fully qualified with a domain, as required by the SMTP definition. However,
if you are running a server to which simple clients submit messages, you may
find that they send unqualified addresses. The two commented-out options:

  # sender_unqualified_hosts =
  # recipient_unqualified_hosts =

show how you can specify hosts that are permitted to send unqualified sender
and recipient addresses, respectively.

The %percent_hack_domains% option is also commented out:

  # percent_hack_domains =

It provides a list of domains for which the ``percent hack'' is to operate. This
is an almost obsolete form of explicit email routing. If you do not know
anything about it, you can safely ignore this topic.

The last two settings in the main part of the default configuration are
concerned with messages that have been ``frozen'' on Exim's queue. When a message
is frozen, Exim no longer continues to try to deliver it. Freezing occurs when
a bounce message encounters a permanent failure because the sender address of
the original message that caused the bounce is invalid, so the bounce cannot be
delivered. This is probably the most common case, but there are also other
conditions that cause freezing, and frozen messages are not always bounce
messages.

  ignore_bounce_errors_after = 2d
  timeout_frozen_after = 7d

The first of these options specifies that failing bounce messages are to be
discarded after 2 days on the queue. The second specifies that any frozen
message (whether a bounce message or not) is to be timed out (and discarded)
after a week. In this configuration, the first setting ensures that no failing
bounce message ever lasts a week.



ACL configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[default,ACLs]
cindex:[{ACL},default configuration]
In the default configuration, the ACL section follows the main configuration.
It starts with the line

  begin acl

and it contains the definition of one ACL called 'acl_check_rcpt' that was
referenced in the setting of %acl_smtp_rcpt% above.

cindex:[RCPT,ACL for]
This ACL is used for every RCPT command in an incoming SMTP message. Each
RCPT command specifies one of the message's recipients. The ACL statements
are considered in order, until the recipient address is either accepted or
rejected. The RCPT command is then accepted or rejected, according to the
result of the ACL processing.

  acl_check_rcpt:

This line, consisting of a name terminated by a colon, marks the start of the
ACL, and names it.

  accept  hosts = :

This ACL statement accepts the recipient if the sending host matches the list.
But what does that strange list mean? It doesn't actually contain any host
names or IP addresses. The presence of the colon puts an empty item in the
list; Exim matches this only if the incoming message didn't come from a remote
host. The colon is important. Without it, the list itself is empty, and can
never match anything.

What this statement is doing is to accept unconditionally all recipients in
messages that are submitted by SMTP from local processes using the standard
input and output (that is, not using TCP/IP). A number of MUAs operate in this
manner.

  deny    domains       = +local_domains
          local_parts   = ^[.] : ^.*[@%!/|]

  deny    domains       = !+local_domains
          local_parts   = ^[./|] : ^.*[@%!] : ^.*/\\.\\./

These statements are concerned with local parts that contain any of the
characters ``@'', ``%'', ``!'', ``/'', ``|'', or dots in unusual places. Although these
characters are entirely legal in local parts (in the case of ``@'' and leading
dots, only if correctly quoted), they do not commonly occur in Internet mail
addresses.

The first three have in the past been associated with explicitly routed
addresses (percent is still sometimes used -- see the %percent_hack_domains%
option). Addresses containing these characters are regularly tried by spammers
in an attempt to bypass relaying restrictions, and also by open relay testing
programs. Unless you really need them it is safest to reject these characters
at this early stage. This configuration is heavy-handed in rejecting these
characters for all messages it accepts from remote hosts. This is a deliberate
policy of being as safe as possible.

The first rule above is stricter, and is applied to messages that are addressed
to one of the local domains handled by this host. This is implemented by the
first condition, which restricts it to domains that are listed in the
'local_domains' domain list. The ``+'' character is used to indicate a
reference to a named list. In this configuration, there is just one domain in
'local_domains', but in general there may be many.

The second condition on the first statement uses two regular expressions to
block local parts that begin with a dot or contain ``@'', ``%'', ``!'', ``/'', or ``|''.
If you have local accounts that include these characters, you will have to
modify this rule.

Empty components (two dots in a row) are not valid in RFC 2822, but Exim
allows them because they have been encountered in practice. (Consider local
parts constructed as ``first-initial.second-initial.family-name'' when applied to
someone like the author of Exim, who has no second initial.) However, a local
part starting with a dot or containing ``/../'' can cause trouble if it is used
as part of a file name (for example, for a mailing list). This is also true for
local parts that contain slashes. A pipe symbol can also be troublesome if the
local part is incorporated unthinkingly into a shell command line.

The second rule above applies to all other domains, and is less strict. This
allows your own users to send outgoing messages to sites that use slashes
and vertical bars in their local parts. It blocks local parts that begin
with a dot, slash, or vertical bar, but allows these characters within the
local part. However, the sequence ``/../'' is barred. The use of ``@'', ``%'', and
``!'' is blocked, as before. The motivation here is to prevent your users (or
your users' viruses) from mounting certain kinds of attack on remote sites.

  accept  local_parts   = postmaster
          domains       = +local_domains

This statement, which has two conditions, accepts an incoming address if the
local part is 'postmaster' and the domain is one of those listed in the
'local_domains' domain list. The ``+'' character is used to indicate a
reference to a named list. In this configuration, there is just one domain in
'local_domains', but in general there may be many.

The presence of this statement means that mail to postmaster is never blocked
by any of the subsequent tests. This can be helpful while sorting out problems
in cases where the subsequent tests are incorrectly denying access.

  require verify        = sender

This statement requires the sender address to be verified before any subsequent
ACL statement can be used. If verification fails, the incoming recipient
address is refused. Verification consists of trying to route the address, to
see if a
bounce
message could be delivered to it. In the case of remote addresses, basic
verification checks only the domain, but 'callouts' can be used for more
verification if required. Section <<SECTaddressverification>> discusses the
details of address verification.

....
# deny    message       = rejected because $sender_host_address is \
#                         in a black list at $dnslist_domain\n\
#                         $dnslist_text
#         dnslists      = black.list.example
#
# warn    message       = X-Warning: $sender_host_address is \
#                         in a black list at $dnslist_domain
#         log_message   = found in $dnslist_domain
#         dnslists      = black.list.example
....

These commented-out lines are examples of how you could configure Exim to check
sending hosts against a DNS black list. The first statement rejects messages
from blacklisted hosts, whereas the second merely inserts a warning header
line.

  accept  domains       = +local_domains
          endpass
          message       = unknown user
          verify        = recipient

This statement accepts the incoming recipient address if its domain is one of
the local domains, but only if the address can be verified. Verification of
local addresses normally checks both the local part and the domain. The
%endpass% line needs some explanation: if the condition above %endpass% fails,
that is, if the address is not in a local domain, control is passed to the next
ACL statement. However, if the condition below %endpass% fails, that is, if a
recipient in a local domain cannot be verified, access is denied and the
recipient is rejected.

cindex:[customizing,ACL failure message]
The %message% modifier provides a customized error message for the failure.

  accept  domains       = +relay_to_domains
          endpass
          message       = unrouteable address
          verify        = recipient

This statement accepts the incoming recipient address if its domain is one of
the domains for which this host is a relay, but again, only if the address can
be verified.

  accept  hosts         = +relay_from_hosts

Control reaches this statement only if the recipient's domain is neither a
local domain, nor a relay domain. The statement accepts the address if the
message is coming from one of the hosts that are defined as being allowed to
relay through this host. Recipient verification is omitted here, because in
many cases the clients are dumb MUAs that do not cope well with SMTP error
responses. If you are actually relaying out from MTAs, you should probably add
recipient verification here.

  accept  authenticated = *

Control reaches here for attempts to relay to arbitrary domains from arbitrary
hosts. The statement accepts the address only if the client host has
authenticated itself. The default configuration does not define any
authenticators, which means that no client can in fact authenticate. You will
need to add authenticator definitions if you want to make use of this ACL
statement.

  deny    message       = relay not permitted

The final statement denies access, giving a specific error message. Reaching
the end of the ACL also causes access to be denied, but with the generic
message ``administrative prohibition''.



Router configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[default,routers]
cindex:[routers,default]
The router configuration comes next in the default configuration, introduced
by the line

  begin routers

Routers are the modules in Exim that make decisions about where to send
messages. An address is passed to each router in turn, until it is either
accepted, or failed. This means that the order in which you define the routers
matters. Each router is fully described in its own chapter later in this
manual. Here we give only brief overviews.

  # domain_literal:
  #   driver = ipliteral
  #   domains = !+local_domains
  #   transport = remote_smtp

cindex:[domain literal,default router]
This router is commented out because the majority of sites do not want to
support domain literal addresses (those of the form 'user@[10.9.8.7]'). If
you uncomment this router, you also need to uncomment the setting of
%allow_domain_literals% in the main part of the configuration.

  dnslookup:
    driver = dnslookup
    domains = ! +local_domains
    transport = remote_smtp
    ignore_target_hosts = 0.0.0.0 : 127.0.0.0/8
    no_more

The first uncommented router handles addresses that do not involve any local
domains. This is specified by the line

  domains = ! +local_domains

The %domains% option lists the domains to which this router applies, but the
exclamation mark is a negation sign, so the router is used only for domains
that are not in the domain list called 'local_domains' (which was defined at
the start of the configuration). The plus sign before 'local_domains'
indicates that it is referring to a named list. Addresses in other domains are
passed on to the following routers.

The name of the router driver is ^dnslookup^,
and is specified by the %driver% option. Do not be confused by the fact that
the name of this router instance is the same as the name of the driver. The
instance name is arbitrary, but the name set in the %driver% option must be one
of the driver modules that is in the Exim binary.

The ^dnslookup^ router routes addresses by looking up their domains in the
DNS in order to obtain a list of hosts to which the address is routed. If the
router succeeds, the address is queued for the ^remote_smtp^ transport, as
specified by the %transport% option. If the router does not find the domain in
the DNS, no further routers are tried because of the %no_more% setting, so the
address fails and is bounced.

The %ignore_target_hosts% option specifies a list of IP addresses that are to
be entirely ignored. This option is present because a number of cases have been
encountered where MX records in the DNS point to host names
whose IP addresses are 0.0.0.0 or are in the 127 subnet (typically 127.0.0.1).
Completely ignoring these IP addresses causes Exim to fail to route the
email address, so it bounces. Otherwise, Exim would log a routing problem, and
continue to try to deliver the message periodically until the address timed
out.

  system_aliases:
    driver = redirect
    allow_fail
    allow_defer
    data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases}}
  # user = exim
    file_transport = address_file
    pipe_transport = address_pipe

Control reaches this and subsequent routers only for addresses in the local
domains. This router checks to see whether the local part is defined as an
alias in the _/etc/aliases_ file, and if so, redirects it according to the
data that it looks up from that file. If no data is found for the local part,
the value of the %data% option is empty, causing the address to be passed to
the next router.

_/etc/aliases_ is a conventional name for the system aliases file that is
often used. That is why it is referenced by from the default configuration
file. However, you can change this by setting SYSTEM_ALIASES_FILE in
_Local/Makefile_ before building Exim.

  userforward:
    driver = redirect
    check_local_user
    file = $home/.forward
    no_verify
    no_expn
    check_ancestor
  # allow_filter
    file_transport = address_file
    pipe_transport = address_pipe
    reply_transport = address_reply

This is the most complicated router in the default configuration. It is another
redirection router, but this time it is looking for forwarding data set up by
individual users. The %check_local_user% setting means that the first thing it
does is to check that the local part of the address is the login name of a
local user. If it is not, the router is skipped. When a local user is found,
the file called _.forward_ in the user's home directory is consulted. If it
does not exist, or is empty, the router declines. Otherwise, the contents of
_.forward_ are interpreted as redirection data (see chapter <<CHAPredirect>>
for more details).

cindex:[Sieve filter,enabling in default router]
Traditional _.forward_ files contain just a list of addresses, pipes, or
files. Exim supports this by default. However, if %allow_filter% is set (it is
commented out by default), the contents of the file are interpreted as a set of
Exim or Sieve filtering instructions, provided the file begins with ``#Exim
filter'' or ``#Sieve filter'', respectively. User filtering is discussed in the
separate document entitled 'Exim's interfaces to mail filtering'.

The %no_verify% and %no_expn% options mean that this router is skipped when
verifying addresses, or when running as a consequence of an SMTP EXPN
command.
There are two reasons for doing this:

. Whether or not a local user has a _.forward_ file is not really relevant when
checking an address for validity; it makes sense not to waste resources doing
unnecessary work.

. More importantly, when Exim is verifying addresses or handling an EXPN
command during an SMTP session, it is running as the Exim user, not as root.
The group is the Exim group, and no additional groups are set up.
It may therefore not be possible for Exim to read users' _.forward_ files at
this time.


The setting of %check_ancestor% prevents the router from generating a new
address that is the same as any previous address that was redirected. (This
works round a problem concerning a bad interaction between aliasing and
forwarding -- see section <<SECTredlocmai>>).

The final three option settings specify the transports that are to be used when
forwarding generates a direct delivery to a file, or to a pipe, or sets up an
auto-reply, respectively. For example, if a _.forward_ file contains

  a.nother@elsewhere.example, /home/spqr/archive

the delivery to _/home/spqr/archive_ is done by running the %address_file%
transport.

  localuser:
    driver = accept
    check_local_user
    transport = local_delivery

The final router sets up delivery into local mailboxes, provided that the local
part is the name of a local login, by accepting the address and queuing it for
the ^local_delivery^ transport. Otherwise, we have reached the end of the
routers, so the address is bounced.



Transport configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[default,transports]
cindex:[transports,default]
Transports define mechanisms for actually delivering messages. They operate
only when referenced from routers, so the order in which they are defined does
not matter. The transports section of the configuration starts with

  begin transports

One remote transport and four local transports are defined.

  remote_smtp:
    driver = smtp

This transport is used for delivering messages over SMTP connections. All its
options are defaulted. The list of remote hosts comes from the router.

  local_delivery:
    driver = appendfile
    file = /var/mail/$local_part
    delivery_date_add
    envelope_to_add
    return_path_add
  # group = mail
  # mode = 0660

This ^appendfile^ transport is used for local delivery to user mailboxes in
traditional BSD mailbox format. By default it runs under the uid and gid of the
local user, which requires the sticky bit to be set on the _/var/mail_
directory. Some systems use the alternative approach of running mail deliveries
under a particular group instead of using the sticky bit. The commented options
show how this can be done.

Exim adds three headers to the message as it delivers it: 'Delivery-date:',
'Envelope-to:' and 'Return-path:'. This action is requested by the three
similarly-named options above.

  address_pipe:
    driver = pipe
    return_output

This transport is used for handling deliveries to pipes that are generated by
redirection (aliasing or users' _.forward_ files). The %return_output%
option specifies that any output generated by the pipe is to be returned to the
sender.

  address_file:
    driver = appendfile
    delivery_date_add
    envelope_to_add
    return_path_add

This transport is used for handling deliveries to files that are generated by
redirection. The name of the file is not specified in this instance of
^appendfile^, because it comes from the ^redirect^ router.

  address_reply:
    driver = autoreply

This transport is used for handling automatic replies generated by users'
filter files.



Default retry rule
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[retry,default rule]
cindex:[default,retry rule]
The retry section of the configuration file contains rules which affect the way
Exim retries deliveries that cannot be completed at the first attempt. It is
introduced by the line

  begin retry

In the default configuration, there is just one rule, which applies to all
errors:

&&&
`\*   \*   F,2h,15m; G,16h,1h,1.5; F,4d,6h`
&&&

This causes any temporarily failing address to be retried every 15 minutes for
2 hours, then at intervals starting at one hour and increasing by a factor of
1.5 until 16 hours have passed, then every 6 hours up to 4 days. If an address
is not delivered after 4 days of failure, it is bounced.



Rewriting configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The rewriting section of the configuration, introduced by

  begin rewrite

contains rules for rewriting addresses in messages as they arrive. There are no
rewriting rules in the default configuration file.



Authenticators configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[AUTH,configuration]
The authenticators section of the configuration, introduced by

  begin authenticators

defines mechanisms for the use of the SMTP AUTH command. No authenticators
are specified in the default configuration file.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPregexp]]
Regular expressions
-------------------

cindex:[regular expressions,library]
cindex:[PCRE]
Exim supports the use of regular expressions in many of its options. It
uses the PCRE regular expression library; this provides regular expression
matching that is compatible with Perl 5. The syntax and semantics of
regular expressions is discussed in many Perl reference books, and also in
Jeffrey Friedl's 'Mastering Regular Expressions', which is published by
O'Reilly (*http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/[]*).

The documentation for the syntax and semantics of the regular expressions that
are supported by PCRE is included in plain text in the file
_doc/pcrepattern.txt_ in the Exim distribution, and also in the HTML
tarbundle of Exim documentation, and as an appendix to the Exim book
(*http://www.uit.co.uk/exim-book/[]*).

It describes in detail the features of the regular expressions that PCRE
supports, so no further description is included here. The PCRE functions are
called from Exim using the default option settings (that is, with no PCRE
options set), except that the PCRE_CASELESS option is set when the
matching is required to be case-insensitive.

In most cases, when a regular expression is required in an Exim configuration,
it has to start with a circumflex, in order to distinguish it from plain text
or an ``ends with'' wildcard. In this example of a configuration setting, the
second item in the colon-separated list is a regular expression.

  domains = a.b.c : ^\\d{3} : *.y.z : ...

The doubling of the backslash is required because of string expansion that
precedes interpretation -- see section <<SECTlittext>> for more discussion of
this issue, and a way of avoiding the need for doubling backslashes. The
regular expression that is eventually used in this example contains just one
backslash. The circumflex is included in the regular expression, and has the
normal effect of ``anchoring'' it to the start of the string that is being
matched.

There are, however, two cases where a circumflex is not required for the
recognition of a regular expression: these are the %match% condition in a
string expansion, and the %matches% condition in an Exim filter file. In these
cases, the relevant string is always treated as a regular expression; if it
does not start with a circumflex, the expression is not anchored, and can match
anywhere in the subject string.

In all cases, if you want a regular expression to match at the end of a string,
you must code the \$ metacharacter to indicate this. For example:

  domains = ^\\d{3}\\.example

matches the domain '123.example', but it also matches '123.example.com'.
You need to use:

  domains = ^\\d{3}\\.example\$

if you want 'example' to be the top-level domain. (The backslash before the
\$ is another artefact of string expansion.)



Testing regular expressions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[testing,regular expressions]
cindex:[regular expressions,testing]
cindex:['pcretest']
A program called 'pcretest' forms part of the PCRE distribution and is built
with PCRE during the process of building Exim. It is primarily intended for
testing PCRE itself, but it can also be used for experimenting with regular
expressions. After building Exim, the binary can be found in the build
directory (it is not installed anywhere automatically). There is documentation
of various options in _doc/pcretest.txt_, but for simple testing, none are
needed. This is the output of a sample run of 'pcretest':

&&&
`  re> `*`/^([^@]+)@.+\.(ac|edu)\.(?!kr)[a-z]{2}$/`*
`data> `*`x@y.ac.uk`*
` 0: x@y.ac.uk`
` 1: x`
` 2: ac`
`data> `*`x@y.ac.kr`*
`No match`
`data> `*`x@y.edu.com`*
`No match`
`data> `*`x@y.edu.co`*
` 0: x@y.edu.co`
` 1: x`
` 2: edu`
&&&

Input typed by the user is shown in bold face. After the ``re>'' prompt, a
regular expression enclosed in delimiters is expected. If this compiles without
error, ``data>'' prompts are given for strings against which the expression is
matched. An empty data line causes a new regular expression to be read. If the
match is successful, the captured substring values (that is, what would be in
the variables $0$, $1$, $2$, etc.) are shown. The above example tests for an
email address whose domain ends with either ``ac'' or ``edu'' followed by a
two-character top-level domain that is not ``kr''. The local part is captured
in $1$ and the ``ac'' or ``edu'' in $2$.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPfdlookup]]
File and database lookups
-------------------------
cindex:[file,lookup]
cindex:[database lookups]
cindex:[lookup,description of]
Exim can be configured to look up data in files or databases as it processes
messages. Two different kinds of syntax are used:

. A string that is to be expanded may contain explicit lookup requests. These
cause parts of the string to be replaced by data that is obtained from the
lookup.

. Lists of domains, hosts, and email addresses can contain lookup requests as a
way of avoiding excessively long linear lists. In this case, the data that is
returned by the lookup is often (but not always) discarded; whether the lookup
succeeds or fails is what really counts. These kinds of list are described in
chapter <<CHAPdomhosaddlists>>.

It is easy to confuse the two different kinds of lookup, especially as the
lists that may contain the second kind are always expanded before being
processed as lists. Therefore, they may also contain lookups of the first kind.
Be careful to distinguish between the following two examples:

  domains = ${lookup{$sender_host_address}lsearch{/some/file}}
  domains = lsearch;/some/file

The first uses a string expansion, the result of which must be a domain list.
String expansions are described in detail in chapter <<CHAPexpand>>. The
expansion takes place first, and the file that is searched could contain lines
like this:

  192.168.3.4: domain1 : domain2 : ...
  192.168.1.9: domain3 : domain4 : ...

Thus, the result of the expansion is a list of domains (and possibly other
types of item that are allowed in domain lists).

In the second case, the lookup is a single item in a domain list. It causes
Exim to use a lookup to see if the domain that is being processed can be found
in the file. The file could contains lines like this:

  domain1:
  domain2:

Any data that follows the keys is not relevant when checking that the domain
matches the list item.

It is possible to use both kinds of lookup at once. Consider a file containing
lines like this:

  192.168.5.6: lsearch;/another/file

If the value of $sender_host_address$ is 192.168.5.6, expansion of the
first %domains% setting above generates the second setting, which therefore
causes a second lookup to occur.

The rest of this chapter describes the different lookup types that are
available. Any of them can be used in either of the circumstances described
above. The syntax requirements for the two cases are described in chapters
<<CHAPexpand>> and <<CHAPdomhosaddlists>>, respectively.


Lookup types
~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[lookup,types of]
cindex:[single-key lookup,definition of]
Two different styles of data lookup are implemented:

- The 'single-key' style requires the specification of a file in which to look,
and a single key to search for. The key must be a non-empty string for the
lookup to succeed. The lookup type determines how the file is searched.

- cindex:[query-style lookup,definition of]
The 'query' style accepts a generalized database query.
No particular key value is assumed by Exim for query-style lookups. You can
use whichever Exim variable(s) you need to construct the database query.

The code for each lookup type is in a separate source file that is included in
the binary of Exim only if the corresponding compile-time option is set. The
default settings in _src/EDITME_ are:

  LOOKUP_DBM=yes
  LOOKUP_LSEARCH=yes

which means that only linear searching and DBM lookups are included by default.
For some types of lookup (e.g. SQL databases), you need to install appropriate
libraries and header files before building Exim.




[[SECTsinglekeylookups]]
Single-key lookup types
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[lookup,single-key types]
cindex:[single-key lookup,list of types]
The following single-key lookup types are implemented:

- cindex:[cdb,description of]
cindex:[lookup,cdb]
cindex:[binary zero,in lookup key]
^cdb^: The given file is searched as a Constant DataBase file, using the key
string without a terminating binary zero. The cdb format is designed for
indexed files that are read frequently and never updated, except by total
re-creation. As such, it is particulary suitable for large files containing
aliases or other indexed data referenced by an MTA. Information about cdb can
be found in several places:
+
&&&
*http://www.pobox.com/~djb/cdb.html[]*
*ftp://ftp.corpit.ru/pub/tinycdb/[]*
*http://packages.debian.org/stable/utils/freecdb.html[]*
&&&
+
A cdb distribution is not needed in order to build Exim with cdb support,
because the code for reading cdb files is included directly in Exim itself.
However, no means of building or testing cdb files is provided with Exim, so
you need to obtain a cdb distribution in order to do this.

- cindex:[DBM,lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,dbm]
cindex:[binary zero,in lookup key]
^dbm^: Calls to DBM library functions are used to extract data from the given
DBM file by looking up the record with the given key. A terminating binary
zero is included in the key that is passed to the DBM library. See section
<<SECTdb>> for a discussion of DBM libraries.
+
cindex:[Berkeley DB library,file format]
For all versions of Berkeley DB, Exim uses the DB_HASH style of database
when building DBM files using the %exim_dbmbuild% utility. However, when using
Berkeley DB versions 3 or 4, it opens existing databases for reading with the
DB_UNKNOWN option. This enables it to handle any of the types of database
that the library supports, and can be useful for accessing DBM files created by
other applications. (For earlier DB versions, DB_HASH is always used.)

- cindex:[lookup,dbmnz]
cindex:[lookup,dbm -- terminating zero]
cindex:[binary zero,in lookup key]
cindex:[Courier]
cindex:[_/etc/userdbshadow.dat_]
cindex:[dmbnz lookup type]
^dbmnz^: This is the same as ^dbm^, except that a terminating binary zero
is not included in the key that is passed to the DBM library. You may need this
if you want to look up data in files that are created by or shared with some
other application that does not use terminating zeros. For example, you need to
use ^dbmnz^ rather than ^dbm^ if you want to authenticate incoming SMTP
calls using the passwords from Courier's _/etc/userdbshadow.dat_ file. Exim's
utility program for creating DBM files ('exim_dbmbuild') includes the zeros
by default, but has an option to omit them (see section <<SECTdbmbuild>>).

- cindex:[lookup,dsearch]
cindex:[dsearch lookup type]
^dsearch^: The given file must be a directory; this is searched for a file
whose name is the key. The key may not contain any forward slash characters.
The result of a successful lookup is the name of the file. An example of how
this lookup can be used to support virtual domains is given in section
<<SECTvirtualdomains>>.

- cindex:[lookup,iplsearch]
cindex:[iplsearch lookup type]
^iplsearch^: The given file is a text file containing keys and data. A key is
terminated by a colon or white space or the end of the line. The keys in the
file must be IP addresses, or IP addresses with CIDR masks. Keys that involve
IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in quotes to prevent the first internal colon
being interpreted as a key terminator. For example:

  1.2.3.4:           data for 1.2.3.4
  192.168.0.0/16     data for 192.168.0.0/16
  "abcd::cdab":      data for abcd::cdab
  "abcd:abcd::/32"   data for abcd:abcd::/32
+
The key for an ^iplsearch^ lookup must be an IP address (without a mask). The
file is searched linearly, using the CIDR masks where present, until a matching
key is found. The first key that matches is used; there is no attempt to find a
``best'' match. Apart from the way the keys are matched, the processing for
^iplsearch^ is the same as for ^lsearch^.
+
*Warning 1*: Unlike most other single-key lookup types, a file of data for
^iplsearch^ can 'not' be turned into a DBM or cdb file, because those
lookup types support only literal keys.
+
*Warning 2*: In a host list, you must always use ^net-iplsearch^ so that
the implicit key is the host's IP address rather than its name (see section
<<SECThoslispatsikey>>).

- cindex:[linear search]
cindex:[lookup,lsearch]
cindex:[lsearch lookup type]
^lsearch^: The given file is a text file that is searched linearly for a
line beginning with the search key, terminated by a colon or white space or the
end of the line. The first occurrence that is found in the file is used. White
space between the key and the colon is permitted. The remainder of the line,
with leading and trailing white space removed, is the data. This can be
continued onto subsequent lines by starting them with any amount of white
space, but only a single space character is included in the data at such a
junction. If the data begins with a colon, the key must be terminated by a
colon, for example:

  baduser:  :fail:
+
Empty lines and lines beginning with # are ignored, even if they occur in the
middle of an item. This is the traditional textual format of alias files. Note
that the keys in an ^lsearch^ file are literal strings. There is no
wildcarding of any kind.
+
cindex:[lookup,lsearch -- colons in keys]
cindex:[whitespace,in lsearch key]
In most ^lsearch^ files, keys are not required to contain colons or #
characters, or whitespace. However, if you need this feature, it is available.
If a key begins with a doublequote character, it is terminated only by a
matching quote (or end of line), and the normal escaping rules apply to its
contents (see section <<SECTstrings>>). An optional colon is permitted after
quoted keys (exactly as for unquoted keys). There is no special handling of
quotes for the data part of an ^lsearch^ line.

- cindex:[NIS lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,NIS]
cindex:[binary zero,in lookup key]
^nis^: The given file is the name of a NIS map, and a NIS lookup is done with
the given key, without a terminating binary zero. There is a variant called
^nis0^ which does include the terminating binary zero in the key. This is
reportedly needed for Sun-style alias files. Exim does not recognize NIS
aliases; the full map names must be used.

- cindex:[wildlsearch lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,wildlsearch]
cindex:[nwildlsearch lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,nwildlsearch]
^wildlsearch^ or ^nwildlsearch^: These search a file linearly, like
^lsearch^, but instead of being interpreted as a literal string, each key may
be wildcarded. The difference between these two lookup types is that for
^wildlsearch^, each key in the file is string-expanded before being used,
whereas for ^nwildlsearch^, no expansion takes place.
+
Like ^lsearch^, the testing is done case-insensitively. The following forms
of wildcard are recognized:
+
--
.. The string may begin with an asterisk to mean ``ends with''. For example:

  *.a.b.c       data for anything.a.b.c
  *fish         data for anythingfish

.. The string may begin with a circumflex to indicate a regular expression. For
example, for ^wildlsearch^:

  ^\N\d+\.a\.b\N    data for <digits>.a.b

Note the use of `\N` to disable expansion of the contents of the regular
expression. If you are using ^nwildlsearch^, where the keys are not
string-expanded, the equivalent entry is:

  ^\d+\.a\.b        data for <digits>.a.b

If the regular expression contains white space or colon characters, you must
either quote it (see ^lsearch^ above), or represent these characters in other
ways. For example, `\s` can be used for white space and `\x3A` for a
colon. This may be easier than quoting, because if you quote, you have to
escape all the backslashes inside the quotes.

.. Although I cannot see it being of much use, the general matching function
that is used to implement ^(n)wildlsearch^ means that the string may begin with
a lookup name terminated by a semicolon, and followed by lookup data. For
example:

  cdb;/some/file  data for keys that match the file

The data that is obtained from the nested lookup is discarded.
--
+
Keys that do not match any of these patterns are interpreted literally. The
continuation rules for the data are the same as for ^lsearch^, and keys may
be followed by optional colons.
+
*Warning*: Unlike most other single-key lookup types, a file of data for
^(n)wildlsearch^ can 'not' be turned into a DBM or cdb file, because those
lookup types support only literal keys.



Query-style lookup types
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[lookup,query-style types]
cindex:[query-style lookup,list of types]
The supported query-style lookup types are listed below. Further details about
many of them are given in later sections.

- cindex:[DNS,as a lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,DNS]
^dnsdb^: This does a DNS search for one or more records whose domain names are
given in the supplied query. The resulting data is the contents of the records.
See section <<SECTdnsdb>>.

- cindex:[Interbase lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,Interbase]
^ibase^: This does a lookup in an Interbase database.

- cindex:[LDAP,lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,LDAP]
^ldap^: This does an LDAP lookup using a query in the form of a URL, and
returns attributes from a single entry. There is a variant called ^ldapm^
that permits values from multiple entries to be returned. A third variant
called ^ldapdn^ returns the Distinguished Name of a single entry instead of
any attribute values. See section <<SECTldap>>.

- cindex:[MySQL,lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,MySQL]
^mysql^: The format of the query is an SQL statement that is passed to a MySQL
database. See section <<SECTsql>>.

- cindex:[NIS+ lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,NIS+]
^nisplus^: This does a NIS+ lookup using a query that can specify the name of
the field to be returned. See section <<SECTnisplus>>.

- cindex:[Oracle,lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,Oracle]
^oracle^: The format of the query is an SQL statement that is passed to an
Oracle database. See section <<SECTsql>>.

- cindex:[lookup,passwd]
cindex:[passwd lookup type]
cindex:[_/etc/passwd_]
^passwd^ is a query-style lookup with queries that are just user names. The
lookup calls 'getpwnam()' to interrogate the system password data, and on
success, the result string is the same as you would get from an ^lsearch^
lookup on a traditional _/etc/passwd file_, though with `*` for the
password value. For example:

  *:42:42:King Rat:/home/kr:/bin/bash

- cindex:[PostgreSQL lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,PostgreSQL]
^pgsql^: The format of the query is an SQL statement that is passed to a
PostgreSQL database. See section <<SECTsql>>.

- ^testdb^: This is a lookup type that is used for testing Exim. It is
not likely to be useful in normal operation.

- cindex:[whoson lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,whoson]
^whoson^: 'Whoson' (*http://whoson.sourceforge.net[]*) is a proposed
Internet protocol that allows Internet server programs to check whether a
particular (dynamically allocated) IP address is currently allocated to a known
(trusted) user and, optionally, to obtain the identity of the said user. In
Exim, this can be used to implement ``POP before SMTP'' checking using ACL
statements such as
+
....
require condition = \
  ${lookup whoson {$sender_host_address}{yes}{no}}
....
+
The query consists of a single IP address. The value returned is the name of
the authenticated user.



Temporary errors in lookups
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[lookup,temporary error in]
Lookup functions can return temporary error codes if the lookup cannot be
completed. For example, a NIS or LDAP database might be unavailable. For this
reason, it is not advisable to use a lookup that might do this for critical
options such as a list of local domains.

When a lookup cannot be completed in a router or transport, delivery
of the message (to the relevant address) is deferred, as for any other
temporary error. In other circumstances Exim may assume the lookup has failed,
or may give up altogether.



[[SECTdefaultvaluelookups]]
Default values in single-key lookups
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[wildcard lookups]
cindex:[lookup,default values]
cindex:[lookup,wildcard]
cindex:[lookup,\* added to type]
cindex:[default,in single-key lookups]
In this context, a ``default value'' is a value specified by the administrator
that is to be used if a lookup fails.

If ``\*'' is added to a single-key lookup type (for example, %lsearch\*%) and
the initial lookup fails, the key ``\*'' is looked up in the file to provide
a default value. See also the section on partial matching below.

cindex:[\*@ with single-key lookup]
cindex:[lookup,\*@ added to type]
cindex:[alias file,per-domain default]
Alternatively, if ``\*@'' is added to a single-key lookup type (for example
\dbm\*\) then, if the initial lookup fails and the key contains an @
character, a second lookup is done with everything before the last @ replaced
by \*. This makes it possible to provide per-domain defaults in alias files
that include the domains in the keys. If the second lookup fails (or doesn't
take place because there is no @ in the key), ``\*'' is looked up.
For example, a ^redirect^ router might contain:

  data = ${lookup{$local_part@$domain}lsearch*@{/etc/mixed-aliases}}

Suppose the address that is being processed is 'jane@eyre.example'. Exim
looks up these keys, in this order:

  jane@eyre.example
  *@eyre.example
  *

The data is taken from whichever key it finds first. *Note*: in an
^lsearch^ file, this does not mean the first of these keys in the file. A
complete scan is done for each key, and only if it is not found at all does
Exim move on to try the next key.



[[SECTpartiallookup]]
Partial matching in single-key lookups
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[partial matching]
cindex:[wildcard lookups]
cindex:[lookup,partial matching]
cindex:[lookup,wildcard]
cindex:[asterisk,in search type]
The normal operation of a single-key lookup is to search the file for an exact
match with the given key. However, in a number of situations where domains are
being looked up, it is useful to be able to do partial matching. In this case,
information in the file that has a key starting with ``\*.'' is matched by any
domain that ends with the components that follow the full stop. For example, if
a key in a DBM file is

  *.dates.fict.example

then when partial matching is enabled this is matched by (amongst others)
'2001.dates.fict.example' and '1984.dates.fict.example'. It is also matched
by 'dates.fict.example', if that does not appear as a separate key in the
file.

*Note*: Partial matching is not available for query-style lookups. It is
also not available for any lookup items in address lists (see section
<<SECTaddresslist>>).

Partial matching is implemented by doing a series of separate lookups using
keys constructed by modifying the original subject key. This means that it can
be used with any of the single-key lookup types, provided that
partial matching keys
beginning with a special prefix (default ``\*.'') are included in the data file.
Keys in the file that do not begin with the prefix are matched only by
unmodified subject keys when partial matching is in use.

Partial matching is requested by adding the string ``partial-'' to the front of
the name of a single-key lookup type, for example, %partial-dbm%. When this is
done, the subject key is first looked up unmodified; if that fails, ``\*.''
is added at the start of the subject key, and it is looked up again. If that
fails, further lookups are tried with dot-separated components removed
from the start of the subject key, one-by-one, and ``\*.'' added on the front of
what remains.

A minimum number of two non-\* components are required. This can be adjusted
by including a number before the hyphen in the search type. For example,
%partial3-lsearch% specifies a minimum of three non-\* components in the
modified keys. Omitting the number is equivalent to ``partial2-''. If the subject
key is '2250.dates.fict.example' then the following keys are looked up when
the minimum number of non-\* components is two:

  2250.dates.fict.example
  *.2250.dates.fict.example
  *.dates.fict.example
  *.fict.example

As soon as one key in the sequence is successfully looked up, the lookup
finishes.

cindex:[lookup,partial matching -- changing prefix]
cindex:[prefix,for partial matching]
The use of ``\*.'' as the partial matching prefix is a default that can be
changed. The motivation for this feature is to allow Exim to operate with file
formats that are used by other MTAs. A different prefix can be supplied in
parentheses instead of the hyphen after ``partial''. For example:

  domains = partial(.)lsearch;/some/file

In this example, if the domain is 'a.b.c', the sequence of lookups is
`a.b.c`, `.a.b.c`, and `.b.c` (the default minimum of 2 non-wild
components is unchanged). The prefix may consist of any punctuation characters
other than a closing parenthesis. It may be empty, for example:

  domains = partial1()cdb;/some/file

For this example, if the domain is 'a.b.c', the sequence of lookups is
`a.b.c`, `b.c`, and `c`.

If ``partial0'' is specified, what happens at the end (when the lookup with just
one non-wild component has failed, and the original key is shortened right down
to the null string) depends on the prefix:

- If the prefix has zero length, the whole lookup fails.

- If the prefix has length 1, a lookup for just the prefix is done. For
example, the final lookup for ``partial0(.)'' is for `.` alone.

- Otherwise, if the prefix ends in a dot, the dot is removed, and the
remainder is looked up. With the default prefix, therefore, the final lookup is
for ``\*'' on its own.

- Otherwise, the whole prefix is looked up.


If the search type ends in ``\*'' or ``\*@'' (see section
<<SECTdefaultvaluelookups>> above), the search for an ultimate default that this
implies happens after all partial lookups have failed. If ``partial0'' is
specified, adding ``\*'' to the search type has no effect with the default
prefix, because the ``\*'' key is already included in the sequence of partial
lookups. However, there might be a use for lookup types such as
``partial0(.)lsearch\*''.

The use of ``\*'' in lookup partial matching differs from its use as a wildcard
in domain lists and the like. Partial matching works only in terms of
dot-separated components; a key such as `*fict.example`
in a database file is useless, because the asterisk in a partial matching
subject key is always followed by a dot.




Lookup caching
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[lookup,caching]
cindex:[caching,lookup data]
Exim caches all lookup results in order to avoid needless repetition of
lookups. However, because (apart from the daemon) Exim operates as a collection
of independent, short-lived processes, this caching applies only within a
single Exim process. There is no inter-process caching facility.

For single-key lookups, Exim keeps the relevant files open in case there is
another lookup that needs them. In some types of configuration this can lead to
many files being kept open for messages with many recipients. To avoid hitting
the operating system limit on the number of simultaneously open files, Exim
closes the least recently used file when it needs to open more files than its
own internal limit, which can be changed via the %lookup_open_max% option.

The single-key lookup files are closed and the lookup caches are flushed at
strategic points during delivery -- for example, after all routing is complete.




Quoting lookup data
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[lookup,quoting]
cindex:[quoting,in lookups]
When data from an incoming message is included in a query-style lookup, there
is the possibility of special characters in the data messing up the syntax of
the query. For example, a NIS+ query that contains

  [name=$local_part]

will be broken if the local part happens to contain a closing square bracket.
For NIS+, data can be enclosed in double quotes like this:

  [name="$local_part"]

but this still leaves the problem of a double quote in the data. The rule for
NIS+ is that double quotes must be doubled. Other lookup types have different
rules, and to cope with the differing requirements, an expansion operator
of the following form is provided:

  \$\{quote_<lookup-type>:<string>\}

For example, the safest way to write the NIS+ query is

  [name="${quote_nisplus:$local_part}"]

See chapter <<CHAPexpand>> for full coverage of string expansions. The quote
operator can be used for all lookup types, but has no effect for single-key
lookups, since no quoting is ever needed in their key strings.




[[SECTdnsdb]]
More about dnsdb
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[dnsdb lookup]
cindex:[lookup,dnsdb]
cindex:[DNS,as a lookup type]
The ^dnsdb^ lookup type uses the DNS as its database. A simple query consists
of a record type and a domain name, separated by an equals sign. For example,
an expansion string could contain:

  ${lookup dnsdb{mx=a.b.example}{$value}fail}

The supported DNS record types are A, CNAME, MX, NS, PTR, SRV, and TXT, and,
when Exim is compiled with IPv6 support, AAAA (and A6 if that is also
configured). If no type is given, TXT is assumed. When the type is PTR,
the data can be an IP address, written as normal; inversion and the addition of
%in-addr.arpa% or %ip6.arpa% happens automatically. For example:

  ${lookup dnsdb{ptr=192.168.4.5}{$value}fail}

If the data for a PTR record is not a syntactically valid IP address, it is not
altered and nothing is added.

For any record type, if multiple records are found (or, for A6 lookups, if a
single record leads to multiple addresses), the data is returned as a
concatenation, with newline as the default separator. The order, of course,
depends on the DNS resolver. You can specify a different separator character
between multiple records by putting a right angle-bracket followed immediately
by the new separator at the start of the query. For example:

  ${lookup dnsdb{>: a=host1.example}}

It is permitted to specify a space as the separator character. Further
whitespace is ignored.

cindex:[SRV record,in ^dnsdb^ lookup]
For SRV records, the priority, weight, port, and host name are returned for
each record, separated by spaces.

cindex:[MX record,in ^dnsdb^ lookup]
For MX records, both the preference value and the host name are returned for
each record, separated by a space. However, if you want only host names, you
can use the pseudo-type MXH:

  ${lookup dnsdb{mxh=a.b.example}}

In this case, the preference values are omitted.

cindex:[name server,for enclosing domain]
Another pseudo-type is ZNS (for ``zone NS''). It performs a lookup for NS
records on the given domain, but if none are found, it removes the first
component of the domain name, and tries again. This process continues until NS
records are found or there are no more components left (or there is a DNS
error). In other words, it may return the name servers for a top-level domain,
but it never returns the root name servers. If there are no NS records for the
top-level domain, the lookup fails. Consider these examples:

  ${lookup dnsdb{zns=xxx.quercite.com}}
  ${lookup dnsdb{zns=xxx.edu}}

Assuming that in each case there are no NS records for the full domain name,
the first returns the name servers for %quercite.com%, and the second returns
the name servers for %edu%.

You should be careful about how you use this lookup because, unless the
top-level domain does not exist, the lookup always returns some host names. The
sort of use to which this might be put is for seeing if the name servers for a
given domain are on a blacklist. You can probably assume that the name servers
for the high-level domains such as %com% or %co.uk% are not going to be on such
a list.



Multiple dnsdb lookups
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the previous section, ^dnsdb^ lookups for a single domain are described.
However, you can specify a list of domains or IP addresses in a single
^dnsdb^ lookup. The list is specified in the normal Exim way, with colon as
the default separator, but with the ability to change this. For example:

  ${lookup dnsdb{one.domain.com:two.domain.com}}
  ${lookup dnsdb{a=one.host.com:two.host.com}}
  ${lookup dnsdb{ptr = <; 1.2.3.4 ; 4.5.6.8}}

In order to retain backwards compatibility, there is one special case: if
the lookup type is PTR and no change of separator is specified, Exim looks
to see if the rest of the string is precisely one IPv6 address. In this
case, it does not treat it as a list.

The data from each lookup is concatenated, with newline separators by default,
in the same way that multiple DNS records for a single item are handled. A
different separator can be specified, as described above.

The ^dnsdb^ lookup fails only if all the DNS lookups fail. If there is a
temporary DNS error for any of them, the behaviour is controlled by
an optional keyword followed by a comma that may appear before the record
type. The possible keywords are ``defer_strict'', ``defer_never'', and
``defer_lax''. With ``strict'' behaviour, any temporary DNS error causes the
whole lookup to defer. With ``never'' behaviour, a temporary DNS error is
ignored, and the behaviour is as if the DNS lookup failed to find anything.
With ``lax'' behaviour, all the queries are attempted, but a temporary DNS
error causes the whole lookup to defer only if none of the other lookups
succeed. The default is ``lax'', so the following lookups are equivalent:

  ${lookup dnsdb{defer_lax,a=one.host.com:two.host.com}}
  ${lookup dnsdb{a=one.host.com:two.host.com}}

Thus, in the default case, as long as at least one of the DNS lookups
yields some data, the lookup succeeds.




[[SECTldap]]
More about LDAP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[LDAP lookup]
cindex:[lookup,LDAP]
cindex:[Solaris,LDAP]
The original LDAP implementation came from the University of Michigan; this has
become ``Open LDAP'', and there are now two different releases. Another
implementation comes from Netscape, and Solaris 7 and subsequent releases
contain inbuilt LDAP support. Unfortunately, though these are all compatible at
the lookup function level, their error handling is different. For this reason
it is necessary to set a compile-time variable when building Exim with LDAP, to
indicate which LDAP library is in use. One of the following should appear in
your _Local/Makefile_:

  LDAP_LIB_TYPE=UMICHIGAN
  LDAP_LIB_TYPE=OPENLDAP1
  LDAP_LIB_TYPE=OPENLDAP2
  LDAP_LIB_TYPE=NETSCAPE
  LDAP_LIB_TYPE=SOLARIS

If LDAP_LIB_TYPE is not set, Exim assumes `OPENLDAP1`, which has the
same interface as the University of Michigan version.

There are three LDAP lookup types in Exim. These behave slightly differently in
the way they handle the results of a query:

- ^ldap^ requires the result to contain just one entry; if there are more, it
gives an error.

- ^ldapdn^ also requires the result to contain just one entry, but it is the
Distinguished Name that is returned rather than any attribute values.

- ^ldapm^ permits the result to contain more than one entry; the attributes from
all of them are returned.


For ^ldap^ and ^ldapm^, if a query finds only entries with no attributes,
Exim behaves as if the entry did not exist, and the lookup fails. The format of
the data returned by a successful lookup is described in the next section.
First we explain how LDAP queries are coded.


[[SECTforldaque]]
Format of LDAP queries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[LDAP,query format]
An LDAP query takes the form of a URL as defined in RFC 2255. For example, in
the configuration of a ^redirect^ router one might have this setting:

....
data = ${lookup ldap \
  {ldap:///cn=$local_part,o=University%20of%20Cambridge,\
  c=UK?mailbox?base?}}
....

cindex:[LDAP,with TLS]
The URL may begin with `ldap` or `ldaps` if your LDAP library supports
secure (encrypted) LDAP connections. The second of these ensures that an
encrypted TLS connection is used.


LDAP quoting
~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[LDAP,quoting]
Two levels of quoting are required in LDAP queries, the first for LDAP itself
and the second because the LDAP query is represented as a URL. Furthermore,
within an LDAP query, two different kinds of quoting are required. For this
reason, there are two different LDAP-specific quoting operators.

The %quote_ldap% operator is designed for use on strings that are part of
filter specifications. Conceptually, it first does the following conversions on
the string:

....
*   =>   \2A
(   =>   \28
)   =>   \29
\   =>   \5C
....

in accordance with RFC 2254. The resulting string is then quoted according
to the rules for URLs, that is, all characters except

  ! $ ' - . _ ( ) * +

are converted to their hex values, preceded by a percent sign. For example:

  ${quote_ldap: a(bc)*, a<yz>; }

yields

  %20a%5C28bc%5C29%5C2A%2C%20a%3Cyz%3E%3B%20

Removing the URL quoting, this is (with a leading and a trailing space):

  a\28bc\29\2A, a<yz>;


The %quote_ldap_dn% operator is designed for use on strings that are part of
base DN specifications in queries. Conceptually, it first converts the string
by inserting a backslash in front of any of the following characters:

  , + " \ < > ;

It also inserts a backslash before any leading spaces or # characters, and
before any trailing spaces. (These rules are in RFC 2253.) The resulting string
is then quoted according to the rules for URLs. For example:

  ${quote_ldap_dn: a(bc)*, a<yz>; }

yields

  %5C%20a(bc)*%5C%2C%20a%5C%3Cyz%5C%3E%5C%3B%5C%20

Removing the URL quoting, this is (with a trailing space):

....
\ a(bc)*\, a\<yz\>\;\
....

There are some further comments about quoting in the section on LDAP
authentication below.


LDAP connections
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[LDAP,connections]
The connection to an LDAP server may either be over TCP/IP, or, when OpenLDAP
is in use, via a Unix domain socket. The example given above does not specify
an LDAP server. A server that is reached by TCP/IP can be specified in a query
by starting it with

  ldap://<hostname>:<port>/...

If the port (and preceding colon) are omitted, the standard LDAP port (389) is
used. When no server is specified in a query, a list of default servers is
taken from the %ldap_default_servers% configuration option. This supplies a
colon-separated list of servers which are tried in turn until one successfully
handles a query, or there is a serious error. Successful handling either
returns the requested data, or indicates that it does not exist. Serious errors
are syntactical, or multiple values when only a single value is expected.
Errors which cause the next server to be tried are connection failures, bind
failures, and timeouts.

For each server name in the list, a port number can be given. The standard way
of specifing a host and port is to use a colon separator (RFC 1738). Because
%ldap_default_servers% is a colon-separated list, such colons have to be
doubled. For example

  ldap_default_servers = ldap1.example.com::145:ldap2.example.com

If %ldap_default_servers% is unset, a URL with no server name is passed
to the LDAP library with no server name, and the library's default (normally
the local host) is used.

If you are using the OpenLDAP library, you can connect to an LDAP server using
a Unix domain socket instead of a TCP/IP connection. This is specified by using
`ldapi` instead of `ldap` in LDAP queries. What follows here applies only
to OpenLDAP. If Exim is compiled with a different LDAP library, this feature is
not available.

For this type of connection, instead of a host name for the server, a pathname
for the socket is required, and the port number is not relevant. The pathname
can be specified either as an item in %ldap_default_servers%, or inline in
the query. In the former case, you can have settings such as

  ldap_default_servers = /tmp/ldap.sock : backup.ldap.your.domain

When the pathname is given in the query, you have to escape the slashes as
`%2F` to fit in with the LDAP URL syntax. For example:

  ${lookup ldap {ldapi://%2Ftmp%2Fldap.sock/o=...

When Exim processes an LDAP lookup and finds that the ``hostname'' is really
a pathname, it uses the Unix domain socket code, even if the query actually
specifies `ldap` or `ldaps`. In particular, no encryption is used for a
socket connection. This behaviour means that you can use a setting of
%ldap_default_servers% such as in the example above with traditional `ldap`
or `ldaps` queries, and it will work. First, Exim tries a connection via
the Unix domain socket; if that fails, it tries a TCP/IP connection to the
backup host.

If an explicit `ldapi` type is given in a query when a host name is
specified, an error is diagnosed. However, if there are more items in
%ldap_default_servers%, they are tried. In other words:

- Using a pathname with `ldap` or `ldaps` forces the use of the Unix domain
interface.

- Using `ldapi` with a host name causes an error.


Using `ldapi` with no host or path in the query, and no setting of
%ldap_default_servers%, does whatever the library does by default.



LDAP authentication and control information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[LDAP,authentication]
The LDAP URL syntax provides no way of passing authentication and other control
information to the server. To make this possible, the URL in an LDAP query may
be preceded by any number of ``<''name'>=<'value'>' settings, separated by
spaces. If a value contains spaces it must be enclosed in double quotes, and
when double quotes are used, backslash is interpreted in the usual way inside
them. The following names are recognized:

&&&
`DEREFERENCE`  set the dereferencing parameter
`NETTIME    `  set a timeout for a network operation
`USER       `  set the DN, for authenticating the LDAP bind
`PASS       `  set the password, likewise
`SIZE       `  set the limit for the number of entries returned
`TIME       `  set the maximum waiting time for a query
&&&

The value of the DEREFERENCE parameter must be one of the words ``never'',
``searching'', ``finding'', or ``always''.

The name CONNECT is an obsolete name for NETTIME, retained for
backwards compatibility. This timeout (specified as a number of seconds) is
enforced from the client end for operations that can be carried out over a
network. Specifically, it applies to network connections and calls to the
'ldap_result()' function. If the value is greater than zero, it is used if
LDAP_OPT_NETWORK_TIMEOUT is defined in the LDAP headers (OpenLDAP), or
if LDAP_X_OPT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT is defined in the LDAP headers (Netscape
SDK 4.1). A value of zero forces an explicit setting of ``no timeout'' for
Netscape SDK; for OpenLDAP no action is taken.

The TIME parameter (also a number of seconds) is passed to the server to
set a server-side limit on the time taken to complete a search.


Here is an example of an LDAP query in an Exim lookup that uses some of these
values. This is a single line, folded for ease of reading:

  ${lookup ldap
    {user="cn=manager,o=University of Cambridge,c=UK" pass=secret
    ldap:///o=University%20of%20Cambridge,c=UK?sn?sub?(cn=foo)}
    {$value}fail}

The encoding of spaces as {pc}20 is a URL thing which should not be done for any
of the auxiliary data. Exim configuration settings that include lookups which
contain password information should be preceded by ``hide'' to prevent non-admin
users from using the %-bP% option to see their values.

The auxiliary data items may be given in any order. The default is no
connection timeout (the system timeout is used), no user or password, no limit
on the number of entries returned, and no time limit on queries.

When a DN is quoted in the USER= setting for LDAP authentication, Exim
removes any URL quoting that it may contain before passing it LDAP. Apparently
some libraries do this for themselves, but some do not. Removing the URL
quoting has two advantages:

- It makes it possible to use the same %quote_ldap_dn% expansion for USER=
DNs as with DNs inside actual queries.

- It permits spaces inside USER= DNs.

For example, a setting such as

  USER=cn=${quote_ldap_dn:$1}

should work even if $1$ contains spaces.

Expanded data for the PASS= value should be quoted using the %quote%
expansion operator, rather than the LDAP quote operators. The only reason this
field needs quoting is to ensure that it conforms to the Exim syntax, which
does not allow unquoted spaces. For example:

  PASS=${quote:$3}


The LDAP authentication mechanism can be used to check passwords as part of
SMTP authentication. See the %ldapauth% expansion string condition in chapter
<<CHAPexpand>>.



Format of data returned by LDAP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[LDAP,returned data formats]
The ^ldapdn^ lookup type returns the Distinguished Name from a single entry as
a sequence of values, for example

  cn=manager, o=University of Cambridge, c=UK


The ^ldap^ lookup type generates an error if more than one entry matches the
search filter, whereas ^ldapm^ permits this case, and inserts a newline in
the result between the data from different entries. It is possible for multiple
values to be returned for both ^ldap^ and ^ldapm^, but in the former case
you know that whatever values are returned all came from a single entry in the
directory.

In the common case where you specify a single attribute in your LDAP query, the
result is not quoted, and does not contain the attribute name. If the attribute
has multiple values, they are separated by commas.

If you specify multiple attributes, the result contains space-separated, quoted
strings, each preceded by the attribute name and an equals sign. Within the
quotes, the quote character, backslash, and newline are escaped with
backslashes, and commas are used to separate multiple values for the attribute.
Apart from the escaping, the string within quotes takes the same form as the
output when a single attribute is requested. Specifying no attributes is the
same as specifying all of an entry's attributes.

Here are some examples of the output format. The first line of each pair is an
LDAP query, and the second is the data that is returned. The attribute called
%attr1% has two values, whereas %attr2% has only one value:

  ldap:///o=base?attr1?sub?(uid=fred)
  value1.1, value1.2

  ldap:///o=base?attr2?sub?(uid=fred)
  value two

  ldap:///o=base?attr1,attr2?sub?(uid=fred)
  attr1="value1.1, value1.2" attr2="value two"

  ldap:///o=base??sub?(uid=fred)
  objectClass="top" attr1="value1.1, value1.2" attr2="value two"

The %extract% operator in string expansions can be used to pick out individual
fields from data that consists of 'key'='value' pairs. You can make use
of Exim's %-be% option to run expansion tests and thereby check the results of
LDAP lookups.




[[SECTnisplus]]
More about NIS+
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[NIS+ lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,NIS+]
NIS+ queries consist of a NIS+ 'indexed name' followed by an optional colon
and field name. If this is given, the result of a successful query is the
contents of the named field; otherwise the result consists of a concatenation
of 'field-name=field-value' pairs, separated by spaces. Empty values and
values containing spaces are quoted. For example, the query

  [name=mg1456],passwd.org_dir

might return the string

  name=mg1456 passwd="" uid=999 gid=999 gcos="Martin Guerre"
  home=/home/mg1456 shell=/bin/bash shadow=""

(split over two lines here to fit on the page), whereas

  [name=mg1456],passwd.org_dir:gcos

would just return

  Martin Guerre

with no quotes. A NIS+ lookup fails if NIS+ returns more than one table entry
for the given indexed key. The effect of the %quote_nisplus% expansion
operator is to double any quote characters within the text.



[[SECTsql]]
More about MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and Interbase
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[MySQL,lookup type]
cindex:[PostgreSQL lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,MySQL]
cindex:[lookup,PostgreSQL]
cindex:[Oracle,lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,Oracle]
cindex:[Interbase lookup type]
cindex:[lookup,Interbase]
If any MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or Interbase lookups are used, the
%mysql_servers%, %pgsql_servers%, %oracle_servers%, or %ibase_servers%
option (as appropriate) must be set to a colon-separated list of server
information. Each item in the list is a slash-separated list of four items:
host name, database name, user name, and password. In the case of Oracle, the
host name field is used for the ``service name'', and the database name field is
not used and should be empty. For example:

  hide oracle_servers = oracle.plc.example//ph10/abcdwxyz

Because password data is sensitive, you should always precede the setting with
``hide'', to prevent non-admin users from obtaining the setting via the %-bP%
option. Here is an example where two MySQL servers are listed:

....
hide mysql_servers = localhost/users/root/secret:\
                     otherhost/users/root/othersecret
....

For MySQL and PostgreSQL, a host may be specified as <'name'>:<'port'> but
because this is a colon-separated list, the colon has to be doubled.

For each query, these parameter groups are tried in order until a connection
and a query succeeds. Queries for these databases are SQL statements, so an
example might be

....
${lookup mysql{select mailbox from users where id='ph10'}\
  {$value}fail}
....

If the result of the query contains more than one field, the data for
each field in the row is returned, preceded by its name, so the result
of

....
${lookup pgsql{select home,name from users where id='ph10'}\
  {$value}}
....

might be

  home=/home/ph10 name="Philip Hazel"

Values containing spaces and empty values are double quoted, with embedded
quotes escaped by a backslash.

If the result of the query contains just one field, the value is passed back
verbatim, without a field name, for example:

  Philip Hazel

If the result of the query yields more than one row, it is all concatenated,
with a newline between the data for each row.

The %quote_mysql%, %quote_pgsql%, and %quote_oracle% expansion operators
convert newline, tab, carriage return, and backspace to \n, \t, \r, and \b
respectively, and the characters single-quote, double-quote, and backslash
itself are escaped with backslashes. The %quote_pgsql% expansion operator, in
addition, escapes the percent and underscore characters. This cannot be done
for MySQL because these escapes are not recognized in contexts where these
characters are not special.



Special MySQL features
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For MySQL, an empty host name or the use of ``localhost'' in %mysql_servers%
causes a connection to the server on the local host by means of a Unix domain
socket. An alternate socket can be specified in parentheses. The full syntax of
each item in %mysql_servers% is:

&&&
<'hostname'>::<'port'>(<'socket name'>)/<'database'>/<'user'>/<'password'>
&&&

Any of the three sub-parts of the first field can be omitted. For normal use on
the local host it can be left blank or set to just ``localhost''.

No database need be supplied -- but if it is absent here, it must be given in
the queries.

If a MySQL query is issued that does not request any data (an insert, update,
or delete command), the result of the lookup is the number of rows affected.

*Warning*: this can be misleading. If an update does not actually change
anything (for example, setting a field to the value it already has), the result
is zero because no rows are affected.




Special PostgreSQL features
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PostgreSQL lookups can also use Unix domain socket connections to the database.
This is usually faster and costs less CPU time than a TCP/IP connection.
However it can be used only if the mail server runs on the same machine as the
database server. A configuration line for PostgreSQL via Unix domain sockets
looks like this:

  hide pgsql_servers = (/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432)/db/user/password : ...

In other words, instead of supplying a host name, a path to the socket is
given. The path name is enclosed in parentheses so that its slashes aren't
visually confused with the delimiters for the other server parameters.

If a PostgreSQL query is issued that does not request any data (an insert,
update, or delete command), the result of the lookup is the number of rows
affected.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPdomhosaddlists]]
[titleabbrev="Domain, host, and address lists"]
Domain, host, address, and local part lists
-------------------------------------------
cindex:[list of domains; hosts; etc.]
A number of Exim configuration options contain lists of domains, hosts,
email addresses, or local parts. For example, the %hold_domains% option
contains a list of domains whose delivery is currently suspended. These lists
are also used as data in ACL statements (see chapter <<CHAPACL>>).

Each item in one of these lists is a pattern to be matched against a domain,
host, email address, or local part, respectively. In the sections below, the
different types of pattern for each case are described, but first we cover some
general facilities that apply to all four kinds of list.



Expansion of lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[expansion,of lists]
Each list is expanded as a single string before it is used. The result of
expansion must be a list, possibly containing empty items, which is split up
into separate items for matching. By default, colon is the separator character,
but this can be varied if necessary. See sections <<SECTlistconstruct>> and
<<SECTempitelis>> for details of the list syntax; the second of these discusses
the way you specify empty list items.


If the string expansion is forced to fail, Exim behaves as if the item it is
testing (domain, host, address, or local part) is not in the list. Other
expansion failures cause temporary errors.

If an item in a list is a regular expression, backslashes, dollars and possibly
other special characters in the expression must be protected against
misinterpretation by the string expander. The easiest way to do this is to use
the `\N` expansion feature to indicate that the contents of the regular
expression should not be expanded. For example, in an ACL you might have:

....
deny senders = \N^\d{8}\w@.*\.baddomain\.example$\N : \
               ${lookup{$domain}lsearch{/badsenders/bydomain}}
....

The first item is a regular expression that is protected from expansion by
`\N`, whereas the second uses the expansion to obtain a list of unwanted
senders based on the receiving domain.




Negated items in lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[list,negation]
cindex:[negation in lists]
Items in a list may be positive or negative. Negative items are indicated by a
leading exclamation mark, which may be followed by optional white space. A list
defines a set of items (domains, etc). When Exim processes one of these lists,
it is trying to find out whether a domain, host, address, or local part
(respectively) is in the set that is defined by the list. It works like this:

The list is scanned from left to right. If a positive item is matched, the
subject that is being checked is in the set; if a negative item is matched, the
subject is not in the set. If the end of the list is reached without the
subject having matched any of the patterns, it is in the set if the last item
was a negative one, but not if it was a positive one. For example, the list in

  domainlist relay_domains = !a.b.c : *.b.c

matches any domain ending in '.b.c' except for 'a.b.c'. Domains that match
neither 'a.b.c' nor '*.b.c' do not match, because the last item in the
list is positive. However, if the setting were

  domainlist relay_domains = !a.b.c

then all domains other than 'a.b.c' would match because the last item in the
list is negative. In other words, a list that ends with a negative item behaves
as if it had an extra item `:*` on the end.

Another way of thinking about positive and negative items in lists is to read
the connector as ``or'' after a positive item and as ``and'' after a negative
item.



[[SECTfilnamlis]]
File names in lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[list,file name in]
If an item in a domain, host, address, or local part list is an absolute file
name (beginning with a slash character), each line of the file is read and
processed as if it were an independent item in the list, except that further
file names are not allowed,
and no expansion of the data from the file takes place.
Empty lines in the file are ignored, and the file may also contain comment
lines:

- For domain and host lists, if a # character appears anywhere in a line of the
file, it and all following characters are ignored.

- Because local parts may legitimately contain # characters, a comment in an
address list or local part list file is recognized only if # is preceded by
white space or the start of the line. For example:

  not#comment@x.y.z   # but this is a comment

Putting a file name in a list has the same effect as inserting each line of the
file as an item in the list (blank lines and comments excepted). However, there
is one important difference: the file is read each time the list is processed,
so if its contents vary over time, Exim's behaviour changes.

If a file name is preceded by an exclamation mark, the sense of any match
within the file is inverted. For example, if

  hold_domains = !/etc/nohold-domains

and the file contains the lines

  !a.b.c
  *.b.c

then 'a.b.c' is in the set of domains defined by %hold_domains%, whereas any
domain matching `*.b.c` is not.



An lsearch file is not an out-of-line list
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As will be described in the sections that follow, lookups can be used in lists
to provide indexed methods of checking list membership. There has been some
confusion about the way ^lsearch^ lookups work in lists. Because
an ^lsearch^ file contains plain text and is scanned sequentially, it is
sometimes thought that it is allowed to contain wild cards and other kinds of
non-constant pattern. This is not the case. The keys in an ^lsearch^ file are
always fixed strings, just as for any other single-key lookup type.

If you want to use a file to contain wild-card patterns that form part of a
list, just give the file name on its own, without a search type, as described
in the previous section.




[[SECTnamedlists]]
Named lists
~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[named lists]
cindex:[list,named]
A list of domains, hosts, email addresses, or local parts can be given a name
which is then used to refer to the list elsewhere in the configuration. This is
particularly convenient if the same list is required in several different
places. It also allows lists to be given meaningful names, which can improve
the readability of the configuration. For example, it is conventional to define
a domain list called 'local_domains' for all the domains that are handled
locally on a host, using a configuration line such as

  domainlist local_domains = localhost:my.dom.example

Named lists are referenced by giving their name preceded by a plus sign, so,
for example, a router that is intended to handle local domains would be
configured with the line

  domains = +local_domains

The first router in a configuration is often one that handles all domains
except the local ones, using a configuration with a negated item like this:

  dnslookup:
    driver = dnslookup
    domains = ! +local_domains
    transport = remote_smtp
    no_more

The four kinds of named list are created by configuration lines starting with
the words %domainlist%, %hostlist%, %addresslist%, or %localpartlist%,
respectively. Then there follows the name that you are defining, followed by an
equals sign and the list itself. For example:

  hostlist    relay_hosts = 192.168.23.0/24 : my.friend.example
  addresslist bad_senders = cdb;/etc/badsenders

A named list may refer to other named lists:

  domainlist  dom1 = first.example : second.example
  domainlist  dom2 = +dom1 : third.example
  domainlist  dom3 = fourth.example : +dom2 : fifth.example


*Warning*: If the last item in a referenced list is a negative one, the
effect may not be what you intended, because the negation does not propagate
out to the higher level. For example, consider:

  domainlist  dom1 = !a.b
  domainlist  dom2 = +dom1 : *.b

The second list specifies ``either in the %dom1% list or '*.b'##''. The first
list specifies just ``not 'a.b'##'', so the domain 'x.y' matches it. That means
it matches the second list as well. The effect is not the same as

  domainlist  dom2 = !a.b : *.b

where 'x.y' does not match. It's best to avoid negation altogether in
referenced lists if you can.

Named lists may have a performance advantage. When Exim is routing an
address or checking an incoming message, it caches the result of tests on named
lists. So, if you have a setting such as

  domains = +local_domains

on several of your routers
or in several ACL statements,
the actual test is done only for the first one. However, the caching works only
if there are no expansions within the list itself or any sublists that it
references. In other words, caching happens only for lists that are known to be
the same each time they are referenced.

By default, there may be up to 16 named lists of each type. This limit can be
extended by changing a compile-time variable. The use of domain and host lists
is recommended for concepts such as local domains, relay domains, and relay
hosts. The default configuration is set up like this.



Named lists compared with macros
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[list,named compared with macro]
cindex:[macro,compared with named list]
At first sight, named lists might seem to be no different from macros in the
configuration file. However, macros are just textual substitutions. If you
write

  ALIST = host1 : host2
  auth_advertise_hosts = !ALIST

it probably won't do what you want, because that is exactly the same as

  auth_advertise_hosts = !host1 : host2

Notice that the second host name is not negated. However, if you use a host
list, and write

  hostlist alist = host1 : host2
  auth_advertise_hosts = ! +alist

the negation applies to the whole list, and so that is equivalent to

  auth_advertise_hosts = !host1 : !host2




Named list caching
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[list,caching of named]
cindex:[caching,named lists]
While processing a message, Exim caches the result of checking a named list if
it is sure that the list is the same each time. In practice, this means that
the cache operates only if the list contains no \$ characters, which guarantees
that it will not change when it is expanded. Sometimes, however, you may have
an expanded list that you know will be the same each time within a given
message. For example:

....
domainlist special_domains = \
           ${lookup{$sender_host_address}cdb{/some/file}}
....

This provides a list of domains that depends only on the sending host's IP
address. If this domain list is referenced a number of times (for example,
in several ACL lines, or in several routers) the result of the check is not
cached by default, because Exim does not know that it is going to be the
same list each time.

By appending `_cache` to `domainlist` you can tell Exim to go ahead and
cache the result anyway. For example:

  domainlist_cache special_domains = ${lookup{...

If you do this, you should be absolutely sure that caching is going to do
the right thing in all cases. When in doubt, leave it out.



[[SECTdomainlist]]
Domain lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[domain list,patterns for]
cindex:[list,domain list]
Domain lists contain patterns that are to be matched against a mail domain.
The following types of item may appear in domain lists:

- cindex:[primary host name]
cindex:[host name, matched in domain list]
cindex:[%primary_hostname%]
cindex:[domain list,matching primary host name]
cindex:[@ in a domain list]
If a pattern consists of a single @ character, it matches the local host name,
as set by the %primary_hostname% option (or defaulted). This makes it possible
to use the same configuration file on several different hosts that differ only
in their names.

- cindex:[@{bk} in a domain list]
cindex:[domain list,matching local IP interfaces]
cindex:[domain literal]
If a pattern consists of the string `@[]` it matches any local IP interface
address, enclosed in square brackets, as in an email address that contains a
domain literal.
In today's Internet, the use of domain literals is controversial.

- cindex:[@mx_any]
cindex:[@mx_primary]
cindex:[@mx_secondary]
cindex:[domain list,matching MX pointers to local host]
If a pattern consists of the string `@mx_any` it matches any domain that
has an MX record pointing to the local host or to any host that is listed in
cindex:[%hosts_treat_as_local%]
%hosts_treat_as_local%. The items `@mx_primary` and `@mx_secondary`
are similar, except that the first matches only when a primary MX target is the
local host, and the second only when no primary MX target is the local host,
but a secondary MX target is. ``Primary'' means an MX record with the lowest
preference value -- there may of course be more than one of them.
+
The MX lookup that takes place when matching a pattern of this type is
performed with the resolver options for widening names turned off. Thus, for
example, a single-component domain will 'not' be expanded by adding the
resolver's default domain. See the %qualify_single% and %search_parents%
options of the ^dnslookup^ router for a discussion of domain widening.
+
Sometimes you may want to ignore certain IP addresses when using one of these
patterns. You can specify this by following the pattern with `/ignore=`<'ip
list'>, where <'ip list'> is a list of IP addresses. These addresses are
ignored when processing the pattern (compare the %ignore_target_hosts% option
on a router). For example:

  domains = @mx_any/ignore=127.0.0.1
+
This example matches any domain that has an MX record pointing to one of
the local host's IP addresses other than 127.0.0.1.
+
The list of IP addresses is in fact processed by the same code that processes
host lists, so it may contain CIDR-coded network specifications and it may also
contain negative items.
+
Because the list of IP addresses is a sublist within a domain list, you have to
be careful about delimiters if there is more than one address. Like any other
list, the default delimiter can be changed. Thus, you might have:
+
....
domains = @mx_any/ignore=<;127.0.0.1;0.0.0.0 : \
          an.other.domain : ...
....
+
so that the sublist uses semicolons for delimiters. When IPv6 addresses are
involved, it is easiest to change the delimiter for the main list as well:
+
....
domains = <? @mx_any/ignore=<;127.0.0.1;::1 ? \
          an.other.domain ? ...
....

- cindex:[asterisk,in domain list]
cindex:[domain list,asterisk in]
cindex:[domain list,matching ``ends with'']
If a pattern starts with an asterisk, the remaining characters of the pattern
are compared with the terminating characters of the domain. The use of ``\*'' in
domain lists differs from its use in partial matching lookups. In a domain
list, the character following the asterisk need not be a dot, whereas partial
matching works only in terms of dot-separated components. For example, a domain
list item such as `*key.ex` matches 'donkey.ex' as well as
'cipher.key.ex'.

- cindex:[regular expressions,in domain list]
cindex:[domain list,matching regular expression]
If a pattern starts with a circumflex character, it is treated as a regular
expression, and matched against the domain using a regular expression matching
function. The circumflex is treated as part of the regular expression.
References to descriptions of the syntax of regular expressions are given in
chapter <<CHAPregexp>>.
+
*Warning*: Because domain lists are expanded before being processed, you
must escape any backslash and dollar characters in the regular expression, or
use the special `\N` sequence (see chapter <<CHAPexpand>>) to specify that it
is not to be expanded (unless you really do want to build a regular expression
by expansion, of course).

- cindex:[lookup,in domain list]
cindex:[domain list,matching by lookup]
If a pattern starts with the name of a single-key lookup type followed by a
semicolon (for example, ``dbm;'' or ``lsearch;''), the remainder of the pattern
must be a file name in a suitable format for the lookup type. For example, for
``cdb;'' it must be an absolute path:

  domains = cdb;/etc/mail/local_domains.cdb
+
The appropriate type of lookup is done on the file using the domain name as the
key. In most cases, the data that is looked up is not used; Exim is interested
only in whether or not the key is present in the file. However, when a lookup
is used for the %domains% option on a router
or a %domains% condition in an ACL statement, the data is preserved in the
$domain_data$ variable and can be referred to in other router options or
other statements in the same ACL.

- Any of the single-key lookup type names may be preceded by ``partial<''n'>-',
where the <'n'> is optional, for example,

  domains = partial-dbm;/partial/domains
+
This causes partial matching logic to be invoked; a description of how this
works is given in section <<SECTpartiallookup>>.

- cindex:[asterisk,in lookup type]
Any of the single-key lookup types may be followed by an asterisk. This causes
a default lookup for a key consisting of a single asterisk to be done if the
original lookup fails. This is not a useful feature when using a domain list to
select particular domains (because any domain would match), but it might have
value if the result of the lookup is being used via the $domain_data$
expansion variable.

- If the pattern starts with the name of a query-style lookup type followed by a
semicolon (for example, ``nisplus;'' or ``ldap;''), the remainder of the pattern
must be an appropriate query for the lookup type, as described in chapter
<<CHAPfdlookup>>. For example:
+
....
hold_domains = mysql;select domain from holdlist \
  where domain = '$domain';
....
+
In most cases, the data that is looked up is not used (so for an SQL query, for
example, it doesn't matter what field you select). Exim is interested only in
whether or not the query succeeds. However, when a lookup is used for the
%domains% option on a router, the data is preserved in the $domain_data$
variable and can be referred to in other options.

- cindex:[domain list,matching literal domain name]
If none of the above cases apply, a caseless textual comparison is made
between the pattern and the domain.


Here is an example that uses several different kinds of pattern:

....
domainlist funny_domains = \
  @ : \
  lib.unseen.edu : \
  *.foundation.fict.example : \
  \N^[1-2]\d{3}\.fict\.example$\N : \
  partial-dbm;/opt/data/penguin/book : \
  nis;domains.byname : \
  nisplus;[name=$domain,status=local],domains.org_dir
....

There are obvious processing trade-offs among the various matching modes. Using
an asterisk is faster than a regular expression, and listing a few names
explicitly probably is too. The use of a file or database lookup is expensive,
but may be the only option if hundreds of names are required. Because the
patterns are tested in order, it makes sense to put the most commonly matched
patterns earlier.



[[SECThostlist]]
Host lists
~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[host list,patterns in]
cindex:[list,host list]
Host lists are used to control what remote hosts are allowed to do. For
example, some hosts may be allowed to use the local host as a relay, and some
may be permitted to use the SMTP ETRN command. Hosts can be identified in
two different ways, by name or by IP address. In a host list, some types of
pattern are matched to a host name, and some are matched to an IP address.
You need to be particularly careful with this when single-key lookups are
involved, to ensure that the right value is being used as the key.


Special host list patterns
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[empty item in hosts list]
cindex:[host list,empty string in]
If a host list item is the empty string, it matches only when no remote host is
involved. This is the case when a message is being received from a local
process using SMTP on the standard input, that is, when a TCP/IP connection is
not used.

cindex:[asterisk,in host list]
The special pattern ``\*'' in a host list matches any host or no host. Neither
the IP address nor the name is actually inspected.



[[SECThoslispatip]]
Host list patterns that match by IP address
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[host list,matching IP addresses]
If an IPv4 host calls an IPv6 host and the call is accepted on an IPv6 socket,
the incoming address actually appears in the IPv6 host as
``::`ffff`:<''v4address'>'. When such an address is tested against a host
list, it is converted into a traditional IPv4 address first. (Not all operating
systems accept IPv4 calls on IPv6 sockets, as there have been some security
concerns.)

The following types of pattern in a host list check the remote host by
inspecting its IP address:

- If the pattern is a plain domain name (not a regular expression, not starting
with \*, not a lookup of any kind), Exim calls the operating system function
to find the associated IP address(es). Exim uses the newer
'getipnodebyname()' function when available, otherwise 'gethostbyname()'.
This typically causes a forward DNS lookup of the name. The result is compared
with the IP address of the subject host.
+
If there is a temporary problem (such as a DNS timeout) with the host name
lookup, a temporary error occurs. For example, if the list is being used in an
ACL condition, the ACL gives a ``defer'' response, usually leading to a temporary
SMTP error code. If no IP address can be found for the host name, what happens
is described in section <<SECTbehipnot>> below.

- cindex:[@ in a host list]
If the pattern is ``@'', the primary host name is substituted and used as a
domain name, as just described.

- If the pattern is an IP address, it is matched against the IP address of the
subject host. IPv4 addresses are given in the normal ``dotted-quad'' notation.
IPv6 addresses can be given in colon-separated format, but the colons have to
be doubled so as not to be taken as item separators when the default list
separator is used. IPv6 addresses are recognized even when Exim is compiled
without IPv6 support. This means that if they appear in a host list on an
IPv4-only host, Exim will not treat them as host names. They are just addresses
that can never match a client host.

- cindex:[@{bk} in a host list]
If the pattern is ``@[]'', it matches the IP address of any IP interface on
the local host. For example, if the local host is an IPv4 host with one
interface address 10.45.23.56, these two ACL statements have the same effect:

  accept hosts = 127.0.0.1 : 10.45.23.56
  accept hosts = @[]

- cindex:[CIDR notation]
If the pattern is an IP address followed by a slash and a mask length (for
example 10.11.42.0/24), it is matched against the IP address of the subject
host under the given mask. This allows, an entire network of hosts to be
included (or excluded) by a single item. The mask uses CIDR notation; it
specifies the number of address bits that must match, starting from the most
significant end of the address.
+
*Note*: the mask is 'not' a count of addresses, nor is it the high number
of a range of addresses. It is the number of bits in the network portion of the
address. The above example specifies a 24-bit netmask, so it matches all 256
addresses in the 10.11.42.0 network. An item such as

  192.168.23.236/31
+
matches just two addresses, 192.168.23.236 and 192.168.23.237. A mask value of
32 for an IPv4 address is the same as no mask at all; just a single address
matches.
+
Here is another example which shows an IPv4 and an IPv6 network:
+
....
recipient_unqualified_hosts = 192.168.0.0/16: \
                              3ffe::ffff::836f::::/48
....
+
The doubling of list separator characters applies only when these items
appear inline in a host list. It is not required when indirecting via a file.
For example,

  recipient_unqualified_hosts = /opt/exim/unqualnets
+
could make use of a file containing

  172.16.0.0/12
  3ffe:ffff:836f::/48
+
to have exactly the same effect as the previous example. When listing IPv6
addresses inline, it is usually more convenient to use the facility for
changing separator characters. This list contains the same two networks:
+
....
recipient_unqualified_hosts = <; 172.16.0.0/12; \
                                 3ffe:ffff:836f::/48
....
+
The separator is changed to semicolon by the leading ``<;'' at the start of the
list.




[[SECThoslispatsikey]]
Host list patterns for single-key lookups by host address
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[host list,lookup of IP address]
When a host is to be identified by a single-key lookup of its complete IP
address, the pattern takes this form:

  net-<single-key-search-type>;<search-data>

For example:

  hosts_lookup = net-cdb;/hosts-by-ip.db

The text form of the IP address of the subject host is used as the lookup key.
IPv6 addresses are converted to an unabbreviated form, using lower case
letters, with dots as separators because colon is the key terminator in
^lsearch^ files. [Colons can in fact be used in keys in ^lsearch^ files by
quoting the keys, but this is a facility that was added later.] The data
returned by the lookup is not used.

cindex:[IP address,masking]
cindex:[host list,masked IP address]
Single-key lookups can also be performed using masked IP addresses, using
patterns of this form:

  net<number>-<single-key-search-type>;<search-data>

For example:

  net24-dbm;/networks.db

The IP address of the subject host is masked using <'number'> as the mask
length. A textual string is constructed from the masked value, followed by the
mask, and this is used as the lookup key. For example, if the host's IP address
is 192.168.34.6, the key that is looked up for the above example is
``192.168.34.0/24''. IPv6 addresses are converted to a text value using lower
case letters and dots as separators instead of the more usual colon, because
colon is the key terminator in ^lsearch^ files. Full, unabbreviated IPv6
addresses are always used.

*Warning*: Specifing %net32-% (for an IPv4 address) or %net128-% (for an
IPv6 address) is not the same as specifing just %net-% without a number. In
the former case the key strings include the mask value, whereas in the latter
case the IP address is used on its own.



[[SECThoslispatnam]]
Host list patterns that match by host name
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[host,lookup failures]
cindex:[unknown host name]
cindex:[host list,matching host name]
There are several types of pattern that require Exim to know the name of the
remote host. These are either wildcard patterns or lookups by name. (If a
complete hostname is given without any wildcarding, it is used to find an IP
address to match against, as described in the section <<SECThoslispatip>> above.)

If the remote host name is not already known when Exim encounters one of these
patterns, it has to be found from the IP address.
Although many sites on the Internet are conscientious about maintaining reverse
DNS data for their hosts, there are also many that do not do this.
Consequently, a name cannot always be found, and this may lead to unwanted
effects. Take care when configuring host lists with wildcarded name patterns.
Consider what will happen if a name cannot be found.

Because of the problems of determining host names from IP addresses, matching
against host names is not as common as matching against IP addresses.

By default, in order to find a host name, Exim first does a reverse DNS lookup;
if no name is found in the DNS, the system function ('gethostbyaddr()' or
'getipnodebyaddr()' if available) is tried. The order in which these lookups
are done can be changed by setting the %host_lookup_order% option.

There are some options that control what happens if a host name cannot be
found. These are described in section <<SECTbehipnot>> below.

cindex:[host,alias for]
cindex:[alias for host]
As a result of aliasing, hosts may have more than one name. When processing any
of the following types of pattern, all the host's names are checked:

- cindex:[asterisk,in host list]
If a pattern starts with ``\*'' the remainder of the item must match the end of
the host name. For example, `*.b.c` matches all hosts whose names end in
'.b.c'. This special simple form is provided because this is a very common
requirement. Other kinds of wildcarding require the use of a regular
expression.

- cindex:[regular expressions,in host list]
cindex:[host list,regular expression in]
If the item starts with ``^'' it is taken to be a regular expression which is
matched against the host name. For example,

  ^(a|b)\.c\.d$
+
is a regular expression that matches either of the two hosts 'a.c.d' or
'b.c.d'. When a regular expression is used in a host list, you must take care
that backslash and dollar characters are not misinterpreted as part of the
string expansion. The simplest way to do this is to use `\N` to mark that
part of the string as non-expandable. For example:

  sender_unqualified_hosts = \N^(a|b)\.c\.d$\N : ....
+
*Warning*: If you want to match a complete host name, you must include the
`\$` terminating metacharacter in the regular expression, as in the above
example. Without it, a match at the start of the host name is all that is
required.




[[SECTbehipnot]]
Behaviour when an IP address or name cannot be found
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[host,lookup failures]
While processing a host list, Exim may need to look up an IP address from a
name (see section <<SECThoslispatip>>), or it may need to look up a host name
from an IP address (see section <<SECThoslispatnam>>). In either case, the
behaviour when it fails to find the information it is seeking is the same.

cindex:[`+include_unknown`]
cindex:[`+ignore_unknown`]
By default, Exim behaves as if the host does not match the list. This may not
always be what you want to happen. To change Exim's behaviour, the special
items `+include_unknown` or `+ignore_unknown` may appear in the list (at
top level -- they are not recognized in an indirected file).

- If any item that follows `+include_unknown` requires information that
cannot found, Exim behaves as if the host does match the list. For example,

  host_reject_connection = +include_unknown:*.enemy.ex
+
rejects connections from any host whose name matches `*.enemy.ex`, and also
any hosts whose name it cannot find.

- If any item that follows `+ignore_unknown` requires information that cannot
be found, Exim ignores that item and proceeds to the rest of the list. For
example:
+
....
accept hosts = +ignore_unknown : friend.example : \
               192.168.4.5
....
+
accepts from any host whose name is 'friend.example' and from 192.168.4.5,
whether or not its host name can be found. Without `+ignore_unknown`, if no
name can be found for 192.168.4.5, it is rejected.

Both `+include_unknown` and `+ignore_unknown` may appear in the same
list. The effect of each one lasts until the next, or until the end of the
list.

*Note*: This section applies to permanent lookup failures. It does 'not'
apply to temporary DNS errors. They always cause a defer action.



[[SECThoslispatnamsk]]
Host list patterns for single-key lookups by host name
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[host,lookup failures]
cindex:[unknown host name]
cindex:[host list,matching host name]
If a pattern is of the form

  <single-key-search-type>;<search-data>

for example

  dbm;/host/accept/list

a single-key lookup is performend, using the host name as its key. If the
lookup succeeds, the host matches the item. The actual data that is looked up
is not used.

*Reminder*: With this kind of pattern, you must have host 'names' as
keys in the file, not IP addresses. If you want to do lookups based on IP
addresses, you must precede the search type with ``net-'' (see section
<<SECThoslispatsikey>>). There is, however, no reason why you could not use two
items in the same list, one doing an address lookup and one doing a name
lookup, both using the same file.



Host list patterns for query-style lookups
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If a pattern is of the form

  <query-style-search-type>;<query>

the query is obeyed, and if it succeeds, the host matches the item. The actual
data that is looked up is not used. The variables $sender_host_address$ and
$sender_host_name$ can be used in the query. For example:

....
hosts_lookup = pgsql;\
  select ip from hostlist where ip='$sender_host_address'
....

The value of $sender_host_address$ for an IPv6 address contains colons. You
can use the %sg% expansion item to change this if you need to. If you want to
use masked IP addresses in database queries, you can use the %mask% expansion
operator.

If the query contains a reference to $sender_host_name$, Exim automatically
looks up the host name if has not already done so. (See section
<<SECThoslispatnam>> for comments on finding host names.)

Historical note: prior to release 4.30, Exim would always attempt to find a
host name before running the query, unless the search type was preceded by
`net-`. This is no longer the case. For backwards compatibility, `net-` is
still recognized for query-style lookups, but its presence or absence has no
effect. (Of course, for single-key lookups, `net-` 'is' important.
See section <<SECThoslispatsikey>>.)



[[SECTmixwilhos]]
Mixing wildcarded host names and addresses in host lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[host list,mixing names and addresses in]
If you have name lookups or wildcarded host names and IP addresses in the same
host list, you should normally put the IP addresses first. For example, in an
ACL you could have:

  accept hosts = 10.9.8.7 : *.friend.example

The reason for this lies in the left-to-right way that Exim processes lists.
It can test IP addresses without doing any DNS lookups, but when it reaches an
item that requires a host name, it fails if it cannot find a host name to
compare with the pattern. If the above list is given in the opposite order, the
%accept% statement fails for a host whose name cannot be found, even if its
IP address is 10.9.8.7.

If you really do want to do the name check first, and still recognize the IP
address, you can rewrite the ACL like this:

  accept hosts = *.friend.example
  accept hosts = 10.9.8.7

If the first %accept% fails, Exim goes on to try the second one. See chapter
<<CHAPACL>> for details of ACLs.





[[SECTaddresslist]]
Address lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[list,address list]
cindex:[address list,empty item]
cindex:[address list,patterns]
Address lists contain patterns that are matched against mail addresses. There
is one special case to be considered: the sender address of a bounce message is
always empty. You can test for this by providing an empty item in an address
list. For example, you can set up a router to process bounce messages by
using this option setting:

  senders = :

The presence of the colon creates an empty item. If you do not provide any
data, the list is empty and matches nothing. The empty sender can also be
detected by a regular expression that matches an empty string,

and by a query-style lookup that succeeds when $sender_address$ is empty.

The following kinds of address list pattern can match any address, including
the empty address that is characteristic of bounce message senders:

- As explained above, if a pattern item is empty, it matches the empty address
(and no others).

- cindex:[regular expressions,in address list]
cindex:[address list,regular expression in]
If (after expansion) a pattern starts with ``^'', a regular expression match is
done against the complete address, with the pattern as the regular expression.
You must take care that backslash and dollar characters are not misinterpreted
as part of the string expansion. The simplest way to do this is to use `\N`
to mark that part of the string as non-expandable. For example:

  deny senders = \N^\d{8}.+@spamhaus.example$\N : ...
+
The `\N` sequences are removed by the expansion, so the item does start
with ``^'' by the time it is being interpreted as an address pattern.

- cindex:[address list,lookup for complete address]
Complete addresses can be looked up by using a pattern that starts with a
lookup type terminated by a semicolon, followed by the data for the lookup. For
example:
+
....
deny senders = cdb;/etc/blocked.senders : \
  mysql;select address from blocked where \
  address='${quote_mysql:$sender_address}'
....
+
Both query-style and single-key lookup types can be used. For a single-key
lookup type, Exim uses the complete address as the key. However, empty keys are
not supported for single-key lookups, so a match against the empty address
always fails. This restriction does not apply to query-style lookups.
+
Partial matching for single-key lookups (section <<SECTpartiallookup>>) cannot
be used, and is ignored if specified, with an entry being written to the panic
log.
+
cindex:[\*@ with single-key lookup]
However, you can configure lookup defaults, as described in section
<<SECTdefaultvaluelookups>>, but this is useful only for the ``\*@'' type of
default. For example, with this lookup:

  accept senders = lsearch*@;/some/file
+
the file could contains lines like this:

  user1@domain1.example
  *@domain2.example
+
and for the sender address 'nimrod@jaeger.example', the sequence of keys
that are tried is:

  nimrod@jaeger.example
  *@jaeger.example
  *
+
*Warning 1*: Do not include a line keyed by ``\*'' in the file, because that
would mean that every address matches, thus rendering the test useless.
+
*Warning 2*: Do not confuse these two kinds of item:

  deny recipients = dbm*@;/some/file
  deny recipients = *@dbm;/some/file
+
The first does a whole address lookup, with defaulting, as just described,
because it starts with a lookup type. The second matches the local part and
domain independently, as described in a bullet point below.



The following kinds of address list pattern can match only non-empty addresses.
If the subject address is empty, a match against any of these pattern types
always fails.


- cindex:[@@ with single-key lookup]
cindex:[address list,@@ lookup type]
cindex:[address list,split local part and domain]
If a pattern starts with ``@@'' followed by a single-key lookup item
(for example, `@@lsearch;/some/file`), the address that is being checked is
split into a local part and a domain. The domain is looked up in the file. If
it is not found, there is no match. If it is found, the data that is looked up
from the file is treated as a colon-separated list of local part patterns, each
of which is matched against the subject local part in turn.
+
cindex:[asterisk,in address list]
The lookup may be a partial one, and/or one involving a search for a default
keyed by ``\*'' (see section <<SECTdefaultvaluelookups>>). The local part patterns
that are looked up can be regular expressions or begin with ``\*'', or even be
further lookups. They may also be independently negated. For example, with

  deny senders = @@dbm;/etc/reject-by-domain
+
the data from which the DBM file is built could contain lines like

  baddomain.com:  !postmaster : *
+
to reject all senders except %postmaster% from that domain.
+
cindex:[local part,starting with !]
If a local part that actually begins with an exclamation mark is required, it
has to be specified using a regular expression. In ^lsearch^ files, an entry
may be split over several lines by indenting the second and subsequent lines,
but the separating colon must still be included at line breaks. White space
surrounding the colons is ignored. For example:

  aol.com:  spammer1 : spammer2 : ^[0-9]+$ :
            spammer3 : spammer4
+
As in all colon-separated lists in Exim, a colon can be included in an item by
doubling.
+
If the last item in the list starts with a right angle-bracket, the remainder
of the item is taken as a new key to look up in order to obtain a continuation
list of local parts. The new key can be any sequence of characters. Thus one
might have entries like

  aol.com: spammer1 : spammer 2 : >*
  xyz.com: spammer3 : >*
  *:       ^\d{8}$
+
in a file that was searched with %@@dbm\*%, to specify a match for 8-digit
local parts for all domains, in addition to the specific local parts listed for
each domain. Of course, using this feature costs another lookup each time a
chain is followed, but the effort needed to maintain the data is reduced.
+
cindex:[loop,in lookups]
It is possible to construct loops using this facility, and in order to catch
them, the chains may be no more than fifty items long.

- The @@<'lookup'> style of item can also be used with a query-style
lookup, but in this case, the chaining facility is not available. The lookup
can only return a single list of local parts.

- If a pattern contains an @ character, but is not a regular expression and does
not begin with a lookup type as described above, the local part of the subject
address is compared with the local part of the pattern, which may start with an
asterisk. If the local parts match, the domain is checked in exactly the same
way as for a pattern in a domain list. For example, the domain can be
wildcarded, refer to a named list, or be a lookup:
+
....
deny senders = *@*.spamming.site:\
               *@+hostile_domains:\
               bozo@partial-lsearch;/list/of/dodgy/sites:\
               *@dbm;/bad/domains.db
....
+
cindex:[local part,starting with !]
cindex:[address list,local part starting with !]
If a local part that begins with an exclamation mark is required, it has to be
specified using a regular expression, because otherwise the exclamation mark is
treated as a sign of negation.

- If a pattern is not one of the above syntax forms, that is, if a
non-empty pattern that is not a regular expression or a lookup does not contain
an @ character, it is matched against the domain part of the subject address.
The only two formats that are recognized this way are a literal domain, or a
domain pattern that starts with \*. In both these cases, the effect is the same
as if `*@` preceded the pattern.

*Warning*: there is an important difference between the address list items
in these two examples:

  senders = +my_list
  senders = *@+my_list

In the first one, `my_list` is a named address list, whereas in the second
example it is a named domain list.




[[SECTcasletadd]]
Case of letters in address lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[case of local parts]
cindex:[address list,case forcing]
cindex:[case forcing in address lists]
Domains in email addresses are always handled caselessly, but for local parts
case may be significant on some systems (see %caseful_local_part% for how
Exim deals with this when routing addresses). However, RFC 2505 ('Anti-Spam
Recommendations for SMTP MTAs') suggests that matching of addresses to blocking
lists should be done in a case-independent manner. Since most address lists in
Exim are used for this kind of control, Exim attempts to do this by default.

The domain portion of an address is always lowercased before matching it to an
address list. The local part is lowercased by default, and any string
comparisons that take place are done caselessly. This means that the data in
the address list itself, in files included as plain file names, and in any file
that is looked up using the ``@@'' mechanism, can be in any case. However, the
keys in files that are looked up by a search type other than ^lsearch^ (which
works caselessly) must be in lower case, because these lookups are not
case-independent.

cindex:[`+caseful`]
To allow for the possibility of caseful address list matching, if an item in
an address list is the string ``+caseful'', the original case of the local
part is restored for any comparisons that follow, and string comparisons are no
longer case-independent. This does not affect the domain, which remains in
lower case. However, although independent matches on the domain alone are still
performed caselessly, regular expressions that match against an entire address
become case-sensitive after ``+caseful'' has been seen.



[[SECTlocparlis]]
Local part lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[list,local part list]
cindex:[local part,list]
Case-sensitivity in local part lists is handled in the same way as for address
lists, as just described. The ``+caseful'' item can be used if required. In a
setting of the %local_parts% option in a router with %caseful_local_part%
set false, the subject is lowercased and the matching is initially
case-insensitive. In this case, ``+caseful'' will restore case-sensitive matching
in the local part list, but not elsewhere in the router. If
%caseful_local_part% is set true in a router, matching in the %local_parts%
option is case-sensitive from the start.

If a local part list is indirected to a file (see section <<SECTfilnamlis>>),
comments are handled in the same way as address lists -- they are recognized
only if the # is preceded by white space or the start of the line.
Otherwise, local part lists are matched in the same way as domain lists, except
that the special items that refer to the local host (`@`, `@[]`,
`@mx_any`, `@mx_primary`, and `@mx_secondary`) are not recognized.
Refer to section <<SECTdomainlist>> for details of the other available item
types.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPexpand]]
String expansions
-----------------
cindex:[expansion,of strings]
Many strings in Exim's run time configuration are expanded before use. Some of
them are expanded every time they are used; others are expanded only once.

When a string is being expanded it is copied verbatim from left to right except
when a dollar or backslash character is encountered. A dollar specifies the
start of a portion of the string which is interpreted and replaced as described
below in section <<SECTexpansionitems>> onwards. Backslash is used as an escape
character, as described in the following section.



[[SECTlittext]]
Literal text in expanded strings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[expansion,including literal text]
An uninterpreted dollar can be included in an expanded string by putting a
backslash in front of it. A backslash can be used to prevent any special
character being treated specially in an expansion, including itself. If the
string appears in quotes in the configuration file, two backslashes are
required because the quotes themselves cause interpretation of backslashes when
the string is read in (see section <<SECTstrings>>).

cindex:[expansion,non-expandable substrings]
A portion of the string can specified as non-expandable by placing it between
two occurrences of `\N`. This is particularly useful for protecting regular
expressions, which often contain backslashes and dollar signs. For example:

  deny senders = \N^\d{8}[a-z]@some\.site\.example$\N

On encountering the first `\N`, the expander copies subsequent characters
without interpretation until it reaches the next `\N` or the end of the
string.



Character escape sequences in expanded strings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[expansion,escape sequences]
A backslash followed by one of the letters ``n'', ``r'', or ``t'' in an expanded
string is recognized as an escape sequence for the character newline, carriage
return, or tab, respectively. A backslash followed by up to three octal digits
is recognized as an octal encoding for a single character, and a backslash
followed by ``x'' and up to two hexadecimal digits is a hexadecimal encoding.

These escape sequences are also recognized in quoted strings when they are read
in. Their interpretation in expansions as well is useful for unquoted strings,
and for other cases such as looked-up strings that are then expanded.


Testing string expansions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[expansion,testing]
cindex:[testing,string expansion]
cindex:[%-be% option]
Many expansions can be tested by calling Exim with the %-be% option. This takes
the command arguments, or lines from the standard input if there are no
arguments, runs them through the string expansion code, and writes the results
to the standard output. Variables based on configuration values are set up, but
since no message is being processed, variables such as $local_part$ have no
value. Nevertheless the %-be% option can be useful for checking out file and
database lookups, and the use of expansion operators such as %sg%, %substr% and
%nhash%.

Exim gives up its root privilege when it is called with the %-be% option, and
instead runs under the uid and gid it was called with, to prevent users from
using %-be% for reading files to which they do not have access.



[[SECTforexpfai]]
Forced expansion failure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[expansion,forced failure]
A number of expansions that are described in the following section have
alternative ``true'' and ``false'' substrings, enclosed in curly brackets. Which
one is used depends on some condition that is evaluated as part of the
expansion. If, instead of a ``false'' substring, the word ``fail'' is used (not in
curly brackets), the entire string expansion fails in a way that can be
detected by the code that requested the expansion. This is called ``forced
expansion failure'', and its consequences depend on the circumstances. In some
cases it is no different from any other expansion failure, but in others a
different action may be taken. Such variations are mentioned in the
documentation of the option that is being expanded.




[[SECTexpansionitems]]
Expansion items
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following items are recognized in expanded strings. White space may be used
between sub-items that are keywords or substrings enclosed in braces inside an
outer set of braces, to improve readability. *Warning*: Within braces,
white space is significant.

*\$*<'variable~name'>~or~*\$\{*<'variable~name'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,variables]
Substitute the contents of the named variable, for example

  $local_part
  ${domain}
+
The second form can be used to separate the name from subsequent alphanumeric
characters. This form (using curly brackets) is available only for variables;
it does 'not' apply to message headers. The names of the variables are given
in section <<SECTexpvar>> below. If the name of a non-existent variable is given,
the expansion fails.

*\$\{*<'op'>*:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,operators]
The string is first itself expanded, and then the operation specified by <'op'>
is applied to it. For example,

  ${lc:$local_part}
+
The string starts with the first character after the colon, which may be
leading white space. A list of operators is given in section <<SECTexpop>>
below. The operator notation is used for simple expansion items that have just
one argument, because it reduces the number of braces and therefore makes the
string easier to understand.

*\$\{extract\{*<'key'>*\}\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}\{*<'string3'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,extracting substrings by key]
The key and <'string1'> are first expanded separately. Leading and trailing
whitespace is removed from the key (but not from any of the strings). The key
must not consist entirely of digits. The expanded <'string1'> must be of the
form:

  <key1> = <value1>  <key2> = <value2> ...
+
where the equals signs and spaces (but not both) are optional. If any of the
values contain white space, they must be enclosed in double quotes, and any
values that are enclosed in double quotes are subject to escape processing as
described in section <<SECTstrings>>. The expanded <'string1'> is searched for
the value that corresponds to the key. The search is case-insensitive. If the
key is found, <'string2'> is expanded, and replaces the whole item; otherwise
<'string3'> is used. During the expansion of <'string2'> the variable $value$
contains the value that has been extracted. Afterwards, it is restored to any
previous value it might have had.
+
If \{<'string3'>\} is omitted, the item is replaced by an empty string if the
key is not found. If \{<'string2'>\} is also omitted, the value that was
extracted is used. Thus, for example, these two expansions are identical, and
yield ``2001'':

  ${extract{gid}{uid=1984 gid=2001}}
  ${extract{gid}{uid=1984 gid=2001}{$value}}
+
Instead of \{<'string3'>\} the word ``fail'' (not in curly brackets) can
appear, for example:

  ${extract{Z}{A=... B=...}{$value} fail }
+
This forces an expansion failure (see section <<SECTforexpfai>>);
{<'string2'>\} must be present for ``fail'' to be recognized.


*\$\{extract\{*<'number'>*\}\{*<'separators'>*\}\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}\{*<'string3'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,extracting substrings by number]
The <'number'> argument must consist entirely of decimal digits,
apart from leading and trailing whitespace, which is ignored.
This is what distinguishes this form of %extract% from the previous kind. It
behaves in the same way, except that, instead of extracting a named field, it
extracts from <'string1'> the field whose number is given as the first
argument. You can use $value$ in <'string2'> or `fail` instead of
<'string3'> as before.
+
The fields in the string are separated by any one of the characters in the
separator string. These may include space or tab characters.
The first field is numbered one. If the number is negative, the fields are
counted from the end of the string, with the rightmost one numbered -1. If the
number given is zero, the entire string is returned. If the modulus of the
number is greater than the number of fields in the string, the result is the
expansion of <'string3'>, or the empty string if <'string3'> is not provided.
For example:

  ${extract{2}{:}{x:42:99:& Mailer::/bin/bash}}
+
yields ``42'', and

  ${extract{-4}{:}{x:42:99:& Mailer::/bin/bash}}
+
yields ``99''. Two successive separators mean that the field between them is
empty (for example, the fifth field above).


*\$\{hash\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}\{*<'string3'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[hash function,textual]
cindex:[expansion,textual hash]
This is a textual hashing function, and was the first to be implemented in
early versions of Exim. In current releases, there are other hashing functions
(numeric, MD5, and SHA-1), which are described below.
+
The first two strings, after expansion, must be numbers. Call them <'m'> and
<'n'>. If you are using fixed values for these numbers, that is, if <'string1'>
and <'string2'> do not change when they are expanded, you can use the
simpler operator notation that avoids some of the braces:

  ${hash_<n>_<m>:<string>}
+
The second number is optional (in both notations).
+
If <'n'> is greater than or equal to the length of the string, the expansion
item returns the string. Otherwise it computes a new string of length <'n'> by
applying a hashing function to the string. The new string consists of
characters taken from the first <'m'> characters of the string

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQWRSTUVWXYZ0123456789
+
If <'m'> is not present the value 26 is used, so that only lower case
letters appear. For example:
+
&&&
`\${hash{3}{monty}}           `   yields  `jmg`
`\${hash{5}{monty}}           `   yields  `monty`
`\${hash{4}{62}{monty python}}`   yields  `fbWx`
&&&


*\$header_*<'header~name'>*:*~or~*\$h_*<'header~name'>*:*::
See *\$rheader* below.

*\$bheader_*<'header~name'>*:*~or~*\$bh_*<'header~name'>*:*::
See *\$rheader* below.

*\$rheader_*<'header~name'>*:*~or~*\$rh_*<'header~name'>*:*::
cindex:[expansion,header insertion]
cindex:[$header_$]
cindex:[$bheader_$]
cindex:[$rheader_$]
cindex:[header lines,in expansion strings]
cindex:[header lines,character sets]
cindex:[header lines,decoding]
Substitute the contents of the named message header line, for example

  $header_reply-to:
+
The newline that terminates a header line is not included in the expansion, but
internal newlines (caused by splitting the header line over several physical
lines) may be present.
+
The difference between %rheader%, %bheader%, and %header% is in the way the
data in the header line is interpreted.
+
--
- cindex:[whitespace,in header lines]
%rheader% gives the original ``raw'' content of the header line, with no
processing at all, and without the removal of leading and trailing whitespace.

- cindex:[base64 encoding,in header lines]
%bheader% removes leading and trailing whitespace, and then decodes base64 or
quoted-printable MIME ``words'' within the header text, but does no character
set translation. If decoding of what looks superficially like a MIME ``word''
fails, the raw string is returned. If decoding
cindex:[binary zero,in header line]
produces a binary zero character, it is replaced by a question mark -- this is
what Exim does for binary zeros that are actually received in header lines.

- %header% tries to translate the string as decoded by %bheader% to a standard
character set. This is an attempt to produce the same string as would be
displayed on a user's MUA. If translation fails, the %bheader% string is
returned. Translation is attempted only on operating systems that support the
'iconv()' function. This is indicated by the compile-time macro
HAVE_ICONV in a system Makefile or in _Local/Makefile_.
--
+
In a filter file, the target character set for %header% can be specified by a
command of the following form:

  headers charset "UTF-8"
+
This command affects all references to $h_$ (or $header_$) expansions in
subsequently obeyed filter commands. In the absence of this command, the target
character set in a filter is taken from the setting of the %headers_charset%
option in the runtime configuration. The value of this option defaults to the
value of HEADERS_CHARSET in _Local/Makefile_. The ultimate default is
ISO-8859-1.
+
Header names follow the syntax of RFC 2822, which states that they may contain
any printing characters except space and colon. Consequently, curly brackets
'do not' terminate header names, and should not be used to enclose them as
if they were variables. Attempting to do so causes a syntax error.
+
Only header lines that are common to all copies of a message are visible to
this mechanism. These are the original header lines that are received with the
message, and any that are added by an ACL %warn% statement or by a system
filter. Header lines that are added to a particular copy of a message by a
router or transport are not accessible.
+
For incoming SMTP messages, no header lines are visible in ACLs that are obeyed
before the DATA ACL, because the header structure is not set up until the
message is received. Header lines that are added by %warn% statements in a
RCPT ACL (for example) are saved until the message's incoming header lines
are available, at which point they are added. When a DATA ACL is running,
however, header lines added by earlier ACLs are visible.
+
Upper case and lower case letters are synonymous in header names. If the
following character is white space, the terminating colon may be omitted, but
this is not recommended, because you may then forget it when it is needed. When
white space terminates the header name, it is included in the expanded string.
If the message does not contain the given header, the expansion item is
replaced by an empty string. (See the %def% condition in section <<SECTexpcond>>
for a means of testing for the existence of a header.)
+
If there is more than one header with the same name, they are all
concatenated to form the substitution string, up to a maximum length of 64K. A
newline character is inserted between each line. For the %header% expansion,
for those headers that contain lists of addresses, a comma is also inserted at
the junctions between lines. This does not happen for the %rheader% expansion.



*\$\{hmac\{*<'hashname'>*\}\{*<'secret'>*\}\{*<'string'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,hmac hashing]
This function uses cryptographic hashing (either MD5 or SHA-1) to convert a
shared secret and some text into a message authentication code, as specified in
RFC 2104. This differs from `\$\{md5:secret_text...\}` or
`\$\{sha1:secret_text...\}` in that the hmac step adds a signature to the
cryptographic hash, allowing for authentication that is not possible with MD5
or SHA-1 alone. The hash name must expand to either `md5` or `sha1` at present.
For example:

  ${hmac{md5}{somesecret}{$primary_hostname $tod_log}}
+
For the hostname 'mail.example.com' and time 2002-10-17 11:30:59, this
produces:

  dd97e3ba5d1a61b5006108f8c8252953
+
As an example of how this might be used, you might put in the main part of
an Exim configuration:

  SPAMSCAN_SECRET=cohgheeLei2thahw
+
In a router or a transport you could then have:
+
....
headers_add = \
  X-Spam-Scanned: ${primary_hostname} ${message_id} \
  ${hmac{md5}{SPAMSCAN_SECRET}\
  {${primary_hostname},${message_id},$h_message-id:}}
....
+
Then given a message, you can check where it was scanned by looking at the
'X-Spam-Scanned:' header line. If you know the secret, you can check that this
header line is authentic by recomputing the authentication code from the host
name, message ID and the 'Message-id:' header line. This can be done using
Exim's %-be% option, or by other means, for example by using the
'hmac_md5_hex()' function in Perl.


*\$\{if~*<'condition'>*~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,conditional]
If <'condition'> is true, <'string1'> is expanded and replaces the whole item;
otherwise <'string2'> is used. The available conditions are described in
section <<SECTexpcond>> below. For example:

  ${if eq {$local_part}{postmaster} {yes}{no} }
+
The second string need not be present; if it is not and the condition is not
true, the item is replaced with nothing. Alternatively, the word ``fail'' may be
present instead of the second string (without any curly brackets). In this
case, the expansion is forced to fail if the condition is not true (see section
<<SECTforexpfai>>).
+
If both strings are omitted, the result is the string `true` if the condition
is true, and the empty string if the condition is false. This makes it less
cumbersome to write custom ACL and router conditions. For example, instead of

  condition = ${if >{$acl_m4}{3}{true}{false}}
+
you can use

  condition = ${if >{$acl_m4}{3}}



*\$\{length\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,string truncation]
The %length% item is used to extract the initial portion of a string. Both
strings are expanded, and the first one must yield a number, <'n'>, say. If you
are using a fixed value for the number, that is, if <'string1'> does not change
when expanded, you can use the simpler operator notation that avoids some of
the braces:

  ${length_<n>:<string>}
+
The result of this item is either the first <'n'> characters or the whole
of <'string2'>, whichever is the shorter. Do not confuse %length% with
%strlen%, which gives the length of a string.


*\$\{lookup\{*<'key'>*\}~*<'search~type'>*~\{*<'file'>*\}~\{*<'string1'>*\}~\{*<'string2'>*\}\}*::
This is the first of one of two different types of lookup item, which are both
described in the next item.

*\$\{lookup~*<'search~type'>*~\{*<'query'>*\}~\{*<'string1'>*\}~\{*<'string2'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,lookup in]
cindex:[file,lookup]
cindex:[lookup,in expanded string]
The two forms of lookup item specify data lookups in files and databases, as
discussed in chapter <<CHAPfdlookup>>. The first form is used for single-key
lookups, and the second is used for query-style lookups. The <'key'>, <'file'>,
and <'query'> strings are expanded before use.
+
If there is any white space in a lookup item which is part of a filter command,
a retry or rewrite rule, a routing rule for the ^manualroute^ router, or any
other place where white space is significant, the lookup item must be enclosed
in double quotes. The use of data lookups in users' filter files may be locked
out by the system administrator.
+
cindex:[$value$]
If the lookup succeeds, <'string1'> is expanded and replaces the entire item.
During its expansion, the variable $value$ contains the data returned by the
lookup. Afterwards it reverts to the value it had previously (at the outer
level it is empty). If the lookup fails, <'string2'> is expanded and replaces
the entire item. If \{<'string2'>\} is omitted, the replacement is the empty
string on failure. If <'string2'> is provided, it can itself be a nested
lookup, thus providing a mechanism for looking up a default value when the
original lookup fails.
+
If a nested lookup is used as part of <'string1'>, $value$ contains the data
for the outer lookup while the parameters of the second lookup are expanded,
and also while <'string2'> of the second lookup is expanded, should the second
lookup fail. + Instead of \{<'string2'>\} the word ``fail'' can appear, and in
this case, if the lookup fails, the entire expansion is forced to fail (see
section <<SECTforexpfai>>). If both \{<'string1'>\} and \{<'string2'>\} are
omitted, the result is the looked up value in the case of a successful lookup,
and nothing in the case of failure.
+
For single-key lookups, the string ``partial'' is permitted to precede the
search type in order to do partial matching, and \* or \*@ may follow a search
type to request default lookups if the key does not match (see sections
<<SECTdefaultvaluelookups>> and <<SECTpartiallookup>> for details).
+
cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc),in lookup expansion]
If a partial search is used, the variables $1$ and $2$ contain the wild
and non-wild parts of the key during the expansion of the replacement text.
They return to their previous values at the end of the lookup item.
+
This example looks up the postmaster alias in the conventional alias file:

  ${lookup {postmaster} lsearch {/etc/aliases} {$value}}
+
This example uses NIS+ to look up the full name of the user corresponding to
the local part of an address, forcing the expansion to fail if it is not found:
+
....
${lookup nisplus {[name=$local_part],passwd.org_dir:gcos} \
  {$value}fail}
....


*\$\{nhash\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}\{*<'string3'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,numeric hash]
cindex:[hash function,numeric]
The three strings are expanded; the first two must yield numbers. Call them
<'n'> and <'m'>. If you are using fixed values for these numbers, that is, if
<'string1'> and <'string2'> do not change when they are expanded, you can use
the simpler operator notation that avoids some of the braces:

  ${nhash_<n>_<m>:<string>}
+
The second number is optional (in both notations). If there is only one number,
the result is a number in the range 0--<'n'>-1. Otherwise, the string is
processed by a div/mod hash function that returns two numbers, separated by a
slash, in the ranges 0 to <'n'>-1 and 0 to <'m'>-1, respectively. For example,

  ${nhash{8}{64}{supercalifragilisticexpialidocious}}
+
returns the string ``6/33''.



*\$\{perl\{*<'subroutine'>*\}\{*<'arg'>*\}\{*<'arg'>*\}...\}*::
cindex:[Perl,use in expanded string]
cindex:[expansion,calling Perl from]
This item is available only if Exim has been built to include an embedded Perl
interpreter. The subroutine name and the arguments are first separately
expanded, and then the Perl subroutine is called with those arguments. No
additional arguments need be given; the maximum number permitted, including the
name of the subroutine, is nine.
+
The return value of the subroutine is inserted into the expanded string, unless
the return value is %undef%. In that case, the expansion fails in the same way
as an explicit ``fail'' on a lookup item.
The return value is a scalar. Whatever you return is evaluated in a scalar
context. For example, if you return the name of a Perl vector, the
return value is the size of the vector, not its contents.
+
If the subroutine exits by calling Perl's %die% function, the expansion fails
with the error message that was passed to %die%. More details of the embedded
Perl facility are given in chapter <<CHAPperl>>.
+
The ^redirect^ router has an option called %forbid_filter_perl% which locks
out the use of this expansion item in filter files.


*\$\{readfile\{*<'file~name'>*\}\{*<'eol~string'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,inserting an entire file]
cindex:[file,inserting into expansion]
The file name and end-of-line string are first expanded separately. The file is
then read, and its contents replace the entire item. All newline characters in
the file are replaced by the end-of-line string if it is present. Otherwise,
newlines are left in the string.
String expansion is not applied to the contents of the file. If you want this,
you must wrap the item in an %expand% operator. If the file cannot be read, the
string expansion fails.
+
The ^redirect^ router has an option called %forbid_filter_readfile% which
locks out the use of this expansion item in filter files.



*\$\{readsocket\{*<'name'>*\}\{*<'request'>*\}\{*<'timeout'>*\}\{*<'eol~string'>*\}\{*<'fail~string'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,inserting from a socket]
cindex:[socket, use of in expansion]
This item inserts data that is read from a Unix domain socket into the expanded
string. The minimal way of using it uses just two arguments:

  ${readsocket{/socket/name}{request string}}
+
Exim connects to the socket, writes the request string (unless it is an
empty string) and reads from the socket until an end-of-file is read. A timeout
of 5 seconds is applied. Additional, optional arguments extend what can be
done. Firstly, you can vary the timeout. For example:

  ${readsocket{/socket/name}{request-string}{3s}}
+
A fourth argument allows you to change any newlines that are in the data
that is read, in the same way as for %readfile% (see above). This example turns
them into spaces:

  ${readsocket{/socket/name}{request-string}{3s}{ }}
+
As with all expansions, the substrings are expanded before the processing
happens. Errors in these sub-expansions cause the expansion to fail. In
addition, the following errors can occur:
+
--
- Failure to create a socket file descriptor;

- Failure to connect the socket;

- Failure to write the request-string;

- Timeout on reading from the socket.
--
+
By default, any of these errors causes the expansion to fail. However, if
you supply a fifth substring, it is expanded and used when any of the above
errors occurs. For example:
+
....
  ${readsocket{/socket/name}{request-string}{3s}{\n}\
    {socket failure}}
....
+
You can test for the existence of the socket by wrapping this expansion in
`\$\{if exists`, but there is a race condition between that test and the
actual opening of the socket, so it is safer to use the fifth argument if you
want to be absolutely sure of avoiding an expansion error for a non-existent
socket.
+
The ^redirect^ router has an option called %forbid_filter_readsocket% which
locks out the use of this expansion item in filter files.

*\$rheader_*<'header~name'>*:~or~\$rh_*<'header~name'>*:*::
This item inserts ``raw'' header lines. It is described with the %header%
expansion item above.



*\$\{run\{*<'command'>*~*<'args'>*\}\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,running a command]
The command and its arguments are first expanded separately, and then the
command is run in a separate process, but under the same uid and gid. As in
other command executions from Exim, a shell is not used by default. If you want
a shell, you must explicitly code it.
+
cindex:[return code,from %run% expansion]
If the command succeeds (gives a zero return code) <'string1'> is expanded and
replaces the entire item; during this expansion, the standard output from the
command is in the variable $value$. If the command fails, <'string2'>, if
present, is expanded. If it is absent, the result is empty. Alternatively,
<'string2'> can be the word ``fail'' (not in braces) to force expansion failure
if the command does not succeed. If both strings are omitted, the result is the
standard output on success, and nothing on failure.
+
The return code from the command is put in the variable $runrc$, and this
remains set afterwards, so in a filter file you can do things like this:

  if "${run{x y z}{}}$runrc" is 1 then ...
    elif $runrc is 2 then ...
    ...
  endif
+
If execution of the command fails (for example, the command does not exist),
the return code is 127 -- the same code that shells use for non-existent
commands.
+
*Warning*: In a router or transport, you cannot assume the order in which
option values are expanded, except for those pre-conditions whose order of
testing is documented. Therefore, you cannot reliably expect to set $runrc$
by the expansion of one option, and use it in another.
+
The ^redirect^ router has an option called %forbid_filter_run% which locks
out the use of this expansion item in filter files.


*\$\{sg\{*<'subject'>*\}\{*<'regex'>*\}\{*<'replacement'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,string substitution]
This item works like Perl's substitution operator (s) with the global (/g)
option; hence its name. However, unlike the Perl equivalent, Exim does not
modify the subject string; instead it returns the modified string for insertion
into the overall expansion. The item takes three arguments: the subject string,
a regular expression, and a substitution string. For example

  ${sg{abcdefabcdef}{abc}{xyz}}
+
yields ``xyzdefxyzdef''. Because all three arguments are expanded before use, if
any \$ or \ characters are required in the regular expression or in the
substitution string, they have to be escaped. For example

  ${sg{abcdef}{^(...)(...)\$}{\$2\$1}}
+
yields ``defabc'', and

  ${sg{1=A 4=D 3=C}{\N(\d+)=\N}{K\$1=}}
+
yields ``K1=A K4=D K3=C''. Note the use of `\N` to protect the contents of
the regular expression from string expansion.



*\$\{substr\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}\{*<'string3'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[%substr%]
cindex:[substring extraction]
cindex:[expansion,substring extraction]
The three strings are expanded; the first two must yield numbers. Call them
<'n'> and <'m'>. If you are using fixed values for these numbers, that is, if
<'string1'> and <'string2'> do not change when they are expanded, you can use
the simpler operator notation that avoids some of the braces:

  ${substr_<n>_<m>:<string>}
+
The second number is optional (in both notations).
If it is absent in the simpler format, the preceding underscore must also be
omitted.
+
The %substr% item can be used to extract more general substrings than
%length%. The first number, <'n'>, is a starting offset, and <'m'> is the
length required. For example

  ${substr{3}{2}{$local_part}}
+
If the starting offset is greater than the string length the result is the
null string; if the length plus starting offset is greater than the string
length, the result is the right-hand part of the string, starting from the
given offset. The first character in the string has offset zero.
+
The %substr% expansion item can take negative offset values to count
from the right-hand end of its operand. The last character is offset -1, the
second-last is offset -2, and so on. Thus, for example,

  ${substr{-5}{2}{1234567}}
+
yields ``34''. If the absolute value of a negative offset is greater than the
length of the string, the substring starts at the beginning of the string, and
the length is reduced by the amount of overshoot. Thus, for example,

  ${substr{-5}{2}{12}}
+
yields an empty string, but

  ${substr{-3}{2}{12}}
+
yields ``1''.
+
When the second number is omitted from %substr%, the remainder of the string
is taken if the offset is positive. If it is negative, all characters in the
string preceding the offset point are taken. For example, an offset of -1 and
no length, as in these semantically identical examples:

  ${substr_-1:abcde}
  ${substr{-1}{abcde}}
+
yields all but the last character of the string, that is, ``abcd''.



*\$\{tr\{*<'subject'>*\}\{*<'characters'>*\}\{*<'replacements'>*\}\}*::
cindex:[expansion,character translation]
This item does single-character translation on its subject string. The second
argument is a list of characters to be translated in the subject string. Each
matching character is replaced by the corresponding character from the
replacement list. For example

  ${tr{abcdea}{ac}{13}}
+
yields `1b3de1`. If there are duplicates in the second character string, the
last occurrence is used. If the third string is shorter than the second, its
last character is replicated. However, if it is empty, no translation takes
place.



[[SECTexpop]]
Expansion operators
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[expansion,operators]
For expansion items that perform transformations on a single argument string,
the ``operator'' notation is used because it is simpler and uses fewer braces.
The substring is first expanded before the operation is applied to it. The
following operations can be performed:

*\$\{address:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,RFC 2822 address handling]
The string is interpreted as an RFC 2822 address, as it might appear in a
header line, and the effective address is extracted from it. If the string does
not parse successfully, the result is empty.


*\$\{base62:*<'digits'>*\}*::
cindex:[base62]
cindex:[expansion,conversion to base 62]
The string must consist entirely of decimal digits. The number is converted to
base 62 (sic) and output as a string of six characters, including leading
zeros. *Note*: Just to be absolutely clear: this is 'not' base64
encoding.

*\$\{base62d:*<'base-62~digits'>*\}*::
cindex:[base62]
cindex:[expansion,conversion to base 62]
The string must consist entirely of base-62 digits. The number is converted to
decimal and output as a string.


*\$\{domain:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[domain,extraction]
cindex:[expansion,domain extraction]
The string is interpreted as an RFC 2822 address and the domain is extracted
from it. If the string does not parse successfully, the result is empty.


*\$\{escape:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,escaping non-printing characters]
If the string contains any non-printing characters, they are converted to
escape sequences starting with a backslash. Whether characters with the most
significant bit set (so-called ``8-bit characters'') count as printing or not is
controlled by the %print_topbitchars% option.


*\$\{eval:*<'string'>*\}*::
*\$\{eval10:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,expression evaluation]
cindex:[expansion,arithmetic expression]
These items supports simple arithmetic in expansion strings. The string (after
expansion) must be a conventional arithmetic expression, but it is limited to
the four basic operators (plus, minus, times, divide) and parentheses. All
operations are carried out using integer arithmetic. Plus and minus have a
lower priority than times and divide; operators with the same priority are
evaluated from left to right.
+
For %eval%, numbers may be decimal, octal (starting with ``0'') or hexadecimal
(starting with ``0x''). For %eval10%, all numbers are taken as decimal, even if
they start with a leading zero. This can be useful when processing numbers
extracted from dates or times, which often do have leading zeros.
+
A number may be followed by ``K'' or ``M'' to multiply it by 1024 or 1024\*1024,
respectively. Negative numbers are supported. The result of the computation is
a decimal representation of the answer (without ``K'' or ``M''). For example:
+
&&&
`\${eval:1+1}     `  yields 2
`\${eval:1+2*3}   `  yields 7
`\${eval:(1+2)*3} `  yields 9
&&&
+
As a more realistic example, in an ACL you might have
+
....
deny   message = Too many bad recipients
       condition =                    \
         ${if and {                   \
           {>{$rcpt_count}{10}}       \
           {                          \
           <                          \
             {$recipients_count}      \
             {${eval:$rcpt_count/2}}  \
           }                          \
         }{yes}{no}}
....
+
The condition is true if there have been more than 10 RCPT commands and
fewer than half of them have resulted in a valid recipient.


*\$\{expand:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,re-expansion of substring]
The %expand% operator causes a string to be expanded for a second time. For
example,

  ${expand:${lookup{$domain}dbm{/some/file}{$value}}}
+
first looks up a string in a file while expanding the operand for %expand%, and
then re-expands what it has found.


*\$\{from_utf8:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[Unicode]
cindex:[UTF-8,conversion from]
cindex:[expansion,UTF-8 conversion]
The world is slowly moving towards Unicode, although there are no standards for
email yet. However, other applications (including some databases) are starting
to store data in Unicode, using UTF-8 encoding. This operator converts from a
UTF-8 string to an ISO-8859-1 string. UTF-8 code values greater than 255 are
converted to underscores. The input must be a valid UTF-8 string. If it is not,
the result is an undefined sequence of bytes.
+
Unicode code points with values less than 256 are compatible with ASCII and
ISO-8859-1 (also known as Latin-1).
For example, character 169 is the copyright symbol in both cases, though the
way it is encoded is different. In UTF-8, more than one byte is needed for
characters with code values greater than 127, whereas ISO-8859-1 is a
single-byte encoding (but thereby limited to 256 characters). This makes
translation from UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1 straightforward.


*\$\{hash_*<'n'>*_*<'m'>*:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[hash function,textual]
cindex:[expansion,textual hash]
The %hash% operator is a simpler interface to the hashing function that can be
used when the two parameters are fixed numbers (as opposed to strings that
change when expanded). The effect is the same as

  ${hash{<n>}{<m>}{<string>}}
+
See the description of the general %hash% item above for details. The
abbreviation %h% can be used when %hash% is used as an operator.



*\$\{hex2b64:*<'hexstring'>*\}*::
cindex:[base64 encoding,conversion from hex]
cindex:[expansion,hex to base64]
This operator converts a hex string into one that is base64 encoded. This can
be useful for processing the output of the MD5 and SHA-1 hashing functions.


*\$\{lc:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[case forcing in strings]
cindex:[string,case forcing]
cindex:[lower casing]
cindex:[expansion,case forcing]
This forces the letters in the string into lower-case, for example:

  ${lc:$local_part}



*\$\{length_*<'number'>*:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,string truncation]
The %length% operator is a simpler interface to the %length% function that can
be used when the parameter is a fixed number (as opposed to a string that
changes when expanded). The effect is the same as

  ${length{<number>}{<string>}}
+
See the description of the general %length% item above for details. Note that
%length% is not the same as %strlen%. The abbreviation %l% can be used when
%length% is used as an operator.


*\$\{local_part:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,local part extraction]
The string is interpreted as an RFC 2822 address and the local part is
extracted from it. If the string does not parse successfully, the result is
empty.


*\$\{mask:*<'IP~address'>*/*<'bit~count'>*\}*::
cindex:[masked IP address]
cindex:[IP address,masking]
cindex:[CIDR notation]
cindex:[expansion,IP address masking]
If the form of the string to be operated on is not an IP address followed by a
slash and an integer (that is, a network address in CIDR notation), the
expansion fails. Otherwise, this operator converts the IP address to binary,
masks off the least significant bits according to the bit count, and converts
the result back to text, with mask appended. For example,

  ${mask:10.111.131.206/28}
+
returns the string ``10.111.131.192/28''. Since this operation is expected to be
mostly used for looking up masked addresses in files, the result for an IPv6
address uses dots to separate components instead of colons, because colon
terminates a key string in lsearch files. So, for example,

  ${mask:3ffe:ffff:836f:0a00:000a:0800:200a:c031/99}
+
returns the string

  3ffe.ffff.836f.0a00.000a.0800.2000.0000/99
+
Letters in IPv6 addresses are always output in lower case.


*\$\{md5:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[MD5 hash]
cindex:[expansion,MD5 hash]
The %md5% operator computes the MD5 hash value of the string, and returns it as
a 32-digit hexadecimal number,
in which any letters are in lower case.


*\$\{nhash_*<'n'>*_*<'m'>*:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,numeric hash]
cindex:[hash function,numeric]
The %nhash% operator is a simpler interface to the numeric hashing function
that can be used when the two parameters are fixed numbers (as opposed to
strings that change when expanded). The effect is the same as

  ${nhash{<n>}{<m>}{<string>}}
+
See the description of the general %nhash% item above for details.


*\$\{quote:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[quoting,in string expansions]
cindex:[expansion,quoting]
The %quote% operator puts its argument into double quotes if it
is an empty string or
contains anything other than letters, digits, underscores, dots, and hyphens.
Any occurrences of double quotes and backslashes are escaped with a backslash.
Newlines and carriage returns are converted to `\n` and `\r`,
respectively For example,

  ${quote:ab"*"cd}
+
becomes

  "ab\"*\"cd"
+
The place where this is useful is when the argument is a substitution from a
variable or a message header.

*\$\{quote_local_part:*<'string'>*\}*::
This operator is like %quote%, except that it quotes the string only if
required to do so by the rules of RFC 2822 for quoting local parts. For
example, a plus sign would not cause quoting (but it would for %quote%).
If you are creating a new email address from the contents of $local_part$
(or any other unknown data), you should always use this operator.


*\$\{quote_*<'lookup-type'>*:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[quoting,lookup-specific]
This operator applies lookup-specific quoting rules to the string. Each
query-style lookup type has its own quoting rules which are described with
the lookups in chapter <<CHAPfdlookup>>. For example,

  ${quote_ldap:two * two}
+
returns

  two%20%5C2A%20two
+
For single-key lookup types, no quoting is ever necessary and this operator
yields an unchanged string.


*\$\{rxquote:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[quoting,in regular expressions]
cindex:[regular expressions,quoting]
The %rxquote% operator inserts a backslash before any non-alphanumeric
characters in its argument. This is useful when substituting the values of
variables or headers inside regular expressions.


*\$\{rfc2047:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,RFC 2047]
This operator encodes text according to the rules of RFC 2047. This is an
encoding that is used in header lines to encode non-ASCII characters. It is
assumed that the input string is in the encoding specified by the
%headers_charset% option, which defaults to ISO-8859-1. If the string contains
only characters in the range 33--126, and no instances of the characters

  ? = ( ) < > @ , ; : \ " . [ ] _
+
it is not modified. Otherwise, the result is the RFC 2047 encoding of the
string, using as many ``coded words'' as necessary to encode all the
characters.



*\$\{sha1:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[SHA-1 hash]
cindex:[expansion,SHA-1 hashing]
The %sha1% operator computes the SHA-1 hash value of the string, and returns it
as a 40-digit hexadecimal number, in which any letters are in upper case.


*\$\{stat:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,statting a file]
cindex:[file,extracting characteristics]
The string, after expansion, must be a file path. A call to the 'stat()'
function is made for this path. If 'stat()' fails, an error occurs and the
expansion fails. If it succeeds, the data from the stat replaces the item, as a
series of <'name'>=<'value'> pairs, where the values are all numerical,
except for the value of ``smode''. The names are: ``mode'' (giving the mode as a
4-digit octal number), ``smode'' (giving the mode in symbolic format as a
10-character string, as for the 'ls' command), ``inode'', ``device'', ``links'',
``uid'', ``gid'', ``size'', ``atime'', ``mtime'', and ``ctime''. You can extract individual
fields using the %extract% expansion item. *Warning*: The file size may be
incorrect on 32-bit systems for files larger than 2GB.


*\$\{str2b64:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,base64 encoding]
cindex:[base64 encoding,in string expansion]
This operator converts a string into one that is base64 encoded.



*\$\{strlen:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,string length]
cindex:[string,length in expansion]
The item is replace by the length of the expanded string, expressed as a
decimal number. *Note*: Do not confuse %strlen% with %length%.


*\$\{substr_*<'start'>*_*<'length'>*:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[%substr%]
cindex:[substring extraction]
cindex:[expansion,substring expansion]
The %substr% operator is a simpler interface to the %substr% function that can
be used when the two parameters are fixed numbers (as opposed to strings that
change when expanded). The effect is the same as

  ${substr{<start>}{<length>}{<string>}}
+
See the description of the general %substr% item above for details. The
abbreviation %s% can be used when %substr% is used as an operator.

*\$\{time_interval:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[%time_interval%]
cindex:[time interval,formatting]
The argument (after sub-expansion) must be a sequence of decimal digits that
represents an interval of time as a number of seconds. It is converted into a
number of larger units and output in Exim's normal time format, for example,
`1w3d4h2m6s`.

*\$\{uc:*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[case forcing in strings]
cindex:[string,case forcing]
cindex:[upper casing]
cindex:[expansion,case forcing]
This forces the letters in the string into upper-case.






[[SECTexpcond]]
Expansion conditions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[expansion,conditions]
The following conditions are available for testing by the %\$\{if% construct
while expanding strings:

*!*<'condition'>::
cindex:[expansion,negating a condition]
Preceding any condition with an exclamation mark negates the result of the
condition.

<'symbolic~operator'>~*\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[numeric comparison]
cindex:[expansion,numeric comparison]
There are a number of symbolic operators for doing numeric comparisons. They
are:
+
&&&
`=   `   equal
`==  `   equal
`>   `   greater
`>=  `   greater or equal
`<   `   less
`<=  `   less or equal
&&&
+
For example,

  ${if >{$message_size}{10M} ...
+
Note that the general negation operator provides for inequality testing. The
two strings must take the form of optionally signed decimal integers,
optionally followed by one of the letters ``K'' or ``M'' (in either upper or
lower case), signifying multiplication by 1024 or 1024\*1024, respectively.

*crypteq~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,encrypted comparison]
cindex:[encrypted strings, comparing]
This condition is included in the Exim binary if it is built to support any
authentication mechanisms (see chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>>). Otherwise, it is
necessary to define SUPPORT_CRYPTEQ in _Local/Makefile_ to get %crypteq%
included in the binary.
+
The %crypteq% condition has two arguments. The first is encrypted and compared
against the second, which is already encrypted. The second string may be in the
LDAP form for storing encrypted strings, which starts with the encryption type
in curly brackets, followed by the data. If the second string does not begin
with ``\{'' it is assumed to be encrypted with 'crypt()' or 'crypt16()' (see
below), since such strings cannot begin with ``\{''. Typically this will be a
field from a password file.
+
An example of an encrypted string in LDAP form is:

  {md5}CY9rzUYh03PK3k6DJie09g==
+
If such a string appears directly in an expansion, the curly brackets have to
be quoted, because they are part of the expansion syntax. For example:

  ${if crypteq {test}{\{md5\}CY9rzUYh03PK3k6DJie09g==}{yes}{no}}
+
The following encryption types (whose names are matched case-independently) are
supported:
+
--
- cindex:[MD5 hash]
cindex:[base64 encoding,in encrypted password]
%\{md5\}% computes the MD5 digest of the first string, and expresses this as
printable characters to compare with the remainder of the second string. If the
length of the comparison string is 24, Exim assumes that it is base64 encoded
(as in the above example). If the length is 32, Exim assumes that it is a
hexadecimal encoding of the MD5 digest. If the length not 24 or 32, the
comparison fails.

- cindex:[SHA-1 hash]
%\{sha1\}% computes the SHA-1 digest of the first string, and expresses this as
printable characters to compare with the remainder of the second string. If the
length of the comparison string is 28, Exim assumes that it is base64 encoded.
If the length is 40, Exim assumes that it is a hexadecimal encoding of the
SHA-1 digest. If the length is not 28 or 40, the comparison fails.

- cindex:['crypt()']
%\{crypt\}% calls the 'crypt()' function, which traditionally used to use only
the first eight characters of the password. However, in modern operating
systems this is no longer true, and in many cases the entire password is used,
whatever its length.

- cindex:['crypt16()']
%\{crypt16\}% calls the 'crypt16()' function (also known as 'bigcrypt()'),
which was orginally created to use up to 16 characters of the password. Again,
in modern operating systems, more characters may be used.
--
+
Exim has its own version of 'crypt16()' (which is just a double call to
'crypt()'). For operating systems that have their own version, setting
HAVE_CRYPT16 in _Local/Makefile_ when building Exim causes it to use the
operating system version instead of its own. This option is set by default in
the OS-dependent _Makefile_ for those operating systems that are known to
support 'crypt16()'.
+
If you do not put any curly bracket encryption type in a %crypteq% comparison,
the default is either `\{crypt\}` or `\{crypt16\}`, as determined by the
setting of DEFAULT_CRYPT in _Local/Makefile_. The default default is
`\{crypt\}`. Whatever the default, you can always use either function by
specifying it explicitly in curly brackets.
+
Note that if a password is no longer than 8 characters, the results of
encrypting it with 'crypt()' and 'crypt16()' are identical. That means that
'crypt16()' is backwards compatible, as long as nobody feeds it a password
longer than 8 characters.


*def:*<'variable~name'>*::
cindex:[expansion,checking for empty variable]
The %def% condition must be followed by the name of one of the expansion
variables defined in section <<SECTexpvar>>. The condition is true if the named
expansion variable does not contain the empty string, for example

  ${if def:sender_ident {from $sender_ident}}
+
Note that the variable name is given without a leading %\$% character. If the
variable does not exist, the expansion fails.

*def:header_*<'header~name'>*:*~~or~~*def:h_*<'header~name'>*:*::
cindex:[expansion,checking header line existence]
This condition is true if a message is being processed and the named header
exists in the message. For example,

  ${if def:header_reply-to:{$h_reply-to:}{$h_from:}}
+
Note that no %\$% appears before %header_% or %h_% in the condition,
and that header names must be terminated by colons if white space does not
follow.

*eq~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[string,comparison]
cindex:[expansion,string comparison]
The two substrings are first expanded. The condition is true if the two
resulting strings are identical, including the case of letters.

*eqi~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[string,comparison]
cindex:[expansion,string comparison]
The two substrings are first expanded. The condition is true if the two
resulting strings are identical when compared in a case-independent way.

*exists~\{*<'file~name'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,file existence test]
cindex:[file,existence test]
The substring is first expanded and then interpreted as an absolute path. The
condition is true if the named file (or directory) exists. The existence test
is done by calling the 'stat()' function. The use of the %exists% test in
users' filter files may be locked out by the system administrator.

*first_delivery*::
cindex:[delivery,first]
cindex:[first delivery]
cindex:[expansion,first delivery test]
This condition, which has no data, is true during a message's first delivery
attempt. It is false during any subsequent delivery attempts.

*ge~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
See *gei*.

*gei~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[string,comparison]
cindex:[expansion,string comparison]
The two substrings are first expanded. The condition is true if the first
string is lexically greater than or equal to the second string: for %ge% the
comparison includes the case of letters, whereas for %gei% the comparison is
case-independent.

*gt~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
See *gti*.

*gti~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[string,comparison]
cindex:[expansion,string comparison]
The two substrings are first expanded. The condition is true if the first
string is lexically greater than the second string: for %gt% the comparison
includes the case of letters, whereas for %gti% the comparison is
case-independent.

*isip~\{*<'string'>*\}*::
See *isip6*.

*isip4~\{*<'string'>*\}*::
See *isip6*.

*isip6~\{*<'string'>*\}*::
cindex:[IP address,testing string format]
cindex:[string,testing for IP address]
The substring is first expanded, and then tested to see if it has the form of
an IP address. Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are valid for %isip%, whereas
%isip4% and %isip6% test just for IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, respectively. For
example, you could use

  ${if isip4{$sender_host_address}...
+
to test which version of IP an incoming SMTP connection is using.


*ldapauth~\{*<'ldap~query'>*\}*::
cindex:[LDAP,use for authentication]
cindex:[expansion,LDAP authentication test]
This condition supports user authentication using LDAP. See section
<<SECTldap>> for details of how to use LDAP in lookups and the syntax of
queries. For this use, the query must contain a user name and password. The
query itself is not used, and can be empty. The condition is true if the
password is not empty, and the user name and password are accepted by the LDAP
server. An empty password is rejected without calling LDAP because LDAP binds
with an empty password are considered anonymous regardless of the username, and
will succeed in most configurations. See chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>> for details
of SMTP authentication, and chapter <<CHAPplaintext>> for an example of how
this can be used.


*le~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
See *lei*.

*lei~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[string,comparison]
cindex:[expansion,string comparison]
The two substrings are first expanded. The condition is true if the first
string is lexically less than or equal to the second string: for %le% the
comparison includes the case of letters, whereas for %lei% the comparison is
case-independent.

*lt~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
See *lti*.

*lti~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[string,comparison]
cindex:[expansion,string comparison]
The two substrings are first expanded. The condition is true if the first
string is lexically less than the second string: for %lt% the comparison
includes the case of letters, whereas for %lti% the comparison is
case-independent.


*match~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[expansion,regular expression comparison]
cindex:[regular expressions,match in expanded string]
The two substrings are first expanded. The second is then treated as a regular
expression and applied to the first. Because of the pre-expansion, if the
regular expression contains dollar, or backslash characters, they must be
escaped. Care must also be taken if the regular expression contains braces
(curly brackets). A closing brace must be escaped so that it is not taken as a
premature termination of <'string2'>. The easiest approach is to use the
`\N` feature to disable expansion of the regular expression.
For example,

  ${if match {$local_part}{\N^\d{3}\N} ...
+
If the whole expansion string is in double quotes, further escaping of
backslashes is also required.
+
The condition is true if the regular expression match succeeds.
The regular expression is not required to begin with a circumflex
metacharacter, but if there is no circumflex, the expression is not anchored,
and it may match anywhere in the subject, not just at the start. If you want
the pattern to match at the end of the subject, you must include the `\$`
metacharacter at an appropriate point.
+
cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc),in %if% expansion]
At the start of an %if% expansion the values of the numeric variable
substitutions $1$ etc. are remembered. Obeying a %match% condition that
succeeds causes them to be reset to the substrings of that condition and they
will have these values during the expansion of the success string. At the end
of the %if% expansion, the previous values are restored. After testing a
combination of conditions using %or%, the subsequent values of the numeric
variables are those of the condition that succeeded.

*match_domain~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
See *match_local_part*.

*match_address~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
See *match_local_part*.

*match_local_part~\{*<'string1'>*\}\{*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:[domain list,in expansion condition]
cindex:[address list,in expansion condition]
cindex:[local part list,in expansion condition]
These conditions make it possible to test domain, address, and local
part lists within expansions. Each condition requires two arguments: an item
and a list to match. A trivial example is:

  ${if match_domain{a.b.c}{x.y.z:a.b.c:p.q.r}{yes}{no}}
+
In each case, the second argument may contain any of the allowable items for a
list of the appropriate type. Also, because the second argument (after
expansion) is a standard form of list, it is possible to refer to a named list.
Thus, you can use conditions like this:

  ${if match_domain{$domain}{+local_domains}{...
+
cindex:[`+caseful`]
For address lists, the matching starts off caselessly, but the `+caseful`
item can be used, as in all address lists, to cause subsequent items to
have their local parts matched casefully. Domains are always matched
caselessly.
+
*Note*: Host lists are 'not' supported in this way. This is because
hosts have two identities: a name and an IP address, and it is not clear
how to specify cleanly how such a test would work. At least, I haven't come
up with anything yet.

*pam~\{*<'string1'>*:*<'string2'>*:...\}*::
cindex:[PAM authentication]
cindex:[AUTH,with PAM]
cindex:[Solaris,PAM support]
cindex:[expansion,PAM authentication test]
'Pluggable Authentication Modules'
(*http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/[]*)
are a facility that is available in the latest releases of Solaris and in some
GNU/Linux distributions. The Exim support, which is intended for use in
conjunction with the SMTP AUTH command, is available only if Exim is
compiled with

  SUPPORT_PAM=yes
+
in _Local/Makefile_. You probably need to add %-lpam% to EXTRALIBS, and
in some releases of GNU/Linux %-ldl% is also needed.
+
The argument string is first expanded, and the result must be a
colon-separated list of strings. Leading and trailing whitespace is ignored.
The PAM module is initialized with the service name ``exim'' and the user name
taken from the first item in the colon-separated data string (<'string1'>). The
remaining items in the data string are passed over in response to requests from
the authentication function. In the simple case there will only be one request,
for a password, so the data consists of just two strings.
+
There can be problems if any of the strings are permitted to contain colon
characters. In the usual way, these have to be doubled to avoid being taken as
separators. If the data is being inserted from a variable, the %sg% expansion
item can be used to double any existing colons. For example, the configuration
of a LOGIN authenticator might contain this setting:

  server_condition = ${if pam{$1:${sg{$2}{:}{::}}}{yes}{no}}
+
For a PLAIN authenticator you could use:

  server_condition = ${if pam{$2:${sg{$3}{:}{::}}}{yes}{no}}
+
In some operating systems, PAM authentication can be done only from a process
running as root. Since Exim is running as the Exim user when receiving
messages, this means that PAM cannot be used directly in those systems.
A patched version of the 'pam_unix' module that comes with the
Linux PAM package is available from *http://www.e-admin.de/pam_exim/[]*.
The patched module allows one special uid/gid combination, in addition to root,
to authenticate. If you build the patched module to allow the Exim user and
group, PAM can then be used from an Exim authenticator.


*pwcheck~\{*<'string1'>*:*<'string2'>*\}*::
cindex:['pwcheck' daemon]
cindex:[Cyrus]
cindex:[expansion,'pwcheck' authentication test]
This condition supports user authentication using the Cyrus 'pwcheck' daemon.
This is one way of making it possible for passwords to be checked by a process
that is not running as root. *Note:* The use of 'pwcheck' is now deprecated.
Its replacement is 'saslauthd' (see below).
+
The pwcheck support is not included in Exim by default. You need to specify
the location of the pwcheck daemon's socket in _Local/Makefile_ before
building Exim. For example:

  CYRUS_PWCHECK_SOCKET=/var/pwcheck/pwcheck
+
You do not need to install the full Cyrus software suite in order to use
the pwcheck daemon. You can compile and install just the daemon alone
from the Cyrus SASL library. Ensure that 'exim' is the only user that has
access to the _/var/pwcheck_ directory.
+
The %pwcheck% condition takes one argument, which must be the user name and
password, separated by a colon. For example, in a LOGIN authenticator
configuration, you might have this:

  server_condition = ${if pwcheck{$1:$2}{1}{0}}


*queue_running*::
cindex:[queue runner,detecting when delivering from]
cindex:[expansion,queue runner test]
This condition, which has no data, is true during delivery attempts that are
initiated by queue runner processes, and false otherwise.


*radius~\{*<'authentication~string'>*\}*::
cindex:[Radius]
cindex:[expansion,Radius authentication]
Radius authentication (RFC 2865) is supported in a similar way to PAM. You must
set RADIUS_CONFIG_FILE in _Local/Makefile_ to specify the location of
the Radius client configuration file in order to build Exim with Radius
support.
+
With just that one setting, Exim expects to be linked with the %radiusclient%
library. You can also link Exim with the %libradius% library that comes with
FreeBSD. To do this, set

  RADIUS_LIB_TYPE=RADLIB
+
in _Local/Makefile_, in addition to setting RADIUS_CONFIGURE_FILE.
You may also have to supply a suitable setting in EXTRALIBS so that the
Radius library can be found when Exim is linked.
+
The string specified by RADIUS_CONFIG_FILE is expanded and passed to the
Radius client library, which calls the Radius server. The condition is true if
the authentication is successful. For example

  server_condition = \$\{if radius\{<arguments>\}\{yes\}\{no\}\}




*saslauthd~\{\{*<'user'>*\}\{*<'password'>*\}\{*<'service'>*\}\{*<'realm'>*\}\}*::
cindex:['saslauthd' daemon]
cindex:[Cyrus]
cindex:[expansion,'saslauthd' authentication test]
This condition supports user authentication using the Cyrus 'saslauthd'
daemon. This replaces the older 'pwcheck' daemon, which is now deprecated.
Using this daemon is one way of making it possible for passwords to be checked
by a process that is not running as root.
+
The saslauthd support is not included in Exim by default. You need to specify
the location of the saslauthd daemon's socket in _Local/Makefile_ before
building Exim. For example:

  CYRUS_SASLAUTHD_SOCKET=/var/state/saslauthd/mux
+
You do not need to install the full Cyrus software suite in order to use
the saslauthd daemon. You can compile and install just the daemon alone
from the Cyrus SASL library.
+
Up to four arguments can be supplied to the %saslauthd% condition, but only two
are mandatory. For example:

  server_condition = ${if saslauthd{{$1}{$2}}{1}{0}}
+
The service and the realm are optional (which is why the arguments are enclosed
in their own set of braces). For details of the meaning of the service and
realm, and how to run the daemon, consult the Cyrus documentation.



Combining expansion conditions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[expansion,combining conditions]
Several conditions can be tested at once by combining them using the %and% and
%or% combination conditions. Note that %and% and %or% are complete conditions
on their own, and precede their lists of sub-conditions. Each sub-condition
must be enclosed in braces within the overall braces that contain the list. No
repetition of %if% is used.


*or~\{\{*<'cond1'>*\}\{*<'cond2'>*\}...\}*::
cindex:[``or'' expansion condition]
cindex:[expansion,``or'' of conditions]
The sub-conditions are evaluated from left to right. The condition is true if
any one of the sub-conditions is true.
For example,

  ${if or {{eq{$local_part}{spqr}}{eq{$domain}{testing.com}}}...
+
When a true sub-condition is found, the following ones are parsed but not
evaluated. If there are several ``match'' sub-conditions the values of the
numeric variables afterwards are taken from the first one that succeeds.

*and~\{\{*<'cond1'>*\}\{*<'cond2'>*\}...\}*::
cindex:[``and'' expansion condition]
cindex:[expansion,``and'' of conditions]
The sub-conditions are evaluated from left to right. The condition is true if
all of the sub-conditions are true. If there are several ``match''
sub-conditions, the values of the numeric variables afterwards are taken from
the last one. When a false sub-condition is found, the following ones are
parsed but not evaluated.




[[SECTexpvar]]
Expansion variables
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[expansion variables, list of]
This section contains an alphabetical list of all the expansion variables. Some
of them are available only when Exim is compiled with specific options such as
support for TLS or the content scanning extension.

$0$, $1$, etc::
cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc)]
When a %match% expansion condition succeeds, these variables contain the
captured substrings identified by the regular expression during subsequent
processing of the success string of the containing %if% expansion item. They
may also be set externally by some other matching process which precedes the
expansion of the string. For example, the commands available in Exim filter
files include an %if% command with its own regular expression matching
condition.

$acl_c0$ -- $acl_c9$::
Values can be placed in these variables by the %set% modifier in an ACL. The
values persist throughout the lifetime of an SMTP connection. They can be used
to pass information between ACLs and different invocations of the same ACL.
When a message is received, the values of these variables are saved with the
message, and can be accessed by filters, routers, and transports during
subsequent delivery.

$acl_m0$ -- $acl_m9$::
Values can be placed in these variables by the %set% modifier in an ACL. They
retain their values while a message is being received, but are reset
afterwards. They are also reset by MAIL, RSET, EHLO, HELO, and after starting a
TLS session. When a message is received, the values of these variables are
saved with the message, and can be accessed by filters, routers, and transports
during subsequent delivery.

$acl_verify_message$::
During the expansion of the %message% and %log_message% modifiers in an ACL
statement after an address verification has failed, this variable contains the
original failure message that will be overridden by the expanded string.

$address_data$::
This variable is set by means of the %address_data% option in routers. The
value then remains with the address while it is processed by subsequent routers
and eventually a transport. If the transport is handling multiple addresses,
the value from the first address is used. See chapter <<CHAProutergeneric>> for
more details. *Note*: the contents of $address_data$ are visible in user filter
files.
+
If $address_data$ is set when the routers are called from an ACL to verify
a recipient address, the final value is still in the variable for subsequent
conditions and modifiers of the ACL statement. If routing the address caused it
to be redirected to just one address, the child address is also routed as part
of the verification, and in this case the final value of $address_data$ is
from the child's routing.
+
If $address_data$ is set when the routers are called from an ACL to verify a
sender address, the final value is also preserved, but this time in
$sender_address_data$, to distinguish it from data from a recipient
address.
+
In both cases (recipient and sender verification), the value does not persist
after the end of the current ACL statement. If you want to preserve
these values for longer, you can save them in ACL variables.

$address_file$::
When, as a result of aliasing, forwarding, or filtering, a message is directed
to a specific file, this variable holds the name of the file when the transport
is running. At other times, the variable is empty. For example, using the
default configuration, if user %r2d2% has a _.forward_ file containing

  /home/r2d2/savemail
+
then when the ^address_file^ transport is running, $address_file$
contains ``/home/r2d2/savemail''.
+
cindex:[Sieve filter,value of $address_file$]
For Sieve filters, the value may be ``inbox'' or a relative folder name. It is
then up to the transport configuration to generate an appropriate absolute path
to the relevant file.

$address_pipe$::
When, as a result of aliasing or forwarding, a message is directed to a pipe,
this variable holds the pipe command when the transport is running.

$authenticated_id$::
cindex:[authentication,id]
When a server successfully authenticates a client it may be configured to
preserve some of the authentication information in the variable
$authenticated_id$ (see chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>>). For example, a user/password
authenticator configuration might preserve the user name for use in the
routers. When a message is submitted locally (that is, not over a TCP
connection), the value of $authenticated_id$ is the login name of the calling
process.

$authenticated_sender$::
cindex:[sender,authenticated]
cindex:[authentication,sender]
cindex:[AUTH,on MAIL command]
When acting as a server, Exim takes note of the AUTH= parameter on an incoming
SMTP MAIL command if it believes the sender is sufficiently trusted, as
described in section <<SECTauthparamail>>. Unless the data is the string
``<>'', it is set as the authenticated sender of the message, and the value is
available during delivery in the $authenticated_sender$ variable. If the sender
is not trusted, Exim accepts the syntax of AUTH=, but ignores the data.
+
When a message is submitted locally (that is, not over a TCP connection), the
value of $authenticated_sender$ is an address constructed from the login
name of the calling process and $qualify_domain$.


$authentication_failed$::
cindex:[authentication,failure]
This variable is set to ``1'' in an Exim server if a client issues an AUTH
command that does not succeed. Otherwise it is set to ``0''. This makes it
possible to distinguish between ``did not try to authenticate''
($sender_host_authenticated$ is empty and $authentication_failed$ is set to
``0'') and ``tried to authenticate but failed'' ($sender_host_authenticated$ is
empty and $authentication_failed$ is set to ``1''). Failure includes any
negative response to an AUTH command, including (for example) an attempt to use
an undefined mechanism.

$body_linecount$::
cindex:[message body, line count]
cindex:[body of message,line count]
When a message is being received or delivered, this variable contains the
number of lines in the message's body.

$body_zerocount$::
cindex:[message body, binary zero count]
cindex:[body of message,binary zero count]
cindex:[binary zero,in message body]
When a message is being received or delivered, this variable contains the
number of binary zero bytes in the message's body.

$bounce_recipient$::
This is set to the recipient address of a bounce message while Exim is creating
it. It is useful if a customized bounce message text file is in use (see
chapter <<CHAPemsgcust>>).

$bounce_return_size_limit$::
This contains the value set in the %bounce_return_size_limit% option, rounded
up to a multiple of 1000. It is useful when a customized error message text
file is in use (see chapter <<CHAPemsgcust>>).

$caller_gid$::
cindex:[gid (group id),caller]
The real group id under which the process that called Exim was running. This is
not the same as the group id of the originator of a message (see
$originator_gid$). If Exim re-execs itself, this variable in the new
incarnation normally contains the Exim gid.

$caller_uid$::
cindex:[uid (user id),caller]
The real user id under which the process that called Exim was running. This is
not the same as the user id of the originator of a message (see
$originator_uid$). If Exim re-execs itself, this variable in the new
incarnation normally contains the Exim uid.

$compile_date$::
The date on which the Exim binary was compiled.

$compile_number$::
The building process for Exim keeps a count of the number
of times it has been compiled. This serves to distinguish different
compilations of the same version of the program.

$demime_errorlevel$::
This variable is available when Exim is compiled with
the content-scanning extension and the obsolete %demime% condition. For
details, see section <<SECTdemimecond>>.

$demime_reason$::
This variable is available when Exim is compiled with the
content-scanning extension and the obsolete %demime% condition. For details,
see section <<SECTdemimecond>>.


$dnslist_domain$::
cindex:[black list (DNS)]
When a client host is found to be on a DNS (black) list,
the list's domain name is put into this variable so that it can be included in
the rejection message.

$dnslist_text$::
When a client host is found to be on a DNS (black) list, the
contents of any associated TXT record are placed in this variable.

$dnslist_value$::
When a client host is found to be on a DNS (black) list,
the IP address from the resource record is placed in this variable.
If there are multiple records, all the addresses are included, comma-space
separated.

$domain$::
When an address is being routed, or delivered on its own, this
variable contains the domain. Global address rewriting happens when a message
is received, so the value of $domain$ during routing and delivery is the
value after rewriting. $domain$ is set during user filtering, but not during
system filtering, because a message may have many recipients and the system
filter is called just once.
+
When more than one address is being delivered at once (for example, several
RCPT commands in one SMTP delivery), $domain$ is set only if they all
have the same domain. Transports can be restricted to handling only one domain
at a time if the value of $domain$ is required at transport time -- this is
the default for local transports. For further details of the environment in
which local transports are run, see chapter <<CHAPenvironment>>.
+
cindex:[%delay_warning_condition%]
At the end of a delivery, if all deferred addresses have the same domain, it is
set in $domain$ during the expansion of %delay_warning_condition%.
+
The $domain$ variable is also used in some other circumstances:

- When an ACL is running for a RCPT command, $domain$ contains the domain
of the recipient address.
*Note:* the domain of the sender address is in $sender_address_domain$
at MAIL time and at RCPT time. $domain$ is not set for the MAIL
ACL.

- When a rewrite item is being processed (see chapter <<CHAPrewrite>>), $domain$
contains the domain portion of the address that is being rewritten; it can be
used in the expansion of the replacement address, for example, to rewrite
domains by file lookup.

- With one important exception, whenever a domain list is being scanned,
$domain$ contains the subject domain. *Exception*: When a domain list in
a %sender_domains% condition in an ACL is being processed, the subject domain
is in $sender_address_domain$ and not in $domain$. It works this way so
that, in a RCPT ACL, the sender domain list can be dependent on the
recipient domain (which is what is in $domain$ at this time).

- cindex:[ETRN,value of $domain$]
cindex:[%smtp_etrn_command%]
When the %smtp_etrn_command% option is being expanded, $domain$ contains
the complete argument of the ETRN command (see section <<SECTETRN>>).


$domain_data$::
When the %domains% option on a router matches a domain by
means of a lookup, the data read by the lookup is available during the running
of the router as $domain_data$. In addition, if the driver routes the
address to a transport, the value is available in that transport. If the
transport is handling multiple addresses, the value from the first address is
used.
+
$domain_data$ is also set when the %domains% condition in an ACL matches a
domain by means of a lookup. The data read by the lookup is available during
the rest of the ACL statement. In all other situations, this variable expands
to nothing.

$exim_gid$::
This variable contains the numerical value of the Exim group id.

$exim_path$::
This variable contains the path to the Exim binary.

$exim_uid$::
This variable contains the numerical value of the Exim user id.

$found_extension$::
This variable is available when Exim is compiled with the
content-scanning extension and the obsolete %demime% condition. For details,
see section <<SECTdemimecond>>.

$header_$<'name'>::
This is not strictly an expansion variable. It is
expansion syntax for inserting the message header line with the given name.
Note that the name must be terminated by colon or white space, because it may
contain a wide variety of characters.
Note also that braces must 'not' be used.

$home$::
When the %check_local_user% option is set for a router, the user's home
directory is placed in $home$ when the check succeeds. In particular, this
means it is set during the running of users' filter files. A router may also
explicitly set a home directory for use by a transport; this can be overridden
by a setting on the transport itself.
+
When running a filter test via the %-bf% option, $home$ is set to the value
of the environment variable HOME.

$host$::
When the ^smtp^ transport is expanding its options for encryption using TLS,
$host$ contains the name of the host to which it is connected. Likewise, when
used in the client part of an authenticator configuration (see chapter
<<CHAPSMTPAUTH>>), $host$ contains the name of the server to which the client
is connected.
+
cindex:[transport,filter]
cindex:[filter,transport filter]
When used in a transport filter (see chapter <<CHAPtransportgeneric>>) $host$
refers to the host involved in the current connection. When a local transport
is run as a result of a router that sets up a host list, $host$ contains the
name of the first host.

$host_address$::
This variable is set to the remote host's IP address whenever $host$ is set for
a remote connection. It is also set to the IP address that is being checked
when the %ignore_target_hosts% option is being processed.

$host_data$::
If a %hosts% condition in an ACL is satisfied by means of a lookup, the result
of the lookup is made available in the $host_data$ variable. This
allows you, for example, to do things like this:

  deny  hosts = net-lsearch;/some/file
        message = $host_data


$host_lookup_deferred$::
cindex:[host name lookup, failure of]
This variable normally contains ``0'', as does $host_lookup_failed$. When a
message comes from a remote host and there is an attempt to look up the host's
name from its IP address, and the attempt is not successful, one of these
variables is set to ``1''.
+
--
- If the lookup receives a definite negative response (for example, a DNS lookup
succeeded, but no records were found), $host_lookup_failed$ is set to ``1''.

- If there is any kind of problem during the lookup, such that Exim cannot
tell whether or not the host name is defined (for example, a timeout for a DNS
lookup), $host_lookup_deferred$ is set to ``1''.
--
+
Looking up a host's name from its IP address consists of more than just a
single reverse lookup. Exim checks that a forward lookup of at least one of the
names it receives from a reverse lookup yields the original IP address. If this
is not the case, Exim does not accept the looked up name(s), and
$host_lookup_failed$ is set to ``1''. Thus, being able to find a name from an
IP address (for example, the existence of a PTR record in the DNS) is not
sufficient on its own for the success of a host name lookup. If the reverse
lookup succeeds, but there is a lookup problem such as a timeout when checking
the result, the name is not accepted, and $host_lookup_deferred$ is set to
``1''. See also $sender_host_name$.

$host_lookup_failed$::
See $host_lookup_deferred$.


$inode$::
The only time this variable is set is while expanding the %directory_file%
option in the ^appendfile^ transport. The variable contains the inode number
of the temporary file which is about to be renamed. It can be used to construct
a unique name for the file.

$interface_address$::
When a message is received over a TCP/IP connection, this variable contains the
address of the local IP interface. See also the %-oMi% command line option.
This variable can be used in ACLs and also, for example, to make the file name
for a TLS certificate depend on which interface is being used.

$interface_port$::
When a message is received over a TCP/IP connection, this variable contains the
local port number. See also the %-oMi% command line option.
This variable can be used in ACLs and also, for example, to make the file name
for a TLS certificate depend on which port is being used.

$ldap_dn$::
This variable, which is available only when Exim is compiled with LDAP support,
contains the DN from the last entry in the most recently successful LDAP
lookup.

$load_average$::
This variable contains the system load average, multiplied by 1000 to that it
is an integer. For example, if the load average is 0.21, the value of the
variable is 210. The value is recomputed every time the variable is referenced.

$local_part$::
When an address is being routed, or delivered on its own, this
variable contains the local part. When a number of addresses are being
delivered together (for example, multiple RCPT commands in an SMTP
session), $local_part$ is not set.
+
Global address rewriting happens when a message is received, so the value of
$local_part$ during routing and delivery is the value after rewriting.
$local_part$ is set during user filtering, but not during system filtering,
because a message may have many recipients and the system filter is called just
once.
+
If a local part prefix or suffix has been recognized, it is not included in the
value of $local_part$ during routing and subsequent delivery. The values of
any prefix or suffix are in $local_part_prefix$ and
$local_part_suffix$, respectively.
+
When a message is being delivered to a file, pipe, or autoreply transport as a
result of aliasing or forwarding, $local_part$ is set to the local part of
the parent address, not to the file name or command (see $address_file$ and
$address_pipe$).
+
When an ACL is running for a RCPT command, $local_part$ contains the
local part of the recipient address.
+
When a rewrite item is being processed (see chapter <<CHAPrewrite>>),
$local_part$ contains the local part of the address that is being rewritten;
it can be used in the expansion of the replacement address, for example.
+
In all cases, all quoting is removed from the local part. For example, for both
the addresses

  "abc:xyz"@test.example
  abc\:xyz@test.example
+
the value of $local_part$ is

  abc:xyz
+
If you use $local_part$ to create another address, you should always wrap it
inside a quoting operator. For example, in a ^redirect^ router you could have:

  data = ${quote_local_part:$local_part}@new.domain.example
+
*Note*: The value of $local_part$ is normally lower cased. If you want
to process local parts in a case-dependent manner in a router, you can set the
%caseful_local_part% option (see chapter <<CHAProutergeneric>>).

$local_part_data$::
When the %local_parts% option on a router matches a local part by means of a
lookup, the data read by the lookup is available during the running of the
router as $local_part_data$. In addition, if the driver routes the address
to a transport, the value is available in that transport. If the transport is
handling multiple addresses, the value from the first address is used.
+
$local_part_data$ is also set when the %local_parts% condition in an ACL
matches a local part by means of a lookup. The data read by the lookup is
available during the rest of the ACL statement. In all other situations, this
variable expands to nothing.

$local_part_prefix$::
When an address is being routed or delivered, and a
specific prefix for the local part was recognized, it is available in this
variable, having been removed from $local_part$.

$local_part_suffix$::
When an address is being routed or delivered, and a
specific suffix for the local part was recognized, it is available in this
variable, having been removed from $local_part$.

$local_scan_data$::
This variable contains the text returned by the 'local_scan()' function when a
message is received. See chapter <<CHAPlocalscan>> for more details.

$local_user_gid$::
See $local_user_uid$.

$local_user_uid$::
This variable and $local_user_gid$ are set to
the uid and gid after the %check_local_user% router precondition succeeds.
This means that their values are available for the remaining preconditions
(%senders%, %require_files%, and %condition%), for the %address_data%
expansion, and for any router-specific expansions. At all other times, the
values in these variables are `(uid_t)(-1)` and `(gid_t)(-1)`,
respectively.

$localhost_number$::
This contains the expanded value of the
%localhost_number% option. The expansion happens after the main options have
been read.

$log_inodes$::
The number of free inodes in the disk partition where Exim's
log files are being written. The value is recalculated whenever the variable is
referenced. If the relevant file system does not have the concept of inodes,
the value of is -1. See also the %check_log_inodes% option.

$log_space$::
The amount of free space (as a number of kilobytes) in the disk
partition where Exim's log files are being written. The value is recalculated
whenever the variable is referenced. If the operating system does not have the
ability to find the amount of free space (only true for experimental systems),
the space value is -1. See also the %check_log_space% option.


$mailstore_basename$::
This variable is set only when doing deliveries in
``mailstore'' format in the ^appendfile^ transport. During the expansion of the
%mailstore_prefix%, %mailstore_suffix%, %message_prefix%, and
%message_suffix% options, it contains the basename of the files that are being
written, that is, the name without the ``.tmp'', ``.env'', or ``.msg'' suffix. At all
other times, this variable is empty.

$malware_name$::
This variable is available when Exim is compiled with the
content-scanning extension. It is set to the name of the virus that was found
when the ACL %malware% condition is true (see section <<SECTscanvirus>>).


$message_age$::
cindex:[message,age of]
This variable is set at the start of a delivery attempt to
contain the number of seconds since the message was received. It does not
change during a single delivery attempt.

$message_body$::
cindex:[body of message,expansion variable]
cindex:[message body, in expansion]
cindex:[binary zero,in message body]
This variable contains the initial portion of a message's
body while it is being delivered, and is intended mainly for use in filter
files. The maximum number of characters of the body that are put into the
variable is set by the %message_body_visible% configuration option; the
default is 500. Newlines are converted into spaces to make it easier to search
for phrases that might be split over a line break.
Binary zeros are also converted into spaces.

$message_body_end$::
cindex:[body of message,expansion variable]
cindex:[message body, in expansion]
This variable contains the final portion of a message's
body while it is being delivered. The format and maximum size are as for
$message_body$.

$message_body_size$::
cindex:[body of message,size]
cindex:[message body, size]
When a message is being delivered, this variable
contains the size of the body in bytes. The count starts from the character
after the blank line that separates the body from the header. Newlines are
included in the count. See also $message_size$, $body_linecount$, and
$body_zerocount$.

$message_headers$::
This variable contains a concatenation of all the header lines when a message
is being processed, except for lines added by routers or transports. The header
lines are separated by newline characters.

$message_id$::
When a message is being received or delivered, this variable contains the
unique message id that is used by Exim to identify the message.
An id is not created for a message until after its header has been
successfully received.
*Note*: This is 'not' the contents of the 'Message-ID:' header line; it
is the local id that Exim assigns to the message, for example:
`1BXTIK-0001yO-VA`.

$message_size$::
cindex:[size,of message]
cindex:[message,size]
When a message is being processed, this variable contains its size in bytes. In
most cases, the size includes those headers that were received with the
message, but not those (such as 'Envelope-to:') that are added to individual
deliveries as they are written. However, there is one special case: during the
expansion of the %maildir_tag% option in the ^appendfile^ transport while
doing a delivery in maildir format, the value of $message_size$ is the
precise size of the file that has been written. See also
$message_body_size$, $body_linecount$, and $body_zerocount$.
+
cindex:[RCPT,value of $message_size$]
While running an ACL at the time of an SMTP RCPT command, $message_size$
contains the size supplied on the MAIL command, or -1 if no size was given. The
value may not, of course, be truthful.

$mime_$'xxx'::
A number of variables whose names start with $mime$ are
available when Exim is compiled with the content-scanning extension. For
details, see section <<SECTscanmimepart>>.


$n0$ -- $n9$::
These variables are counters that can be incremented by means
of the %add% command in filter files.

$original_domain$::
When a top-level address is being processed for delivery,
this contains the same value as $domain$. However, if a ``child'' address (for
example, generated by an alias, forward, or filter file) is being processed,
this variable contains the domain of the original address. This differs from
$parent_domain$ only when there is more than one level of aliasing or
forwarding. When more than one address is being delivered in a single transport
run, $original_domain$ is not set.
+
If new an address is created by means of a %deliver% command in a system
filter, it is set up with an artificial ``parent'' address. This has the local
part 'system-filter' and the default qualify domain.

$original_local_part$::
When a top-level address is being processed for
delivery, this contains the same value as $local_part$, unless a prefix or
suffix was removed from the local part, because $original_local_part$
always contains the full local part. When a ``child'' address (for example,
generated by an alias, forward, or filter file) is being processed, this
variable contains the full local part of the original address.
+
If the router that did the redirection processed the local part
case-insensitively, the value in $original_local_part$ is in lower case.
This variable differs from $parent_local_part$ only when there is more than
one level of aliasing or forwarding. When more than one address is being
delivered in a single transport run, $original_local_part$ is not set.
+
If new an address is created by means of a %deliver% command in a system
filter, it is set up with an artificial ``parent'' address. This has the local
part 'system-filter' and the default qualify domain.


$originator_gid$::
cindex:[gid (group id),of originating user]
cindex:[sender,gid]
The value of $caller_gid$ that was set when the message
was received. For messages received via the command line, this is the gid of
the sending user. For messages received by SMTP over TCP/IP, this is normally
the gid of the Exim user.

$originator_uid$::
cindex:[uid (user id),of originating user]
cindex:[sender,uid]
The value of $caller_uid$ that was set when the message
was received. For messages received via the command line, this is the uid of
the sending user. For messages received by SMTP over TCP/IP, this is normally
the uid of the Exim user.

$parent_domain$::
This variable is similar to $original_domain$ (see
above), except that it refers to the immediately preceding parent address.

$parent_local_part$::
This variable is similar to $original_local_part$
(see above), except that it refers to the immediately preceding parent address.

$pid$::
cindex:[pid (process id),of current process]
This variable contains the current process id.

$pipe_addresses$::
cindex:[filter,transport filter]
cindex:[transport,filter]
This is not an expansion variable, but is mentioned here
because the string ``\$pipe_addresses'' is handled specially in the command
specification for the ^pipe^ transport (chapter <<CHAPpipetransport>>) and in
transport filters (described under %transport_filter% in chapter
<<CHAPtransportgeneric>>). It cannot be used in general expansion strings, and
provokes an ``unknown variable'' error if encountered.

$primary_hostname$::
The value set in the configuration file, or read by the
'uname()' function. If 'uname()' returns a single-component name, Exim
calls 'gethostbyname()' (or 'getipnodebyname()' where available) in an
attempt to acquire a fully qualified host name.
See also $smtp_active_hostname$.

$qualify_domain$::
The value set for this option in the configuration file.

$qualify_recipient$::
The value set for this option in the configuration file,
or if not set, the value of $qualify_domain$.

$rcpt_count$::
When a message is being received by SMTP, this variable
contains the number of RCPT commands received for the current message. If
this variable is used in a RCPT ACL, its value includes the current
command.

$rcpt_defer_count$::
When a message is being received by SMTP, this variable
contains the number of RCPT commands in the current message that have
previously been rejected with a temporary (4##'xx') response.

$rcpt_fail_count$::
When a message is being received by SMTP, this variable
contains the number of RCPT commands in the current message that have
previously been rejected with a permanent (5##'xx') response.

$received_count$::
This variable contains the number of 'Received:' header
lines in the message, including the one added by Exim (so its value is always
greater than zero). It is available in the DATA ACL, the non-SMTP ACL, and
while routing and delivering.

$received_for$::
If there is only a single recipient address in an incoming
message, this variable contains that address when the 'Received:' header line
is being built.
The value is copied after recipient rewriting has happened, but before the
'local_scan()' function is run.

$received_protocol$::
When a message is being processed, this variable
contains the name of the protocol by which it was received.
Most of the names used by Exim are defined by RFCs 821, 2821, and 3848. They
start with ``smtp'' (the client used HELO) or ``esmtp'' (the client used
EHLO). This can be followed by ``s'' for secure (encrypted) and/or ``a'' for
authenticated. Thus, for example, if the protocol is set to ``esmtpsa'', the
message was received over an encrypted SMTP connection and the client was
successfully authenticated.
+
Exim uses the protocol name ``smtps'' for the case when encryption is
automatically set up on connection without the use of STARTTLS (see
%tls_on_connect_ports%), and the client uses HELO to initiate the
encrypted SMTP session. The name ``smtps'' is also used for the rare situation
where the client initially uses EHLO, sets up an encrypted connection using
STARTTLS, and then uses HELO afterwards.
+
The %-oMr% option provides a way of specifying a custom protocol name for
messages that are injected locally by trusted callers. This is commonly used to
identify messages that are being re-injected after some kind of scanning.


$recipient_data$::
This variable is set after an indexing lookup success in
an ACL %recipients% condition. It contains the data from the lookup, and the
value remains set until the next %recipients% test. Thus, you can do things
like this:
+
&&&
`require recipients  = cdb*@;/some/file`
`deny    `'some further test involving' `\$recipient_data`
&&&
+
*Warning*: This variable is set only when a lookup is used as an indexing
method in the address list, using the semicolon syntax as in the example above.
The variable is not set for a lookup that is used as part of the string
expansion that all such lists undergo before being interpreted.

$recipient_verify_failure$::
In an ACL, when a recipient verification fails,
this variable contains information about the failure. It is set to one of the
following words:
+
--
- ``qualify'': The address was unqualified (no domain), and the message
was neither local nor came from an exempted host.

- ``route'': Routing failed.

- ``mail'': Routing succeeded, and a callout was attempted; rejection occurred at
or before the MAIL command (that is, on initial connection, HELO, or
MAIL).

- ``recipient'': The RCPT command in a callout was rejected.

- ``postmaster'': The postmaster check in a callout was rejected.
--
+
The main use of this variable is expected to be to distinguish between
rejections of MAIL and rejections of RCPT.


$recipients$::
This variable contains a list of envelope recipients for a
message. A comma and a space separate the addresses in the replacement text.
However, the variable is not generally available, to prevent exposure of Bcc
recipients in unprivileged users' filter files. You can use $recipients$ only
in these two cases:

. In a system filter file.

. In the ACLs associated with the DATA command, that is, the ACLs defined by
%acl_smtp_predata% and %acl_smtp_data%.


$recipients_count$::
When a message is being processed, this variable
contains the number of envelope recipients that came with the message.
Duplicates are not excluded from the count. While a message is being received
over SMTP, the number increases for each accepted recipient. It can be
referenced in an ACL.

$reply_address$::
When a message is being processed, this variable contains
the contents of the 'Reply-To:' header line if one exists
and it is not empty,
or otherwise the contents of the 'From:' header line.

$return_path$::
When a message is being delivered, this variable contains the return path --
the sender field that will be sent as part of the envelope. It is not enclosed
in <> characters. At the start of routing an address, $return_path$ has the
same value as $sender_address$, but if, for example, an incoming message to a
mailing list has been expanded by a router which specifies a different address
for bounce messages, $return_path$ subsequently contains the new bounce
address, whereas $sender_address$ always contains the original sender address
that was received with the message. In other words, $sender_address$ contains
the incoming envelope sender, and $return_path$ contains the outgoing envelope
sender.

$return_size_limit$::
This is an obsolete name for $bounce_return_size_limit$.

$runrc$::
cindex:[return code,from %run% expansion]
This variable contains the return code from a command that is run by the
%\$\{run...\}% expansion item. *Warning*: In a router or transport, you cannot
assume the order in which option values are expanded, except for those
pre-conditions whose order of testing is documented. Therefore, you cannot
reliably expect to set $runrc$ by the expansion of one option, and use it in
another.

$self_hostname$::
When an address is routed to a supposedly remote host that turns out to be the
local host, what happens is controlled by the
cindex:[%self% option,value of host name]
%self% generic router option. One of its values causes the address to be passed
to another router. When this happens, $self_hostname$ is set to the name of
the local host that the original router encountered. In other circumstances its
contents are null.

$sender_address$::
When a message is being processed, this variable contains
the sender's address that was received in the message's envelope. For bounce
messages, the value of this variable is the empty string.
See also $return_path$.

$sender_address_data$::
If $address_data$ is set when the routers are called from an ACL to verify a
sender address, the final value is preserved in $sender_address_data$, to
distinguish it from data from a recipient address. The value does not persist
after the end of the current ACL statement. If you want to preserve it for
longer, you can save it in an ACL variable.


$sender_address_domain$::
The domain portion of $sender_address$.

$sender_address_local_part$::
The local part portion of $sender_address$.

$sender_data$::
This variable is set after a lookup success in an ACL %senders% condition or in
a router %senders% option. It contains the data from the lookup, and the value
remains set until the next %senders% test. Thus, you can do things like this:
+
&&&
`require senders      = cdb*@;/some/file`
`deny    `'some further test involving' `\$sender_data`
&&&
+
*Warning*: This variable is set only when a lookup is used as an indexing
method in the address list, using the semicolon syntax as in the example above.
The variable is not set for a lookup that is used as part of the string
expansion that all such lists undergo before being interpreted.

$sender_fullhost$::
When a message is received from a remote host, this variable contains the host
name and IP address in a single string. It ends with the IP address in square
brackets, followed by a colon and a port number if the logging of ports is
enabled. The format of the rest of the string depends on whether the host
issued a HELO or EHLO SMTP command, and whether the host name was verified by
looking up its IP address. (Looking up the IP address can be forced by the
%host_lookup% option, independent of verification.) A plain host name at the
start of the string is a verified host name; if this is not present,
verification either failed or was not requested. A host name in parentheses is
the argument of a HELO or EHLO command. This is omitted if it is identical to
the verified host name or to the host's IP address in square brackets.

$sender_helo_name$::
When a message is received from a remote host that has
issued a HELO or EHLO command, the argument of that command is placed
in this variable. It is also set if HELO or EHLO is used when a message
is received using SMTP locally via the %-bs% or %-bS% options.

$sender_host_address$::
When a message is received from a remote host, this
variable contains that host's IP address. For locally submitted messages, it is
empty.

$sender_host_authenticated$::
This variable contains the name (not the public name) of the authenticator
driver which successfully authenticated the client from which the message was
received. It is empty if there was no successful authentication.

$sender_host_name$::
When a message is received from a remote host, this variable contains the
host's name as obtained by looking up its IP address. For messages received by
other means, this variable is empty.
+
If the host name has not previously been looked up, a reference to
$sender_host_name$ triggers a lookup (for messages from remote hosts).
A looked up name is accepted only if it leads back to the original IP address
via a forward lookup. If either the reverse or the forward lookup fails to find
any data, or if the forward lookup does not yield the original IP address,
$sender_host_name$ remains empty, and $host_lookup_failed$ is set to ``1''.
+
However, if either of the lookups cannot be completed (for example, there is a
DNS timeout), $host_lookup_deferred$ is set to ``1'', and
$host_lookup_failed$ remains set to ``0''.
+
Once $host_lookup_failed$ is set to ``1'', Exim does not try to look up the
host name again if there is a subsequent reference to $sender_host_name$
in the same Exim process, but it does try again if $sender_host_deferred$
is set to ``1''.
+
Exim does not automatically look up every calling host's name. If you want
maximum efficiency, you should arrange your configuration so that it avoids
these lookups altogether. The lookup happens only if one or more of the
following are true:

- A string containing $sender_host_name$ is expanded.

- The calling host matches the list in %host_lookup%. In the default
configuration, this option is set to \*, so it must be changed if lookups are
to be avoided. (In the code, the default for %host_lookup% is unset.)

- Exim needs the host name in order to test an item in a host list. The items
that require this are described in sections <<SECThoslispatnam>> and
<<SECThoslispatnamsk>>.

- The calling host matches %helo_try_verify_hosts% or %helo_verify_hosts%.
In this case, the host name is required to compare with the name quoted in any
EHLO or HELO commands that the client issues.

- The remote host issues a EHLO or HELO command that quotes one of the
domains in %helo_lookup_domains%. The default value of this option is
+
....
helo_lookup_domains = @ : @[]
....
+
which causes a lookup if a remote host (incorrectly) gives the server's name or
IP address in an EHLO or HELO command.


$sender_host_port$::
When a message is received from a remote host, this
variable contains the port number that was used on the remote host.

$sender_ident$::
When a message is received from a remote host, this variable contains the
identification received in response to an RFC 1413 request. When a message has
been received locally, this variable contains the login name of the user that
called Exim.

$sender_rcvhost$::
This is provided specifically for use in 'Received:' headers. It starts with
either the verified host name (as obtained from a
cindex:[DNS,reverse lookup]
cindex:[reverse DNS lookup]
reverse DNS lookup) or, if there is no verified host name, the IP address in
square brackets. After that there may be text in parentheses. When the first
item is a verified host name, the first thing in the parentheses is the IP
address in square brackets, followed by a colon and a port number if port
logging is enabled. When the first item is an IP address, the port is recorded
as ``port='xxxx'##'' inside the parentheses.
+
There may also be items of the form ``helo='xxxx'##'' if HELO or EHLO
was used and its argument was not identical to the real host name or IP
address, and ``ident='xxxx'##'' if an RFC 1413 ident string is available. If all
three items are present in the parentheses, a newline and tab are inserted into
the string, to improve the formatting of the 'Received:' header.

$sender_verify_failure$::
In an ACL, when a sender verification fails, this variable contains information
about the failure. The details are the same as for $recipient_verify_failure$.

$smtp_active_hostname$::
During an SMTP session, this variable contains the value of the active host
name, as specified by the %smtp_active_hostname% option. The value of
$smtp_active_hostname$ is saved with any message that is received, so its value
can be consulted during routing and delivery.


$smtp_command_argument$::
cindex:[AUTH,argument]
cindex:[EXPN,argument]
cindex:[ETRN,argument]
cindex:[VRFY,argument]
While an ACL is running to check an AUTH, EHLO, EXPN, ETRN, HELO, or VRFY
command, this variable contains the argument for the SMTP command.

$sn0$ -- $sn9$::
These variables are copies of the values of the $n0$ -- $n9$ accumulators that
were current at the end of the system filter file. This allows a system filter
file to set values that can be tested in users' filter files. For example, a
system filter could set a value indicating how likely it is that a message is
junk mail.

$spam_$'xxx'::
A number of variables whose names start with $spam$ are available when Exim is
compiled with the content-scanning extension. For details, see section
<<SECTscanspamass>>.


$spool_directory$::
The name of Exim's spool directory.

$spool_inodes$::
The number of free inodes in the disk partition where Exim's spool files are
being written. The value is recalculated whenever the variable is referenced.
If the relevant file system does not have the concept of inodes, the value of
is -1. See also the %check_spool_inodes% option.

$spool_space$::
The amount of free space (as a number of kilobytes) in the disk partition where
Exim's spool files are being written. The value is recalculated whenever the
variable is referenced. If the operating system does not have the ability to
find the amount of free space (only true for experimental systems), the space
value is -1. For example, to check in an ACL that there is at least 50
megabytes free on the spool, you could write:

  condition = ${if > {$spool_space}{50000}}
+
See also the %check_spool_space% option.


$thisaddress$::
This variable is set only during the processing of the %foranyaddress% command
in a filter file. Its use is explained in the description of that command.

$tls_certificate_verified$::
This variable is set to ``1'' if a TLS certificate was verified when the message
was received, and ``0'' otherwise.

$tls_cipher$::
When a message is received from a remote host over an encrypted SMTP
connection, this variable is set to the cipher suite that was negotiated, for
example DES-CBC3-SHA. In other circumstances, in particular, for message
received over unencrypted connections, the variable is empty. See chapter
<<CHAPTLS>> for details of TLS support.

$tls_peerdn$::
 When a message is received from a remote host over an encrypted SMTP
connection, and Exim is configured to request a certificate from the client,
the value of the Distinguished Name of the certificate is made available in the
$tls_peerdn$ during subsequent processing.

$tod_bsdinbox$::
The time of day and date, in the format required for BSD-style mailbox files,
for example: Thu Oct 17 17:14:09 1995.

$tod_epoch$::
The time and date as a number of seconds since the start of the Unix epoch.

$tod_full$::
A full version of the time and date, for example: Wed, 16 Oct 1995 09:51:40
+0100. The timezone is always given as a numerical offset from UTC, with
positive values used for timezones that are ahead (east) of UTC, and negative
values for those that are behind (west).

$tod_log$::
The time and date in the format used for writing Exim's log files, for example:
1995-10-12 15:32:29, but without a timezone.

$tod_logfile$::
This variable contains the date in the format yyyymmdd. This is the format that
is used for datestamping log files when %log_file_path% contains the `%D`
flag.

$tod_zone$::
This variable contains the numerical value of the local timezone, for example:
-0500.

$tod_zulu$::
This variable contains the UTC date and time in ``Zulu'' format, as specified by
ISO 8601, for example: 20030221154023Z.

$value$::
cindex:[$value$]
This variable contains the result of an expansion lookup, extraction operation,
or external command, as described above.

$version_number$::
The version number of Exim.

$warn_message_delay$::
This variable is set only during the creation of a message warning about a
delivery delay. Details of its use are explained in section <<SECTcustwarn>>.

$warn_message_recipients$::
This variable is set only during the creation of a message warning about a
delivery delay. Details of its use are explained in section <<SECTcustwarn>>.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPperl]]
Embedded Perl
-------------
cindex:[Perl,calling from Exim]
Exim can be built to include an embedded Perl interpreter. When this is done,
Perl subroutines can be called as part of the string expansion process. To make
use of the Perl support, you need version 5.004 or later of Perl installed on
your system. To include the embedded interpreter in the Exim binary, include
the line

  EXIM_PERL = perl.o

in your _Local/Makefile_ and then build Exim in the normal way.


Setting up so Perl can be used
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[%perl_startup%]
Access to Perl subroutines is via a global configuration option called
%perl_startup% and an expansion string operator %\$\{perl ...\}%. If there is
no %perl_startup% option in the Exim configuration file then no Perl
interpreter is started and there is almost no overhead for Exim (since none of
the Perl library will be paged in unless used). If there is a %perl_startup%
option then the associated value is taken to be Perl code which is executed in
a newly created Perl interpreter.

The value of %perl_startup% is not expanded in the Exim sense, so you do not
need backslashes before any characters to escape special meanings. The option
should usually be something like

  perl_startup = do '/etc/exim.pl'

where _/etc/exim.pl_ is Perl code which defines any subroutines you want to
use from Exim. Exim can be configured either to start up a Perl interpreter as
soon as it is entered, or to wait until the first time it is needed. Starting
the interpreter at the beginning ensures that it is done while Exim still has
its setuid privilege, but can impose an unnecessary overhead if Perl is not in
fact used in a particular run. Also, note that this does not mean that Exim is
necessarily running as root when Perl is called at a later time. By default,
the interpreter is started only when it is needed, but this can be changed in
two ways:

- cindex:[%perl_at_start%]
Setting %perl_at_start% (a boolean option) in the configuration requests
a startup when Exim is entered.

- The command line option %-ps% also requests a startup when Exim is entered,
overriding the setting of %perl_at_start%.

There is also a command line option %-pd% (for delay) which suppresses the
initial startup, even if %perl_at_start% is set.


Calling Perl subroutines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the configuration file includes a %perl_startup% option you can make use
of the string expansion item to call the Perl subroutines that are defined
by the %perl_startup% code. The operator is used in any of the following
forms:

  ${perl{foo}}
  ${perl{foo}{argument}}
  ${perl{foo}{argument1}{argument2} ... }

which calls the subroutine %foo% with the given arguments. A maximum of eight
arguments may be passed. Passing more than this results in an expansion failure
with an error message of the form

  Too many arguments passed to Perl subroutine "foo" (max is 8)

The return value of the Perl subroutine is evaluated in a scalar context before
it is passed back to Exim to be inserted into the expanded string. If the
return value is 'undef', the expansion is forced to fail in the same way as
an explicit ``fail'' on an %\$\{if ...\}% or %\$\{lookup...\}% item. If the
subroutine aborts by obeying Perl's %die% function, the expansion fails with
the error message that was passed to %die%.


Calling Exim functions from Perl
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Within any Perl code called from Exim, the function 'Exim::expand_string'
is available to call back into Exim's string expansion function. For example,
the Perl code

  my $lp = Exim::expand_string('$local_part');

makes the current Exim $local_part$ available in the Perl variable $lp$.
Note those are single quotes and not double quotes to protect against
$local_part$ being interpolated as a Perl variable.

If the string expansion is forced to fail by a ``fail'' item, the result of
'Exim::expand_string' is %undef%. If there is a syntax error in the
expansion string, the Perl call from the original expansion string fails with
an appropriate error message, in the same way as if %die% were used.

cindex:[debugging,from embedded Perl]
cindex:[log,writing from embedded Perl]
Two other Exim functions are available for use from within Perl code.
'Exim::debug_write(<'string'>)' writes the string to the standard error
stream if Exim's debugging is enabled. If you want a newline at the end, you
must supply it. 'Exim::log_write(<'string'>)' writes the string to Exim's
main log, adding a leading timestamp. In this case, you should not supply a
terminating newline.


Use of standard output and error by Perl
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[Perl,standard output and error]
You should not write to the standard error or output streams from within your
Perl code, as it is not defined how these are set up. In versions of Exim
before 4.50, it is possible for the standard output or error to refer to the
SMTP connection during message reception via the daemon. Writing to this stream
is certain to cause chaos. From Exim 4.50 onwards, the standard output and
error streams are connected to _/dev/null_ in the daemon. The chaos is
avoided, but the output is lost.

cindex:[Perl,use of %warn%]
The Perl %warn% statement writes to the standard error stream by default. Calls
to %warn% may be embedded in Perl modules that you use, but over which you have
no control. When Exim starts up the Perl interpreter, it arranges for output
from the %warn% statement to be written to the Exim main log. You can change
this by including appropriate Perl magic somewhere in your Perl code. For
example, to discard %warn% output completely, you need this:

  $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { };

Whenever a %warn% is obeyed, the anonymous subroutine is called. In this
example, the code for the subroutine is empty, so it does nothing, but you can
include any Perl code that you like. The text of the %warn% message is passed
as the first subroutine argument.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPinterfaces]]
[titleabbrev="Starting the daemon"]
Starting the daemon and the use of network interfaces
-----------------------------------------------------
cindex:[daemon,starting]
cindex:[interface,listening]
cindex:[network interface]
cindex:[interface,network]
cindex:[IP address,for listening]
cindex:[daemon,listening IP addresses]
cindex:[TCP/IP,setting listening interfaces]
cindex:[TCP/IP,setting listening ports]
A host that is connected to a TCP/IP network may have one or more physical
hardware network interfaces. Each of these interfaces may be configured as one
or more ``logical'' interfaces, which are the entities that a program actually
works with. Each of these logical interfaces is associated with an IP address.
In addition, TCP/IP software supports ``loopback'' interfaces (127.0.0.1 in IPv4
and ::1 in IPv6), which do not use any physical hardware. Exim requires
knowledge about the host's interfaces for use in three different circumstances:

. When a listening daemon is started, Exim needs to know which interfaces
and ports to listen on.

. When Exim is routing an address, it needs to know which IP addresses
are associated with local interfaces. This is required for the correct
processing of MX lists by removing the local host and others with the
same or higher priority values. Also, Exim needs to detect cases
when an address is routed to an IP address that in fact belongs to the
local host. Unless the %self% router option or the %allow_localhost%
option of the smtp transport is set (as appropriate), this is treated
as an error situation.

. When Exim connects to a remote host, it may need to know which interface to use
for the outgoing connection.


Exim's default behaviour is likely to be appropriate in the vast majority
of cases. If your host has only one interface, and you want all its IP
addresses to be treated in the same way, and you are using only the
standard SMTP port, you should not need to take any special action. The
rest of this chapter does not apply to you.

In a more complicated situation you may want to listen only on certain
interfaces, or on different ports, and for this reason there are a number of
options that can be used to influence Exim's behaviour. The rest of this
chapter describes how they operate.

When a message is received over TCP/IP, the interface and port that were
actually used are set in $interface_address$ and $interface_port$.



Starting a listening daemon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When a listening daemon is started (by means of the %-bd% command line
option), the interfaces and ports on which it listens are controlled by the
following options:

- %daemon_smtp_ports% contains a list of default ports. (For backward
compatibility, this option can also be specified in the singular.)

- %local_interfaces% contains list of interface IP addresses on which to
listen. Each item may optionally also specify a port.

The default list separator in both cases is a colon, but this can be changed as
described in section <<SECTlistconstruct>>. When IPv6 addresses are involved, it
is usually best to change the separator to avoid having to double all the
colons. For example:

....
local_interfaces = <; 127.0.0.1 ; \
                      192.168.23.65 ; \
                      ::1 ; \
                      3ffe:ffff:836f::fe86:a061
....

There are two different formats for specifying a port along with an IP address
in %local_interfaces%:

. The port is added onto the address with a dot separator. For example, to listen
on port 1234 on two different IP addresses:
+
....
local_interfaces = <; 192.168.23.65.1234 ; \
                      3ffe:ffff:836f::fe86:a061.1234
....

. The IP address is enclosed in square brackets, and the port is added
with a colon separator, for example:
+
....
local_interfaces = <; [192.168.23.65]:1234 ; \
                      [3ffe:ffff:836f::fe86:a061]:1234
....

When a port is not specified, the value of %daemon_smtp_ports% is used. The
default setting contains just one port:

  daemon_smtp_ports = smtp

If more than one port is listed, each interface that does not have its own port
specified listens on all of them. Ports that are listed in
%daemon_smtp_ports% can be identified either by name (defined in
_/etc/services_) or by number. However, when ports are given with individual
IP addresses in %local_interfaces%, only numbers (not names) can be used.



Special IP listening addresses
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The addresses 0.0.0.0 and ::0 are treated specially. They are interpreted
as ``all IPv4 interfaces'' and ``all IPv6 interfaces'', respectively. In each
case, Exim tells the TCP/IP stack to ``listen on all IPv##'x' interfaces''
instead of setting up separate listening sockets for each interface. The
default value of %local_interfaces% is

  local_interfaces = 0.0.0.0

when Exim is built without IPv6 support; otherwise it is:

  local_interfaces = <; ::0 ; 0.0.0.0

Thus, by default, Exim listens on all available interfaces, on the SMTP port.



Overriding local_interfaces and daemon_smtp_ports
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The %-oX% command line option can be used to override the values of
%daemon_smtp_ports% and/or %local_interfaces% for a particular daemon
instance. Another way of doing this would be to use macros and the %-D%
option. However, %-oX% can be used by any admin user, whereas modification of
the runtime configuration by %-D% is allowed only when the caller is root or
exim.

The value of %-oX% is a list of items. The default colon separator can be
changed in the usual way if required. If there are any items that do not
contain dots or colons (that is, are not IP addresses), the value of
%daemon_smtp_ports% is replaced by the list of those items. If there are any
items that do contain dots or colons, the value of %local_interfaces% is
replaced by those items. Thus, for example,

  -oX 1225

overrides %daemon_smtp_ports%, but leaves %local_interfaces% unchanged,
whereas

  -oX 192.168.34.5.1125

overrides %local_interfaces%, leaving %daemon_smtp_ports% unchanged.
(However, since %local_interfaces% now contains no items without ports, the
value of %daemon_smtp_ports% is no longer relevant in this example.)



[[SECTsupobssmt]]
Support for the obsolete SSMTP (or SMTPS) protocol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[ssmtp protocol]
cindex:[smtps protocol]
cindex:[SMTP,ssmtp protocol]
cindex:[SMTP,smtps protocol]
Exim supports the obsolete SSMTP protocol (also known as SMTPS) that was used
before the STARTTLS command was standardized for SMTP. Some legacy clients
still use this protocol. If the %tls_on_connect_ports% option is set to a
list of port numbers, connections to those ports must use SSMTP. The most
common use of this option is expected to be

  tls_on_connect_ports = 465

because 465 is the usual port number used by the legacy clients. There is also
a command line option %-tls-on-connect%, which forces all ports to behave in
this way when a daemon is started.

*Warning*: Setting %tls_on_connect_ports% does not of itself cause the
daemon to listen on those ports. You must still specify them in
%daemon_smtp_ports%, %local_interfaces%, or the %-oX% option. (This is
because %tls_on_connect_ports% applies to %inetd% connections as well as to
connections via the daemon.)




IPv6 address scopes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IPv6 addresses have ``scopes'', and a host with multiple hardware interfaces
can, in principle, have the same link-local IPv6 address on different
interfaces. Thus, additional information is needed, over and above the IP
address, to distinguish individual interfaces. A convention of using a
percent sign followed by something (often the interface name) has been
adopted in some cases, leading to addresses like this:

  fe80::202:b3ff:fe03:45c1%eth0

To accommodate this usage, a percent sign followed by an arbitrary string is
allowed at the end of an IPv6 address. By default, Exim calls 'getaddrinfo()'
to convert a textual IPv6 address for actual use. This function recognizes the
percent convention in operating systems that support it, and it processes the
address appropriately. Unfortunately, some older libraries have problems with
'getaddrinfo()'. If

  IPV6_USE_INET_PTON=yes

is set in _Local/Makefile_ (or an OS-dependent Makefile) when Exim is built,
Exim uses 'inet_pton()' to convert a textual IPv6 address for actual use,
instead of 'getaddrinfo()'. (Before version 4.14, it always used this
function.) Of course, this means that the additional functionality of
'getaddrinfo()' -- recognizing scoped addresses -- is lost.



Examples of starting a listening daemon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The default case in an IPv6 environment is

  daemon_smtp_ports = smtp
  local_interfaces = <; ::0 ; 0.0.0.0

This specifies listening on the smtp port on all IPv6 and IPv4 interfaces.
Either one or two sockets may be used, depending on the characteristics of
the TCP/IP stack. (This is complicated and messy; for more information,
read the comments in the _daemon.c_ source file.)

To specify listening on ports 25 and 26 on all interfaces:

  daemon_smtp_ports = 25 : 26

(leaving %local_interfaces% at the default setting) or, more explicitly:

....
local_interfaces = <; ::0.25     ; ::0.26 \
                      0.0.0.0.25 ; 0.0.0.0.26
....

To listen on the default port on all IPv4 interfaces, and on port 26 on the
IPv4 loopback address only:

  local_interfaces = 0.0.0.0 : 127.0.0.1.26

To specify listening on the default port on specific interfaces only:

  local_interfaces = 192.168.34.67 : 192.168.34.67

*Warning*: such a setting excludes listening on the loopback interfaces.



[[SECTreclocipadd]]
Recognising the local host
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The %local_interfaces% option is also used when Exim needs to determine
whether or not an IP address refers to the local host. That is, the IP
addresses of all the interfaces on which a daemon is listening are always
treated as local.

For this usage, port numbers in %local_interfaces% are ignored. If either of
the items 0.0.0.0 or ::0 are encountered, Exim gets a complete list of
available interfaces from the operating system, and extracts the relevant
(that is, IPv4 or IPv6) addresses to use for checking.

Some systems set up large numbers of virtual interfaces in order to provide
many virtual web servers. In this situation, you may want to listen for
email on only a few of the available interfaces, but nevertheless treat all
interfaces as local when routing. You can do this by setting
%extra_local_interfaces% to a list of IP addresses, possibly including the
``all'' wildcard values. These addresses are recognized as local, but are not
used for listening. Consider this example:

....
local_interfaces = <; 127.0.0.1 ; ::1 ; \
                      192.168.53.235 ; \
                      3ffe:2101:12:1:a00:20ff:fe86:a061

extra_local_interfaces = <; ::0 ; 0.0.0.0
....

The daemon listens on the loopback interfaces and just one IPv4 and one IPv6
address, but all available interface addresses are treated as local when
Exim is routing.

In some environments the local host name may be in an MX list, but with an IP
address that is not assigned to any local interface. In other cases it may be
desirable to treat other host names as if they referred to the local host. Both
these cases can be handled by setting the %hosts_treat_as_local% option.
This contains host names rather than IP addresses. When a host is referenced
during routing, either via an MX record or directly, it is treated as the local
host if its name matches %hosts_treat_as_local%, or if any of its IP
addresses match %local_interfaces% or %extra_local_interfaces%.



Delivering to a remote host
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Delivery to a remote host is handled by the smtp transport. By default, it
allows the system's TCP/IP functions to choose which interface to use (if
there is more than one) when connecting to a remote host. However, the
%interface% option can be set to specify which interface is used. See the
description of the smtp transport in chapter <<CHAPsmtptrans>> for more details.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPmainconfig]]
Main configuration
------------------
cindex:[configuration file,main section]
cindex:[main configuration]
The first part of the run time configuration file contains three types of item:

- Macro definitions: These lines start with an upper case letter. See section
<<SECTmacrodefs>> for details of macro processing.

- Named list definitions: These lines start with one of the words ``domainlist'',
``hostlist'', ``addresslist'', or ``localpartlist''. Their use is described in
section <<SECTnamedlists>>.

- Main configuration settings: Each setting occupies one line of the file
(with possible continuations). If any setting is preceded by the word
``hide'', the %-bP% command line option displays its value to admin users only.
See section <<SECTcos>> for a description of the syntax of these option settings.

This chapter specifies all the main configuration options, along with their
types and default values. For ease of finding a particular option, they appear
in alphabetical order in section <<SECTalomo>> below. However, because there are
now so many options, they are first listed briefly in functional groups, as an
aid to finding the name of the option you are looking for. Some options are
listed in more than one group.

Miscellaneous
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%bi_command%                        to run for %-bi% command line option
%keep_malformed%                    for broken files -- should not happen
%localhost_number%                  for unique message ids in clusters
%message_body_visible%              how much to show in $message_body$
%mua_wrapper%                       run in ``MUA wrapper'' mode
%print_topbitchars%                 top-bit characters are printing
%timezone%                          force time zone
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Exim parameters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%exim_group%                        override compiled-in value
%exim_path%                         override compiled-in value
%exim_user%                         override compiled-in value
%primary_hostname%                  default from 'uname()'
%split_spool_directory%             use multiple directories
%spool_directory%                   override compiled-in value
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Privilege controls
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%admin_groups%                      groups that are Exim admin users
%deliver_drop_privilege%            drop root for delivery processes
%local_from_check%                  insert 'Sender:' if necessary
%local_from_prefix%                 for testing 'From:' for local sender
%local_from_suffix%                 for testing 'From:' for local sender
%local_sender_retain%               keep 'Sender:' from untrusted user
%never_users%                       do not run deliveries as these
%prod_requires_admin%               forced delivery requires admin user
%queue_list_requires_admin%         queue listing requires admin user
%trusted_groups%                    groups that are trusted
%trusted_users%                     users that are trusted
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Logging
~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%hosts_connection_nolog%            exemption from connect logging
%log_file_path%                     override compiled-in value
%log_selector%                      set/unset optional logging
%log_timezone%                      add timezone to log lines
%message_logs%                      create per-message logs
%preserve_message_logs%             after message completion
%process_log_path%                  for SIGUSR1 and 'exiwhat'
%syslog_duplication%                controls duplicate log lines on syslog
%syslog_facility%                   set syslog ``facility'' field
%syslog_processname%                set syslog ``ident'' field
%syslog_timestamp%                  timestamp syslog lines
%write_rejectlog%                   control use of message log
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Frozen messages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%auto_thaw%                         sets time for retrying frozen messages
%freeze_tell%                       send message when freezing
%move_frozen_messages%              to another directory
%timeout_frozen_after%              keep frozen messages only so long
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Data lookups
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%ldap_default_servers%              used if no server in query
%ldap_version%                      set protocol version
%lookup_open_max%                   lookup files held open
%mysql_servers%                     as it says
%oracle_servers%                    as it says
%pgsql_servers%                     as it says
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Message ids
~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%message_id_header_domain%          used to build 'Message-ID:' header
%message_id_header_text%            ditto
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Embedded Perl Startup
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%perl_at_start%                     always start the interpreter
%perl_startup%                      code to obey when starting Perl
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Daemon
~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%daemon_smtp_ports%                 default ports
%extra_local_interfaces%            not necessarily listened on
%local_interfaces%                  on which to listen, with optional ports
%pid_file_path%                     override compiled-in value
%queue_run_max%                     maximum simultaneous queue runners
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Resource control
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%check_log_inodes%                  before accepting a message
%check_log_space%                   before accepting a message
%check_spool_inodes%                before accepting a message
%check_spool_space%                 before accepting a message
%deliver_queue_load_max%            no queue deliveries if load high
%queue_only_load%                   queue incoming if load high
%queue_run_max%                     maximum simultaneous queue runners
%remote_max_parallel%               parallel SMTP delivery per message
%smtp_accept_max%                   simultaneous incoming connections
%smtp_accept_max_nommail%           non-mail commands
%smtp_accept_max_nonmail_hosts%     hosts to which the limit applies
%smtp_accept_max_per_connection%    messages per connection
%smtp_accept_max_per_host%          connections from one host
%smtp_accept_queue%                 queue mail if more connections
%smtp_accept_queue_per_connection%  queue if more messages per connection
%smtp_accept_reserve%               only reserve hosts if more connections
%smtp_check_spool_space%            from SIZE on MAIL command
%smtp_connect_backlog%              passed to TCP/IP stack
%smtp_load_reserve%                 SMTP from reserved hosts if load high
%smtp_reserve_hosts%                these are the reserve hosts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Policy controls
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%acl_not_smtp%                      set ACL for non-SMTP messages
%acl_smtp_auth%                     set ACL for AUTH
%acl_smtp_connect%                  set ACL for connection
%acl_smtp_data%                     set ACL for DATA
%acl_smtp_etrn%                     set ACL for ETRN
%acl_smtp_expn%                     set ACL for EXPN
%acl_smtp_helo%                     set ACL for EHLO or HELO
%acl_smtp_mail%                     set ACL for MAIL
%acl_smtp_mailauth%                 set ACL for AUTH on MAIL command
%acl_smtp_mime%                     set ACL for MIME parts
%acl_smtp_predata%                  set ACL for start of data
%acl_smtp_quit%                     set ACL for QUIT
%acl_smtp_rcpt%                     set ACL for RCPT
%acl_smtp_starttls%                 set ACL for STARTTLS
%acl_smtp_vrfy%                     set ACL for VRFY
%av_scanner%                        specify virus scanner
%header_maxsize%                    total size of message header
%header_line_maxsize%               individual header line limit
%helo_accept_junk_hosts%            allow syntactic junk from these hosts
%helo_allow_chars%                  allow illegal chars in HELO names
%helo_lookup_domains%               lookup hostname for these HELO names
%helo_try_verify_hosts%             HELO soft-checked for these hosts
%helo_verify_hosts%                 HELO hard-checked for these hosts
%host_lookup%                       host name looked up for these hosts
%host_lookup_order%                 order of DNS and local name lookups
%host_reject_connection%            reject connection from these hosts
%hosts_treat_as_local%              useful in some cluster configurations
%local_scan_timeout%                timeout for 'local_scan()'
%message_size_limit%                for all messages
%percent_hack_domains%              recognize %-hack for these domains
%spamd_address%                     set interface to SpamAssassin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Callout cache
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%callout_domain_negative_expire%    timeout for negative domain cache item
%callout_domain_positive_expire%    timeout for positive domain cache item
%callout_negative_expire%           timeout for negative address cache item
%callout_positive_expire%           timeout for positive address cache item
%callout_random_local_part%         string to use for ``random'' testing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



TLS
~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%tls_advertise_hosts%               advertise TLS to these hosts
%tls_certificate%                   location of server certificate
%tls_crl%                           certificate revocation list
%tls_dhparam%                       DH parameters for server
%tls_on_connect_ports%              specify SSMTP (SMTPS) ports
%tls_privatekey%                    location of server private key
%tls_remember_esmtp%                don't reset after starting TLS
%tls_require_ciphers%               specify acceptable cipers
%tls_try_verify_hosts%              try to verify client certificate
%tls_verify_certificates%           expected client certificates
%tls_verify_hosts%                  insist on client certificate verify
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Local user handling
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%finduser_retries%                  useful in NIS environments
%gecos_name%                        used when creating 'Sender:'
%gecos_pattern%                     ditto
%max_username_length%               for systems that truncate
%unknown_login%                     used when no login name found
%unknown_username%                  ditto
%uucp_from_pattern%                 for recognizing ``From '' lines
%uucp_from_sender%                  ditto
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



All incoming messages (SMTP and non-SMTP)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%header_maxsize%                    total size of message header
%header_line_maxsize%               individual header line limit
%message_size_limit%                applies to all messages
%percent_hack_domains%              recognize %-hack for these domains
%received_header_text%              expanded to make 'Received:'
%received_headers_max%              for mail loop detection
%recipients_max%                    limit per message
%recipients_max_reject%             permanently reject excess
--------------------------------------------------------------------------




Non-SMTP incoming messages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%receive_timeout%                   for non-SMTP messages
--------------------------------------------------------------------------





Incoming SMTP messages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
See also the 'Policy controls' section above.

[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%host_lookup%                       host name looked up for these hosts
%host_lookup_order%                 order of DNS and local name lookups
%recipient_unqualified_hosts%       may send unqualified recipients
%rfc1413_hosts%                     make ident calls to these hosts
%rfc1413_query_timeout%             zero disables ident calls
%sender_unqualified_hosts%          may send unqualified senders
%smtp_accept_keepalive%             some TCP/IP magic
%smtp_accept_max%                   simultaneous incoming connections
%smtp_accept_max_nommail%           non-mail commands
%smtp_accept_max_nonmail_hosts%     hosts to which the limit applies
%smtp_accept_max_per_connection%    messages per connection
%smtp_accept_max_per_host%          connections from one host
%smtp_accept_queue%                 queue mail if more connections
%smtp_accept_queue_per_connection%  queue if more messages per connection
%smtp_accept_reserve%               only reserve hosts if more connections
%smtp_active_hostname%              host name to use in messages
%smtp_banner%                       text for welcome banner
%smtp_check_spool_space%            from SIZE on MAIL command
%smtp_connect_backlog%              passed to TCP/IP stack
%smtp_enforce_sync%                 of SMTP command/responses
%smtp_etrn_command%                 what to run for ETRN
%smtp_etrn_serialize%               only one at once
%smtp_load_reserve%                 only reserve hosts if this load
%smtp_max_unknown_commands%         before dropping connection
%smtp_ratelimit_hosts%              apply ratelimiting to these hosts
%smtp_ratelimit_mail%               ratelimit for MAIL commands
%smtp_ratelimit_rcpt%               ratelimit for RCPT commands
%smtp_receive_timeout%              per command or data line
%smtp_reserve_hosts%                these are the reserve hosts
%smtp_return_error_details%         give detail on rejections
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



SMTP extensions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%accept_8bitmime%                   advertise 8BITMIME
%auth_advertise_hosts%              advertise AUTH to these hosts
%ignore_fromline_hosts%             allow ``From '' from these hosts
%ignore_fromline_local%             allow ``From '' from local SMTP
%pipelining_advertise_hosts%        advertise pipelining to these hosts
%tls_advertise_hosts%               advertise TLS to these hosts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Processing messages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%allow_domain_literals%             recognize domain literal syntax
%allow_mx_to_ip%                    allow MX to point to IP address
%allow_utf8_domains%                in addresses
%delivery_date_remove%              from incoming messages
%envelope_to_remote%                from incoming messages
%extract_addresses_remove_arguments%affects %-t% processing
%headers_charset%                   default for translations
%qualify_domain%                    default for senders
%qualify_recipient%                 default for recipients
%return_path_remove%                from incoming messages
%strip_excess_angle_brackets%       in addresses
%strip_trailing_dot%                at end of addresses
%untrusted_set_sender%              untrusted can set envelope sender
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



System filter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%system_filter%                     locate system filter
%system_filter_directory_transport% transport for delivery to a directory
%system_filter_file_transport%      transport for delivery to a file
%system_filter_group%               group for filter running
%system_filter_pipe_transport%      transport for delivery to a pipe
%system_filter_reply_transport%     transport for autoreply delivery
%system_filter_user%                user for filter running
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Routing and delivery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%dns_again_means_nonexist%          for broken domains
%dns_check_names_pattern%           pre-DNS syntax check
%dns_ipv4_lookup%                   only v4 lookup for these domains
%dns_retrans%                       parameter for resolver
%dns_retry%                         parameter for resolver
%hold_domains%                      hold delivery for these domains
%local_interfaces%                  for routing checks
%queue_domains%                     no immediate delivery for these
%queue_only%                        no immediate delivery at all
%queue_only_file%                   no immediate deliveryif file exists
%queue_only_load%                   no immediate delivery if load is high
%queue_only_override%               allow command line to override
%queue_run_in_order%                order of arrival
%queue_run_max%                     of simultaneous queue runners
%queue_smtp_domains%                no immediate SMTP delivery for these
%remote_max_parallel%               parallel SMTP delivery per message
%remote_sort_domains%               order of remote deliveries
%retry_data_expire%                 timeout for retry data
%retry_interval_max%                safety net for retry rules
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



Bounce and warning messages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[frame="none"]
`-----------------------------------`-------------------------------------
%bounce_message_file%               content of bounce
%bounce_message_text%               content of bounce
%bounce_return_body%                include body if returning message
%bounce_return_message%             include original message in bounce
%bounce_return_size_limit%          limit on returned message
%bounce_sender_authentication%      send authenticated sender with bounce
%errors_copy%                       copy bounce messages
%errors_reply_to%                   'Reply-to:' in bounces
%delay_warning%                     time schedule
%delay_warning_condition%           condition for warning messages
%ignore_bounce_errors_after%        discard undeliverable bounces
%warn_message_file%                 content of warning message
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



[[SECTalomo]]
Alphabetical list of main options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Those options that undergo string expansion before use are marked with !!.

oindex:[%accept_8bitmime%]
`..'=
%accept_8bitmime%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[8BITMIME]
cindex:[8-bit characters]
This option causes Exim to send 8BITMIME in its response to an SMTP
EHLO command, and to accept the BODY= parameter on MAIL commands.
However, though Exim is 8-bit clean, it is not a protocol converter, and it
takes no steps to do anything special with messages received by this route.
Consequently, this option is turned off by default.

oindex:[%acl_not_smtp%]
`..'=
%acl_not_smtp%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[{ACL},for non-SMTP messages]
cindex:[non-SMTP messages, ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when a non-SMTP message is on the point
of being accepted. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_auth%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_auth%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[{ACL},setting up for SMTP commands]
cindex:[AUTH,ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP AUTH command is
received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_connect%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_connect%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[{ACL},on SMTP connection]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP connection is received.
See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_data%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_data%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[DATA, ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run after an SMTP DATA command has been
processed and the message itself has been received, but before the final
acknowledgement is sent. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_etrn%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_etrn%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[ETRN,ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP ETRN command is
received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_expn%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_expn%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[EXPN,ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP EXPN command is
received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_helo%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_helo%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[EHLO,ACL for]
cindex:[HELO,ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP EHLO or HELO
command is received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.


oindex:[%acl_smtp_mail%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_mail%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[MAIL,ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP MAIL command is
received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_mailauth%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_mailauth%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[AUTH,on MAIL command]
This option defines the ACL that is run when there is an AUTH parameter on
a MAIL command. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for details of ACLs, and chapter
<<CHAPSMTPAUTH>> for details of authentication.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_mime%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_mime%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[MIME content scanning,ACL for]
This option is available when Exim is built with the content-scanning
extension. It defines the ACL that is run for each MIME part in a message. See
section <<SECTscanmimepart>> for details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_predata%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_predata%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP DATA command is
received, before the message itself is received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for
further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_quit%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_quit%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[QUIT,ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP QUIT command is
received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_rcpt%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_rcpt%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[RCPT,ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP RCPT command is
received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_starttls%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_starttls%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[STARTTLS, ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP STARTTLS command is
received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%acl_smtp_vrfy%]
`..'=
%acl_smtp_vrfy%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[VRFY,ACL for]
This option defines the ACL that is run when an SMTP VRFY command is
received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for further details.

oindex:[%admin_groups%]
`..'=
%admin_groups%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[admin user]
If the current group or any of the supplementary groups of the caller is in
this colon-separated list, the caller has admin privileges. If all your system
programmers are in a specific group, for example, you can give them all Exim
admin privileges by putting that group in %admin_groups%. However, this does
not permit them to read Exim's spool files (whose group owner is the Exim gid).
To permit this, you have to add individuals to the Exim group.


oindex:[%allow_domain_literals%]
`..'=
%allow_domain_literals%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[domain literal]
If this option is set, the RFC 2822 domain literal format is permitted in
email addresses. The option is not set by default, because the domain literal
format is not normally required these days, and few people know about it. It
has, however, been exploited by mail abusers.

Unfortunately, it seems that some DNS black list maintainers are using this
format to report black listing to postmasters. If you want to accept messages
addressed to your hosts by IP address, you need to set
%allow_domain_literals% true, and also to add `@[]` to the list of local
domains (defined in the named domain list %local_domains% in the default
configuration). This ``magic string'' matches the domain literal form of all the
local host's IP addresses.


oindex:[%allow_mx_to_ip%]
`..'=
%allow_mx_to_ip%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[MX record,pointing to IP address]
It appears that more and more DNS zone administrators are breaking the rules
and putting domain names that look like IP addresses on the right hand side of
MX records. Exim follows the rules and rejects this, giving an error message
that explains the mis-configuration. However, some other MTAs support this
practice, so to avoid ``Why can''t Exim do this?' complaints, %allow_mx_to_ip%
exists, in order to enable this heinous activity. It is not recommended, except
when you have no other choice.

oindex:[%allow_utf8_domains%]
`..'=
%allow_utf8_domains%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[domain,UTF-8 characters in]
cindex:[UTF-8,in domain name]
Lots of discussion is going on about internationalized domain names. One
camp is strongly in favour of just using UTF-8 characters, and it seems
that at least two other MTAs permit this. This option allows Exim users to
experiment if they wish.

If it is set true, Exim's domain parsing function allows valid
UTF-8 multicharacters to appear in domain name components, in addition to
letters, digits, and hyphens. However, just setting this option is not
enough; if you want to look up these domain names in the DNS, you must also
adjust the value of %dns_check_names_pattern% to match the extended form. A
suitable setting is:

....
dns_check_names_pattern = (?i)^(?>(?(1)\.|())[a-z0-9\xc0-\xff]\
  (?>[-a-z0-9\x80-\xff]*[a-z0-9\x80-\xbf])?)+$
....

Alternatively, you can just disable this feature by setting

  dns_check_names_pattern =

That is, set the option to an empty string so that no check is done.


oindex:[%auth_advertise_hosts%]
`..'=
%auth_advertise_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: '\*'
===

cindex:[authentication,advertising]
cindex:[AUTH,advertising]
If any server authentication mechanisms are configured, Exim advertises them in
response to an EHLO command only if the calling host matches this list.
Otherwise, Exim does not advertise AUTH.
Exim does not accept AUTH commands from clients to which it has not
advertised the availability of AUTH. The advertising of individual
authentication mechanisms can be controlled by the use of the
%server_advertise_condition% generic authenticator option on the individual
authenticators. See chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>> for further details.

Certain mail clients (for example, Netscape) require the user to provide a name
and password for authentication if AUTH is advertised, even though it may
not be needed (the host may accept messages from hosts on its local LAN without
authentication, for example). The %auth_advertise_hosts% option can be used
to make these clients more friendly by excluding them from the set of hosts to
which Exim advertises AUTH.

cindex:[AUTH,advertising when encrypted]
If you want to advertise the availability of AUTH only when the connection
is encrypted using TLS, you can make use of the fact that the value of this
option is expanded, with a setting like this:

  auth_advertise_hosts = ${if eq{$tls_cipher}{}{}{*}}

If $tls_cipher$ is empty, the session is not encrypted, and the result of
the expansion is empty, thus matching no hosts. Otherwise, the result of the
expansion is \*, which matches all hosts.


oindex:[%auto_thaw%]
`..'=
%auto_thaw%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '0s'
===

cindex:[thawing messages]
cindex:[unfreezing messages]
If this option is set to a time greater than zero, a queue runner will try a
new delivery attempt on any frozen message if this much time has passed since
it was frozen. This may result in the message being re-frozen if nothing has
changed since the last attempt. It is a way of saying ``keep on trying, even
though there are big problems''. See also %timeout_frozen_after% and
%ignore_bounce_errors_after%.


oindex:[%av_scanner%]
`..'=
%av_scanner%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'see below'
===

This option is available if Exim is built with the content-scanning extension.
It specifies which anti-virus scanner to use. The default value is:

  sophie:/var/run/sophie

If the value of %av_scanner% starts with dollar character, it is expanded
before use. See section <<SECTscanvirus>> for further details.



oindex:[%bi_command%]
`..'=
%bi_command%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[%-bi% option]
This option supplies the name of a command that is run when Exim is called with
the %-bi% option (see chapter <<CHAPcommandline>>). The string value is just the
command name, it is not a complete command line. If an argument is required, it
must come from the %-oA% command line option.


oindex:[%bounce_message_file%]
`..'=
%bounce_message_file%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[bounce message,customizing]
cindex:[customizing,bounce message]
This option defines a template file containing paragraphs of text to be used
for constructing bounce messages.  Details of the file's contents are given in
chapter <<CHAPemsgcust>>. See also %warn_message_file%.


oindex:[%bounce_message_text%]
`..'=
%bounce_message_text%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

When this option is set, its contents are included in the default bounce
message immediately after ``This message was created automatically by mail
delivery software.'' It is not used if %bounce_message_file% is set.

oindex:[%bounce_return_body%]
`..'=
%bounce_return_body%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[bounce message,including body]
This option controls whether the body of an incoming message is included in a
bounce message when %bounce_return_message% is true. If it is not set, only
the message header is included.
cindex:[bounce message,including original]

oindex:[%bounce_return_message%]
`..'=
%bounce_return_message%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

If this option is set false, the original message is not included in bounce
messages generated by Exim. See also %bounce_return_size_limit%.


oindex:[%bounce_return_size_limit%]
`..'=
%bounce_return_size_limit%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '100K'
===

cindex:[size limit, of bounce]
cindex:[bounce message,size limit]
cindex:[limit,bounce message size]
This option sets a limit in bytes on the size of messages that are returned to
senders as part of bounce messages when %bounce_return_message% is true. The
limit should be less than the value of the global %message_size_limit% and of
any %message_size_limit% settings on transports, to allow for the bounce text
that Exim generates. If this option is set to zero there is no limit.

When the body of any message that is to be included in a bounce message is
greater than the limit, it is truncated, and a comment pointing this out is
added at the top. The actual cutoff may be greater than the value given, owing
to the use of buffering for transferring the message in chunks (typically 8K in
size). The idea is to save bandwidth on those undeliverable 15-megabyte
messages.

oindex:[%bounce_sender_authentication%]
`..'=
%bounce_sender_authentication%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[bounce message,sender authentication]
cindex:[authentication,bounce message]
cindex:[AUTH,on bounce message]
This option provides an authenticated sender address that is sent with any
bounce messages generated by Exim that are sent over an authenticated SMTP
connection. A typical setting might be:

  bounce_sender_authentication = mailer-daemon@my.domain.example

which would cause bounce messages to be sent using the SMTP command:

  MAIL FROM:<> AUTH=mailer-daemon@my.domain.example

The value of %bounce_sender_authentication% must always be a complete email
address.

oindex:[%callout_domain_negative_expire%]
`..'=
%callout_domain_negative_expire%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '3h'
===

cindex:[caching,callout timeouts]
cindex:[callout,caching timeouts]
This option specifies the expiry time for negative callout cache data for a
domain. See section <<SECTcallver>> for details of callout verification, and
section <<SECTcallvercache>> for details of the caching.


oindex:[%callout_domain_positive_expire%]
`..'=
%callout_domain_positive_expire%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '7d'
===

This option specifies the expiry time for positive callout cache data for a
domain. See section <<SECTcallver>> for details of callout verification, and
section <<SECTcallvercache>> for details of the caching.


oindex:[%callout_negative_expire%]
`..'=
%callout_negative_expire%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '2h'
===

This option specifies the expiry time for negative callout cache data for an
address. See section <<SECTcallver>> for details of callout verification, and
section <<SECTcallvercache>> for details of the caching.


oindex:[%callout_positive_expire%]
`..'=
%callout_positive_expire%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '24h'
===

This option specifies the expiry time for positive callout cache data for an
address. See section <<SECTcallver>> for details of callout verification, and
section <<SECTcallvercache>> for details of the caching.


oindex:[%callout_random_local_part%]
`..'=
%callout_random_local_part%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

This option defines the ``random'' local part that can be used as part of callout
verification. The default value is

  $primary_host_name-$tod_epoch-testing

See section <<CALLaddparcall>> for details of how this value is used.


oindex:[%check_log_inodes%]
`..'=
%check_log_inodes%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

See %check_spool_space% below.


oindex:[%check_log_space%]
`..'=
%check_log_space%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

See %check_spool_space% below.


oindex:[%check_spool_inodes%]
`..'=
%check_spool_inodes%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

See %check_spool_space% below.


oindex:[%check_spool_space%]
`..'=
%check_spool_space%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

cindex:[checking disk space]
cindex:[disk space, checking]
cindex:[spool directory,checking space]
The four %check_...% options allow for checking of disk resources before a
message is accepted.

When any of these options are set, they apply to all incoming messages. If you
want to apply different checks to different kinds of message, you can do so
by testing the the variables $log_inodes$, $log_space$,
$spool_inodes$, and $spool_space$ in an ACL with appropriate additional
conditions.


%check_spool_space% and %check_spool_inodes% check the spool partition if
either value is greater than zero, for example:

  check_spool_space = 10M
  check_spool_inodes = 100

The spool partition is the one that contains the directory defined by
SPOOL_DIRECTORY in _Local/Makefile_. It is used for holding messages in
transit.

%check_log_space% and %check_log_inodes%  check the partition in which log
files are written if either is greater than zero. These should be set only if
%log_file_path% and %spool_directory% refer to different partitions.

If there is less space or fewer inodes than requested, Exim refuses to accept
incoming mail. In the case of SMTP input this is done by giving a 452 temporary
error response to the MAIL command. If ESMTP is in use and there was a
SIZE parameter on the MAIL command, its value is added to the
%check_spool_space% value, and the check is performed even if
%check_spool_space% is zero, unless %no_smtp_check_spool_space% is set.

The values for %check_spool_space% and %check_log_space% are held as a
number of kilobytes. If a non-multiple of 1024 is specified, it is rounded up.

For non-SMTP input and for batched SMTP input, the test is done at start-up; on
failure a message is written to stderr and Exim exits with a non-zero code, as
it obviously cannot send an error message of any kind.

oindex:[%daemon_smtp_ports%]
`..'=
%daemon_smtp_ports%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: `smtp`
===

cindex:[port,for daemon]
cindex:[TCP/IP,setting listening ports]
This option specifies one or more default SMTP ports on which the Exim daemon
listens. See chapter <<CHAPinterfaces>> for details of how it is used. For
backward compatibility, %daemon_smtp_port% (singular) is a synonym.


oindex:[%delay_warning%]
`..'=
%delay_warning%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time list', Default: '24h'
===

cindex:[warning of delay]
cindex:[delay warning, specifying]
When a message is delayed, Exim sends a warning message to the sender at
intervals specified by this option. The data is a colon-separated list of times
after which to send warning messages.

If the value of the option is an empty string or a zero time, no warnings are
sent.

Up to 10 times may be given. If a message has been on the queue for longer than
the last time, the last interval between the times is used to compute
subsequent warning times. For example, with

  delay_warning = 4h:8h:24h

the first message is sent after 4 hours, the second after 8 hours, and
the third one after 24 hours. After that, messages are sent every 16 hours,
because that is the interval between the last two times on the list. If you set
just one time, it specifies the repeat interval. For example, with:

  delay_warning = 6h

messages are repeated every six hours. To stop warnings after a given time, set
a very large time at the end of the list. For example:

  delay_warning = 2h:12h:99d



oindex:[%delay_warning_condition%]
`..'=
%delay_warning_condition%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

The string is expanded at the time a warning message might be sent. If all the
deferred addresses have the same domain, it is set in $domain$ during the
expansion. Otherwise $domain$ is empty. If the result of the expansion is a
forced failure, an empty string, or a string matching any of ``0'', ``no'' or
``false'' (the comparison being done caselessly) then the warning message is not
sent. The default is

....
delay_warning_condition = \
  ${if match{$h_precedence:}{(?i)bulk|list|junk}{no}{yes}}
....

which suppresses the sending of warnings about messages that have ``bulk'',
``list'' or ``junk'' in a 'Precedence:' header.

oindex:[%deliver_drop_privilege%]
`..'=
%deliver_drop_privilege%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[unprivileged delivery]
cindex:[delivery,unprivileged]
If this option is set true, Exim drops its root privilege at the start of a
delivery process, and runs as the Exim user throughout. This severely restricts
the kinds of local delivery that are possible, but is viable in certain types
of configuration. There is a discussion about the use of root privilege in
chapter <<CHAPsecurity>>.

oindex:[%deliver_queue_load_max%]
`..'=
%deliver_queue_load_max%, Use: 'main', Type: 'fixed-point', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[load average]
cindex:[queue runner,abandoning]
When this option is set, a queue run is abandoned if the system load average
becomes greater than the value of the option. The option has no effect on
ancient operating systems on which Exim cannot determine the load average.
See also %queue_only_load% and %smtp_load_reserve%.


oindex:[%delivery_date_remove%]
`..'=
%delivery_date_remove%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:['Delivery-date:' header line]
Exim's transports have an option for adding a 'Delivery-date:' header to a
message when it is delivered -- in exactly the same way as 'Return-path:' is
handled. 'Delivery-date:' records the actual time of delivery. Such headers
should not be present in incoming messages, and this option causes them to be
removed at the time the message is received, to avoid any problems that might
occur when a delivered message is subsequently sent on to some other recipient.

oindex:[%dns_again_means_nonexist%]
`..'=
%dns_again_means_nonexist%, Use: 'main', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[DNS,``try again'' response; overriding]
DNS lookups give a ``try again'' response for the DNS errors ``non-authoritative
host not found'' and ``SERVERFAIL''. This can cause Exim to keep trying to
deliver a message, or to give repeated temporary errors to incoming mail.
Sometimes the effect is caused by a badly set up name server and may persist
for a long time. If a domain which exhibits this problem matches anything in
%dns_again_means_nonexist%, it is treated as if it did not exist. This
option should be used with care.
You can make it apply to reverse lookups by a setting such as this:

  dns_again_means_nonexist = *.in-addr.arpa

This option applies to all DNS lookups that Exim does. The ^dnslookup^ router
has some options of its own for controlling what happens when lookups for MX or
SRV records give temporary errors. These more specific options are applied
after the global option.

oindex:[%dns_check_names_pattern%]
`..'=
%dns_check_names_pattern%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[DNS,pre-check of name syntax]
When this option is set to a non-empty string, it causes Exim to check domain
names for illegal characters before handing them to the DNS resolver, because
some resolvers give temporary errors for malformed names. If a domain name
contains any illegal characters, a ``not found'' result is forced, and the
resolver is not called. The check is done by matching the domain name against a
regular expression, which is the value of this option. The default pattern is

....
dns_check_names_pattern = \
  (?i)^(?>(?(1)\.|())[^\W_](?>[a-z0-9-]*[^\W_])?)+$
....

which permits only letters, digits, and hyphens in components, but they may not
start or end with a hyphen.
If you set %allow_utf8_domains%, you must modify this pattern, or set the
option to an empty string.


oindex:[%dns_ipv4_lookup%]
`..'=
%dns_ipv4_lookup%, Use: 'main', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[IPv6,DNS lookup for AAAA records]
cindex:[DNS,IPv6 lookup for AAAA records]
When Exim is compiled with IPv6 support, it looks for IPv6 address records
(AAAA and, if configured, A6) as well as IPv4 address records when trying to
find IP addresses for hosts, unless the host's domain matches this list.

This is a fudge to help with name servers that give big delays or otherwise do
not work for the new IPv6 record types. If Exim is handed an IPv6 address
record as a result of an MX lookup, it always recognizes it, and may as a
result make an outgoing IPv6 connection. All this option does is to make Exim
look only for IPv4-style A records when it needs to find an IP address for a
host name. In due course, when the world's name servers have all been upgraded,
there should be no need for this option.


oindex:[%dns_retrans%]
`..'=
%dns_retrans%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '0s'
===

cindex:[DNS,resolver options]
The options %dns_retrans% and %dns_retry% can be used to set the
retransmission and retry parameters for DNS lookups. Values of zero (the
defaults) leave the system default settings unchanged. The first value is the
time between retries, and the second is the number of retries. It isn't
totally clear exactly how these settings affect the total time a DNS lookup may
take. I haven't found any documentation about timeouts on DNS lookups; these
parameter values are available in the external resolver interface structure,
but nowhere does it seem to describe how they are used or what you might want
to set in them.


oindex:[%dns_retry%]
`..'=
%dns_retry%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

See %dns_retrans% above.


oindex:[%drop_cr%]
`..'=
%drop_cr%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

This is an obsolete option that is now a no-op. It used to affect the way Exim
handled CR and LF characters in incoming messages. What happens now is
described in section <<SECTlineendings>>.


oindex:[%envelope_to_remove%]
`..'=
%envelope_to_remove%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:['Envelope-to:' header line]
Exim's transports have an option for adding an 'Envelope-to:' header to a
message when it is delivered -- in exactly the same way as 'Return-path:' is
handled. 'Envelope-to:' records the original recipient address from the
messages's envelope that caused the delivery to happen. Such headers should not
be present in incoming messages, and this option causes them to be removed at
the time the message is received, to avoid any problems that might occur when a
delivered message is subsequently sent on to some other recipient.


oindex:[%errors_copy%]
`..'=
%errors_copy%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[bounce message,copy to other address]
cindex:[copy of bounce message]
Setting this option causes Exim to send bcc copies of bounce messages that it
generates to other addresses. *Note*: this does not apply to bounce messages
coming from elsewhere. The value of the option is a colon-separated list of
items. Each item consists of a pattern, terminated by white space, followed by
a comma-separated list of email addresses. If a pattern contains spaces, it
must be enclosed in double quotes.

Each pattern is processed in the same way as a single item in an address list
(see section <<SECTaddresslist>>). When a pattern matches the recipient of the
bounce message, the message is copied to the addresses on the list. The items
are scanned in order, and once a matching one is found, no further items are
examined. For example:

....
errors_copy = spqr@mydomain   postmaster@mydomain.example :\
              rqps@mydomain   hostmaster@mydomain.example,\
                              postmaster@mydomain.example
....

The address list is expanded before use. The expansion variables
$local_part$ and $domain$ are set from the original recipient of the error
message, and if there was any wildcard matching in the pattern, the expansion

cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc),in %errors_copy%]
variables $0$, $1$, etc. are set in the normal way.


oindex:[%errors_reply_to%]
`..'=
%errors_reply_to%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[bounce message,'Reply-to:' in]
Exim's bounce and delivery warning messages contain the header line

  From: Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@<qualify-domain>>

where <'qualify-domain'> is the value of the %qualify_domain% option.
Experience shows that people reply to bounce messages. If the
%errors_reply_to% option is set, a 'Reply-To:' header is added to bounce and
warning messages. For example:

  errors_reply_to = postmaster@my.domain.example

The value of the option is not expanded. It must specify a valid RFC 2822
address.


oindex:[%exim_group%]
`..'=
%exim_group%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'compile-time configured'
===

cindex:[gid (group id),Exim's own]
cindex:[Exim group]
This option changes the gid under which Exim runs when it gives up root
privilege. The default value is compiled into the binary. The value of this
option is used only when %exim_user% is also set. Unless it consists entirely
of digits, the string is looked up using 'getgrnam()', and failure causes a
configuration error. See chapter <<CHAPsecurity>> for a discussion of security
issues.


oindex:[%exim_path%]
`..'=
%exim_path%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[Exim binary, path name]
This option specifies the path name of the Exim binary, which is used when Exim
needs to re-exec itself. The default is set up to point to the file 'exim' in
the directory configured at compile time by the BIN_DIRECTORY setting. It
is necessary to change %exim_path% if, exceptionally, Exim is run from some
other place.
*Warning*: Do not use a macro to define the value of this option, because
you will break those Exim utilities that scan the configuration file to find
where the binary is. (They then use the %-bP% option to extract option
settings such as the value of %spool_directory%.)


oindex:[%exim_user%]
`..'=
%exim_user%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'compile-time configured'
===

cindex:[uid (user id),Exim's own]
cindex:[Exim user]
This option changes the uid under which Exim runs when it gives up root
privilege. The default value is compiled into the binary. Ownership of the run
time configuration file and the use of the %-C% and %-D% command line options
is checked against the values in the binary, not what is set here.

Unless it consists entirely of digits, the string is looked up using
'getpwnam()', and failure causes a configuration error. If %exim_group% is
not also supplied, the gid is taken from the result of 'getpwnam()' if it is
used. See chapter <<CHAPsecurity>> for a discussion of security issues.


oindex:[%extra_local_interfaces%]
`..'=
%extra_local_interfaces%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

This option defines network interfaces that are to be considered local when
routing, but which are not used for listening by the daemon. See section
<<SECTreclocipadd>> for details.


oindex:[%extract_addresses_remove_arguments%]
`..'=
%extract_addresses_remove_ ~arguments%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[%-t% option]
cindex:[command line,addresses with %-t%]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,%-t% option]
According to some Sendmail documentation (Sun, IRIX, HP-UX), if any addresses
are present on the command line when the %-t% option is used to build an
envelope from a message's 'To:', 'Cc:' and 'Bcc:' headers, the command line
addresses are removed from the recipients list. This is also how Smail behaves.
However, other Sendmail documentation (the O'Reilly book) states that command
line addresses are added to those obtained from the header lines. When
%extract_addresses_remove_arguments% is true (the default), Exim subtracts
argument headers. If it is set false, Exim adds rather than removes argument
addresses.


oindex:[%finduser_retries%]
`..'=
%finduser_retries%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

cindex:[NIS, looking up users; retrying]
On systems running NIS or other schemes in which user and group information is
distributed from a remote system, there can be times when 'getpwnam()' and
related functions fail, even when given valid data, because things time out.
Unfortunately these failures cannot be distinguished from genuine ``not found''
errors. If %finduser_retries% is set greater than zero, Exim will try that
many extra times to find a user or a group, waiting for one second between
retries.

cindex:[_/etc/passwd_, multiple reading of]
You should not set this option greater than zero if your user information is in
a traditional _/etc/passwd_ file, because it will cause Exim needlessly to
search the file multiple times for non-existent users, and also cause delay.



oindex:[%freeze_tell%]
`..'=
%freeze_tell%, Use: 'main', "Type: 'string list, comma separated'", Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[freezing messages,sending a message when freezing]
On encountering certain errors, or when configured to do so in a system filter,
or in an ACL,
Exim freezes a message. This means that no further delivery attempts take place
until an administrator (or the %auto_thaw% feature) thaws the message. If
%freeze_tell% is set, Exim generates a warning message whenever it freezes
something, unless the message it is freezing is a
locally-generated
bounce message. (Without this exception there is the possibility of looping.)
The warning message is sent to the addresses supplied as the comma-separated
value of this option. If several of the message's addresses cause freezing,
only a single message is sent.
If the freezing was automatic, the reason(s) for freezing can be found in the
message log. If you configure freezing in a filter or ACL, you must arrange for
any logging that you require.


oindex:[%gecos_name%]
`..'=
%gecos_name%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[HP-UX]
cindex:[``gecos'' field, parsing]
Some operating systems, notably HP-UX, use the ``gecos'' field in the system
password file to hold other information in addition to users' real names. Exim
looks up this field for use when it is creating 'Sender:' or 'From:' headers.
If either %gecos_pattern% or %gecos_name% are unset, the contents of the
field are used unchanged, except that, if an ampersand is encountered, it is
replaced by the user's login name with the first character forced to
upper case, since this is a convention that is observed on many systems.

When these options are set, %gecos_pattern% is treated as a regular expression
that is to be applied to the field (again with & replaced by the login name),
and if it matches, %gecos_name% is expanded and used as the user's name.

cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc),in %gecos_name%]
Numeric variables such as $1$, $2$, etc. can be used in the expansion to
pick up sub-fields that were matched by the pattern. In HP-UX, where the user's
name terminates at the first comma, the following can be used:

  gecos_pattern = ([^,]*)
  gecos_name = $1



oindex:[%gecos_pattern%]
`..'=
%gecos_pattern%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

See %gecos_name% above.


oindex:[%headers_charset%]
`..'=
%headers_charset%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'see below'
===

This option sets a default character set for translating from encoded MIME
``words'' in header lines, when referenced by an $h_xxx$ expansion item. The
default is the value of HEADERS_CHARSET in _Local/Makefile_. The
ultimate default is ISO-8859-1. For more details see the description of header
insertions in section <<SECTexpansionitems>>.



oindex:[%header_maxsize%]
`..'=
%header_maxsize%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[header section,maximum size of]
cindex:[limit,size of message header section]
This option controls the overall maximum size of a message's header
section. The default is the value of HEADER_MAXSIZE in
_Local/Makefile_; the default for that is 1M. Messages with larger header
sections are rejected.


oindex:[%header_line_maxsize%]
`..'=
%header_line_maxsize%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

cindex:[header lines,maximum size of]
cindex:[limit,size of one header line]
This option limits the length of any individual header line in a message, after
all the continuations have been joined together. Messages with individual
header lines that are longer than the limit are rejected. The default value of
zero means ``no limit''.




oindex:[%helo_accept_junk_hosts%]
`..'=
%helo_accept_junk_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[HELO,accepting junk data]
cindex:[EHLO,accepting junk data]
Exim checks the syntax of HELO and EHLO commands for incoming SMTP
mail, and gives an error response for invalid data. Unfortunately, there are
some SMTP clients that send syntactic junk. They can be accommodated by setting
this option. Note that this is a syntax check only. See %helo_verify_hosts%
if you want to do semantic checking.
See also %helo_allow_chars% for a way of extending the permitted character
set.


oindex:[%helo_allow_chars%]
`..'=
%helo_allow_chars%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[HELO,underscores in]
cindex:[EHLO,underscores in]
cindex:[underscore in EHLO/HELO]
This option can be set to a string of rogue characters that are permitted in
all EHLO and HELO names in addition to the standard letters, digits,
hyphens, and dots. If you really must allow underscores, you can set

  helo_allow_chars = _

Note that the value is one string, not a list.


oindex:[%helo_lookup_domains%]
`..'=
%helo_lookup_domains%, Use: 'main', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: `@:@[]`
===

cindex:[HELO,forcing reverse lookup]
cindex:[EHLO,forcing reverse lookup]
If the domain given by a client in a HELO or EHLO command matches this
list, a reverse lookup is done in order to establish the host's true name. The
default forces a lookup if the client host gives the server's name or any of
its IP addresses (in brackets), something that broken clients have been seen to
do.


oindex:[%helo_try_verify_hosts%]
`..'=
%helo_try_verify_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[HELO verifying, optional]
cindex:[EHLO verifying, optional]
The RFCs mandate that a server must not reject a message because it doesn't
like the HELO or EHLO command. By default, Exim just checks the syntax
of these commands (see %helo_accept_junk_hosts% and %helo_allow_chars%
above). However, some sites like to be stricter. If the calling host matches
%helo_try_verify_hosts%, Exim checks that the host name given in the HELO
or EHLO command either:

- is an IP literal matching the calling address of the host (the RFCs
specifically allow this), or

- cindex:[DNS,reverse lookup]
cindex:[reverse DNS lookup]
matches the host name that Exim obtains by doing a reverse lookup of the
calling host address, or

- when looked up using 'gethostbyname()' (or 'getipnodebyname()' when
available) yields the calling host address.

However, the EHLO or HELO command is not rejected if any of the checks
fail. Processing continues, but the result of the check is remembered, and can
be detected later in an ACL by the `verify = helo` condition. If you want
verification failure to cause rejection of EHLO or HELO, use
%helo_verify_hosts% instead.



oindex:[%helo_verify_hosts%]
`..'=
%helo_verify_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[HELO verifying, mandatory]
cindex:[EHLO verifying, mandatory]
For hosts that match this option, Exim checks the host name given in the
HELO or EHLO in the same way as for %helo_try_verify_hosts%. If the
check fails, the HELO or EHLO command is rejected with a 550 error, and
entries are written to the main and reject logs. If a MAIL command is
received before EHLO or HELO, it is rejected with a
503
error.


oindex:[%hold_domains%]
`..'=
%hold_domains%, Use: 'main', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[domain,delaying delivery]
cindex:[delivery,delaying certain domains]
This option allows mail for particular domains to be held on the queue
manually. The option is overridden if a message delivery is forced with the
%-M%, %-qf%, %-Rf% or %-Sf% options, and also while testing or verifying
addresses using %-bt% or %-bv%. Otherwise, if a domain matches an item in
%hold_domains%, no routing or delivery for that address is done, and it is
deferred every time the message is looked at.

This option is intended as a temporary operational measure for delaying the
delivery of mail while some problem is being sorted out, or some new
configuration tested. If you just want to delay the processing of some
domains until a queue run occurs, you should use %queue_domains% or
%queue_smtp_domains%, not %hold_domains%.

A setting of %hold_domains% does not override Exim's code for removing
messages from the queue if they have been there longer than the longest retry
time in any retry rule. If you want to hold messages for longer than the normal
retry times, insert a dummy retry rule with a long retry time.


oindex:[%host_lookup%]
`..'=
%host_lookup%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[host name lookup, forcing]
Exim does not look up the name of a calling host from its IP address unless it
is required to compare against some host list, or the host matches
%helo_try_verify_hosts% or %helo_verify_hosts%, or the host matches this
option (which normally contains IP addresses rather than host names). The
default configuration file contains

  host_lookup = *

which causes a lookup to happen for all hosts. If the expense of these lookups
is felt to be too great, the setting can be changed or removed.

After a successful reverse lookup, Exim does a forward lookup on the name it
has obtained, to verify that it yields the IP address that it started with. If
this check fails, Exim behaves as if the name lookup failed.

After any kind of failure, the host name (in $sender_host_name$) remains
unset, and $host_lookup_failed$ is set to the string ``1''. See also
%dns_again_means_nonexist%, %helo_lookup_domains%, and `verify =
reverse_host_lookup` in ACLs.


oindex:[%host_lookup_order%]
`..'=
%host_lookup_order%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: `bydns:byaddr`
===

This option specifies the order of different lookup methods when Exim is trying
to find a host name from an IP address. The default is to do a DNS lookup
first, and then to try a local lookup (using 'gethostbyaddr()' or equivalent)
if that fails. You can change the order of these lookups, or omit one entirely,
if you want.

*Warning*: the ``byaddr'' method does not always yield aliases when there are
multiple PTR records in the DNS and the IP address is not listed in
_/etc/hosts_. Different operating systems give different results in this
case. That is why the default tries a DNS lookup first.



oindex:[%host_reject_connection%]
`..'=
%host_reject_connection%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[host,rejecting connections from]
If this option is set, incoming SMTP calls from the hosts listed are rejected
as soon as the connection is made.
This option is obsolete, and retained only for backward compatibility, because
nowadays the ACL specified by %acl_smtp_connect% can also reject incoming
connections immediately.

The ability to give an immediate rejection (either by this option or using an
ACL) is provided for use in unusual cases. Many hosts will just try again,
sometimes without much delay. Normally, it is better to use an ACL to reject
incoming messages at a later stage, such as after RCPT commands. See
chapter <<CHAPACL>>.


oindex:[%hosts_connection_nolog%]
`..'=
%hosts_connection_nolog%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[host,not logging connections from]
This option defines a list of hosts for which connection logging does not
happen, even though the %smtp_connection% log selector is set. For example,
you might want not to log SMTP connections from local processes, or from
127.0.0.1, or from your local LAN. This option is consulted in the main loop of
the daemon; you should therefore strive to restrict its value to a short inline
list of IP addresses and networks. To disable logging SMTP connections from
local processes, you must create a host list with an empty item. For example:

  hosts_connection_nolog = :

If the %smtp_connection% log selector is not set, this option has no effect.



oindex:[%hosts_treat_as_local%]
`..'=
%hosts_treat_as_local%, Use: 'main', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[local host,domains treated as]
cindex:[host,treated as local]
If this option is set, any host names that match the domain list are treated as
if they were the local host when Exim is scanning host lists obtained from MX
records
or other sources. Note that the value of this option is a domain list, not a
host list, because it is always used to check host names, not IP addresses.

This option also applies when Exim is matching the special items
`@mx_any`, `@mx_primary`, and `@mx_secondary` in a domain list (see
section <<SECTdomainlist>>), and when checking the %hosts% option in the ^smtp^
transport for the local host (see the %allow_localhost% option in that
transport).
See also %local_interfaces%, %extra_local_interfaces%, and chapter
<<CHAPinterfaces>>, which contains a discussion about local network interfaces
and recognising the local host.


oindex:[%ignore_bounce_errors_after%]
`..'=
%ignore_bounce_errors_after%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '10w'
===

cindex:[bounce message,discarding]
cindex:[discarding bounce message]
This option affects the processing of bounce messages that cannot be delivered,
that is, those that suffer a permanent delivery failure. (Bounce messages that
suffer temporary delivery failures are of course retried in the usual way.)

After a permanent delivery failure, bounce messages are frozen,
because there is no sender to whom they can be returned. When a frozen bounce
message has been on the queue for more than the given time, it is unfrozen at
the next queue run, and a further delivery is attempted. If delivery fails
again, the bounce message is discarded. This makes it possible to keep failed
bounce messages around for a shorter time than the normal maximum retry time
for frozen messages. For example,

  ignore_bounce_errors_after = 12h

retries failed bounce message deliveries after 12 hours, discarding any further
failures. If the value of this option is set to a zero time period, bounce
failures are discarded immediately. Setting a very long time (as in the default
value) has the effect of disabling this option. For ways of automatically
dealing with other kinds of frozen message, see %auto_thaw% and
%timeout_frozen_after%.


oindex:[%ignore_fromline_hosts%]
`..'=
%ignore_fromline_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[``From'' line]
cindex:[UUCP,``From'' line]
Some broken SMTP clients insist on sending a UUCP-like ``From'' line before the
headers of a message. By default this is treated as the start of the message's
body, which means that any following headers are not recognized as such. Exim
can be made to ignore it by setting %ignore_fromline_hosts% to match those
hosts that insist on sending it. If the sender is actually a local process
rather than a remote host, and is using %-bs% to inject the messages,
%ignore_fromline_local% must be set to achieve this effect.


oindex:[%ignore_fromline_local%]
`..'=
%ignore_fromline_local%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

See %ignore_fromline_hosts% above.


oindex:[%keep_malformed%]
`..'=
%keep_malformed%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '4d'
===

This option specifies the length of time to keep messages whose spool files
have been corrupted in some way. This should, of course, never happen. At the
next attempt to deliver such a message, it gets removed. The incident is
logged.


oindex:[%ldap_default_servers%]
`..'=
%ldap_default_servers%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[LDAP,default servers]
This option provides a list of LDAP servers which are tried in turn when an
LDAP query does not contain a server. See section <<SECTforldaque>> for details
of LDAP queries. This option is available only when Exim has been built with
LDAP support.


oindex:[%ldap_version%]
`..'=
%ldap_version%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[LDAP protocol version, forcing]
This option can be used to force Exim to set a specific protocol version for
LDAP. If it option is unset, it is shown by the %-bP% command line option as
-1. When this is the case, the default is 3 if LDAP_VERSION3 is defined in
the LDAP headers; otherwise it is 2. This option is available only when Exim
has been built with LDAP support.



oindex:[%local_from_check%]
`..'=
%local_from_check%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:['Sender:' header line,disabling addition of]
cindex:['From:' header line,disabling checking of]
When a message is submitted locally (that is, not over a TCP/IP connection) by
an untrusted user, Exim removes any existing 'Sender:' header line, and checks
that the 'From:' header line matches the login of the calling user and the
domain specified by %qualify_domain%.

*Note*: An unqualified address (no domain) in the 'From:' header in a
locally submitted message is automatically qualified by Exim, unless the
%-bnq% command line option is used.

You can use %local_from_prefix% and %local_from_suffix% to permit affixes
on the local part. If the 'From:' header line does not match, Exim adds a
'Sender:' header with an address constructed from the calling user's login and
the default qualify domain.

If %local_from_check% is set false, the 'From:' header check is disabled,
and no 'Sender:' header is ever added. If, in addition, you want to retain
'Sender:' header lines supplied by untrusted users, you must also set
%local_sender_retain% to be true.

cindex:[envelope sender]
These options affect only the header lines in the message. The envelope sender
is still forced to be the login id at the qualify domain unless
%untrusted_set_sender% permits the user to supply an envelope sender.

For messages received over TCP/IP, an ACL can specify ``submission mode'' to
request similar header line checking. See section <<SECTthesenhea>>, which has
more details about 'Sender:' processing.




oindex:[%local_from_prefix%]
`..'=
%local_from_prefix%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

When Exim checks the 'From:' header line of locally submitted messages for
matching the login id (see %local_from_check% above), it can be configured to
ignore certain prefixes and suffixes in the local part of the address. This is
done by setting %local_from_prefix% and/or %local_from_suffix% to
appropriate lists, in the same form as the %local_part_prefix% and
%local_part_suffix% router options (see chapter <<CHAProutergeneric>>). For
example, if

  local_from_prefix = *-

is set, a 'From:' line containing

  From: anything-user@your.domain.example

will not cause a 'Sender:' header to be added if 'user@your.domain.example'
matches the actual sender address that is constructed from the login name and
qualify domain.


oindex:[%local_from_suffix%]
`..'=
%local_from_suffix%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

See %local_from_prefix% above.


oindex:[%local_interfaces%]
`..'=
%local_interfaces%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'see below'
===

This option controls which network interfaces are used by the daemon for
listening; they are also used to identify the local host when routing. Chapter
<<CHAPinterfaces>> contains a full description of this option and the related
options

%daemon_smtp_ports%, %extra_local_interfaces%, %hosts_treat_as_local%,
and %tls_on_connect_ports%.

The default value for %local_interfaces% is

  local_interfaces = 0.0.0.0

when Exim is built without IPv6 support; otherwise it is

  local_interfaces = <; ::0 ; 0.0.0.0



oindex:[%local_scan_timeout%]
`..'=
%local_scan_timeout%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '5m'
===

cindex:[timeout,for 'local_scan()' function]
cindex:['local_scan()' function,timeout]
This timeout applies to the 'local_scan()' function (see chapter
<<CHAPlocalscan>>). Zero means ``no timeout''. If the timeout is exceeded, the
incoming message is rejected with a temporary error if it is an SMTP message.
For a non-SMTP message, the message is dropped and Exim ends with a non-zero
code. The incident is logged on the main and reject logs.



oindex:[%local_sender_retain%]
`..'=
%local_sender_retain%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:['Sender:' header line,retaining from local submission]
When a message is submitted locally (that is, not over a TCP/IP connection) by
an untrusted user, Exim removes any existing 'Sender:' header line. If you
do not want this to happen, you must set %local_sender_retain%, and you must
also set %local_from_check% to be false (Exim will complain if you do not).
Section <<SECTthesenhea>> has more details about 'Sender:' processing.




oindex:[%localhost_number%]
`..'=
%localhost_number%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[host,locally unique number for]
cindex:[message ids, with multiple hosts]
Exim's message ids are normally unique only within the local host. If
uniqueness among a set of hosts is required, each host must set a different
value for the %localhost_number% option. The string is expanded immediately
after reading the configuration file (so that a number can be computed from the
host name, for example) and the result of the expansion must be a number in the
range 0--16 (or 0--10 on operating systems with case-insensitive file systems).
This is available in subsequent string expansions via the variable
$localhost_number$. When %localhost_number is set%, the final two
characters of the message id, instead of just being a fractional part of the
time, are computed from the time and the local host number as described in
section <<SECTmessiden>>.



oindex:[%log_file_path%]
`..'=
%log_file_path%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list'!!, Default: 'set at compile time'
===

cindex:[log,file path for]
This option sets the path which is used to determine the names of Exim's log
files, or indicates that logging is to be to syslog, or both. It is expanded
when Exim is entered, so it can, for example, contain a reference to the host
name. If no specific path is set for the log files at compile or run time, they
are written in a sub-directory called _log_ in Exim's spool directory.
Chapter <<CHAPlog>> contains further details about Exim's logging, and section
<<SECTwhelogwri>> describes how the contents of %log_file_path% are used. If
this string is fixed at your installation (contains no expansion variables) it
is recommended that you do not set this option in the configuration file, but
instead supply the path using LOG_FILE_PATH in _Local/Makefile_ so that
it is available to Exim for logging errors detected early on -- in particular,
failure to read the configuration file.


oindex:[%log_selector%]
`..'=
%log_selector%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[log,selectors]
This option can be used to reduce or increase the number of things that Exim
writes to its log files. Its argument is made up of names preceded by plus or
minus characters. For example:

  log_selector = +arguments -retry_defer

A list of possible names and what they control is given in the chapter on
logging, in section <<SECTlogselector>>.


oindex:[%log_timezone%]
`..'=
%log_timezone%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[log,timezone for entries]
By default, the timestamps on log lines are in local time without the
timezone. This means that if your timezone changes twice a year, the timestamps
in log lines are ambiguous for an hour when the clocks go back. One way of
avoiding this problem is to set the timezone to UTC. An alternative is to set
%log_timezone% true. This turns on the addition of the timezone offset to
timestamps in log lines. Turning on this option can add quite a lot to the size
of log files because each line is extended by 6 characters. Note that the
$tod_log$ variable contains the log timestamp without the zone, but there is
another variable called $tod_zone$ that contains just the timezone offset.


oindex:[%lookup_open_max%]
`..'=
%lookup_open_max%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '25'
===

cindex:[too many open files]
cindex:[open files, too many]
cindex:[file,too many open]
cindex:[lookup,maximum open files]
cindex:[limit,open files for lookups]
This option limits the number of simultaneously open files for single-key
lookups that use regular files (that is, ^lsearch^, ^dbm^, and ^cdb^). Exim
normally keeps these files open during routing, because often the same file is
required several times. If the limit is reached, Exim closes the least recently
used file. Note that if you are using the 'ndbm' library, it actually opens
two files for each logical DBM database, though it still counts as one for the
purposes of %lookup_open_max%. If you are getting ``too many open files''
errors with NDBM, you need to reduce the value of %lookup_open_max%.


oindex:[%max_username_length%]
`..'=
%max_username_length%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

cindex:[length of login name]
cindex:[user name,maximum length]
cindex:[limit,user name length]
Some operating systems are broken in that they truncate long arguments to
'getpwnam()' to eight characters, instead of returning ``no such user''. If
this option is set greater than zero, any attempt to call 'getpwnam()' with
an argument that is longer behaves as if 'getpwnam()' failed.



oindex:[%message_body_visible%]
`..'=
%message_body_visible%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '500'
===

cindex:[body of message,visible size]
cindex:[message body, visible size]
This option specifies how much of a message's body is to be included in the
$message_body$ and $message_body_end$ expansion variables.


oindex:[%message_id_header_domain%]
`..'=
%message_id_header_domain%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:['Message-ID:' header line]
If this option is set, the string is expanded and used as the right hand side
(domain) of the 'Message-ID:' header that Exim creates if a
locally-originated incoming message does not have one. ``Locally-originated''
means ``not received over TCP/IP.''
Otherwise, the primary host name is used.
Only letters, digits, dot and hyphen are accepted; any other characters are
replaced by hyphens. If the expansion is forced to fail, or if the result is an
empty string, the option is ignored.


oindex:[%message_id_header_text%]
`..'=
%message_id_header_text%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

If this variable is set, the string is expanded and used to augment the text of
the 'Message-id:' header that Exim creates if a
locally-originated
incoming message does not have one. The text of this header is required by RFC
2822 to take the form of an address. By default, Exim uses its internal message
id as the local part, and the primary host name as the domain. If this option
is set, it is expanded, and provided the expansion is not forced to fail, and
does not yield an empty string, the result is inserted into the header
immediately before the @, separated from the internal message id by a dot. Any
characters that are illegal in an address are automatically converted into
hyphens. This means that variables such as $tod_log$ can be used, because
the spaces and colons will become hyphens.


oindex:[%message_logs%]
`..'=
%message_logs%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[message log, disabling]
cindex:[log,message log; disabling]
If this option is turned off, per-message log files are not created in the
_msglog_ spool sub-directory. This reduces the amount of disk I/O required by
Exim, by reducing the number of files involved in handling a message from a
minimum of four (header spool file, body spool file, delivery journal, and
per-message log) to three. The other major I/O activity is Exim's main log,
which is not affected by this option.


oindex:[%message_size_limit%]
`..'=
%message_size_limit%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: '50M'
===

cindex:[message,size limit]
cindex:[limit,message size]
cindex:[size of message, limit]
This option limits the maximum size of message that Exim will process. The
value is expanded for each incoming
connection so, for example, it can be made to depend on the IP address of the
remote host for messages arriving via TCP/IP. *Note*: This limit cannot be
made to depend on a message's sender or any other properties of an individual
message, because it has to be advertised in the server's response to EHLO.
String expansion failure causes a temporary error. A value of zero means no
limit, but its use is not recommended. See also %bounce_return_size_limit%.

Incoming SMTP messages are failed with a 552 error if the limit is
exceeded; locally-generated messages either get a stderr message or a delivery
failure message to the sender, depending on the %-oe% setting. Rejection of an
oversized message is logged in both the main and the reject logs. See also the
generic transport option %message_size_limit%, which limits the size of
message that an individual transport can process.


oindex:[%move_frozen_messages%]
`..'=
%move_frozen_messages%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[frozen messages,moving]
This option, which is available only if Exim has been built with the setting

  SUPPORT_MOVE_FROZEN_MESSAGES=yes

in _Local/Makefile_, causes frozen messages and their message logs to be
moved from the _input_ and _msglog_ directories on the spool to _Finput_
and _Fmsglog_, respectively. There is currently no support in Exim or the
standard utilities for handling such moved messages, and they do not show up in
lists generated by %-bp% or by the Exim monitor.


oindex:[%mua_wrapper%]
`..'=
%mua_wrapper%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

Setting this option true causes Exim to run in a very restrictive mode in which
it passes messages synchronously to a smart host. Chapter <<CHAPnonqueueing>>
contains a full description of this facility.



oindex:[%mysql_servers%]
`..'=
%mysql_servers%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[MySQL,server list]
This option provides a list of MySQL servers and associated connection data, to
be used in conjunction with ^mysql^ lookups (see section <<SECTsql>>). The
option is available only if Exim has been built with MySQL support.


oindex:[%never_users%]
`..'=
%never_users%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

Local message deliveries are normally run in processes that are setuid to the
recipient, and remote deliveries are normally run under Exim's own uid and gid.
It is usually desirable to prevent any deliveries from running as root, as a
safety precaution.

When Exim is built, an option called FIXED_NEVER_USERS can be set to a
list of users that must not be used for local deliveries. This list is fixed in
the binary and cannot be overridden by the configuration file. By default, it
contains just the single user name ``root''. The %never_users% runtime option
can be used to add more users to the fixed list.

If a message is to be delivered as one of the users on the fixed list or the
%never_users% list, an error occurs, and delivery is deferred. A common
example is

  never_users = root:daemon:bin

Including root is redundant if it is also on the fixed list, but it does no
harm. This option overrides the %pipe_as_creator% option of the ^pipe^
transport driver.


oindex:[%oracle_servers%]
`..'=
%oracle_servers%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[Oracle,server list]
This option provides a list of Oracle servers and associated connection data,
to be used in conjunction with ^oracle^ lookups (see section <<SECTsql>>). The
option is available only if Exim has been built with Oracle support.


oindex:[%percent_hack_domains%]
`..'=
%percent_hack_domains%, Use: 'main', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[``percent hack'']
cindex:[source routing,in email address]
cindex:[address,source-routed]
The ``percent hack'' is the convention whereby a local part containing a percent
sign is re-interpreted as a new email address, with the percent replaced by @.
This is sometimes called ``source routing'', though that term is also applied to
RFC 2822 addresses that begin with an @ character. If this option is set, Exim
implements the percent facility for those domains listed, but no others. This
happens before an incoming SMTP address is tested against an ACL.

*Warning*: The ``percent hack'' has often been abused by people who are
trying to get round relaying restrictions. For this reason, it is best avoided
if at all possible. Unfortunately, a number of less security-conscious MTAs
implement it unconditionally. If you are running Exim on a gateway host, and
routing mail through to internal MTAs without processing the local parts, it is
a good idea to reject recipient addresses with percent characters in their
local parts. Exim's default configuration does this.


oindex:[%perl_at_start%]
`..'=
%perl_at_start%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

This option is available only when Exim is built with an embedded Perl
interpreter. See chapter <<CHAPperl>> for details of its use.


oindex:[%perl_startup%]
`..'=
%perl_startup%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

This option is available only when Exim is built with an embedded Perl
interpreter. See chapter <<CHAPperl>> for details of its use.


oindex:[%pgsql_servers%]
`..'=
%pgsql_servers%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[PostgreSQL lookup type,server list]
This option provides a list of PostgreSQL servers and associated connection
data, to be used in conjunction with ^pgsql^ lookups (see section <<SECTsql>>).
The option is available only if Exim has been built with PostgreSQL support.


oindex:[%pid_file_path%]
`..'=
%pid_file_path%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'set at compile time'
===

cindex:[daemon,pid file path]
cindex:[pid file, path for]
This option sets the name of the file to which the Exim daemon writes its
process id. The string is expanded, so it can contain, for example, references
to the host name:

  pid_file_path = /var/log/$primary_hostname/exim.pid

If no path is set, the pid is written to the file _exim-daemon.pid_ in Exim's
spool directory.
The value set by the option can be overridden by the %-oP% command line
option. A pid file is not written if a ``non-standard'' daemon is run by means of
the %-oX% option, unless a path is explicitly supplied by %-oP%.


oindex:[%pipelining_advertise_hosts%]
`..'=
%pipelining_advertise_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: '\*'
===

cindex:[PIPELINING advertising, suppressing]
This option can be used to suppress the advertisement of the SMTP
PIPELINING extension to specific hosts. When PIPELINING is not
advertised and %smtp_enforce_sync% is true, an Exim server enforces strict
synchronization for each SMTP command and response.
When PIPELINING is advertised, Exim assumes that clients will use it; ``out
of order'' commands that are ``expected'' do not count as protocol errors (see
%smtp_max_synprot_errors%).


oindex:[%preserve_message_logs%]
`..'=
%preserve_message_logs%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[message logs, preserving]
If this option is set, message log files are not deleted when messages are
completed. Instead, they are moved to a sub-directory of the spool directory
called _msglog.OLD_, where they remain available for statistical or debugging
purposes. This is a dangerous option to set on systems with any appreciable
volume of mail. Use with care!


oindex:[%primary_hostname%]
`..'=
%primary_hostname%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[name,of local host]
cindex:[host,name of local]
cindex:[local host,name of]
This specifies the name of the current host. It is used in the default EHLO
or HELO command for outgoing SMTP messages (changeable via the %helo_data%
option in the ^smtp^ transport),
and as the default for %qualify_domain%. If it is not set, Exim calls
'uname()' to find it. If this fails, Exim panics and dies. If the name
returned by 'uname()' contains only one component, Exim passes it to
'gethostbyname()' (or 'getipnodebyname()' when available) in order to
obtain the fully qualified version.

The value of $primary_hostname$ is also used by default in some SMTP
response messages from an Exim server. This can be changed dynamically by
setting %smtp_active_hostname%.


oindex:[%print_topbitchars%]
`..'=
%print_topbitchars%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[printing characters]
cindex:[8-bit characters]
By default, Exim considers only those characters whose codes lie in the range
32--126 to be printing characters. In a number of circumstances (for example,
when writing log entries) non-printing characters are converted into escape
sequences, primarily to avoid messing up the layout. If %print_topbitchars% is
set, code values of 128 and above are also considered to be printing
characters.


oindex:[%process_log_path%]
`..'=
%process_log_path%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[process log path]
cindex:[log,process log]
cindex:['exiwhat']
This option sets the name of the file to which an Exim process writes its
``process log'' when sent a USR1 signal. This is used by the 'exiwhat' utility
script. If this option is unset, the file called _exim-process.info_ in
Exim's spool directory is used. The ability to specify the name explicitly can
be useful in environments where two different Exims are running, using
different spool directories.


oindex:[%prod_requires_admin%]
`..'=
%prod_requires_admin%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[%-M% option]
cindex:[%-R% option]
cindex:[%-q% option]
The %-M%, %-R%, and %-q% command-line options require the caller to be an
admin user unless %prod_requires_admin% is set false. See also
%queue_list_requires_admin%.


oindex:[%qualify_domain%]
`..'=
%qualify_domain%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[domain,for qualifying addresses]
cindex:[address,qualification]
This option specifies the domain name that is added to any envelope sender
addresses that do not have a domain qualification. It also applies to
recipient addresses if %qualify_recipient% is not set.

Unqualified addresses are accepted by default only for locally-generated
messages.

Qualification is also applied to addresses in header lines such as 'From:' and
'To:' for locally-generated messages, unless the %-bnq% command line option
is used.


Messages from external sources must always contain fully qualified addresses,
unless the sending host matches %sender_unqualified_hosts% or
%recipient_unqualified_hosts% (as appropriate), in which case incoming
addresses are qualified with %qualify_domain% or %qualify_recipient% as
necessary. Internally, Exim always works with fully qualified envelope
addresses. If %qualify_domain% is not set, it defaults to the
%primary_hostname% value.


oindex:[%qualify_recipient%]
`..'=
%qualify_recipient%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'see below'
===

This option allows you to specify a different domain for qualifying recipient
addresses to the one that is used for senders. See %qualify_domain% above.



oindex:[%queue_domains%]
`..'=
%queue_domains%, Use: 'main', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[domain,specifying non-immediate delivery]
cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
cindex:[message,queueing certain domains]
This option lists domains for which immediate delivery is not required.
A delivery process is started whenever a message is received, but only those
domains that do not match are processed. All other deliveries wait until the
next queue run. See also %hold_domains% and %queue_smtp_domains%.


oindex:[%queue_list_requires_admin%]
`..'=
%queue_list_requires_admin%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[%-bp% option]
The %-bp% command-line option, which lists the messages that are on the queue,
requires the caller to be an admin user unless %queue_list_requires_admin%
is set false. See also %prod_requires_admin%.


oindex:[%queue_only%]
`..'=
%queue_only%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
cindex:[message,queueing unconditionally]
If %queue_only% is set, a delivery process is not automatically started
whenever a message is received. Instead, the message waits on the queue for the
next queue run. Even if %queue_only% is false, incoming messages may not get
delivered immediately when certain conditions (such as heavy load) occur.

The %-odq% command line has the same effect as %queue_only%. The %-odb% and
%-odi% command line options override %queue_only% unless
%queue_only_override% is set false. See also %queue_only_file%,
%queue_only_load%, and %smtp_accept_queue%.


oindex:[%queue_only_file%]
`..'=
%queue_only_file%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
cindex:[message,queueing by file existence]
This option can be set to a colon-separated list of absolute path names, each
one optionally preceded by ``smtp''. When Exim is receiving a message,
it tests for the existence of each listed path using a call to 'stat()'. For
each path that exists, the corresponding queuing option is set.
For paths with no prefix, %queue_only% is set; for paths prefixed by ``smtp'',
%queue_smtp_domains% is set to match all domains. So, for example,

  queue_only_file = smtp/some/file

causes Exim to behave as if %queue_smtp_domains% were set to ``\*'' whenever
_/some/file_ exists.


oindex:[%queue_only_load%]
`..'=
%queue_only_load%, Use: 'main', Type: 'fixed-point', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[load average]
cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
cindex:[message,queueing by load]
If the system load average is higher than this value, incoming messages from
all sources are queued, and no automatic deliveries are started. If this
happens during local or remote SMTP input, all subsequent messages on the same
connection are queued. Deliveries will subsequently be performed by queue
runner processes. This option has no effect on ancient operating systems on
which Exim cannot determine the load average. See also
%deliver_queue_load_max% and %smtp_load_reserve%.


oindex:[%queue_only_override%]
`..'=
%queue_only_override%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
When this option is true, the %-od'x'% command line options override the
setting of %queue_only% or %queue_only_file% in the configuration file. If
%queue_only_override% is set false, the %-od'x'% options cannot be used to
override; they are accepted, but ignored.


oindex:[%queue_run_in_order%]
`..'=
%queue_run_in_order%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[queue runner,processing messages in order]
If this option is set, queue runs happen in order of message arrival instead of
in an arbitrary order. For this to happen, a complete list of the entire queue
must be set up before the deliveries start. When the queue is all held in a
single directory (the default),

a single list is created for both the ordered and the non-ordered cases.
However, if %split_spool_directory% is set, a single list is not created when
%queue_run_in_order% is false. In this case, the sub-directories are
processed one at a time (in a random order), and this avoids setting up one
huge list for the whole queue. Thus, setting %queue_run_in_order% with
%split_spool_directory% may degrade performance when the queue is large,
because of the extra work in setting up the single, large list. In most
situations, %queue_run_in_order% should not be set.



oindex:[%queue_run_max%]
`..'=
%queue_run_max%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '5'
===

cindex:[queue runner,maximum number of]
This controls the maximum number of queue runner processes that an Exim daemon
can run simultaneously. This does not mean that it starts them all at once,
but rather that if the maximum number are still running when the time comes to
start another one, it refrains from starting another one. This can happen with
very large queues and/or very sluggish deliveries. This option does not,
however, interlock with other processes, so additional queue runners can be
started by other means, or by killing and restarting the daemon.


oindex:[%queue_smtp_domains%]
`..'=
%queue_smtp_domains%, Use: 'main', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
cindex:[message,queueing remote deliveries]
When this option is set, a delivery process is started whenever a message is
received, routing is performed, and local deliveries take place.
However, if any SMTP deliveries are required for domains that match
%queue_smtp_domains%, they are not immediately delivered, but instead the
message waits on the queue for the next queue run. Since routing of the message
has taken place, Exim knows to which remote hosts it must be delivered, and so
when the queue run happens, multiple messages for the same host are delivered
over a single SMTP connection. The %-odqs% command line option causes all SMTP
deliveries to be queued in this way, and is equivalent to setting
%queue_smtp_domains% to ``\*''. See also %hold_domains% and %queue_domains%.


oindex:[%receive_timeout%]
`..'=
%receive_timeout%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '0s'
===

cindex:[timeout,for non-SMTP input]
This option sets the timeout for accepting a non-SMTP message, that is, the
maximum time that Exim waits when reading a message on the standard input. If
the value is zero, it will wait for ever. This setting is overridden by the
%-or% command line option. The timeout for incoming SMTP messages is
controlled by %smtp_receive_timeout%.

oindex:[%received_header_text%]
`..'=
%received_header_text%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[customizing, 'Received:' header]
cindex:['Received:' header line,customizing]
This string defines the contents of the 'Received:' message header that is
added to each message, except for the timestamp, which is automatically added
on at the end (preceded by a semicolon). The string is expanded each time it is
used. If the expansion yields an empty string, no 'Received:' header line is
added to the message. Otherwise, the string should start with the text
``Received:'' and conform to the RFC 2822 specification for 'Received:' header
lines. The default setting is:

....
received_header_text = Received: \
    ${if def:sender_rcvhost {from $sender_rcvhost\n\t}\
    {${if def:sender_ident {from $sender_ident }}\
    ${if def:sender_helo_name {(helo=$sender_helo_name)\n\t}}}}\
    by $primary_hostname \
    ${if def:received_protocol {with $received_protocol}} \
    ${if def:tls_cipher {($tls_cipher)\n\t}}\
    (Exim $version_number)\n\t\
    id $message_id\
    ${if def:received_for {\n\tfor $received_for}}
....

Note the use of quotes, to allow the sequences `\n` and `\t` to be used
for newlines and tabs, respectively. The reference to the TLS cipher is omitted
when Exim is built without TLS support. The use of conditional expansions
ensures that this works for both locally generated messages and messages
received from remote hosts, giving header lines such as the following:

  Received: from scrooge.carol.example ([192.168.12.25] ident=root)
          by marley.carol.example with esmtp (Exim 4.00)
          id 16IOWa-00019l-00
          for chas@dickens.example; Tue, 25 Dec 2001 14:43:44 +0000
  Received: by scrooge.carol.example with local (Exim 4.00)
          id 16IOWW-000083-00; Tue, 25 Dec 2001 14:43:41 +0000

Until the body of the message has been received, the timestamp is the time when
the message started to be received. Once the body has arrived, and all policy
checks have taken place, the timestamp is updated to the time at which the
message was accepted.


oindex:[%received_headers_max%]
`..'=
%received_headers_max%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '30'
===

cindex:[loop,prevention]
cindex:[mail loop prevention]
cindex:['Received:' header line,counting]
When a message is to be delivered, the number of 'Received:' headers is
counted, and if it is greater than this parameter, a mail loop is assumed to
have occurred, the delivery is abandoned, and an error message is generated.
This applies to both local and remote deliveries.


oindex:[%recipient_unqualified_hosts%]
`..'=
%recipient_unqualified_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[unqualified addresses]
cindex:[host,unqualified addresses from]
This option lists those hosts from which Exim is prepared to accept unqualified
recipient addresses in message envelopes. The addresses are made fully
qualified by the addition of the %qualify_recipient% value. This option also
affects message header lines. Exim does not reject unqualified recipient
addresses in headers, but it qualifies them only if the message came from a
host that matches %recipient_unqualified_hosts%,
or if the message was submitted locally (not using TCP/IP), and the %-bnq%
option was not set.


oindex:[%recipients_max%]
`..'=
%recipients_max%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

cindex:[limit,number of recipients]
cindex:[recipient,maximum number]
If this option is set greater than zero, it specifies the maximum number of
original recipients for any message. Additional recipients that are generated
by aliasing or forwarding do not count. SMTP messages get a 452 response for
all recipients over the limit; earlier recipients are delivered as normal.
Non-SMTP messages with too many recipients are failed, and no deliveries are
done.

cindex:[RCPT,maximum number of incoming]
Note that the RFCs specify that an SMTP server should accept at least 100
RCPT commands in a single message.


oindex:[%recipients_max_reject%]
`..'=
%recipients_max_reject%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is set true, Exim rejects SMTP messages containing too many
recipients by giving 552 errors to the surplus RCPT commands, and a 554
error to the eventual DATA command. Otherwise (the default) it gives a 452
error to the surplus RCPT commands and accepts the message on behalf of the
initial set of recipients. The remote server should then re-send the message
for the remaining recipients at a later time.


oindex:[%remote_max_parallel%]
`..'=
%remote_max_parallel%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '2'
===

cindex:[delivery,parallelism for remote]
This option controls parallel delivery of one message to a number of remote
hosts. If the value is less than 2, parallel delivery is disabled, and Exim
does all the remote deliveries for a message one by one. Otherwise, if a single
message has to be delivered to more than one remote host, or if several copies
have to be sent to the same remote host, up to %remote_max_parallel%
deliveries are done simultaneously. If more than %remote_max_parallel%
deliveries are required, the maximum number of processes are started, and as
each one finishes, another is begun. The order of starting processes is the
same as if sequential delivery were being done, and can be controlled by the
%remote_sort_domains% option. If parallel delivery takes place while running
with debugging turned on, the debugging output from each delivery process is
tagged with its process id.

This option controls only the maximum number of parallel deliveries for one
message in one Exim delivery process. Because Exim has no central queue
manager, there is no way of controlling the total number of simultaneous
deliveries if the configuration allows a delivery attempt as soon as a message
is received.

cindex:[number of deliveries]
cindex:[delivery,maximum number of]
If you want to control the total number of deliveries on the system, you
need to set the %queue_only% option. This ensures that all incoming messages
are added to the queue without starting a delivery process. Then set up an Exim
daemon to start queue runner processes at appropriate intervals (probably
fairly often, for example, every minute), and limit the total number of queue
runners by setting the %queue_run_max% parameter. Because each queue runner
delivers only one message at a time, the maximum number of deliveries that can
then take place at once is %queue_run_max% multiplied by
%remote_max_parallel%.

If it is purely remote deliveries you want to control, use
%queue_smtp_domains% instead of %queue_only%. This has the added benefit of
doing the SMTP routing before queuing, so that several messages for the same
host will eventually get delivered down the same connection.


oindex:[%remote_sort_domains%]
`..'=
%remote_sort_domains%, Use: 'main', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[sorting remote deliveries]
cindex:[delivery,sorting remote]
When there are a number of remote deliveries for a message, they are sorted by
domain into the order given by this list. For example,

  remote_sort_domains = *.cam.ac.uk:*.uk

would attempt to deliver to all addresses in the 'cam.ac.uk' domain first, then
to those in the %uk% domain, then to any others.


oindex:[%retry_data_expire%]
`..'=
%retry_data_expire%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '7d'
===

cindex:[hints database,data expiry]
This option sets a ``use before'' time on retry information in Exim's hints
database. Any older retry data is ignored. This means that, for example, once a
host has not been tried for 7 days, Exim behaves as if it has no knowledge of
past failures.


oindex:[%retry_interval_max%]
`..'=
%retry_interval_max%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '24h'
===

cindex:[retry,limit on interval]
cindex:[limit,on retry interval]
Chapter <<CHAPretry>> describes Exim's mechanisms for controlling the intervals
between delivery attempts for messages that cannot be delivered straight away.
This option sets an overall limit to the length of time between retries.


oindex:[%return_path_remove%]
`..'=
%return_path_remove%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:['Return-path:' header line,removing]
RFC 2821, section 4.4, states that an SMTP server must insert a 'Return-path:'
header line into a message when it makes a ``final delivery''. The 'Return-path:'
header preserves the sender address as received in the MAIL command. This
description implies that this header should not be present in an incoming
message. If %return_path_remove% is true, any existing 'Return-path:'
headers are removed from messages at the time they are received. Exim's
transports have options for adding 'Return-path:' headers at the time of
delivery. They are normally used only for final local deliveries.


oindex:[%return_size_limit%]
`..'=
%return_size_limit%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '100K'
===

This option is an obsolete synonym for %bounce_return_size_limit%.


oindex:[%rfc1413_hosts%]
`..'=
%rfc1413_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: '\*'
===

cindex:[RFC 1413]
cindex:[host,for RFC 1413 calls]
RFC 1413 identification calls are made to any client host which matches an item
in the list.


oindex:[%rfc1413_query_timeout%]
`..'=
%rfc1413_query_timeout%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '30s'
===

cindex:[RFC 1413,query timeout]
cindex:[timeout,for RFC 1413 call]
This sets the timeout on RFC 1413 identification calls. If it is set to zero,
no RFC 1413 calls are ever made.


oindex:[%sender_unqualified_hosts%]
`..'=
%sender_unqualified_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[unqualified addresses]
cindex:[host,unqualified addresses from]
This option lists those hosts from which Exim is prepared to accept unqualified
sender addresses. The addresses are made fully qualified by the addition of
%qualify_domain%. This option also affects message header lines. Exim does not
reject unqualified addresses in headers that contain sender addresses, but it
qualifies them only if the message came from a host that matches
%sender_unqualified_hosts%,
or if the message was submitted locally (not using TCP/IP), and the %-bnq%
option was not set.


oindex:[%smtp_accept_keepalive%]
`..'=
%smtp_accept_keepalive%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[keepalive,on incoming connection]
This option controls the setting of the SO_KEEPALIVE option on incoming
TCP/IP socket connections. When set, it causes the kernel to probe idle
connections periodically, by sending packets with ``old'' sequence numbers. The
other end of the connection should send an acknowledgement if the connection is
still okay or a reset if the connection has been aborted. The reason for doing
this is that it has the beneficial effect of freeing up certain types of
connection that can get stuck when the remote host is disconnected without
tidying up the TCP/IP call properly. The keepalive mechanism takes several
hours to detect unreachable hosts.



oindex:[%smtp_accept_max%]
`..'=
%smtp_accept_max%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '20'
===

cindex:[limit,incoming SMTP connections]
cindex:[SMTP,incoming connection count]
cindex:[inetd]
This option specifies the maximum number of simultaneous incoming SMTP calls
that Exim will accept. It applies only to the listening daemon; there is no
control (in Exim) when incoming SMTP is being handled by 'inetd'. If the value
is set to zero, no limit is applied. However, it is required to be non-zero if
either %smtp_accept_max_per_host% or %smtp_accept_queue% is set. See also
%smtp_accept_reserve%.



oindex:[%smtp_accept_max_nonmail%]
`..'=
%smtp_accept_max_nonmail%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '10'
===

cindex:[limit,non-mail SMTP commands]
cindex:[SMTP,limiting non-mail commands]
Exim counts the number of ``non-mail'' commands in an SMTP session, and drops the
connection if there are too many. This option defines ``too many''. The check
catches some denial-of-service attacks, repeated failing AUTHs, or a mad
client looping sending EHLO, for example. The check is applied only if the
client host matches %smtp_accept_max_nonmail_hosts%.

When a new message is expected, one occurrence of RSET is not counted. This
allows a client to send one RSET between messages (this is not necessary,
but some clients do it). Exim also allows one uncounted occurence of HELO
or EHLO, and one occurrence of STARTTLS between messages. After
starting up a TLS session, another EHLO is expected, and so it too is not
counted. The first occurrence of AUTH in a connection, or immediately
following STARTTLS is not counted. Otherwise, all commands other than
MAIL, RCPT, DATA, and QUIT are counted.


oindex:[%smtp_accept_max_nonmail_hosts%]
`..'=
%smtp_accept_max_nonmail_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: '\*'
===

You can control which hosts are subject to the %smtp_accept_max_nonmail%
check by setting this option. The default value makes it apply to all hosts. By
changing the value, you can exclude any badly-behaved hosts that you have to
live with.



oindex:[%smtp_accept_max_per_connection%]
`..'=
%smtp_accept_max_per_connection%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '1000'
===

cindex:[SMTP incoming message count, limiting]
cindex:[limit,messages per SMTP connection]
The value of this option limits the number of MAIL commands that Exim is
prepared to accept over a single SMTP connection, whether or not each command
results in the transfer of a message. After the limit is reached, a 421
response is given to subsequent MAIL commands. This limit is a safety
precaution against a client that goes mad (incidents of this type have been
seen).


oindex:[%smtp_accept_max_per_host%]
`..'=
%smtp_accept_max_per_host%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[limit,SMTP connections from one host]
cindex:[host,limiting SMTP connections from]
This option restricts the number of simultaneous IP connections from a single
host (strictly, from a single IP address) to the Exim daemon. The option is
expanded, to enable different limits to be applied to different hosts by
reference to $sender_host_address$. Once the limit is reached, additional
connection attempts from the same host are rejected with error code 421. The
default value of zero imposes no limit. If this option is set, it is required
that %smtp_accept_max% be non-zero.

*Warning*: When setting this option you should not use any expansion
constructions that take an appreciable amount of time. The expansion and test
happen in the main daemon loop, in order to reject additional connections
without forking additional processes (otherwise a denial-of-service attack
could cause a vast number or processes to be created). While the daemon is
doing this processing, it cannot accept any other incoming connections.



oindex:[%smtp_accept_queue%]
`..'=
%smtp_accept_queue%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

cindex:[SMTP,incoming connection count]
cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
cindex:[message,queueing by SMTP connection count]
If the number of simultaneous incoming SMTP calls handled via the listening
daemon exceeds this value, messages received by SMTP are just placed on the
queue; no delivery processes are started automatically. A value of zero implies
no limit, and clearly any non-zero value is useful only if it is less than the
%smtp_accept_max% value (unless that is zero). See also %queue_only%,
%queue_only_load%, %queue_smtp_domains%, and the various %-od% command
line options.


oindex:[%smtp_accept_queue_per_connection%]
`..'=
%smtp_accept_queue_per_connection%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '10'
===

cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
cindex:[message,queueing by message count]
This option limits the number of delivery processes that Exim starts
automatically when receiving messages via SMTP, whether via the daemon or by
the use of %-bs% or %-bS%. If the value of the option is greater than zero,
and the number of messages received in a single SMTP session exceeds this
number, subsequent messages are placed on the queue, but no delivery processes
are started. This helps to limit the number of Exim processes when a server
restarts after downtime and there is a lot of mail waiting for it on other
systems. On large systems, the default should probably be increased, and on
dial-in client systems it should probably be set to zero (that is, disabled).


oindex:[%smtp_accept_reserve%]
`..'=
%smtp_accept_reserve%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

cindex:[SMTP,incoming call count]
cindex:[host,reserved]
When %smtp_accept_max% is set greater than zero, this option specifies a
number of SMTP connections that are reserved for connections from the hosts
that are specified in %smtp_reserve_hosts%. The value set in
%smtp_accept_max% includes this reserve pool. The specified hosts are not
restricted to this number of connections; the option specifies a minimum number
of connection slots for them, not a maximum. It is a guarantee that that group
of hosts can always get at least %smtp_accept_reserve% connections.

For example, if %smtp_accept_max% is set to 50 and %smtp_accept_reserve% is
set to 5, once there are 45 active connections (from any hosts), new
connections are accepted only from hosts listed in %smtp_reserve_hosts%.
See also %smtp_accept_max_per_host%.


oindex:[%smtp_active_hostname%]
`..'=
%smtp_active_hostname%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[host,name in SMTP responses]
cindex:[SMTP,host name in responses]
This option is provided for multi-homed servers that want to masquerade as
several different hosts. At the start of an SMTP connection, its value is
expanded and used instead of the value of $primary_hostname$ in SMTP
responses. For example, it is used as domain name in the response to an
incoming HELO or EHLO command.

It is also used in HELO commands for callout verification.
The active hostname is placed in the $smtp_active_hostname$ variable, which
is saved with any messages that are received. It is therefore available for use
in routers and transports when the message is later delivered.


If this option is unset, or if its expansion is forced to fail, or if the
expansion results in an empty string, the value of $primary_hostname$ is
used. Other expansion failures cause a message to be written to the main and
panic logs, and the SMTP command receives a temporary error. Typically, the
value of %smtp_active_hostname% depends on the incoming interface address.
For example:

....
smtp_active_hostname = ${if eq{$interface_address}{10.0.0.1}\
  {cox.mydomain}{box.mydomain}}
....


oindex:[%smtp_banner%]
`..'=
%smtp_banner%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[SMTP,welcome banner]
cindex:[banner for SMTP]
cindex:[welcome banner for SMTP]
cindex:[customizing,SMTP banner]
This string, which is expanded every time it is used, is output as the initial
positive response to an SMTP connection. The default setting is:

....
smtp_banner = $smtp_active_hostname ESMTP Exim \
  $version_number $tod_full
....

Failure to expand the string causes a panic error. If you want to create a
multiline response to the initial SMTP connection, use ``\n'' in the string at
appropriate points, but not at the end. Note that the 220 code is not included
in this string. Exim adds it automatically (several times in the case of a
multiline response).


oindex:[%smtp_check_spool_space%]
`..'=
%smtp_check_spool_space%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[checking disk space]
cindex:[disk space, checking]
cindex:[spool directory,checking space]
When this option is set, if an incoming SMTP session encounters the SIZE
option on a MAIL command, it checks that there is enough space in the
spool directory's partition to accept a message of that size, while still
leaving free the amount specified by %check_spool_space% (even if that value
is zero). If there isn't enough space, a temporary error code is returned.


oindex:[%smtp_connect_backlog%]
`..'=
%smtp_connect_backlog%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '20'
===

cindex:[connection backlog]
cindex:[SMTP,connection backlog]
cindex:[backlog of connections]
This option specifies a maximum number of waiting SMTP connections. Exim passes
this value to the TCP/IP system when it sets up its listener. Once this number
of connections are waiting for the daemon's attention, subsequent connection
attempts are refused at the TCP/IP level. At least, that is what the manuals
say; in some circumstances such connection attempts have been observed to time
out instead. For large systems it is probably a good idea to increase the
value (to 50, say). It also gives some protection against denial-of-service
attacks by SYN flooding.


oindex:[%smtp_enforce_sync%]
`..'=
%smtp_enforce_sync%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[SMTP,synchronization checking]
cindex:[synchronization checking in SMTP]
The SMTP protocol specification requires the client to wait for a response from
the server at certain points in the dialogue. Without PIPELINING these
synchronization points are after every command; with PIPELINING they are
fewer, but they still exist.

Some spamming sites send out a complete set of SMTP commands without waiting
for any response. Exim protects against this by rejecting a message if the
client has sent further input when it should not have. The error response ``554
SMTP synchronization error'' is sent, and the connection is dropped. Testing for
this error cannot be perfect because of transmission delays (unexpected input
may be on its way but not yet received when Exim checks). However, it does
detect many instances.

The check can be globally disabled by setting %smtp_enforce_sync% false.
If you want to disable the check selectively (for example, only for certain
hosts), you can do so by an appropriate use of a %control% modifier in an ACL
(see section <<SECTcontrols>>). See also %pipelining_advertise_hosts%.



oindex:[%smtp_etrn_command%]
`..'=
%smtp_etrn_command%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[ETRN,command to be run]
If this option is set, the given command is run whenever an SMTP ETRN
command is received from a host that is permitted to issue such commands (see
chapter <<CHAPACL>>). The string is split up into separate arguments which are
independently expanded. The expansion variable $domain$ is set to the
argument of the ETRN command, and no syntax checking is done on it. For
example:

  smtp_etrn_command = /etc/etrn_command $domain $sender_host_address

A new process is created to run the command, but Exim does not wait for it to
complete. Consequently, its status cannot be checked. If the command cannot be
run, a line is written to the panic log, but the ETRN caller still receives
a 250 success response. Exim is normally running under its own uid when
receiving SMTP, so it is not possible for it to change the uid before running
the command.


oindex:[%smtp_etrn_serialize%]
`..'=
%smtp_etrn_serialize%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[ETRN,serializing]
When this option is set, it prevents the simultaneous execution of more than
one identical command as a result of ETRN in an SMTP connection. See
section <<SECTETRN>> for details.


oindex:[%smtp_load_reserve%]
`..'=
%smtp_load_reserve%, Use: 'main', Type: 'fixed-point', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[load average]
If the system load average ever gets higher than this, incoming SMTP calls are
accepted only from those hosts that match an entry in %smtp_reserve_hosts%.
If %smtp_reserve_hosts% is not set, no incoming SMTP calls are accepted when
the load is over the limit. The option has no effect on ancient operating
systems on which Exim cannot determine the load average. See also
%deliver_queue_load_max% and %queue_only_load%.



oindex:[%smtp_max_synprot_errors%]
`..'=
%smtp_max_synprot_errors%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '3'
===

cindex:[SMTP,limiting syntax and protocol errors]
cindex:[limit,SMTP syntax and protocol errors]
Exim rejects SMTP commands that contain syntax or protocol errors. In
particular, a syntactically invalid email address, as in this command:

  RCPT TO:<abc xyz@a.b.c>

causes immediate rejection of the command, before any other tests are done.
(The ACL cannot be run if there is no valid address to set up for it.) An
example of a protocol error is receiving RCPT before MAIL. If there are
too many syntax or protocol errors in one SMTP session, the connection is
dropped. The limit is set by this option.

cindex:[PIPELINING,expected errors]
When the PIPELINING extension to SMTP is in use, some protocol errors are
``expected'', for instance, a RCPT command after a rejected MAIL command.
Exim assumes that PIPELINING will be used if it advertises it (see
%pipelining_advertise_hosts%), and in this situation, ``expected'' errors do
not count towards the limit.



oindex:[%smtp_max_unknown_commands%]
`..'=
%smtp_max_unknown_commands%, Use: 'main', Type: 'integer', Default: '3'
===

cindex:[SMTP,limiting unknown commands]
cindex:[limit,unknown SMTP commands]
If there are too many unrecognized commands in an incoming SMTP session, an
Exim server drops the connection. This is a defence against some kinds of abuse
that subvert web
clients
into making connections to SMTP ports; in these circumstances, a number of
non-SMTP command lines are sent first.



oindex:[%smtp_ratelimit_hosts%]
`..'=
%smtp_ratelimit_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[SMTP,rate limiting]
cindex:[limit,rate of message arrival]
cindex:[RCPT,rate limiting]
Some sites find it helpful to be able to limit the rate at which certain hosts
can send them messages, and the rate at which an individual message can specify
recipients. When a host matches %smtp_ratelimit_hosts%, the values of
%smtp_ratelimit_mail% and %smtp_ratelimit_rcpt% are used to control the
rate of acceptance of MAIL and RCPT commands in a single SMTP session,
respectively. Each option, if set, must contain a set of four comma-separated
values:

- A threshold, before which there is no rate limiting.

- An initial time delay. Unlike other times in Exim, numbers with decimal
fractional parts are allowed here.

- A factor by which to increase the delay each time.

- A maximum value for the delay. This should normally be less than 5 minutes,
because after that time, the client is liable to timeout the SMTP command.

For example, these settings have been used successfully at the site which
first suggested this feature, for controlling mail from their customers:

  smtp_ratelimit_mail = 2,0.5s,1.05,4m
  smtp_ratelimit_rcpt = 4,0.25s,1.015,4m

The first setting specifies delays that are applied to MAIL commands after
two have been received over a single connection. The initial delay is 0.5
seconds, increasing by a factor of 1.05 each time. The second setting applies
delays to RCPT commands when more than four occur in a single message.

It is also possible to configure delays explicitly in ACLs. See section
<<SECTACLmodi>> for details.



oindex:[%smtp_ratelimit_mail%]
`..'=
%smtp_ratelimit_mail%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

See %smtp_ratelimit_hosts% above.


oindex:[%smtp_ratelimit_rcpt%]
`..'=
%smtp_ratelimit_rcpt%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

See %smtp_ratelimit_hosts% above.


oindex:[%smtp_receive_timeout%]
`..'=
%smtp_receive_timeout%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '5m'
===

cindex:[timeout,for SMTP input]
cindex:[SMTP timeout, input]
This sets a timeout value for SMTP reception. It applies to all forms of SMTP
input, including batch SMTP. If a line of input (either an SMTP command or a
data line) is not received within this time, the SMTP connection is dropped and
the message is abandoned.
A line is written to the log containing one of the following messages:

  SMTP command timeout on connection from...
  SMTP data timeout on connection from...

The former means that Exim was expecting to read an SMTP command; the latter
means that it was in the DATA phase, reading the contents of a message.


cindex:[%-os% option]
The value set by this option can be overridden by the
%-os% command-line option. A setting of zero time disables the timeout, but
this should never be used for SMTP over TCP/IP. (It can be useful in some cases
of local input using %-bs% or %-bS%.) For non-SMTP input, the reception
timeout is controlled by %receive_timeout% and %-or%.


oindex:[%smtp_reserve_hosts%]
`..'=
%smtp_reserve_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option defines hosts for which SMTP connections are reserved; see
%smtp_accept_reserve% and %smtp_load_reserve% above.


oindex:[%smtp_return_error_details%]
`..'=
%smtp_return_error_details%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[SMTP,details policy failures]
cindex:[policy control rejection, returning details]
In the default state, Exim uses bland messages such as
``Administrative prohibition'' when it rejects SMTP commands for policy
reasons. Many sysadmins like this because it gives away little information
to spammers. However, some other syadmins who are applying strict checking
policies want to give out much fuller information about failures. Setting
%smtp_return_error_details% true causes Exim to be more forthcoming. For
example, instead of ``Administrative prohibition'', it might give:

  550-Rejected after DATA: '>' missing at end of address:
  550 failing address in "From" header is: <user@dom.ain



oindex:[%spamd_address%]
`..'=
%spamd_address%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: `127.0.0.1 783`
===

This option is available when Exim is compiled with the content-scanning
extension. It specifies how Exim connects to SpamAssassin's %spamd% daemon. See
section <<SECTscanspamass>> for more details.



oindex:[%split_spool_directory%]
`..'=
%split_spool_directory%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[multiple spool directories]
cindex:[spool directory,split]
cindex:[directories, multiple]
If this option is set, it causes Exim to split its input directory into 62
subdirectories, each with a single alphanumeric character as its name. The
sixth character of the message id is used to allocate messages to
subdirectories; this is the least significant base-62 digit of the time of
arrival of the message.

Splitting up the spool in this way may provide better performance on systems
where there are long mail queues, by reducing the number of files in any one
directory. The msglog directory is also split up in a similar way to the input
directory; however, if %preserve_message_logs% is set, all old msglog files
are still placed in the single directory _msglog.OLD_.

It is not necessary to take any special action for existing messages when
changing %split_spool_directory%. Exim notices messages that are in the
``wrong'' place, and continues to process them. If the option is turned off after
a period of being on, the subdirectories will eventually empty and be
automatically deleted.

When %split_spool_directory% is set, the behaviour of queue runner processes
changes. Instead of creating a list of all messages in the queue, and then
trying to deliver each one in turn, it constructs a list of those in one
sub-directory and tries to deliver them, before moving on to the next
sub-directory. The sub-directories are processed in a random order. This
spreads out the scanning of the input directories, and uses less memory. It is
particularly beneficial when there are lots of messages on the queue. However,
if %queue_run_in_order% is set, none of this new processing happens. The
entire queue has to be scanned and sorted before any deliveries can start.


oindex:[%spool_directory%]
`..'=
%spool_directory%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'set at compile time'
===

cindex:[spool directory,path to]
This defines the directory in which Exim keeps its spool, that is, the messages
it is waiting to deliver. The default value is taken from the compile-time
configuration setting, if there is one. If not, this option must be set. The
string is expanded, so it can contain, for example, a reference to
$primary_hostname$.

If the spool directory name is fixed on your installation, it is recommended
that you set it at build time rather than from this option, particularly if the
log files are being written to the spool directory (see %log_file_path%).
Otherwise log files cannot be used for errors that are detected early on, such
as failures in the configuration file.

By using this option to override the compiled-in path, it is possible to run
tests of Exim without using the standard spool.


oindex:[%strip_excess_angle_brackets%]
`..'=
%strip_excess_angle_brackets%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[angle brackets, excess]
If this option is set, redundant pairs of angle brackets round ``route-addr''
items in addresses are stripped. For example, `\<\<xxx@a.b.c.d\>\>` is treated
as `<xxx@a.b.c.d>`. If this is in the envelope and the message is passed on
to another MTA, the excess angle brackets are not passed on. If this option is
not set, multiple pairs of angle brackets cause a syntax error.


oindex:[%strip_trailing_dot%]
`..'=
%strip_trailing_dot%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[trailing dot on domain]
cindex:[dot,trailing on domain]
If this option is set, a trailing dot at the end of a domain in an address is
ignored. If this is in the envelope and the message is passed on to another
MTA, the dot is not passed on. If this option is not set, a dot at the end of a
domain causes a syntax error.
However, addresses in header lines are checked only when an ACL requests header
syntax checking.


oindex:[%syslog_duplication%]
`..'=
%syslog_duplication%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[syslog,duplicate log lines; suppressing]
When Exim is logging to syslog, it writes the log lines for its three
separate logs at different syslog priorities so that they can in principle
be separated on the logging hosts. Some installations do not require this
separation, and in those cases, the duplication of certain log lines is a
nuisance. If %syslog_duplication% is set false, only one copy of any
particular log line is written to syslog. For lines that normally go to
both the main log and the reject log, the reject log version (possibly
containing message header lines) is written, at LOG_NOTICE priority.
Lines that normally go to both the main and the panic log are written at
the LOG_ALERT priority.


oindex:[%syslog_facility%]
`..'=
%syslog_facility%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[syslog,facility; setting]
This option sets the syslog ``facility'' name, used when Exim is logging to
syslog. The value must be one of the strings ``mail'', ``user'', ``news'', ``uucp'',
``daemon'', or ``local'x'##'' where 'x' is a digit between 0 and 7. If this
option is unset, ``mail'' is used. See chapter <<CHAPlog>> for details of Exim's
logging.



oindex:[%syslog_processname%]
`..'=
%syslog_processname%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: `exim`
===

cindex:[syslog,process name; setting]
This option sets the syslog ``ident'' name, used when Exim is logging to syslog.
The value must be no longer than 32 characters. See chapter <<CHAPlog>> for
details of Exim's logging.



oindex:[%syslog_timestamp%]
`..'=
%syslog_timestamp%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[syslog,timestamps]
If %syslog_timestamp% is set false, the timestamps on Exim's log lines are
omitted when these lines are sent to syslog. See chapter <<CHAPlog>> for
details of Exim's logging.


oindex:[%system_filter%]
`..'=
%system_filter%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[filter,system filter]
cindex:[system filter,specifying]
cindex:[Sieve filter,not available for system filter]
This option specifies an Exim filter file that is applied to all messages at
the start of each delivery attempt, before any routing is done. System filters
must be Exim filters; they cannot be Sieve filters. If the system filter
generates any deliveries to files or pipes, or any new mail messages, the
appropriate %system_filter_..._transport% option(s) must be set, to define
which transports are to be used. Details of this facility are given in chapter
<<CHAPsystemfilter>>.


oindex:[%system_filter_directory_transport%]
`..'=
%system_filter_directory_transport%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This sets the name of the transport driver that is to be used when the
%save% command in a system message filter specifies a path ending in ``/'',
implying delivery of each message into a separate file in some directory.
During the delivery, the variable $address_file$ contains the path name.


oindex:[%system_filter_file_transport%]
`..'=
%system_filter_file_transport%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[file,transport for system filter]
This sets the name of the transport driver that is to be used when the %save%
command in a system message filter specifies a path not ending in ``/''. During
the delivery, the variable $address_file$ contains the path name.

oindex:[%system_filter_group%]
`..'=
%system_filter_group%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[gid (group id),system filter]
This option is used only when %system_filter_user% is also set. It sets the
gid under which the system filter is run, overriding any gid that is associated
with the user. The value may be numerical or symbolic.

oindex:[%system_filter_pipe_transport%]
`..'=
%system_filter_pipe_transport%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[^pipe^ transport,for system filter]
This specifies the transport driver that is to be used when a %pipe% command is
used in a system filter. During the delivery, the variable $address_pipe$
contains the pipe command.


oindex:[%system_filter_reply_transport%]
`..'=
%system_filter_reply_transport%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[^autoreply^ transport,for system filter]
This specifies the transport driver that is to be used when a %mail% command is
used in a system filter.

oindex:[%system_filter_user%]
`..'=
%system_filter_user%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[uid (user id),system filter]
If this option is not set, the system filter is run in the main Exim delivery
process, as root. When the option is set, the system filter runs in a separate
process, as the given user. Unless the string consists entirely of digits, it
is looked up in the password data. Failure to find the named user causes a
configuration error. The gid is either taken from the password data, or
specified by %system_filter_group%. When the uid is specified numerically,
%system_filter_group% is required to be set.

If the system filter generates any pipe, file, or reply deliveries, the uid
under which the filter is run is used when transporting them, unless a
transport option overrides. Normally you should set %system_filter_user% if
your system filter generates these kinds of delivery.


oindex:[%tcp_nodelay%]
`..'=
%tcp_nodelay%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[daemon,TCP_NODELAY on sockets]
cindex:[Nagle algorithm]
cindex:[TCP_NODELAY on listening sockets]
If this option is set false, it stops the Exim daemon setting the
TCP_NODELAY option on its listening sockets. Setting TCP_NODELAY
turns off the ``Nagle algorithm'', which is a way of improving network
performance in interactive (character-by-character) situations. Turning it off
should improve Exim's performance a bit, so that is what happens by default.
However, it appears that some broken clients cannot cope, and time out. Hence
this option. It affects only those sockets that are set up for listening by the
daemon. Sockets created by the smtp transport for delivering mail always set
TCP_NODELAY.


oindex:[%timeout_frozen_after%]
`..'=
%timeout_frozen_after%, Use: 'main', Type: 'time', Default: '0s'
===

cindex:[frozen messages,timing out]
cindex:[timeout,frozen messages]
If %timeout_frozen_after% is set to a time greater than zero, a frozen
message of any kind that has been on the queue for longer than the given
time is automatically cancelled at the next queue run. If it is a bounce
message, it is just discarded; otherwise, a bounce is sent to the sender, in a
similar manner to cancellation by the %-Mg% command line option. If you want
to timeout frozen bounce messages earlier than other kinds of frozen message,
see %ignore_bounce_errors_after%.


oindex:[%timezone%]
`..'=
%timezone%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[timezone, setting]
The value of %timezone% is used to set the environment variable TZ while
running Exim (if it is different on entry). This ensures that all timestamps
created by Exim are in the required timezone. If you want all your timestamps
to be in UTC (aka GMT) you should set

  timezone = UTC

The default value is taken from TIMEZONE_DEFAULT in _Local/Makefile_,
or, if that is not set, from the value of the TZ environment variable when Exim
is built. If %timezone% is set to the empty string, either at build or run
time, any existing TZ variable is removed from the environment when Exim
runs. This is appropriate behaviour for obtaining wall-clock time on some, but
unfortunately not all, operating systems.


oindex:[%tls_advertise_hosts%]
`..'=
%tls_advertise_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,advertising]
cindex:[encryption,on SMTP connection]
cindex:[SMTP,encrypted connection]
When Exim is built with support for TLS encrypted connections, the availability
of the STARTTLS command to set up an encrypted session is advertised in
response to EHLO only to those client hosts that match this option. See
chapter <<CHAPTLS>> for details of Exim's support for TLS.


oindex:[%tls_certificate%]
`..'=
%tls_certificate%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,server certificate; location of]
cindex:[certificate for server, location of]
The value of this option is expanded, and must then be the absolute path to a
file which contains the server's certificates. The server's private key is also
assumed to be in this file if %tls_privatekey% is unset. See chapter <<CHAPTLS>>
for further details.

*Note*: The certificates defined by this option are used only when Exim is
receiving incoming messages as a server. If you want to supply certificates for
use when sending messages as a client, you must set the %tls_certificate%
option in the relevant ^smtp^ transport.


oindex:[%tls_crl%]
`..'=
%tls_crl%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,server certificate revocation list]
cindex:[certificate,revocation list for server]
This option specifies a certificate revocation list. The expanded value must
be the name of a file that contains a CRL in PEM format.


oindex:[%tls_dhparam%]
`..'=
%tls_dhparam%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,D-H parameters for server]
The value of this option is expanded, and must then be the absolute path to
a file which contains the server's DH parameter values.
This is used only for OpenSSL. When Exim is linked with GnuTLS, this option is
ignored. See section <<SECTopenvsgnu>> for further details.


oindex:[%tls_on_connect_ports%]
`..'=
%tls_on_connect_ports%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

This option specifies a list of incoming SSMTP (aka SMTPS) ports that should
operate the obsolete SSMTP (SMTPS) protocol, where a TLS session is immediately
set up without waiting for the client to issue a STARTTLS command. For
further details, see section <<SECTsupobssmt>>.



oindex:[%tls_privatekey%]
`..'=
%tls_privatekey%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,server private key; location of]
The value of this option is expanded, and must then be the absolute path to a
file which contains the server's private key. If this option is unset, the
private key is assumed to be in the same file as the server's certificates. See
chapter <<CHAPTLS>> for further details.


oindex:[%tls_remember_esmtp%]
`..'=
%tls_remember_esmtp%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[TLS,esmtp state; remembering]
cindex:[TLS,broken clients]
If this option is set true, Exim violates the RFCs by remembering that it is in
``esmtp'' state after successfully negotiating a TLS session. This provides
support for broken clients that fail to send a new EHLO after starting a
TLS session.


oindex:[%tls_require_ciphers%]
`..'=
%tls_require_ciphers%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,requiring specific ciphers]
cindex:[cipher,requiring specific]
This option controls which ciphers can be used for incoming TLS connections.
The ^smtp^ transport has an option of the same name for controlling outgoing
connections. This option is expanded for each connection, so can be varied for
different clients if required. The value of this option must be a list of
permitted cipher suites. The OpenSSL and GnuTLS libraries handle cipher control
in somewhat different ways.

If GnuTLS is being used, the client controls the preference order of the
available ciphers.

Details are given in sections <<SECTreqciphssl>> and <<SECTreqciphgnu>>.


oindex:[%tls_try_verify_hosts%]
`..'=
%tls_try_verify_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,client certificate verification]
cindex:[certificate,verification of client]
See %tls_verify_hosts% below.


oindex:[%tls_verify_certificates%]
`..'=
%tls_verify_certificates%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,client certificate verification]
cindex:[certificate,verification of client]
The value of this option is expanded, and must then be the absolute path to
a file containing permitted certificates for clients that
match %tls_verify_hosts% or %tls_try_verify_hosts%. Alternatively, if you
are using OpenSSL, you can set %tls_verify_certificates% to the name of a
directory containing certificate files. This does not work with GnuTLS; the
option must be set to the name of a single file if you are using GnuTLS.


oindex:[%tls_verify_hosts%]
`..'=
%tls_verify_hosts%, Use: 'main', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,client certificate verification]
cindex:[certificate,verification of client]
This option, along with %tls_try_verify_hosts%, controls the checking of
certificates from clients.
The expected certificates are defined by %tls_verify_certificates%, which
must be set. A configuration error occurs if either %tls_verify_hosts% or
%tls_try_verify_hosts% is set and %tls_verify_certificates% is not set.

Any client that matches %tls_verify_hosts% is constrained by
%tls_verify_certificates%. The client must present one of the listed
certificates. If it does not, the connection is aborted.

A weaker form of checking is provided by %tls_try_verify_hosts%. If a client
matches this option (but not %tls_verify_hosts%), Exim requests a
certificate and checks it against %tls_verify_certificates%, but does not
abort the connection if there is no certificate or if it does not match. This
state can be detected in an ACL, which makes it possible to implement policies
such as ``accept for relay only if a verified certificate has been received, but
accept for local delivery if encrypted, even without a verified certificate''.

Client hosts that match neither of these lists are not asked to present
certificates.


oindex:[%trusted_groups%]
`..'=
%trusted_groups%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[trusted group]
cindex:[group,trusted]
If this option is set, any process that is running in one of the listed groups,
or which has one of them as a supplementary group, is trusted.
The groups can be specified numerically or by name.
See section <<SECTtrustedadmin>> for details of what trusted callers are
permitted to do. If neither %trusted_groups% nor %trusted_users% is set, only
root and the Exim user are trusted.


oindex:[%trusted_users%]
`..'=
%trusted_users%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[trusted user]
cindex:[user,trusted]
If this option is set, any process that is running as one of the listed users
is trusted.
The users can be specified numerically or by name.
See section <<SECTtrustedadmin>> for details of what trusted callers are
permitted to do. If neither %trusted_groups% nor %trusted_users% is set, only
root and the Exim user are trusted.

oindex:[%unknown_login%]
`..'=
%unknown_login%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[uid (user id),unknown caller]
This is a specialized feature for use in unusual configurations. By default, if
the uid of the caller of Exim cannot be looked up using 'getpwuid()', Exim
gives up. The %unknown_login% option can be used to set a login name to be
used in this circumstance. It is expanded, so values like %user\$caller_uid%
can be set. When %unknown_login% is used, the value of %unknown_username% is
used for the user's real name (gecos field), unless this has been set by the
%-F% option.


oindex:[%unknown_username%]
`..'=
%unknown_username%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

See %unknown_login%.


oindex:[%untrusted_set_sender%]
`..'=
%untrusted_set_sender%, Use: 'main', Type: 'address list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[trusted user]
cindex:[sender,setting by untrusted user]
cindex:[untrusted user, setting sender]
cindex:[user,untrusted setting sender]
cindex:[envelope sender]
When an untrusted user submits a message to Exim using the standard input, Exim
normally creates an envelope sender address from the user's login and the
default qualification domain. Data from the %-f% option (for setting envelope
senders on non-SMTP messages) or the SMTP MAIL command (if %-bs% or %-bS%
is used) is ignored.

However, untrusted users are permitted to set an empty envelope sender address,
to declare that a message should never generate any bounces. For example:

  exim -f '<>' user@domain.example

The %untrusted_set_sender% option allows you to permit untrusted users to set
other envelope sender addresses in a controlled way. When it is set, untrusted
users are allowed to set envelope sender addresses that match any of the
patterns in the list. Like all address lists, the string is expanded. The
identity of the user is in $sender_ident$, so you can, for example, restrict
users to setting senders that start with their login ids
followed by a hyphen
by a setting like this:

  untrusted_set_sender = ^$sender_ident-

If you want to allow untrusted users to set envelope sender addresses without
restriction, you can use

  untrusted_set_sender = *

The %untrusted_set_sender% option applies to all forms of local input, but
only to the setting of the envelope sender. It does not permit untrusted users
to use the other options which trusted user can use to override message
parameters. Furthermore, it does not stop Exim from removing an existing
'Sender:' header in the message, or from adding a 'Sender:' header if
necessary. See %local_sender_retain% and %local_from_check% for ways of
overriding these actions. The handling of the 'Sender:' header is also
described in section <<SECTthesenhea>>.

The log line for a message's arrival shows the envelope sender following ``<=''.
For local messages, the user's login always follows, after ``U=''. In %-bp%
displays, and in the Exim monitor, if an untrusted user sets an envelope sender
address, the user's login is shown in parentheses after the sender address.


oindex:[%uucp_from_pattern%]
`..'=
%uucp_from_pattern%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[``From'' line]
cindex:[UUCP,``From'' line]
Some applications that pass messages to an MTA via a command line interface use
an initial line starting with ``From'' to pass the envelope sender. In
particular, this is used by UUCP software. Exim recognizes such a line by means
of a regular expression that is set in %uucp_from_pattern%. When the pattern
matches, the sender address is constructed by expanding the contents of
%uucp_from_sender%, provided that the caller of Exim is a trusted user. The
default pattern recognizes lines in the following two forms:

     From ph10 Fri Jan  5 12:35 GMT 1996
     From ph10 Fri, 7 Jan 97 14:00:00 GMT

The pattern can be seen by running

  exim -bP uucp_from_pattern

It checks only up to the hours and minutes, and allows for a 2-digit or 4-digit
year in the second case. The first word after ``From'' is matched in the regular
expression by a parenthesized subpattern. The default value for
%uucp_from_sender% is ``$1'', which therefore just uses this first word (``ph10''
in the example above) as the message's sender. See also
%ignore_fromline_hosts%.


oindex:[%uucp_from_sender%]
`..'=
%uucp_from_sender%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string'!!, Default: `\$1`
===

See %uucp_from_pattern% above.


oindex:[%warn_message_file%]
`..'=
%warn_message_file%, Use: 'main', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[warning of delay,customizing the message]
cindex:[customizing,warning message]
This option defines a template file containing paragraphs of text to be used
for constructing the warning message which is sent by Exim when a message has
been on the queue for a specified amount of time, as specified by
%delay_warning%. Details of the file's contents are given in chapter
<<CHAPemsgcust>>. See also %bounce_message_file%.


oindex:[%write_rejectlog%]
`..'=
%write_rejectlog%, Use: 'main', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[reject log,disabling]
If this option is set false, Exim no longer writes anything to the reject log.
See chapter <<CHAPlog>> for details of what Exim writes to its logs.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAProutergeneric]]
Generic options for routers
---------------------------
cindex:[options,generic; for routers]
cindex:[generic options,router]
This chapter describes the generic options that apply to all routers.
Those that are preconditions are marked with !? in the ``use'' field.

For a general description of how a router operates, see sections
<<SECTrunindrou>> and <<SECTrouprecon>>. The latter specifies the order in
which the preconditions are tested. The order of expansion of the options that
provide data for a transport is: %errors_to%, %headers_add%, %headers_remove%,
%transport%.



oindex:[%address_data%]
`..'=
%address_data%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,data attached to address]
The string is expanded just before the router is run, that is, after all the
precondition tests have succeeded. If the expansion is forced to fail, the
router declines. Other expansion failures cause delivery of the address to be
deferred.

When the expansion succeeds, the value is retained with the address, and can be
accessed using the variable $address_data$ in the current router, subsequent
routers, and the eventual transport.

*Warning*: if the current or any subsequent router is a ^redirect^ router
that runs a user's filter file, the contents of $address_data$ are
accessible in the filter. This is not normally a problem, because such data is
usually either not confidential or it ``belongs'' to the current user, but if you
do put confidential data into $address_data$ you need to remember this
point.

Even if the router declines or passes, the value of $address_data$ remains
with the address, though it can be changed by another %address_data% setting
on a subsequent router. If a router generates child addresses, the value of
$address_data$ propagates to them. This also applies to the special kind of
``child'' that is generated by a router with the %unseen% option.

The idea of %address_data% is that you can use it to look up a lot of data for
the address once, and then pick out parts of the data later. For example, you
could use a single LDAP lookup to return a string of the form

  uid=1234 gid=5678 mailbox=/mail/xyz forward=/home/xyz/.forward

In the transport you could pick out the mailbox by a setting such as

  file = ${extract{mailbox}{$address_data}}

This makes the configuration file less messy, and also reduces the number of
lookups (though Exim does cache lookups).

The %address_data% facility is also useful as a means of passing information
from one router to another, and from a router to a transport. In addition, if

$address_data$ is set by a router when verifying a recipient address from an
ACL, it remains available for use in the rest of the ACL statement. After
verifying a sender, the value is transferred to $sender_address_data$.




oindex:[%address_test%]
`..'=
%address_test%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[%-bt% option]
cindex:[router,skipping when address testing]
If this option is set false, the router is skipped when routing is being tested
by means of the %-bt% command line option. This can be a convenience when your
first router sends messages to an external scanner, because it saves you
having to set the ``already scanned'' indicator when testing real address
routing.



oindex:[%cannot_route_message%]
`..'=
%cannot_route_message%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,customizing ``cannot route'' message]
cindex:[customizing,``cannot route'' message]
This option specifies a text message that is used when an address cannot be
routed because Exim has run out of routers. The default message is ``Unrouteable
address''. This option is useful only on routers that have %more% set false, or
on the very last router in a configuration, because the value that is used is
taken from the last router that inspects an address. For example, using the
default configuration, you could put:

  cannot_route_message = Remote domain not found in DNS

on the first (^dnslookup^) router, and

  cannot_route_message = Unknown local user

on the final router that checks for local users. If string expansion fails, the
default message is used.
Unless the expansion failure was explicitly forced, a message about the failure
is written to the main and panic logs, in addition to the normal message about
the routing failure.


oindex:[%caseful_local_part%]
`..'=
%caseful_local_part%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[case of local parts]
cindex:[router,case of local parts]
By default, routers handle the local parts of addresses in a case-insensitive
manner, though the actual case is preserved for transmission with the message.
If you want the case of letters to be significant in a router, you must set
this option true. For individual router options that contain address or local
part lists (for example, %local_parts%), case-sensitive matching can be turned
on by ``+caseful'' as a list item. See section <<SECTcasletadd>> for more details.

The value of the $local_part$ variable is forced to lower case while a
router is running unless %caseful_local_part% is set. When a router assigns
an address to a transport, the value of $local_part$ when the transport runs
is the same as it was in the router. Similarly, when a router generates child
addresses by aliasing or forwarding, the values of $original_local_part$
and $parent_local_part$ are those that were used by the redirecting router.

This option applies to the processing of an address by a router. When a
recipient address is being processed in an ACL, there is a separate %control%
modifier that can be used to specify case-sensitive processing within the ACL
(see section <<SECTcontrols>>).



oindex:[%check_local_user%]
`..'=
%check_local_user%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[local user, checking in router]
cindex:[router,checking for local user]
cindex:[_/etc/passwd_]
When this option is true, Exim checks that the local part of the recipient
address (with affixes removed if relevant) is the name of an account on the
local system. The check is done by calling the 'getpwnam()' function rather
than trying to read _/etc/passwd_ directly. This means that other methods of
holding password data (such as NIS) are supported. If the local part is a local
user, $home$ is set from the password data, and can be tested in other
preconditions that are evaluated after this one (the order of evaluation is
given in section <<SECTrouprecon>>). However, the value of $home$ can be
overridden by %router_home_directory%. If the local part is not a local user,
the router is skipped.

If you want to check that the local part is either the name of a local user
or matches something else, you cannot combine %check_local_user% with a
setting of %local_parts%, because that specifies the logical 'and' of the
two conditions. However, you can use a ^passwd^ lookup in a %local_parts%
setting to achieve this. For example:

  local_parts = passwd;$local_part : lsearch;/etc/other/users

Note, however, that the side effects of %check_local_user% (such as setting
up a home directory) do not occur when a ^passwd^ lookup is used in a
%local_parts% (or any other) precondition.



oindex:[%condition%]
`..'=
%condition%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,customized precondition]
This option specifies a general precondition test that has to succeed for the
router to be called. The %condition% option is the last precondition to be
evaluated (see section <<SECTrouprecon>>). The string is expanded, and if the
result is a forced failure, or an empty string, or one of the strings ``0'' or
``no'' or ``false'' (checked without regard to the case of the letters), the router
is skipped, and the address is offered to the next one.

If the result is any other value, the router is run (as this is the last
precondition to be evaluated, all the other preconditions must be true).

The %condition% option provides a means of applying custom conditions to the
running of routers. Note that in the case of a simple conditional expansion,
the default expansion values are exactly what is wanted. For example:

  condition = ${if >{$message_age}{600}}

Because of the default behaviour of the string expansion, this is equivalent to

  condition = ${if >{$message_age}{600}{true}{}}


If the expansion fails (other than forced failure) delivery is deferred. Some
of the other precondition options are common special cases that could in fact
be specified using %condition%.



oindex:[%debug_print%]
`..'=
%debug_print%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[testing,variables in drivers]
If this option is set and debugging is enabled (see the %-d% command line
option), the string is expanded and included in the debugging output.
If expansion of the string fails, the error message is written to the debugging
output, and Exim carries on processing.
This option is provided to help with checking out the values of variables and
so on when debugging router configurations. For example, if a %condition%
option appears not to be working, %debug_print% can be used to output the
variables it references. The output happens after checks for %domains%,
%local_parts%, and %check_local_user% but before any other preconditions are
tested. A newline is added to the text if it does not end with one.



oindex:[%disable_logging%]
`..'=
%disable_logging%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is set true, nothing is logged for any routing errors
or for any deliveries caused by this router. You should not set this option
unless you really, really know what you are doing. See also the generic
transport option of the same name.


oindex:[%domains%]
`..'=
%domains%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,restricting to specific domains]
If this option is set, the router is skipped unless the current domain matches
the list. If the match is achieved by means of a file lookup, the data that the
lookup returned for the domain is placed in $domain_data$ for use in string
expansions of the driver's private options.
See section <<SECTrouprecon>> for a list of the order in which preconditions
are evaluated.



oindex:[%driver%]
`..'=
%driver%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

This option must always be set. It specifies which of the available routers is
to be used.



oindex:[%errors_to%]
`..'=
%errors_to%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[envelope sender]
cindex:[router,changing address for errors]
If a router successfully handles an address, it may queue the address for
delivery or it may generate child addresses. In both cases, if there is a
delivery problem during later processing, the resulting bounce message is sent
to the address that results from expanding this string, provided that the
address verifies successfully.
%errors_to% is expanded before %headers_add%, %headers_remove%, and
%transport%.

If the option is unset, or the expansion is forced to fail, or the result of
the expansion fails to verify, the errors address associated with the incoming
address is used. At top level, this is the envelope sender. A non-forced
expansion failure causes delivery to be deferred.

If an address for which %errors_to% has been set ends up being delivered over
SMTP, the envelope sender for that delivery is the %errors_to% value, so that
any bounces that are generated by other MTAs on the delivery route are also
sent there. The most common use of %errors_to% is probably to direct mailing
list bounces to the manager of the list, as described in section
<<SECTmailinglists>>.

The %errors_to% setting associated with an address can be overridden if it
subsequently passes through other routers that have their own %errors_to%
settings,
or if it is delivered by a transport with a %return_path% setting.

You can set %errors_to% to the empty string by either of these settings:

  errors_to =
  errors_to = ""

An expansion item that yields an empty string has the same effect. If you do
this, a locally detected delivery error for addresses processed by this router
no longer gives rise to a bounce message; the error is discarded. If the
address is delivered to a remote host, the return path is set to `<>`, unless
overridden by the %return_path% option on the transport.

If for some reason you want to discard local errors, but use a non-empty
MAIL command for remote delivery, you can preserve the original return
path in $address_data$ in the router, and reinstate it in the transport by
setting %return_path%.



oindex:[%expn%]
`..'=
%expn%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[address,testing]
cindex:[testing,addresses]
cindex:[EXPN,router skipping]
cindex:[router,skipping for EXPN]
If this option is turned off, the router is skipped when testing an address
as a result of processing an SMTP EXPN command. You might, for example,
want to turn it off on a router for users' _.forward_ files, while leaving it
on for the system alias file.
See section <<SECTrouprecon>> for a list of the order in which preconditions
are evaluated.

The use of the SMTP EXPN command is controlled by an ACL (see chapter
<<CHAPACL>>). When Exim is running an EXPN command, it is similar to testing
an address with %-bt%. Compare VRFY, whose counterpart is %-bv%.



oindex:[%fail_verify%]
`..'=
%fail_verify%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[router,forcing verification failure]
Setting this option has the effect of setting both %fail_verify_sender% and
%fail_verify_recipient% to the same value.



oindex:[%fail_verify_recipient%]
`..'=
%fail_verify_recipient%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true and an address is accepted by this router when
verifying a recipient, verification fails.



oindex:[%fail_verify_sender%]
`..'=
%fail_verify_sender%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true and an address is accepted by this router when
verifying a sender, verification fails.



oindex:[%fallback_hosts%]
`..'=
%fallback_hosts%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,fallback hosts]
cindex:[fallback,hosts specified on router]
String expansion is not applied to this option. The argument must be a
colon-separated list of host names or IP addresses. If a router queues an
address for a remote transport, this host list is associated with the address,
and used instead of the transport's fallback host list. If %hosts_randomize%
is set on the transport, the order of the list is randomized for each use. See
the %fallback_hosts% option of the ^smtp^ transport for further details.


oindex:[%group%]
`..'=
%group%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[gid (group id),local delivery]
cindex:[local transports,uid and gid]
cindex:[transport,local]
cindex:[router,setting group]
When a router queues an address for a transport, and the transport does not
specify a group, the group given here is used when running the delivery
process.
The group may be specified numerically or by name. If expansion fails, the
error is logged and delivery is deferred.
The default is unset, unless %check_local_user% is set, when the default
is taken from the password information. See also %initgroups% and %user% and
the discussion in chapter <<CHAPenvironment>>.



oindex:[%headers_add%]
`..'=
%headers_add%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[header lines,adding]
cindex:[router,adding header lines]
This option specifies a string of text that is expanded at routing time, and
associated with any addresses that are accepted by the router. However, this
option has no effect when an address is just being verified. The way in which
the text is used to add header lines at transport time is described in section
<<SECTheadersaddrem>>.

The %headers_add% option is expanded after %errors_to%, but before
%headers_remove% and %transport%. If the expanded string is empty, or if the
expansion is forced to fail, the option has no effect. Other expansion failures
are treated as configuration errors.

*Warning*: The %headers_add% option cannot be used for a ^redirect^
router that has the %one_time% option set.




oindex:[%headers_remove%]
`..'=
%headers_remove%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[header lines,removing]
cindex:[router,removing header lines]
This option specifies a string of text that is expanded at routing time, and
associated with any addresses that are accepted by the router. However, this
option has no effect when an address is just being verified. The way in which
the text is used to remove header lines at transport time is described in
section <<SECTheadersaddrem>>.

The %headers_remove% option is expanded after %errors_to% and %headers_add%,
but before %transport%. If the expansion is forced to fail, the option has no
effect. Other expansion failures are treated as configuration errors.

*Warning*: The %headers_remove% option cannot be used for a ^redirect^
router that has the %one_time% option set.




oindex:[%ignore_target_hosts%]
`..'=
%ignore_target_hosts%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[IP address,discarding]
cindex:[router,discarding IP addresses]
Although this option is a host list, it should normally contain IP address
entries rather than names. If any host that is looked up by the router has an
IP address that matches an item in this list, Exim behaves as if that IP
address did not exist. This option allows you to cope with rogue DNS entries
like

  remote.domain.example.  A  127.0.0.1

by setting

  ignore_target_hosts = 127.0.0.1

on the relevant router. If all the hosts found by a ^dnslookup^ router are
discarded in this way, the router declines. In a conventional configuration, an
attempt to mail to such a domain would normally provoke the ``unrouteable
domain'' error, and an attempt to verify an address in the domain would fail.

Similarly, if %ignore_target_hosts% is set on an ^ipliteral^ router, the
router declines if presented with one of the listed addresses.

This option may also be useful for ignoring link-local and site-local IPv6
addresses. Because, like all host lists, the value of %ignore_target_hosts%
is expanded before use as a list, it is possible to make it dependent on the
domain that is being routed.

During its expansion, $host_address$ is set to the IP address that is being
checked.

oindex:[%initgroups%]
`..'=
%initgroups%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[additional groups]
cindex:[groups, additional]
cindex:[local transports,uid and gid]
cindex:[transport,local]
If the router queues an address for a transport, and this option is true, and
the uid supplied by the router is not overridden by the transport, the
'initgroups()' function is called when running the transport to ensure that
any additional groups associated with the uid are set up. See also %group% and
%user% and the discussion in chapter <<CHAPenvironment>>.



oindex:[%local_part_prefix%]
`..'=
%local_part_prefix%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,prefix for local part]
cindex:[prefix,for local part; used in router]
If this option is set, the router is skipped unless the local part
starts with one of the given strings, or %local_part_prefix_optional% is
true.
See section <<SECTrouprecon>> for a list of the order in which preconditions
are evaluated.

The list is scanned from left to right, and the first prefix that matches is
used. A limited form of wildcard is available; if the prefix begins with an
asterisk, it matches the longest possible sequence of arbitrary characters at
the start of the local part. An asterisk should therefore always be followed by
some character that does not occur in normal local parts.

cindex:[multiple mailboxes]
cindex:[mailbox,multiple]
Wildcarding can be used to set up multiple user mailboxes, as described in
section <<SECTmulbox>>.

During the testing of the %local_parts% option, and while the router is
running, the prefix is removed from the local part, and is available in the
expansion variable $local_part_prefix$. If the router accepts the address,
this remains true during subsequent delivery.
In particular, the local part that is transmitted in the RCPT command
for LMTP, SMTP, and BSMTP deliveries has the prefix removed by default. This
behaviour can be overridden by setting %rcpt_include_affixes% true on the
relevant transport.

The prefix facility is commonly used to handle local parts of the form
%owner-something%. Another common use is to support local parts of the form
%real-username% to bypass a user's _.forward_ file -- helpful when trying to
tell a user their forwarding is broken -- by placing a router like this one
immediately before the router that handles _.forward_ files:

  real_localuser:
    driver = accept
    local_part_prefix = real-
    check_local_user
    transport = local_delivery

If both %local_part_prefix% and %local_part_suffix% are set for a router,
both conditions must be met if not optional. Care must be taken if wildcards
are used in both a prefix and a suffix on the same router. Different
separator characters must be used to avoid ambiguity.


oindex:[%local_part_prefix_optional%]
`..'=
%local_part_prefix_optional%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

See %local_part_prefix% above.



oindex:[%local_part_suffix%]
`..'=
%local_part_suffix%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,suffix for local part]
cindex:[suffix for local part, used in router]
This option operates in the same way as %local_part_prefix%, except that the
local part must end (rather than start) with the given string, the
%local_part_suffix_optional% option determines whether the suffix is
mandatory, and the wildcard \* character, if present, must be the last
character of the suffix. This option facility is commonly used to handle local
parts of the form %something-request% and multiple user mailboxes of the form
%username-foo%.


oindex:[%local_part_suffix_optional%]
`..'=
%local_part_suffix_optional%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

See %local_part_suffix% above.



oindex:[%local_parts%]
`..'=
%local_parts%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'local part list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,restricting to specific local parts]
cindex:[local part,checking in router]
The router is run only if the local part of the address matches the list.
See section <<SECTrouprecon>> for a list of the order in which preconditions
are evaluated, and
section <<SECTlocparlis>> for a discussion of local part lists. Because the
string is expanded, it is possible to make it depend on the domain, for
example:

  local_parts = dbm;/usr/local/specials/$domain

If the match is achieved by a lookup, the data that the lookup returned
for the local part is placed in the variable $local_part_data$ for use in
expansions of the router's private options. You might use this option, for
example, if you have a large number of local virtual domains, and you want to
send all postmaster mail to the same place without having to set up an alias in
each virtual domain:

  postmaster:
    driver = redirect
    local_parts = postmaster
    data = postmaster@real.domain.example




oindex:[%log_as_local%]
`..'=
%log_as_local%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[log,delivery line]
cindex:[delivery,log line format]
Exim has two logging styles for delivery, the idea being to make local
deliveries stand out more visibly from remote ones. In the ``local'' style, the
recipient address is given just as the local part, without a domain. The use of
this style is controlled by this option. It defaults to true for the ^accept^
router, and false for all the others.



oindex:[%more%]
`..'=
%more%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean'!!, Default: 'true'
===

The result of string expansion for this option must be a valid boolean value,
that is, one of the strings ``yes'', ``no'', ``true'', or ``false''. Any other
result causes an error, and delivery is deferred. If the expansion is forced to
fail, the default value for the option (true) is used. Other failures cause
delivery to be deferred.

If this option is set false, and the router is run, but declines to handle the
address, no further routers are tried, routing fails, and the address is
bounced.
cindex:[%self% option]
However, if the router explicitly passes an address to the following router by
means of the setting

  self = pass

or otherwise, the setting of %more% is ignored. Also, the setting of %more%
does not affect the behaviour if one of the precondition tests fails. In that
case, the address is always passed to the next router.



oindex:[%pass_on_timeout%]
`..'=
%pass_on_timeout%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[timeout,of router]
cindex:[router,timeout]
If a router times out during a host lookup, it normally causes deferral of the
address. If %pass_on_timeout% is set, the address is passed on to the next
router, overriding %no_more%. This may be helpful for systems that are
intermittently connected to the Internet, or those that want to pass to a smart
host any messages that cannot immediately be delivered.

There are occasional other temporary errors that can occur while doing DNS
lookups. They are treated in the same way as a timeout, and this option
applies to all of them.



oindex:[%pass_router%]
`..'=
%pass_router%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,go to after ``pass'']
When a router returns ``pass'', the address is normally handed on to the next
router in sequence. This can be changed by setting %pass_router% to the name
of another router. However (unlike %redirect_router%) the named router must be
below the current router, to avoid loops. Note that this option applies only to
the special case of ``pass''. It does not apply when a router returns ``decline''.



oindex:[%redirect_router%]
`..'=
%redirect_router%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,start at after redirection]
Sometimes an administrator knows that it is pointless to reprocess addresses
generated from alias or forward files with the same router again. For
example, if an alias file translates real names into login ids there is no
point searching the alias file a second time, especially if it is a large file.

The %redirect_router% option can be set to the name of any router instance. It
causes the routing of any generated addresses to start at the named router
instead of at the first router. This option has no effect if the router in
which it is set does not generate new addresses.



oindex:[%require_files%]
`..'=
%require_files%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'string list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[file,requiring for router]
cindex:[router,requiring file existence]
This option provides a general mechanism for predicating the running of a
router on the existence or non-existence of certain files or directories.
Before running a router, as one of its precondition tests, Exim works its way
through the %require_files% list, expanding each item separately.

Because the list is split before expansion, any colons in expansion items must
be doubled, or the facility for using a different list separator must be used.
If any expansion is forced to fail, the item is ignored. Other expansion
failures cause routing of the address to be deferred.

If any expanded string is empty, it is ignored. Otherwise, except as described
below, each string must be a fully qualified file path, optionally preceded by
``!''. The paths are passed to the 'stat()' function to test for the existence
of the files or directories. The router is skipped if any paths not preceded by
``!'' do not exist, or if any paths preceded by ``!'' do exist.

cindex:[NFS]
If 'stat()' cannot determine whether a file exists or not, delivery of
the message is deferred. This can happen when NFS-mounted filesystems are
unavailable.

This option is checked after the %domains%, %local_parts%, and %senders%
options, so you cannot use it to check for the existence of a file in which to
look up a domain, local part, or sender. (See section <<SECTrouprecon>> for a
full list of the order in which preconditions are evaluated.) However, as
these options are all expanded, you can use the %exists% expansion condition to
make such tests. The %require_files% option is intended for checking files
that the router may be going to use internally, or which are needed by a
transport (for example _.procmailrc_).

During delivery, the 'stat()' function is run as root, but there is a
facility for some checking of the accessibility of a file by another user.
This is not a proper permissions check, but just a ``rough'' check that
operates as follows:

If an item in a %require_files% list does not contain any forward slash
characters, it is taken to be the user (and optional group, separated by a
comma) to be checked for subsequent files in the list. If no group is specified
but the user is specified symbolically, the gid associated with the uid is
used. For example:

  require_files = mail:/some/file
  require_files = $local_part:$home/.procmailrc

If a user or group name in a %require_files% list does not exist, the
%require_files% condition fails.

Exim performs the check by scanning along the components of the file path, and
checking the access for the given uid and gid. It checks for ``x'' access on
directories, and ``r'' access on the final file. Note that this means that file
access control lists, if the operating system has them, are ignored.

*Warning 1*: When the router is being run to verify addresses for an
incoming SMTP message, Exim is not running as root, but under its own uid. This
may affect the result of a %require_files% check. In particular, 'stat()'
may yield the error EACCES (``Permission denied''). This means that the Exim
user is not permitted to read one of the directories on the file's path.

*Warning 2*: Even when Exim is running as root while delivering a message,
'stat()' can yield EACCES for a file in an NFS directory that is mounted
without root access.

In this case, if a check for access by a particular user is requested, Exim
creates a subprocess that runs as that user, and tries the check again in that
process.

The default action for handling an unresolved EACCES is to consider it to
be caused by a configuration error,

and routing is deferred because the existence or non-existence of the file
cannot be determined. However, in some circumstances it may be desirable to
treat this condition as if the file did not exist. If the file name (or the
exclamation mark that precedes the file name for non-existence) is preceded by
a plus sign, the EACCES error is treated as if the file did not exist. For
example:

  require_files = +/some/file

If the router is not an essential part of verification (for example, it
handles users' _.forward_ files), another solution is to set the %verify%
option false so that the router is skipped when verifying.



oindex:[%retry_use_local_part%]
`..'=
%retry_use_local_part%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[hints database,retry keys]
cindex:[local part,in retry keys]
When a delivery suffers a temporary routing failure, a retry record is created
in Exim's hints database. For addresses whose routing depends only on the
domain, the key for the retry record should not involve the local part, but for
other addresses, both the domain and the local part should be included.
Usually, remote routing is of the former kind, and local routing is of the
latter kind.

This option controls whether the local part is used to form the key for retry
hints for addresses that suffer temporary errors while being handled by this
router. The default value is true for any router that has %check_local_user%
set, and false otherwise. Note that this option does not apply to hints keys
for transport delays; they are controlled by a generic transport option of the
same name.

The setting of %retry_use_local_part% applies only to the router on which it
appears. If the router generates child addresses, they are routed
independently; this setting does not become attached to them.



oindex:[%router_home_directory%]
`..'=
%router_home_directory%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,home directory for]
cindex:[home directory,for router]
This option sets a home directory for use while the router is running. (Compare
%transport_home_directory%, which sets a home directory for later
transporting.) In particular, if used on a ^redirect^ router, this option
sets a value for $home$ while a filter is running. The value is expanded;
forced expansion failure causes the option to be ignored -- other failures
cause the router to defer.

Expansion of %router_home_directory% happens immediately after the
%check_local_user% test (if configured), before any further expansions take
place.
(See section <<SECTrouprecon>> for a list of the order in which preconditions
are evaluated.)
While the router is running, %router_home_directory% overrides the value of
$home$ that came from %check_local_user%.

When a router accepts an address and routes it to a transport (including the
cases when a redirect router generates a pipe, file, or autoreply delivery),
the home directory setting for the transport is taken from the first of these
values that is set:

- The %home_directory% option on the transport;

- The %transport_home_directory% option on the router;

- The password data if %check_local_user% is set on the router;

- The %router_home_directory% option on the router.

In other words, %router_home_directory% overrides the password data for the
router, but not for the transport.



oindex:[%self%]
`..'=
%self%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string', Default: 'freeze'
===

cindex:[MX record,pointing to local host]
cindex:[local host,MX pointing to]
This option applies to those routers that use a recipient address to find a
list of remote hosts. Currently, these are the ^dnslookup^, ^ipliteral^,
and ^manualroute^ routers.
Certain configurations of the ^queryprogram^ router can also specify a list
of remote hosts.
Usually such routers are configured to send the message to a remote host via an
^smtp^ transport. The %self% option specifies what happens when the first
host on the list turns out to be the local host.
The way in which Exim checks for the local host is described in section
<<SECTreclocipadd>>.

Normally this situation indicates either an error in Exim's configuration (for
example, the router should be configured not to process this domain), or an
error in the DNS (for example, the MX should not point to this host). For this
reason, the default action is to log the incident, defer the address, and
freeze the message. The following alternatives are provided for use in special
cases:

%defer%::
Delivery of the message is tried again later, but the message is not frozen.

%reroute%: <'domain'>::
The domain is changed to the given domain, and the address is passed back to
be reprocessed by the routers. No rewriting of headers takes place. This
behaviour is essentially a redirection.

%reroute: rewrite:% <'domain'>::
The domain is changed to the given domain, and the address is passed back to be
reprocessed by the routers. Any headers that contain the original domain are
rewritten.

%pass%::
The router passes the address to the next router, or to the router named in the
%pass_router% option if it is set.
cindex:[%more% option]
This overrides %no_more%.
+
During subsequent routing and delivery, the variable $self_hostname$ contains
the name of the local host that the router encountered. This can be used to
distinguish between different cases for hosts with multiple names. The
combination

  self = pass
  no_more
+
ensures that only those addresses that routed to the local host are passed on.
Without %no_more%, addresses that were declined for other reasons would also
be passed to the next router.

%fail%::
Delivery fails and an error report is generated.

%send%::
cindex:[local host,sending to]
The anomaly is ignored and the address is queued for the transport. This
setting should be used with extreme caution. For an ^smtp^ transport, it makes
sense only in cases where the program that is listening on the SMTP port is not
this version of Exim. That is, it must be some other MTA, or Exim with a
different configuration file that handles the domain in another way.



oindex:[%senders%]
`..'=
%senders%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'address list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[router,checking senders]
If this option is set, the router is skipped unless the message's sender
address matches something on the list.
See section <<SECTrouprecon>> for a list of the order in which preconditions
are evaluated.

There are issues concerning verification when the running of routers is
dependent on the sender. When Exim is verifying the address in an %errors_to%
setting, it sets the sender to the null string. When using the %-bt% option to
check a configuration file, it is necessary also to use the %-f% option to set
an appropriate sender. For incoming mail, the sender is unset when verifying
the sender, but is available when verifying any recipients. If the SMTP
VRFY command is enabled, it must be used after MAIL if the sender
address matters.


oindex:[%translate_ip_address%]
`..'=
%translate_ip_address%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[IP address,translating]
cindex:[packet radio]
cindex:[router,IP address translation]
There exist some rare networking situations (for example, packet radio) where
it is helpful to be able to translate IP addresses generated by normal routing
mechanisms into other IP addresses, thus performing a kind of manual IP
routing. This should be done only if the normal IP routing of the TCP/IP stack
is inadequate or broken. Because this is an extremely uncommon requirement, the
code to support this option is not included in the Exim binary unless
SUPPORT_TRANSLATE_IP_ADDRESS=yes is set in _Local/Makefile_.

The %translate_ip_address% string is expanded for every IP address generated
by the router, with the generated address set in $host_address$. If the
expansion is forced to fail, no action is taken.
For any other expansion error, delivery of the message is deferred.
If the result of the expansion is an IP address, that replaces the original
address; otherwise the result is assumed to be a host name -- this is looked up
using 'gethostbyname()' (or 'getipnodebyname()' when available) to produce
one or more replacement IP addresses. For example, to subvert all IP addresses
in some specific networks, this could be added to a router:

....
translate_ip_address = \
  ${lookup{${mask:$host_address/26}}lsearch{/some/file}{$value}fail}}
....

The file would contain lines like

  10.2.3.128/26    some.host
  10.8.4.34/26     10.44.8.15

You should not make use of this facility unless you really understand what you
are doing.



oindex:[%transport%]
`..'=
%transport%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option specifies the transport to be used when a router accepts an address
and sets it up for delivery. A transport is never needed if a router is used
only for verification. The value of the option is expanded at routing time,
after the expansion of %errors_to%, %headers_add%, and %headers_remove%, and
result must be the name of one of the configured transports. If it is not,
delivery is deferred.

The %transport% option is not used by the ^redirect^ router, but it does have
some private options that set up transports for pipe and file deliveries (see
chapter <<CHAPredirect>>).



oindex:[%transport_current_directory%]
`..'=
%transport_current_directory%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[current directory for local transport]
This option associates a current directory with any address that is routed
to a local transport. This can happen either because a transport is
explicitly configured for the router, or because it generates a delivery to a
file or a pipe. During the delivery process (that is, at transport time), this
option string is expanded and is set as the current directory, unless
overridden by a setting on the transport.
If the expansion fails for any reason, including forced failure, an error is
logged, and delivery is deferred.
See chapter <<CHAPenvironment>> for details of the local delivery environment.




oindex:[%transport_home_directory%]
`..'=
%transport_home_directory%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[home directory,for local transport]
This option associates a home directory with any address that is routed to a
local transport. This can happen either because a transport is explicitly
configured for the router, or because it generates a delivery to a file or a
pipe. During the delivery process (that is, at transport time), the option
string is expanded and is set as the home directory, unless overridden by a
setting of %home_directory% on the transport.
If the expansion fails for any reason, including forced failure, an error is
logged, and delivery is deferred.

If the transport does not specify a home directory, and
%transport_home_directory% is not set for the router, the home directory for
the tranport is taken from the password data if %check_local_user% is set for
the router. Otherwise it is taken from %router_home_directory% if that option
is set; if not, no home directory is set for the transport.

See chapter <<CHAPenvironment>> for further details of the local delivery
environment.




oindex:[%unseen%]
`..'=
%unseen%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'boolean'!!, Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[router,carrying on after success]
The result of string expansion for this option must be a valid boolean value,
that is, one of the strings ``yes'', ``no'', ``true'', or ``false''. Any other result
causes an error, and delivery is deferred. If the expansion is forced to fail,
the default value for the option (false) is used. Other failures cause delivery
to be deferred.

When this option is set true, routing does not cease if the router accepts the
address. Instead, a copy of the incoming address is passed to the next router,
overriding a false setting of %more%. There is little point in setting %more%
false if %unseen% is always true, but it may be useful in cases when the value
of %unseen% contains expansion items (and therefore, presumably, is sometimes
true and sometimes false).

cindex:[copy of message (%unseen% option)]
The %unseen% option can be used to cause copies of messages to be delivered to
some other destination, while also carrying out a normal delivery. In effect,
the current address is made into a ``parent'' that has two children -- one that
is delivered as specified by this router, and a clone that goes on to be routed
further.

Header lines added to the address (or specified for removal) by this router or
by previous routers affect the ``unseen'' copy of the message only. The clone
that continues to be processed by further routers starts with no added headers
and none specified for removal.

However, any data that was set by the %address_data% option in the current or
previous routers is passed on. Setting this option has a similar effect to the
%unseen% command qualifier in filter files.



oindex:[%user%]
`..'=
%user%, Use: 'routers', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[uid (user id),local delivery]
cindex:[local transports,uid and gid]
cindex:[transport,local]
cindex:[router,user for filter processing]
cindex:[filter,user for processing]
When a router queues an address for a transport, and the transport does not
specify a user, the user given here is used when running the delivery process.
The user may be specified numerically or by name. If expansion fails, the
error is logged and delivery is deferred.
This user is also used by the ^redirect^ router when running a filter file.
The default is unset, except when %check_local_user% is set. In this case,
the default is taken from the password information. If the user is specified as
a name, and %group% is not set, the group associated with the user is used. See
also %initgroups% and %group% and the discussion in chapter <<CHAPenvironment>>.



oindex:[%verify%]
`..'=
%verify%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

Setting this option has the effect of setting %verify_sender% and
%verify_recipient% to the same value.


oindex:[%verify_only%]
`..'=
%verify_only%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[EXPN,with %verify_only%]
cindex:[%-bv% option]
cindex:[router,used only when verifying]
If this option is set, the router is used only when verifying an address or
testing with the %-bv% option, not when actually doing a delivery, testing
with the %-bt% option, or running the SMTP EXPN command. It can be further
restricted to verifying only senders or recipients by means of %verify_sender%
and %verify_recipient%.

*Warning*: When the router is being run to verify addresses for an incoming
SMTP message, Exim is not running as root, but under its own uid. If the router
accesses any files, you need to make sure that they are accessible to the Exim
user or group.


oindex:[%verify_recipient%]
`..'=
%verify_recipient%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

If this option is false, the router is skipped when verifying recipient
addresses
or testing recipient verification using %-bv%.
See section <<SECTrouprecon>> for a list of the order in which preconditions
are evaluated.


oindex:[%verify_sender%]
`..'=
%verify_sender%, Use: 'routers'!?, Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

If this option is false, the router is skipped when verifying sender addresses
or testing sender verification using %-bvs%.
See section <<SECTrouprecon>> for a list of the order in which preconditions
are evaluated.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The accept router
-----------------
cindex:[^accept^ router]
cindex:[routers,^accept^]
The ^accept^ router has no private options of its own. Unless it is being used
purely for verification (see %verify_only%) a transport is required to be
defined by the generic %transport% option. If the preconditions that are
specified by generic options are met, the router accepts the address and queues
it for the given transport. The most common use of this router is for setting
up deliveries to local mailboxes. For example:

  localusers:
    driver = accept
    domains = mydomain.example
    check_local_user
    transport = local_delivery

The %domains% condition in this example checks the domain of the address, and
%check_local_user% checks that the local part is the login of a local user.
When both preconditions are met, the ^accept^ router runs, and queues the
address for the ^local_delivery^ transport.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPdnslookup]]
The dnslookup router
--------------------
cindex:[^dnslookup^ router]
cindex:[routers,^dnslookup^]
The ^dnslookup^ router looks up the hosts that handle mail for the
recipient's domain in the DNS. A transport must always be set for this router,
unless %verify_only% is set.

If SRV support is configured (see %check_srv% below), Exim first searches for
SRV records. If none are found, or if SRV support is not configured,
MX records are looked up. If no MX records exist, address records are sought.
However, %mx_domains% can be set to disable the direct use of address records.

MX records of equal priority are sorted by Exim into a random order. Exim then
looks for address records for the host names obtained from MX or SRV records.
When a host has more than one IP address, they are sorted into a random order,
except that IPv6 addresses are always sorted before IPv4 addresses. If all the
IP addresses found are discarded by a setting of the %ignore_target_hosts%
generic option, the router declines.

Unless they have the highest priority (lowest MX value), MX records that point
to the local host, or to any host name that matches %hosts_treat_as_local%,
are discarded, together with any other MX records of equal or lower priority.

cindex:[MX record,pointing to local host]
cindex:[local host,MX pointing to]
cindex:[%self% option,in ^dnslookup^ router]
If the host pointed to by the highest priority MX record, or looked up as an
address record, is the local host, or matches %hosts_treat_as_local%, what
happens is controlled by the generic %self% option.


[[SECTprowitdnsloo]]
Problems with DNS lookups
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There have been problems with DNS servers when SRV records are looked up.
Some mis-behaving servers return a DNS error or timeout when a non-existent
SRV record is sought. Similar problems have in the past been reported for
MX records. The global %dns_again_means_nonexist% option can help with this
problem, but it is heavy-handed because it is a global option.

For this reason, there are two options, %srv_fail_domains% and
%mx_fail_domains%, that control what happens when a DNS lookup in a
^dnslookup^ router results in a DNS failure or a ``try again'' response. If an
attempt to look up an SRV or MX record causes one of these results, and the
domain matches the relevant list, Exim behaves as if the DNS had responded ``no
such record''. In the case of an SRV lookup, this means that the router proceeds
to look for MX records; in the case of an MX lookup, it proceeds to look for A
or AAAA records, unless the domain matches %mx_domains%, in which case routing
fails.




Private options for dnslookup
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^dnslookup^ router]
The private options for the ^dnslookup^ router are as follows:

oindex:[%check_secondary_mx%]
`..'=
%check_secondary_mx%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[MX record,checking for secondary]
If this option is set, the router declines unless the local host is found in
(and removed from) the list of hosts obtained by MX lookup. This can be used to
process domains for which the local host is a secondary mail exchanger
differently to other domains. The way in which Exim decides whether a host is
the local host is described in section <<SECTreclocipadd>>.


oindex:[%check_srv%]
`..'=
%check_srv%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[SRV record,enabling use of]
The ^dnslookup^ router supports the use of SRV records (see RFC 2782) in
addition to MX and address records. The support is disabled by default. To
enable SRV support, set the %check_srv% option to the name of the service
required. For example,

  check_srv = smtp

looks for SRV records that refer to the normal smtp service. The option is
expanded, so the service name can vary from message to message or address
to address. This might be helpful if SRV records are being used for a
submission service. If the expansion is forced to fail, the %check_srv%
option is ignored, and the router proceeds to look for MX records in the
normal way.

When the expansion succeeds, the router searches first for SRV records for
the given service (it assumes TCP protocol). A single SRV record with a
host name that consists of just a single dot indicates ``no such service for
this domain''; if this is encountered, the router declines. If other kinds of
SRV record are found, they are used to construct a host list for delivery
according to the rules of RFC 2782. MX records are not sought in this case.

When no SRV records are found, MX records (and address records) are sought in
the traditional way. In other words, SRV records take precedence over MX
records, just as MX records take precedence over address records. Note that
this behaviour is not sanctioned by RFC 2782, though a previous draft RFC
defined it. It is apparently believed that MX records are sufficient for email
and that SRV records should not be used for this purpose. However, SRV records
have an additional ``weight'' feature which some people might find useful when
trying to split an SMTP load between hosts of different power.

See section <<SECTprowitdnsloo>> above for a discussion of Exim's behaviour when
there is a DNS lookup error.



oindex:[%mx_domains%]
`..'=
%mx_domains%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[MX record,required to exist]
cindex:[SRV record,required to exist]
A domain that matches %mx_domains% is required to have either an MX or an SRV
record in order to be recognised. (The name of this option could be improved.)
For example, if all the mail hosts in 'fict.example' are known to have MX
records, except for those in 'discworld.fict.example', you could use this
setting:

  mx_domains = ! *.discworld.fict.example : *.fict.example

This specifies that messages addressed to a domain that matches the list but
has no MX record should be bounced immediately instead of being routed using
the address record.


oindex:[%mx_fail_domains%]
`..'=
%mx_fail_domains%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

If the DNS lookup for MX records for one of the domains in this list causes a
DNS lookup error, Exim behaves as if no MX records were found. See section
<<SECTprowitdnsloo>> for more discussion.




oindex:[%qualify_single%]
`..'=
%qualify_single%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[DNS,resolver options]
cindex:[DNS,qualifying single-component names]
When this option is true, the resolver option RES_DEFNAMES is set for DNS
lookups. Typically, but not standardly, this causes the resolver to qualify
single-component names with the default domain. For example, on a machine
called 'dictionary.ref.example', the domain 'thesaurus' would be changed to
'thesaurus.ref.example' inside the resolver. For details of what your resolver
actually does, consult your man pages for 'resolver' and 'resolv.conf'.



oindex:[%rewrite_headers%]
`..'=
%rewrite_headers%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[rewriting,header lines]
cindex:[header lines,rewriting]
If the domain name in the address that is being processed is not fully
qualified, it may be expanded to its full form by a DNS lookup. For example, if
an address is specified as 'dormouse@teaparty', the domain might be
expanded to 'teaparty.wonderland.fict.example'. Domain expansion can also
occur as a result of setting the %widen_domains% option. If %rewrite_headers%
is true, all occurrences of the abbreviated domain name in any 'Bcc:', 'Cc:',
'From:', 'Reply-to:', 'Sender:', and 'To:' header lines of the message are
rewritten with the full domain name.

This option should be turned off only when it is known that no message is
ever going to be sent outside an environment where the abbreviation makes
sense.

When an MX record is looked up in the DNS and matches a wildcard record, name
servers normally return a record containing the name that has been looked up,
making it impossible to detect whether a wildcard was present or not. However,
some name servers have recently been seen to return the wildcard entry. If the
name returned by a DNS lookup begins with an asterisk, it is not used for
header rewriting.


oindex:[%same_domain_copy_routing%]
`..'=
%same_domain_copy_routing%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[address,copying routing]
Addresses with the same domain are normally routed by the ^dnslookup^ router
to the same list of hosts. However, this cannot be presumed, because the router
options and preconditions may refer to the local part of the address. By
default, therefore, Exim routes each address in a message independently. DNS
servers run caches, so repeated DNS lookups are not normally expensive, and in
any case, personal messages rarely have more than a few recipients.

If you are running mailing lists with large numbers of subscribers at the same
domain, and you are using a ^dnslookup^ router which is independent of the
local part, you can set %same_domain_copy_routing% to bypass repeated DNS
lookups for identical domains in one message. In this case, when ^dnslookup^
routes an address to a remote transport, any other unrouted addresses in the
message that have the same domain are automatically given the same routing
without processing them independently,
provided the following conditions are met:

- No router that processed the address specified %headers_add% or
%headers_remove%.

- The router did not change the address in any way, for example, by ``widening''
the domain.




oindex:[%search_parents%]
`..'=
%search_parents%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[DNS,resolver options]
When this option is true, the resolver option RES_DNSRCH is set for DNS
lookups. This is different from the %qualify_single% option in that it applies
to domains containing dots. Typically, but not standardly, it causes the
resolver to search for the name in the current domain and in parent domains.
For example, on a machine in the 'fict.example' domain, if looking up
'teaparty.wonderland' failed, the resolver would try
'teaparty.wonderland.fict.example'. For details of what your resolver
actually does, consult your man pages for 'resolver' and 'resolv.conf'.

Setting this option true can cause problems in domains that have a wildcard MX
record, because any domain that does not have its own MX record matches the
local wildcard.



oindex:[%srv_fail_domains%]
`..'=
%srv_fail_domains%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'domain list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

If the DNS lookup for SRV records for one of the domains in this list causes a
DNS lookup error, Exim behaves as if no SRV records were found. See section
<<SECTprowitdnsloo>> for more discussion.




oindex:[%widen_domains%]
`..'=
%widen_domains%, Use: 'dnslookup', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[domain,partial; widening]
If a DNS lookup fails and this option is set, each of its strings in turn is
added onto the end of the domain, and the lookup is tried again. For example,
if

  widen_domains = fict.example:ref.example

is set and a lookup of 'klingon.dictionary' fails,
'klingon.dictionary.fict.example' is looked up, and if this fails,
'klingon.dictionary.ref.example' is tried. Note that the %qualify_single%
and %search_parents% options can cause some widening to be undertaken inside
the DNS resolver.



Effect of qualify_single and search_parents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When a domain from an envelope recipient is changed by the resolver as a result
of the %qualify_single% or %search_parents% options, Exim rewrites the
corresponding address in the message's header lines unless %rewrite_headers%
is set false. Exim then re-routes the address, using the full domain.

These two options affect only the DNS lookup that takes place inside the router
for the domain of the address that is being routed. They do not affect lookups
such as that implied by

  domains = @mx_any

that may happen while processing a router precondition before the router is
entered. No widening ever takes place for these lookups.









////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The ipliteral router
--------------------
cindex:[^ipliteral^ router]
cindex:[domain literal,routing]
cindex:[routers,^ipliteral^]
This router has no private options. Unless it is being used purely for
verification (see %verify_only%) a transport is required to be defined by the
generic %transport% option. The router accepts the address if its domain part
takes the form of an RFC 2822 domain literal, that is, an IP address enclosed
in square brackets. For example, this router handles the address

  root@[192.168.1.1]

by setting up delivery to the host with that IP address.

cindex:[%self% option,in ^ipliteral^ router]
If the IP address matches something in %ignore_target_hosts%, the router
declines. If an IP literal turns out to refer to the local host, the generic
%self% option determines what happens.

The RFCs require support for domain literals; however, their use is
controversial in today's Internet. If you want to use this router, you must
also set the main configuration option %allow_domain_literals%. Otherwise,
Exim will not recognize the domain literal syntax in addresses.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The iplookup router
-------------------
cindex:[^iplookup^ router]
cindex:[routers,^iplookup^]
The ^iplookup^ router was written to fulfil a specific requirement in
Cambridge University (which in fact no longer exists). For this reason, it is
not included in the binary of Exim by default. If you want to include it, you
must set

  ROUTER_IPLOOKUP=yes

in your _Local/Makefile_ configuration file.

The ^iplookup^ router routes an address by sending it over a TCP or UDP
connection to one or more specific hosts. The host can then return the same or
a different address -- in effect rewriting the recipient address in the
message's envelope. The new address is then passed on to subsequent routers. If
this process fails, the address can be passed on to other routers, or delivery
can be deferred.

Background, for those that are interested: We have an Oracle database of all
Cambridge users, and one of the items of data it maintains for each user is
where to send mail addressed to 'user@cam.ac.uk'. The MX records for
'cam.ac.uk' point to a central machine that has a large alias list that is
abstracted from the database. Mail from outside is switched by this system, and
originally internal mail was also done this way. However, this resulted in a
fair number of messages travelling from some of our larger systems to the
switch and back again. The Oracle machine now runs a UDP service that can be
called by the ^iplookup^ router in Exim to find out where 'user@cam.ac.uk'
addresses really have to go; this saves passing through the central switch, and
in many cases saves doing any remote delivery at all.

Since ^iplookup^ is just a rewriting router, a transport must not be
specified for it.
cindex:[options,^iplookup^ router]


oindex:[%hosts%]
`..'=
%hosts%, Use: 'iplookup', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

This option must be supplied. Its value is a colon-separated list of host
names. The hosts are looked up using 'gethostbyname()'
(or 'getipnodebyname()' when available)
and are tried in order until one responds to the query. If none respond, what
happens is controlled by %optional%.


oindex:[%optional%]
`..'=
%optional%, Use: 'iplookup', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If %optional% is true, if no response is obtained from any host, the address is
passed to the next router, overriding %no_more%. If %optional% is false,
delivery to the address is deferred.


oindex:[%port%]
`..'=
%port%, Use: 'iplookup', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

cindex:[port,^iplookup^ router]
This option must be supplied. It specifies the port number for the TCP or UDP
call.


oindex:[%protocol%]
`..'=
%protocol%, Use: 'iplookup', Type: 'string', Default: 'udp'
===

This option can be set to ``udp'' or ``tcp'' to specify which of the two protocols
is to be used.


oindex:[%query%]
`..'=
%query%, Use: 'iplookup', Type: 'string'!!, Default: `\$local_part@\$domain \$local_part@\$domain`
===

This defines the content of the query that is sent to the remote hosts. The
repetition serves as a way of checking that a response is to the correct query
in the default case (see %response_pattern% below).


oindex:[%reroute%]
`..'=
%reroute%, Use: 'iplookup', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

If this option is not set, the rerouted address is precisely the byte string
returned by the remote host, up to the first white space, if any. If set, the
string is expanded to form the rerouted address. It can include parts matched
in the response by %response_pattern% by means of numeric variables such as
$1$, $2$, etc. The variable $0$ refers to the entire input string,
whether or not a pattern is in use. In all cases, the rerouted address must end
up in the form 'local_part@domain'.


oindex:[%response_pattern%]
`..'=
%response_pattern%, Use: 'iplookup', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

This option can be set to a regular expression that is applied to the string
returned from the remote host. If the pattern does not match the response, the
router declines. If %response_pattern% is not set, no checking of the response
is done, unless the query was defaulted, in which case there is a check that
the text returned after the first white space is the original address. This
checks that the answer that has been received is in response to the correct
question. For example, if the response is just a new domain, the following
could be used:

  response_pattern = ^([^@]+)$
  reroute = $local_part@$1



oindex:[%timeout%]
`..'=
%timeout%, Use: 'iplookup', Type: 'time', Default: '5s'
===

This specifies the amount of time to wait for a response from the remote
machine. The same timeout is used for the 'connect()' function for a TCP
call. It does not apply to UDP.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The manualroute router
----------------------
cindex:[^manualroute^ router]
cindex:[routers,^manualroute^]
cindex:[domain,manually routing]
The ^manualroute^ router is so-called because it provides a way of manually
routing an address according to its domain. It is mainly used when you want to
route addresses to remote hosts according to your own rules, bypassing the
normal DNS routing that looks up MX records. However, ^manualroute^ can also
route to local transports, a facility that may be useful if you want to save
messages for dial-in hosts in local files.

The ^manualroute^ router compares a list of domain patterns with the domain it
is trying to route. If there is no match, the router declines. Each pattern has
associated with it a list of hosts and some other optional data, which may
include a transport. The combination of a pattern and its data is called a
``routing rule''. For patterns that do not have an associated transport, the
generic %transport% option must specify a transport, unless the router is being
used purely for verification (see %verify_only%).

In the case of verification, matching the domain pattern is sufficient for the
router to accept the address. When actually routing an address for delivery,
an address that matches a domain pattern is queued for the associated
transport. If the transport is not a local one, a host list must be associated
with the pattern; IP addresses are looked up for the hosts, and these are
passed to the transport along with the mail address. For local transports, a
host list is optional. If it is present, it is passed in $host$ as a single
text string.

The list of routing rules can be provided as an inline string in %route_list%,
or the data can be obtained by looking up the domain in a file or database by
setting %route_data%. Only one of these settings may appear in any one
instance of ^manualroute^. The format of routing rules is described below,
following the list of private options.


[[SECTprioptman]]
Private options for manualroute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

cindex:[options,^manualroute^ router]
The private options for the ^manualroute^ router are as follows:


oindex:[%host_find_failed%]
`..'=
%host_find_failed%, Use: 'manualroute', Type: 'string', Default: 'freeze'
===

This option controls what happens when ^manualroute^ tries to find an IP
address for a host, and the host does not exist. The option can be set to one
of

  decline
  defer
  fail
  freeze
  pass

The default assumes that this state is a serious configuration error. The
difference between ``pass'' and ``decline'' is that the former forces the address
to be passed to the next router (or the router defined by %pass_router%),
cindex:[%more% option]
overriding %no_more%, whereas the latter passes the address to the next router
only if %more% is true.

This option applies only to a definite ``does not exist'' state; if a host lookup
gets a temporary error, delivery is deferred unless the generic
%pass_on_timeout% option is set.


oindex:[%hosts_randomize%]
`..'=
%hosts_randomize%, Use: 'manualroute', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[randomized host list]
cindex:[host,list of; randomized]
If this option is set, the order of the items in a host list in a routing rule
is randomized each time the list is used, unless an option in the routing rule
overrides (see below). Randomizing the order of a host list can be used to do
crude load sharing. However, if more than one mail address is routed by the
same router to the same host list, the host lists are considered to be the same
(even though they may be randomized into different orders) for the purpose of
deciding whether to batch the deliveries into a single SMTP transaction.

When %hosts_randomize% is true, a host list may be split
into groups whose order is separately randomized. This makes it possible to
set up MX-like behaviour. The boundaries between groups are indicated by an
item that is just `+` in the host list. For example:

  route_list = * host1:host2:host3:+:host4:host5

The order of the first three hosts and the order of the last two hosts is
randomized for each use, but the first three always end up before the last two.
If %hosts_randomize% is not set, a `+` item in the list is ignored. If a
randomized host list is passed to an ^smtp^ transport that also has
%hosts_randomize set%, the list is not re-randomized.


oindex:[%route_data%]
`..'=
%route_data%, Use: 'manualroute', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

If this option is set, it must expand to yield the data part of a routing rule.
Typically, the expansion string includes a lookup based on the domain. For
example:

  route_data = ${lookup{$domain}dbm{/etc/routes}}

If the expansion is forced to fail, or the result is an empty string, the
router declines. Other kinds of expansion failure cause delivery to be
deferred.


oindex:[%route_list%]
`..'=
%route_list%, Use: 'manualroute', "Type: 'string list, semicolon-separated'", Default: 'unset'
===

This string is a list of routing rules, in the form defined below. Note that,
unlike most string lists, the items are separated by semicolons. This is so
that they may contain colon-separated host lists.


oindex:[%same_domain_copy_routing%]
`..'=
%same_domain_copy_routing%, Use: 'manualroute', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[address,copying routing]
Addresses with the same domain are normally routed by the ^manualroute^ router
to the same list of hosts. However, this cannot be presumed, because the router
options and preconditions may refer to the local part of the address. By
default, therefore, Exim routes each address in a message independently. DNS
servers run caches, so repeated DNS lookups are not normally expensive, and in
any case, personal messages rarely have more than a few recipients.

If you are running mailing lists with large numbers of subscribers at the same
domain, and you are using a ^manualroute^ router which is independent of the
local part, you can set %same_domain_copy_routing% to bypass repeated DNS
lookups for identical domains in one message. In this case, when ^manualroute^
routes an address to a remote transport, any other unrouted addresses in the
message that have the same domain are automatically given the same routing
without processing them independently. However, this is only done if
%headers_add% and %headers_remove% are unset.




Routing rules in route_list
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The value of %route_list% is a string consisting of a sequence of routing
rules, separated by semicolons. If a semicolon is needed in a rule, it can be
entered as two semicolons. Empty rules are ignored. The format of each rule is

  <domain pattern>  <list of hosts>  <options>

The following example contains two rules, each with a simple domain pattern and
no options:

....
route_list = \
  dict.ref.example  mail-1.ref.example:mail-2.ref.example ; \
  thes.ref.example  mail-3.ref.example:mail-4.ref.example
....

The three parts of a rule are separated by white space. The pattern and the
list of hosts can be enclosed in quotes if necessary, and if they are, the
usual quoting rules apply. Each rule in a %route_list% must start with a
single domain pattern, which is the only mandatory item in the rule. The
pattern is in the same format as one item in a domain list (see section
<<SECTdomainlist>>),
except that it may not be the name of an interpolated file.
That is, it may be wildcarded, or a regular expression, or a file or database
lookup (with semicolons doubled, because of the use of semicolon as a separator
in a %route_list%).

The rules in %route_list% are searched in order until one of the patterns
matches the domain that is being routed. The list of hosts and then options are
then used as described below. If there is no match, the router declines. When
%route_list% is set, %route_data% must not be set.



Routing rules in route_data
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The use of %route_list% is convenient when there are only a small number of
routing rules. For larger numbers, it is easier to use a file or database to
hold the routing information, and use the %route_data% option instead.
The value of %route_data% is a list of hosts, followed by (optional) options.
Most commonly, %route_data% is set as a string that contains an
expansion lookup. For example, suppose we place two routing rules in a file
like this:

  dict.ref.example:  mail-1.ref.example:mail-2.ref.example
  thes.ref.example:  mail-3.ref.example:mail-4.ref.example

This data can be accessed by setting

  route_data = ${lookup{$domain}lsearch{/the/file/name}}

Failure of the lookup results in an empty string, causing the router to
decline. However, you do not have to use a lookup in %route_data%. The only
requirement is that the result of expanding the string is a list of hosts,
possibly followed by options, separated by white space. The list of hosts must
be enclosed in quotes if it contains white space.




Format of the list of hosts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A list of hosts, whether obtained via %route_data% or %route_list%, is always
separately expanded before use. If the expansion fails, the router declines.
The result of the expansion must be a colon-separated list of names and/or
IP addresses. IP addresses are not enclosed in brackets.

If the list of hosts was obtained from a %route_list% item, the following
variables are set during its expansion:

- cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$  etc),in ^manualroute^ router]
If the domain was matched against a regular expression, the numeric variables
$1$, $2$, etc. may be set.

- $0$ is always set to the entire domain.

- $1$ is also set when partial matching is done in a file lookup.

- cindex:[$value$]
If the pattern that matched the domain was a lookup item, the data that was
looked up is available in the expansion variable $value$.




How the list of hosts is used
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When an address is routed to an ^smtp^ transport by ^manualroute^, each of
the hosts is tried, in the order specified, when carrying out the SMTP
delivery. However, the order can be changed by setting the %hosts_randomize%
option, either on the router (see section <<SECTprioptman>> above), or on the
transport.

Hosts may be listed by name or by IP address. An unadorned name in the list of
hosts is interpreted as a host name. A name that is followed by `/MX` is
interpreted as an indirection to a sublist of hosts obtained by looking up MX
records in the DNS. For example:

  route_list = *  x.y.z:p.q.r/MX:e.f.g

If the %hosts_randomize% option is set, the order of the items in the list is
randomized before any lookups are done. Exim then scans the list; for any name
that is not followed by `/MX` it looks up an IP address. If this turns out to
be an interface on the local host and the item is not the first in the list,
Exim discards it and any subsequent items. If it is the first item, what
happens is controlled by the
cindex:[%self% option,in ^manualroute^ router]
%self% option of the router.

A name on the list that is followed by `/MX` is replaced with the list of
hosts obtained by looking up MX records for the name. This is always a DNS
lookup; the %bydns% and %byname% options (see section <<SECThowoptused>> below)
are not relevant here. The order of these hosts is determined by the preference
values in the MX records, according to the usual rules. Because randomizing
happens before the MX lookup, it does not affect the order that is defined by
MX preferences.

If the local host is present in the sublist obtained from MX records, but is
not the most preferred host in that list, it and any equally or less
preferred hosts are removed before the sublist is inserted into the main list.

If the local host is the most preferred host in the MX list, what happens
depends on where in the original list of hosts the `/MX` item appears. If it
is not the first item (that is, there are previous hosts in the main list),
Exim discards this name and any subsequent items in the main list.

If the MX item is first in the list of hosts, and the local host is the
most preferred host, what happens is controlled by the %self% option of the
router.

DNS failures when lookup up the MX records are treated in the same way as DNS
failures when looking up IP addresses: %pass_on_timeout% and
%host_find_failed% are used when relevant.

The generic %ignore_target_hosts% option applies to all hosts in the list,
whether obtained from an MX lookup or not.



[[SECThowoptused]]
How the options are used
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The options are a sequence of words; in practice no more than three are ever
present. One of the words can be the name of a transport; this overrides the
%transport% option on the router for this particular routing rule only. The
other words (if present) control randomization of the list of hosts on a
per-rule basis, and how the IP addresses of the hosts are to be found when
routing to a remote transport. These options are as follows:

- %randomize%: randomize the order of the hosts in this list, overriding the
setting of %hosts_randomize% for this routing rule only.

- %no_randomize%: do not randomize the order of the hosts in this list,
overriding the setting of %hosts_randomize% for this routing rule only.

- %byname%: use 'getipnodebyname()' ('gethostbyname()' on older systems) to
find IP addresses. This function may ultimately cause a DNS lookup, but it may
also look in _/etc/hosts_ or other sources of information.

- %bydns%: look up address records for the hosts directly in the DNS; fail if
no address records are found. If there is a temporary DNS error (such as a
timeout), delivery is deferred.

For example:

....
route_list = domain1  host1:host2:host3  randomize bydns;\
             domain2  host4:host5
....

If neither %byname% nor %bydns% is given, Exim behaves as follows: First, a DNS
lookup is done. If this yields anything other than HOST_NOT_FOUND, that
result is used. Otherwise, Exim goes on to try a call to 'getipnodebyname()'
or 'gethostbyname()', and the result of the lookup is the result of that
call.

*Warning*: It has been discovered that on some systems, if a DNS lookup
called via 'getipnodebyname()' times out, HOST_NOT_FOUND is returned
instead of TRY_AGAIN. That is why the default action is to try a DNS
lookup first. Only if that gives a definite ``no such host'' is the local
function called.



If no IP address for a host can be found, what happens is controlled by the
%host_find_failed% option.

When an address is routed to a local transport, IP addresses are not looked up.
The host list is passed to the transport in the $host$ variable.



Manualroute examples
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In some of the examples that follow, the presence of the %remote_smtp%
transport, as defined in the default configuration file, is assumed:

- cindex:[smart host,example router]
The ^manualroute^ router can be used to forward all external mail to a
'smart host'. If you have set up, in the main part of the configuration, a
named domain list that contains your local domains, for example,

  domainlist local_domains = my.domain.example
+
you can arrange for all other domains to be routed to a smart host by making
your first router something like this:
+
  smart_route:
    driver = manualroute
    domains = !+local_domains
    transport = remote_smtp
    route_list = * smarthost.ref.example
+
This causes all non-local addresses to be sent to the single host
'smarthost.ref.example'. If a colon-separated list of smart hosts is given,
they are tried in order
(but you can use %hosts_randomize% to vary the order each time).
Another way of configuring the same thing is this:
+
  smart_route:
    driver = manualroute
    transport = remote_smtp
    route_list = !+local_domains  smarthost.ref.example
+
There is no difference in behaviour between these two routers as they stand.
However, they behave differently if %no_more% is added to them. In the first
example, the router is skipped if the domain does not match the %domains%
precondition; the following router is always tried. If the router runs, it
always matches the domain and so can never decline. Therefore, %no_more% would
have no effect. In the second case, the router is never skipped; it always
runs. However, if it doesn't match the domain, it declines. In this case
%no_more% would prevent subsequent routers from running.

- cindex:[mail hub example]
A 'mail hub' is a host which receives mail for a number of domains via MX
records in the DNS and delivers it via its own private routing mechanism. Often
the final destinations are behind a firewall, with the mail hub being the one
machine that can connect to machines both inside and outside the firewall. The
^manualroute^ router is usually used on a mail hub to route incoming messages
to the correct hosts. For a small number of domains, the routing can be inline,
using the %route_list% option, but for a larger number a file or database
lookup is easier to manage.
+
If the domain names are in fact the names of the machines to which the mail is
to be sent by the mail hub, the configuration can be quite simple. For
example,

  hub_route:
    driver = manualroute
    transport = remote_smtp
    route_list = *.rhodes.tvs.example  $domain
+
This configuration routes domains that match `*.rhodes.tvs.example` to hosts
whose names are the same as the mail domains. A similar approach can be taken
if the host name can be obtained from the domain name by a string manipulation
that the expansion facilities can handle. Otherwise, a lookup based on the
domain can be used to find the host:

  through_firewall:
    driver = manualroute
    transport = remote_smtp
    route_data = ${lookup {$domain} cdb {/internal/host/routes}}
+
The result of the lookup must be the name or IP address of the host (or
hosts) to which the address is to be routed. If the lookup fails, the route
data is empty, causing the router to decline. The address then passes to the
next router.

- cindex:[batched SMTP output example]
cindex:[SMTP,batched outgoing; example]
You can use ^manualroute^ to deliver messages to pipes or files in batched
SMTP format for onward transportation by some other means. This is one way of
storing mail for a dial-up host when it is not connected. The route list entry
can be as simple as a single domain name in a configuration like this:

  save_in_file:
    driver = manualroute
    transport = batchsmtp_appendfile
    route_list = saved.domain.example
+
though often a pattern is used to pick up more than one domain. If there are
several domains or groups of domains with different transport requirements,
different transports can be listed in the routing information:
+
....
save_in_file:
  driver = manualroute
  route_list = \
    *.saved.domain1.example  $domain  batch_appendfile; \
    *.saved.domain2.example  \
      ${lookup{$domain}dbm{/domain2/hosts}{$value}fail} \
      batch_pipe
....
+
The first of these just passes the domain in the $host$ variable, which
doesn't achieve much (since it is also in $domain$), but the second does a
file lookup to find a value to pass, causing the router to decline to handle
the address if the lookup fails.

- cindex:[UUCP,example of router for]
Routing mail directly to UUCP software is a specific case of the use of
^manualroute^ in a gateway to another mail environment. This is an example of
one way it can be done:
+
....
# Transport
uucp:
  driver = pipe
  user = nobody
  command = /usr/local/bin/uux -r - \
    ${substr_-5:$host}!rmail ${local_part}
  return_fail_output = true

# Router
uucphost:
  transport = uucp
  driver = manualroute
  route_data = \
    ${lookup{$domain}lsearch{/usr/local/exim/uucphosts}}
....
+
The file _/usr/local/exim/uucphosts_ contains entries like

  darksite.ethereal.example:           darksite.UUCP
+
It can be set up more simply without adding and removing ``.UUCP'' but this way
makes clear the distinction between the domain name
'darksite.ethereal.example' and the UUCP host name 'darksite'.








////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPdriverlast]]
The queryprogram router
-----------------------
cindex:[^queryprogram^ router]
cindex:[routers,^queryprogram^]
cindex:[routing,by external program]
The ^queryprogram^ router routes an address by running an external command and
acting on its output. This is an expensive way to route, and is intended mainly
for use in lightly-loaded systems, or for performing experiments. However, if
it is possible to use the precondition options (%domains%, %local_parts%,
etc) to skip this router for most addresses, it could sensibly be used in
special cases, even on a busy host. There are the following private options:
cindex:[options,^queryprogram^ router]

oindex:[%command%]
`..'=
%command%, Use: 'queryprogram', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option must be set. It specifies the command that is to be run. The
command is split up into a command name and arguments, and then each is
expanded separately (exactly as for a ^pipe^ transport, described in chapter
<<CHAPpipetransport>>).


oindex:[%command_group%]
`..'=
%command_group%, Use: 'queryprogram', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[gid (group id),in ^queryprogram^ router]
This option specifies a gid to be set when running the command. It must be set
if %command_user% specifies a numerical uid. If it begins with a digit, it is
interpreted as the numerical value of the gid. Otherwise it is looked up using
'getgrnam()'.


oindex:[%command_user%]
`..'=
%command_user%, Use: 'queryprogram', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[uid (user id),for ^queryprogram^]
This option must be set. It specifies the uid which is set when running the
command. If it begins with a digit it is interpreted as the numerical value of
the uid. Otherwise, it is looked up using 'getpwnam()' to obtain a value for
the uid and, if %command_group% is not set, a value for the gid also.


oindex:[%current_directory%]
`..'=
%current_directory%, Use: 'queryprogram', Type: 'string', Default: '/'
===

This option specifies an absolute path which is made the current directory
before running the command.


oindex:[%timeout%]
`..'=
%timeout%, Use: 'queryprogram', Type: 'time', Default: '1h'
===

If the command does not complete within the timeout period, its process group
is killed and the message is frozen. A value of zero time specifies no
timeout.


The standard output of the command is connected to a pipe, which is read when
the command terminates. It should consist of a single line of output,
containing up to five fields, separated by white space. The maximum length of
the line is 1023 characters. Longer lines are silently truncated. The first
field is one of the following words (case-insensitive):

- 'Accept': routing succeeded; the remaining fields specify what to do (see
below).

- 'Decline': the router declines; pass the address to the next router, unless
%no_more% is set.

- 'Fail': routing failed; do not pass the address to any more routers. Any
subsequent text on the line is an error message. If the router is run as part
of address verification during an incoming SMTP message, the message is
included in the SMTP response.

- 'Defer': routing could not be completed at this time; try again later. Any
subsequent text on the line is an error message which is logged. It is not
included in any SMTP response.

- 'Freeze': the same as 'defer', except that the message is frozen.

- 'Pass': pass the address to the next router (or the router specified by
%pass_router%), overriding %no_more%.

- 'Redirect': the message is redirected. The remainder of the line is a list of
new addresses, which are routed independently, starting with the first router,
or the router specified by %redirect_router%, if set.

When the first word is 'accept', the remainder of the line consists of a
number of keyed data values, as follows (split into two lines here, to fit on
the page):

  ACCEPT TRANSPORT=<transport> HOSTS=<list of hosts>
         LOOKUP=byname|bydns DATA=<text>

The data items can be given in any order, and all are optional. If no transport
is included, the transport specified by the generic %transport% option is used.
The list of hosts and the lookup type are needed only if the transport is an
^smtp^ transport that does not itself supply a list of hosts.

The format of the list of hosts is the same as for the ^manualroute^ router.
As well as host names and IP addresses, it may contain names followed by
`/MX` to specify sublists of hosts that are obtained by looking up MX
records.

If the lookup type is not specified, Exim behaves as follows when trying to
find an IP address for each host: First, a DNS lookup is done. If this yields
anything other than HOST_NOT_FOUND, that result is used. Otherwise, Exim
goes on to try a call to 'getipnodebyname()' or 'gethostbyname()', and the
result of the lookup is the result of that call.

If the DATA field is set, its value is placed in the $address_data$
variable. For example, this return line

  accept hosts=x1.y.example:x2.y.example data="rule1"

routes the address to the default transport, passing a list of two hosts. When
the transport runs, the string ``rule1'' is in $address_data$.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPredirect]]
The redirect router
-------------------
cindex:[^redirect^ router]
cindex:[routers,^redirect^]
cindex:[alias file,in a ^redirect^ router]
cindex:[address redirection,^redirect^ router]
The ^redirect^ router handles several kinds of address redirection. Its most
common uses are for resolving local part aliases from a central alias file
(usually called _/etc/aliases_) and for handling users' personal _.forward_
files, but it has many other potential uses. The incoming address can be
redirected in several different ways:

- It can be replaced by one or more new addresses which are themselves routed
independently.

- It can be routed to be delivered to a given file or directory.

- It can be routed to be delivered to a specified pipe command.

- It can cause an automatic reply to be generated.

- It can be forced to fail, with a custom error message.

- It can be temporarily deferred.

- It can be discarded.

The generic %transport% option must not be set for ^redirect^ routers.
However, there are some private options which define transports for delivery to
files and pipes, and for generating autoreplies. See the %file_transport%,
%pipe_transport% and %reply_transport% descriptions below.



Redirection data
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The router operates by interpreting a text string which it obtains either by
expanding the contents of the %data% option, or by reading the entire contents
of a file whose name is given in the %file% option. These two options are
mutually exclusive. The first is commonly used for handling system aliases, in
a configuration like this:

  system_aliases:
    driver = redirect
    data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases}}

If the lookup fails, the expanded string in this example is empty. When the
expansion of %data% results in an empty string, the router declines. A forced
expansion failure also causes the router to decline; other expansion failures
cause delivery to be deferred.

A configuration using %file% is commonly used for handling users' _.forward_
files, like this:

  userforward:
    driver = redirect
    check_local_user
    file = $home/.forward
    no_verify

If the file does not exist, or causes no action to be taken (for example, it is
empty or consists only of comments), the router declines. *Warning*: This
is not the case when the file contains syntactically valid items that happen to
yield empty addresses, for example, items containing only RFC 2822 address
comments.



Forward files and address verification
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[address redirection,while verifying]
It is usual to set %no_verify% on ^redirect^ routers which handle users'
_.forward_ files, as in the example above. There are two reasons for this:

- When Exim is receiving an incoming SMTP message from a remote host, it is
running under the Exim uid, not as root.
No additional groups are set up, even if the Exim uid is a member of other
groups (that is, the 'initgroups()' function is not run).
Exim is unable to change uid to read the file as the user, and it may not be
able to read it as the Exim user. So in practice the router may not be able to
operate.

- However, even when the router can operate, the existence of a _.forward_ file
is unimportant when verifying an address. What should be checked is whether the
local part is a valid user name or not. Cutting out the redirection processing
saves some resources.






Interpreting redirection data
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[Sieve filter,specifying in redirection data]
cindex:[filter,specifying in redirection data]
The contents of the data string, whether obtained from %data% or %file%, can be
interpreted in two different ways:

- If the %allow_filter% option is set true, and the data begins with the text
``#Exim filter'' or ``#Sieve filter'', it is interpreted as a list of
'filtering' instructions in the form of an Exim or Sieve filter file,
respectively. Details of the syntax and semantics of filter files are described
in a separate document entitled 'Exim's interfaces to mail filtering'; this
document is intended for use by end users.

- Otherwise, the data must be a comma-separated list of redirection items, as
described in the next section.

When a message is redirected to a file (a ``mail folder''), the file name given
in a non-filter redirection list must always be an absolute path. A filter may
generate a relative path -- how this is handled depends on the transport's
configuration. See section <<SECTfildiropt>> for a discussion of this issue for
the ^appendfile^ transport.



[[SECTitenonfilred]]
Items in a non-filter redirection list
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[address redirection,non-filter list items]
When the redirection data is not an Exim or Sieve filter, for example, if it
comes from a conventional alias or forward file, it consists of a list of
addresses, file names, pipe commands, or certain special items (see section
<<SECTspecitredli>> below). The special items can be individually enabled or
disabled by means of options whose names begin with %allow_% or %forbid_%,
depending on their default values. The items in the list are separated by
commas or newlines.
If a comma is required in an item, the entire item must be enclosed in double
quotes.

Lines starting with a # character are comments, and are ignored, and # may
also appear following a comma, in which case everything between the # and the
next newline character is ignored.

If an item is entirely enclosed in double quotes, these are removed. Otherwise
double quotes are retained because some forms of mail address require their use
(but never to enclose the entire address). In the following description, ``item''
refers to what remains after any surrounding double quotes have been removed.

*Warning*: If you use an Exim expansion to construct a redirection address,
and the expansion contains a reference to $local_part$, you should make use
of the %quote% expansion operator, in case the local part contains special
characters. For example, to redirect all mail for the domain
'obsolete.example', retaining the existing local part, you could use this
setting:

  data = ${quote:$local_part}@newdomain.example




[[SECTredlocmai]]
Redirecting to a local mailbox
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[routing,loops in]
cindex:[loop while routing, avoidance of]
cindex:[address redirection,to local mailbox]
A redirection item may safely be the same as the address currently under
consideration. This does not cause a routing loop, because a router is
automatically skipped if any ancestor of the address that is being processed
is the same as the current address and was processed by the current router.
Such an address is therefore passed to the following routers, so it is handled
as if there were no redirection. When making this loop-avoidance test, the
complete local part, including any prefix or suffix, is used.

cindex:[address redirection,local part without domain]
Specifying the same local part without a domain is a common usage in personal
filter files when the user wants to have messages delivered to the local
mailbox and also forwarded elsewhere. For example, the user whose login is
'cleo' might have a _.forward_ file containing this:

  cleo, cleopatra@egypt.example

cindex:[backslash in alias file]
cindex:[alias file,backslash in]
For compatibility with other MTAs, such unqualified local parts may be
preceeded by ``\'', but this is not a requirement for loop prevention. However,
it does make a difference if more than one domain is being handled
synonymously.

If an item begins with ``\'' and the rest of the item parses as a valid RFC 2822
address that does not include a domain, the item is qualified using the domain
of the incoming address. In the absence of a leading ``\'', unqualified
addresses are qualified using the value in %qualify_recipient%, but you can
force the incoming domain to be used by setting %qualify_preserve_domain%.

Care must be taken if there are alias names for local users.
Consider an MTA handling a single local domain where the system alias file
contains:

  Sam.Reman: spqr

Now suppose that Sam (whose login id is 'spqr') wants to save copies of
messages in the local mailbox, and also forward copies elsewhere. He creates
this forward file:

  Sam.Reman, spqr@reme.elsewhere.example

With these settings, an incoming message addressed to 'Sam.Reman' fails. The
^redirect^ router for system aliases does not process 'Sam.Reman' the
second time round, because it has previously routed it,
and the following routers presumably cannot handle the alias. The forward file
should really contain

  spqr, spqr@reme.elsewhere.example

but because this is such a common error, the %check_ancestor% option (see
below) exists to provide a way to get round it. This is normally set on a
^redirect^ router that is handling users' _.forward_ files.



[[SECTspecitredli]]
Special items in redirection lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In addition to addresses, the following types of item may appear in redirection
lists (that is, in non-filter redirection data):

- cindex:[pipe,in redirection list]
cindex:[address redirection,to pipe]
An item is treated as a pipe command if it begins with ``|'' and does not parse
as a valid RFC 2822 address that includes a domain. A transport for running the
command must be specified by the %pipe_transport% option.
Normally, either the router or the transport specifies a user and a group under
which to run the delivery. The default is to use the Exim user and group.
+
Single or double quotes can be used for enclosing the individual arguments of
the pipe command; no interpretation of escapes is done for single quotes. If
the command contains a comma character, it is necessary to put the whole item
in double quotes, for example:

  "|/some/command ready,steady,go"
+
since items in redirection lists are terminated by commas. Do not, however,
quote just the command. An item such as

  |"/some/command ready,steady,go"
+
is interpreted as a pipe with a rather strange command name, and no arguments.

- cindex:[file,in redirection list]
cindex:[address redirection,to file]
An item is interpreted as a path name if it begins with ``/'' and does not parse
as a valid RFC 2822 address that includes a domain. For example,

  /home/world/minbari
+
is treated as a file name, but

  /s=molari/o=babylon/@x400gate.way
+
is treated as an address. For a file name, a transport must be specified using
the %file_transport% option. However, if the generated path name ends with a
forward slash character, it is interpreted as a directory name rather than a
file name, and %directory_transport% is used instead.
+
Normally, either the router or the transport specifies a user and a group under
which to run the delivery. The default is to use the Exim user and group.
+
cindex:[_/dev/null_]
However, if a redirection item is the path _/dev/null_, delivery to it is
bypassed at a high level, and the log entry shows ``\*\*bypassed\*\*''
instead of a transport name. In this case the user and group are not used.

- cindex:[included address list]
cindex:[address redirection,included external list]
If an item is of the form

  :include:<path name>
+
a list of further items is taken from the given file and included at that
point. *Note*: such a file can not be a filter file; it is just an out-of-line
addition to the list. The items in the included list are separated by commas or
newlines and are not subject to expansion. If this is the first item in an
alias list in an ^lsearch^ file, a colon must be used to terminate the alias
name. This example is incorrect:

  list1    :include:/opt/lists/list1
+
It must be given as

  list1:   :include:/opt/lists/list1
+
- cindex:[address redirection,to black hole]
Sometimes you want to throw away mail to a particular local part. Making the
%data% option expand to an empty string does not work, because that causes the
router to decline. Instead, the alias item
cindex:[black hole]
cindex:[abandoning mail]

  :blackhole:
+
can be used. It does what its name implies. No delivery is done, and no error
message is generated. This has the same effect as specifing _/dev/null_, but
can be independently disabled.
+
*Warning*: If `:blackhole:` appears anywhere in a redirection list, no
delivery is done for the original local part, even if other redirection items
are present. If you are generating a multi-item list (for example, by reading a
database) and need the ability to provide a no-op item, you must use
_/dev/null_.

- cindex:[delivery,forcing failure]
cindex:[delivery,forcing deferral]
cindex:[failing delivery,forcing]
cindex:[deferred delivery, forcing]
cindex:[customizing,failure message]
An attempt to deliver a particular address can be deferred or forced to fail by
redirection items of the form

  :defer:
  :fail:
+
respectively. When a redirection list contains such an item, it applies to the
entire redirection; any other items in the list are ignored (':blackhole:' is
different). Any text following ':fail:' or ':defer:' is placed in the error
text associated with the failure. For example, an alias file might contain:

  X.Employee:  :fail: Gone away, no forwarding address
+
In the case of an address that is being verified from an ACL or as the subject
of a
cindex:[VRFY error text, display of]
VRFY command, the text is included in the SMTP error response by
default.
cindex:[EXPN error text, display of]
The text is not included in the response to an EXPN command.
+
In an ACL, an explicitly provided message overrides the default, but the
default message is available in the variable $acl_verify_message$ and can
therefore be included in a custom message if this is desired. Exim sends a 451
SMTP code for a ':defer:', and 550 for ':fail:'. In non-SMTP cases the text
is included in the error message that Exim generates.
+
Normally the error text is the rest of the redirection list -- a comma does not
terminate it -- but a newline does act as a terminator. Newlines are not
normally present in alias expansions. In ^lsearch^ lookups they are removed as
part of the continuation process, but they may exist in other kinds of lookup
and in ':include:' files.
+
During routing for message delivery (as opposed to verification), a redirection
containing ':fail:' causes an immediate failure of the incoming address,
whereas ':defer:' causes the message to remain on the queue so that a
subsequent delivery attempt can happen at a later time. If an address is
deferred for too long, it will ultimately fail, because the normal retry
rules still apply.

- cindex:[alias file,exception to default]
Sometimes it is useful to use a single-key search type with a default (see
chapter <<CHAPfdlookup>>) to look up aliases. However, there may be a need for
exceptions to the default. These can be handled by aliasing them to

  :unknown:
+
This differs from ':fail:' in that it causes the ^redirect^ router to decline,
whereas ':fail:' forces routing to fail. A lookup which results in an empty
redirection list has the same effect.



Duplicate addresses
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[duplicate addresses]
cindex:[address duplicate, discarding]
cindex:[pipe,duplicated]
Exim removes duplicate addresses from the list to which it is delivering, so as
to deliver just one copy to each address. This does not apply to deliveries
routed to pipes by different immediate parent addresses, but an indirect
aliasing scheme of the type

  pipe:       |/some/command $local_part
  localpart1: pipe
  localpart2: pipe

does not work with a message that is addressed to both local parts, because
when the second is aliased to the intermediate local part ``pipe'' it gets
discarded as being the same as a previously handled address. However, a scheme
such as

  localpart1: |/some/command $local_part
  localpart2: |/some/command $local_part

does result in two different pipe deliveries, because the immediate parents of
the pipes are distinct.



Repeated redirection expansion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[repeated redirection expansion]
cindex:[address redirection,repeated for each delivery attempt]
When a message cannot be delivered to all of its recipients immediately,
leading to two or more delivery attempts, redirection expansion is carried out
afresh each time for those addresses whose children were not all previously
delivered. If redirection is being used as a mailing list, this can lead to new
members of the list receiving copies of old messages. The %one_time% option
can be used to avoid this.


Errors in redirection lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[address redirection,errors]
If %skip_syntax_errors% is set, a malformed address that causes a parsing
error is skipped, and an entry is written to the main log. This may be useful
for mailing lists that are automatically managed. Otherwise, if an error is
detected while generating the list of new addresses, the original address is
deferred. See also %syntax_errors_to%.



Private options for the redirect router
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

cindex:[options,^redirect^ router]
The private options for the ^redirect^ router are as follows:


oindex:[%allow_defer%]
`..'=
%allow_defer%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

Setting this option allows the use of ':defer:' in non-filter redirection
data,
or the %defer% command in an Exim filter file.


oindex:[%allow_fail%]
`..'=
%allow_fail%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[failing delivery,from filter]
If this option is true, the ':fail:' item can be used in a redirection list,
and the %fail% command may be used in a filter file.


oindex:[%allow_filter%]
`..'=
%allow_filter%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[filter,enabling use of]
cindex:[Sieve filter,enabling use of]
Setting this option allows Exim to interpret redirection data that starts with
``#Exim filter'' or ``#Sieve filter'' as a set of filtering instructions. There
are some features of Exim filter files that some administrators may wish to
lock out; see the %forbid_filter_xxx% options below.

It is also possible to lock out Exim filters or Sieve filters while allowing
the other type; see %forbid_exim_filter% and %forbid_sieve_filter%.


The filter is run using the uid and gid set by the generic %user% and %group%
options. These take their defaults from the password data if
%check_local_user% is set, so in the normal case of users' personal filter
files, the filter is run as the relevant user. When %allow_filter% is set
true, Exim insists that either %check_local_user% or %user% is set.



oindex:[%allow_freeze%]
`..'=
%allow_freeze%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[freezing messages,allowing in filter]
Setting this option allows the use of the %freeze% command in an Exim filter.
This command is more normally encountered in system filters, and is disabled by
default for redirection filters because it isn't something you usually want to
let ordinary users do.



oindex:[%check_ancestor%]
`..'=
%check_ancestor%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

This option is concerned with handling generated addresses that are the same
as some address in the list of redirection ancestors of the current address.
Although it is turned off by default in the code, it is set in the default
configuration file for handling users' _.forward_ files. It is recommended
for this use of the ^redirect^ router.

When %check_ancestor% is set, if a generated address (including the domain) is
the same as any ancestor of the current address, it is replaced by a copy of
the current address. This helps in the case where local part A is aliased to B,
and B has a _.forward_ file pointing back to A. For example, within a single
domain, the local part ``Joe.Bloggs'' is aliased to ``jb'' and _~jb/.forward_
contains:

  \Joe.Bloggs, <other item(s)>

Without the %check_ancestor% setting, either local part (``jb'' or ``joe.bloggs'')
gets processed once by each router and so ends up as it was originally. If ``jb''
is the real mailbox name, mail to ``jb'' gets delivered (having been turned into
``joe.bloggs'' by the _.forward_ file and back to ``jb'' by the alias), but mail
to ``joe.bloggs'' fails. Setting %check_ancestor% on the ^redirect^ router that
handles the _.forward_ file prevents it from turning ``jb'' back into
``joe.bloggs'' when that was the original address. See also the %repeat_use%
option below.


oindex:[%check_group%]
`..'=
%check_group%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'see below'
===

When the %file% option is used, the group owner of the file is checked only
when this option is set. The permitted groups are those listed in the
%owngroups% option, together with the user's default group if
%check_local_user% is set. If the file has the wrong group, routing is
deferred. The default setting for this option is true if %check_local_user%
is set and the %modemask% option permits the group write bit, or if the
%owngroups% option is set. Otherwise it is false, and no group check occurs.



oindex:[%check_owner%]
`..'=
%check_owner%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'see below'
===

When the %file% option is used, the owner of the file is checked only when this
option is set. If %check_local_user% is set, the local user is permitted;
otherwise the owner must be one of those listed in the %owners% option. The
default value for this option is true if %check_local_user% or %owners% is
set. Otherwise the default is false, and no owner check occurs.


oindex:[%data%]
`..'=
%data%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option is mutually exclusive with %file%. One or other of them must be
set, but not both. The contents of %data% are expanded, and then used as the
list of forwarding items, or as a set of filtering instructions. If the
expansion is forced to fail, or the result is an empty string or a string that
has no effect (consists entirely of comments), the router declines.

When filtering instructions are used, the string must begin with ``#Exim
filter'', and all comments in the string, including this initial one, must be
terminated with newline characters. For example:

....
data = #Exim filter\n\
       if $h_to: contains Exim then save $home/mail/exim endif
....

If you are reading the data from a database where newlines cannot be included,
you can use the $\{sg\}$ expansion item to turn the escape string of your
choice into a newline.


oindex:[%directory_transport%]
`..'=
%directory_transport%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

A ^redirect^ router sets up a direct delivery to a directory when a path name
ending with a slash is specified as a new ``address''. The transport used is
specified by this option, which, after expansion, must be the name of a
configured transport. This should normally be an ^appendfile^ transport.


oindex:[%file%]
`..'=
%file%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option specifies the name of a file that contains the redirection data. It
is mutually exclusive with the %data% option. The string is expanded before
use; if the expansion is forced to fail, the router declines. Other expansion
failures cause delivery to be deferred. The result of a successful expansion
must be an absolute path. The entire file is read and used as the redirection
data. If the data is an empty string or a string that has no effect (consists
entirely of comments), the router declines.

cindex:[NFS,checking for file existence]
If the attempt to open the file fails with a ``does not exist'' error, Exim
runs a check on the containing directory,
unless %ignore_enotdir% is true (see below).
If the directory does not appear to exist, delivery is deferred. This can
happen when users' _.forward_ files are in NFS-mounted directories, and there
is a mount problem. If the containing directory does exist, but the file does
not, the router declines.


oindex:[%file_transport%]
`..'=
%file_transport%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

A ^redirect^ router sets up a direct delivery to a file when a path name not
ending in a slash is specified as a new ``address''. The transport used is
specified by this option, which, after expansion, must be the name of a
configured transport.
This should normally be an ^appendfile^ transport.
When it is running, the file name is in $address_file$.


oindex:[%forbid_blackhole%]
`..'=
%forbid_blackhole%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, the ':blackhole:' item may not appear in a redirection
list.


oindex:[%forbid_exim_filter%]
`..'=
%forbid_exim_filter%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is set true, only Sieve filters are permitted when
%allow_filter% is true.




oindex:[%forbid_file%]
`..'=
%forbid_file%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[delivery,to file; forbidding]
cindex:[Sieve filter,forbidding delivery to a file]
cindex:[Sieve filter,``keep'' facility; disabling]
If this option is true, this router may not generate a new address that
specifies delivery to a local file or directory, either from a filter or from a
conventional forward file. This option is forced to be true if %one_time% is
set. It applies to Sieve filters as well as to Exim filters, but if true, it
locks out the Sieve's ``keep'' facility.


oindex:[%forbid_filter_existstest%]
`..'=
%forbid_filter_existstest%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[filter,locking out certain features]
If this option is true, string expansions in Exim filters are not allowed to
make use of the %exists% condition.


oindex:[%forbid_filter_logwrite%]
`..'=
%forbid_filter_logwrite%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, use of the logging facility in Exim filters is not
permitted. Logging is in any case available only if the filter is being run
under some unprivileged uid (which is normally the case for ordinary users'
_.forward_ files).


oindex:[%forbid_filter_lookup%]
`..'=
%forbid_filter_lookup%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, string expansions in Exim filter files are not allowed
to make use of %lookup% items.


oindex:[%forbid_filter_perl%]
`..'=
%forbid_filter_perl%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

This option is available only if Exim is built with embedded Perl support. If
it is true, string expansions in Exim filter files are not allowed to make use
of the embedded Perl support.


oindex:[%forbid_filter_readfile%]
`..'=
%forbid_filter_readfile%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, string expansions in Exim filter files are not allowed
to make use of %readfile% items.


oindex:[%forbid_filter_readsocket%]
`..'=
%forbid_filter_readsocket%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, string expansions in Exim filter files are not allowed
to make use of %readsocket% items.


oindex:[%forbid_filter_reply%]
`..'=
%forbid_filter_reply%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, this router may not generate an automatic reply
message. Automatic replies can be generated only from Exim

or Sieve filter files, not from traditional forward files.

This option is forced to be true if %one_time% is set.


oindex:[%forbid_filter_run%]
`..'=
%forbid_filter_run%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, string expansions in Exim filter files are not allowed
to make use of %run% items.


oindex:[%forbid_include%]
`..'=
%forbid_include%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, items of the form

  :include:<path name>

are not permitted in non-filter redirection lists.


oindex:[%forbid_pipe%]
`..'=
%forbid_pipe%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[delivery,to pipe; forbidding]
If this option is true, this router may not generate a new address which
specifies delivery to a pipe, either from an Exim filter or from a conventional
forward file. This option is forced to be true if %one_time% is set.


oindex:[%forbid_sieve_filter%]
`..'=
%forbid_sieve_filter%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is set true, only Exim filters are permitted when
%allow_filter% is true.




oindex:[%hide_child_in_errmsg%]
`..'=
%hide_child_in_errmsg%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[bounce message,redirection details; suppressing]
If this option is true, it prevents Exim from quoting a child address if it
generates a bounce or delay message for it. Instead it says ``an address
generated from <''the top level address'>'. Of course, this applies only to
bounces generated locally. If a message is forwarded to another host, 'its'
bounce may well quote the generated address.


oindex:[%ignore_eacces%]
`..'=
%ignore_eacces%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[EACCES]
If this option is set and an attempt to open a redirection file yields the
EACCES error (permission denied), the ^redirect^ router behaves as if the
file did not exist.


oindex:[%ignore_enotdir%]
`..'=
%ignore_enotdir%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[ENOTDIR]
If this option is set and an attempt to open a redirection file yields the
ENOTDIR error (something on the path is not a directory), the ^redirect^
router behaves as if the file did not exist.

Setting %ignore_enotdir% has another effect as well: When a ^redirect^
router that has the %file% option set discovers that the file does not exist
(the ENOENT error), it tries to 'stat()' the parent directory, as a check
against unmounted NFS directories. If the parent can not be statted, delivery
is deferred. However, it seems wrong to do this check when %ignore_enotdir% is
set, because that option tells Exim to ignore ``something on the path is not a
directory'' (the ENOTDIR error). This is a confusing area, because it seems
that some operating systems give ENOENT where others give ENOTDIR.



oindex:[%include_directory%]
`..'=
%include_directory%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

If this option is set, the path names of any ':include:' items in a redirection
list must start with this directory.


oindex:[%modemask%]
`..'=
%modemask%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'octal integer', Default: '022'
===

This specifies mode bits which must not be set for a file specified by the
%file% option. If any of the forbidden bits are set, delivery is deferred.


oindex:[%one_time%]
`..'=
%one_time%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[one-time aliasing/forwarding expansion]
cindex:[alias file,one-time expansion]
cindex:[forward file,one-time expansion]
cindex:[mailing lists,one-time expansion]
cindex:[address redirection,one-time expansion]
Sometimes the fact that Exim re-evaluates aliases and reprocesses redirection
files each time it tries to deliver a message causes a problem
when one or more of the generated addresses fails be delivered at the first
attempt. The problem is not one of duplicate delivery -- Exim is clever enough
to handle that -- but of what happens when the redirection list changes during
the time that the message is on Exim's queue. This is particularly true in the
case of mailing lists, where new subscribers might receive copies of messages
that were posted before they subscribed.

If %one_time% is set and any addresses generated by the router fail to
deliver at the first attempt, the failing addresses are added to the message as
``top level'' addresses, and the parent address that generated them is marked
``delivered''. Thus, redirection does not happen again at the next
delivery attempt.

*Warning 1*: This means that any header line addition or removal that is
specified by this router would be lost if delivery did not succeed at the
first attempt. For this reason, the %headers_add% and %headers_remove%
generic options are not permitted when %one_time% is set.

*Warning 2*: To ensure that the router generates only addresses (as opposed
to pipe or file deliveries or auto-replies) %forbid_file%, %forbid_pipe%,
and %forbid_filter_reply% are forced to be true when %one_time% is set.

The original top-level address is remembered with each of the generated
addresses, and is output in any log messages. However, any intermediate parent
addresses are not recorded. This makes a difference to the log only if
%all_parents% log selector is set. It is expected that %one_time% will
typically be used for mailing lists, where there is normally just one level of
expansion.


oindex:[%owners%]
`..'=
%owners%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[ownership,alias file]
cindex:[ownership,forward file]
cindex:[alias file,ownership]
cindex:[forward file,ownership]
This specifies a list of permitted owners for the file specified by %file%.
This list is in addition to the local user when %check_local_user% is set.
See %check_owner% above.


oindex:[%owngroups%]
`..'=
%owngroups%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies a list of permitted groups for the file specified by %file%. The
list is in addition to the local user's primary group when %check_local_user%
is set. See %check_group% above.


oindex:[%pipe_transport%]
`..'=
%pipe_transport%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

A ^redirect^ router sets up a direct delivery to a pipe when a string starting
with a vertical bar character is specified as a new ``address''. The transport
used is specified by this option, which, after expansion, must be the name of a
configured transport.
This should normally be a ^pipe^ transport.
When the transport is run, the pipe command is in $address_pipe$.


oindex:[%qualify_domain%]
`..'=
%qualify_domain%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

If this option is set and an unqualified address (one without a domain) is
generated, it is qualified with the domain specified by expanding this string,
instead of the global setting in %qualify_recipient%. If the expansion fails,
the router declines. If you want to revert to the default, you can have the
expansion generate $qualify_recipient$.


oindex:[%qualify_preserve_domain%]
`..'=
%qualify_preserve_domain%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[domain,in redirection; preserving]
cindex:[preserving domain in redirection]
cindex:[address redirection,domain; preserving]
If this is set and an unqualified address (one without a domain) is generated,
it is qualified with the domain of the
parent address (the immediately preceding ancestor) instead of the local
%qualify_domain% or global %qualify_recipient% value.


oindex:[%repeat_use%]
`..'=
%repeat_use%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

If this option is set false, the router is skipped for a child address that has
any ancestor that was routed by this router. This test happens before any of
the other preconditions are tested. Exim's default anti-looping rules skip
only when the ancestor is the same as the current address. See also
%check_ancestor% above and the generic %redirect_router% option.


oindex:[%reply_transport%]
`..'=
%reply_transport%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

A ^redirect^ router sets up an automatic reply when a %mail% or %vacation%
command is used in a filter file. The transport used is specified by this
option, which, after expansion, must be the name of a configured transport.
This should normally be an ^autoreply^ transport. Other transports are
unlikely to do anything sensible or useful.


oindex:[%rewrite%]
`..'=
%rewrite%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[address redirection,disabling rewriting]
If this option is set false, addresses generated by the router are not
subject to address rewriting. Otherwise, they are treated like new addresses
and are rewritten according to the global rewriting rules.



oindex:[%sieve_vacation_directory%]
`..'=
%sieve_vacation_directory%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[Sieve filter,vacation directory]
To enable the ``vacation'' extension for Sieve filters, you must set
%sieve_vacation_directory% to the directory where vacation databases are held
(do not put anything else in that directory), and ensure that the
%reply_transport% option refers to an ^autoreply^ transport.




oindex:[%skip_syntax_errors%]
`..'=
%skip_syntax_errors%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[forward file,broken]
cindex:[address redirection,broken files]
cindex:[alias file,broken]
cindex:[broken alias or forward files]
cindex:[ignoring faulty addresses]
cindex:[skipping faulty addresses]
cindex:[error,skipping bad syntax]
If %skip_syntax_errors% is set, syntactically malformed addresses in
non-filter redirection data are skipped, and each failing address is logged. If
%syntax_errors_to% is set, a message is sent to the address it defines,
giving details of the failures. If %syntax_errors_text% is set, its contents
are expanded and placed at the head of the error message generated by
%syntax_errors_to%. Usually it is appropriate to set %syntax_errors_to% to
be the same address as the generic %errors_to% option. The
%skip_syntax_errors% option is often used when handling mailing lists.

If all the addresses in a redirection list are skipped because of syntax
errors, the router declines to handle the original address, and it is passed to
the following routers.

If %skip_syntax_errors% is set when an Exim filter is interpreted, any syntax
error in the filter causes filtering to be abandoned without any action being
taken. The incident is logged, and the router declines to handle the address,
so it is passed to the following routers.

cindex:[Sieve filter,syntax errors in]
Syntax errors in a Sieve filter file cause the ``keep'' action to occur. This
action is specified by RFC 3028. The values of %skip_syntax_errors%,
%syntax_errors_to%, and %syntax_errors_text% are not used.

%skip_syntax_errors% can be used to specify that errors in users' forward
lists or filter files should not prevent delivery. The %syntax_errors_to%
option, used with an address that does not get redirected, can be used to
notify users of these errors, by means of a router like this:

....
userforward:
  driver = redirect
  allow_filter
  check_local_user
  file = $home/.forward
  file_transport = address_file
  pipe_transport = address_pipe
  reply_transport = address_reply
  no_verify
  skip_syntax_errors
  syntax_errors_to = real-$local_part\$domain
  syntax_errors_text = \
    This is an automatically generated message. An error has\n\
    been found in your .forward file. Details of the error are\n\
    reported below. While this error persists, you will receive\n\
    a copy of this message for every message that is addressed\n\
    to you. If your .forward file is a filter file, or if it is\n\
    a non-filter file containing no valid forwarding addresses,\n\
    a copy of each incoming message will be put in your normal\n\
    mailbox. If a non-filter file contains at least one valid\n\
    forwarding address, forwarding to the valid addresses will\n\
    happen, and those will be the only deliveries that occur.
....

You also need a router to ensure that local addresses that are prefixed by
`real-` are recognized, but not forwarded or filtered. For example, you could
put this immediately before the ^userforward^ router:

  real_localuser:
    driver = accept
    check_local_user
    local_part_prefix = real-
    transport = local_delivery



oindex:[%syntax_errors_text%]
`..'=
%syntax_errors_text%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

See %skip_syntax_errors% above.


oindex:[%syntax_errors_to%]
`..'=
%syntax_errors_to%, Use: 'redirect', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

See %skip_syntax_errors% above.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPenvironment]]
[titleabbrev="Environment for local transports"]
Environment for running local transports
----------------------------------------
cindex:[local transports,environment for]
cindex:[environment for local transports]
cindex:[transport,local; environment for]
Local transports handle deliveries to files and pipes. (The ^autoreply^
transport can be thought of as similar to a pipe.) Exim always runs transports
in subprocesses, under specified uids and gids. Typical deliveries to local
mailboxes run under the uid and gid of the local user.

Exim also sets a specific current directory while running the transport; for
some transports a home directory setting is also relevant. The ^pipe^
transport is the only one that sets up environment variables; see section
<<SECTpipeenv>> for details.

The values used for the uid, gid, and the directories may come from several
different places. In many cases, the router that handles the address associates
settings with that address as a result of its %check_local_user%, %group%, or
%user% options. However, values may also be given in the transport's own
configuration, and these override anything that comes from the router.



Concurrent deliveries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[concurrent deliveries]
cindex:[simultaneous deliveries]
If two different messages for the same local recpient arrive more or less
simultaneously, the two delivery processes are likely to run concurrently. When
the ^appendfile^ transport is used to write to a file, Exim applies locking
rules to stop concurrent processes from writing to the same file at the same
time.

However, when you use a ^pipe^ transport, it is up to you to arrange any
locking that is needed. Here is a silly example:

  my_transport:
    driver = pipe
    command = /bin/sh -c 'cat >>/some/file'

This is supposed to write the message at the end of the file. However, if two
messages arrive at the same time, the file will be scrambled. You can use the
%exim_lock% utility program (see section <<SECTmailboxmaint>>) to lock a file
using the same algorithm that Exim itself uses.




[[SECTenvuidgid]]
Uids and gids
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[local transports,uid and gid]
cindex:[transport,local; uid and gid]
All transports have the options %group% and %user%. If %group% is set, it
overrides any group that the router set in the address, even if %user% is not
set for the transport. This makes it possible, for example, to run local mail
delivery under the uid of the recipient (set by the router), but in a special
group (set by the transport). For example:

  # Routers ...
  # User/group are set by check_local_user in this router
  local_users:
    driver = accept
    check_local_user
    transport = group_delivery

  # Transports ...
  # This transport overrides the group
  group_delivery:
    driver = appendfile
    file = /var/spool/mail/$local_part
    group = mail

If %user% is set for a transport, its value overrides what is set in the
address. If %user% is non-numeric and %group% is not set, the gid associated
with the user is used. If %user% is numeric, %group% must be set.

cindex:[%initgroups% option]
When the uid is taken from the transport's configuration, the 'initgroups()'
function is called for the groups associated with that uid if the %initgroups%
option is set for the transport. When the uid is not specified by the
transport, but is associated with the address by a router, the option for
calling 'initgroups()' is taken from the router configuration.

cindex:[^pipe^ transport,uid for]
The ^pipe^ transport contains the special option %pipe_as_creator%. If this
is set and %user% is not set, the uid of the process that called Exim to
receive the message is used, and if %group% is not set, the corresponding
original gid is also used.



Current and home directories
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[current directory for local transport]
cindex:[home directory,for local transport]
cindex:[transport,local; home directory for]
cindex:[transport,local; current directory for]
Routers may set current and home directories for local transports by means of
the %transport_current_directory% and %transport_home_directory% options.
However, if the transport's %current_directory% or %home_directory% options
are set, they override the router's values. In detail, the home directory
for a local transport is taken from the first of these values that is set:

- The %home_directory% option on the transport;

- The %transport_home_directory% option on the router;

- The password data if %check_local_user% is set on the router;

- The %router_home_directory% option on the router.

The current directory is taken from the first of these values that is set:

- The %current_directory% option on the transport;

- The %transport_current_directory% option on the router.


If neither the router nor the transport sets a current directory, Exim uses the
value of the home directory, if it is set. Otherwise it sets the current
directory to _/_ before running a local transport.



Expansion variables derived from the address
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Normally a local delivery is handling a single address, and in that case the
variables such as $domain$ and $local_part$ are set during local
deliveries. However, in some circumstances more than one address may be handled
at once (for example, while writing batch SMTP for onward transmission by some
other means). In this case, the variables associated with the local part are
never set, $domain$ is set only if all the addresses have the same
domain, and $original_domain$ is never set.







////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPtransportgeneric]]
Generic options for transports
------------------------------

cindex:[generic options,transport]
cindex:[options,generic; for transports]
cindex:[transport,generic options for]
The following generic options apply to all transports:


oindex:[%body_only%]
`..'=
%body_only%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[transport,body only]
cindex:[message,transporting body only]
cindex:[body of message,transporting]
If this option is set, the message's headers are not transported. It is
mutually exclusive with %headers_only%. If it is used with the ^appendfile^ or
^pipe^ transports, the settings of %message_prefix% and %message_suffix%
should be checked, because this option does not automatically suppress them.


oindex:[%current_directory%]
`..'=
%current_directory%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[transport,current directory for]
This specifies the current directory that is to be set while running the
transport, overriding any value that may have been set by the router.
If the expansion fails for any reason, including forced failure, an error is
logged, and delivery is deferred.


oindex:[%disable_logging%]
`..'=
%disable_logging%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is set true, nothing is logged for any
deliveries by the transport or for any
transport errors. You should not set this option unless you really, really know
what you are doing.


oindex:[%debug_print%]
`..'=
%debug_print%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[testing,variables in drivers]
If this option is set and debugging is enabled (see the %-d% command line
option), the string is expanded and included in the debugging output when the
transport is run.
If expansion of the string fails, the error message is written to the debugging
output, and Exim carries on processing.
This facility is provided to help with checking out the values of variables and
so on when debugging driver configurations. For example, if a %headers_add%
option is not working properly, %debug_print% could be used to output the
variables it references. A newline is added to the text if it does not end with
one.


oindex:[%delivery_date_add%]
`..'=
%delivery_date_add%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:['Delivery-date:' header line]
If this option is true, a 'Delivery-date:' header is added to the message. This
gives the actual time the delivery was made. As this is not a standard header,
Exim has a configuration option (%delivery_date_remove%) which requests its
removal from incoming messages, so that delivered messages can safely be resent
to other recipients.


oindex:[%driver%]
`..'=
%driver%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies which of the available transport drivers is to be used.
There is no default, and this option must be set for every transport.


oindex:[%envelope_to_add%]
`..'=
%envelope_to_add%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:['Envelope-to:' header line]
If this option is true, an 'Envelope-to:' header is added to the message. This
gives the original address(es) in the incoming envelope that caused this
delivery to happen. More than one address may be present if the transport is
configured to handle several addresses at once, or if more than one original
address was redirected to the same final address. As this is not a standard
header, Exim has a configuration option (%envelope_to_remove%) which requests
its removal from incoming messages, so that delivered messages can safely be
resent to other recipients.


oindex:[%group%]
`..'=
%group%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'Exim group'
===

cindex:[transport,group; specifying]
This option specifies a gid for running the transport process, overriding any
value that the router supplies, and also overriding any value associated with
%user% (see below).


oindex:[%headers_add%]
`..'=
%headers_add%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[header lines,adding in transport]
cindex:[transport,header lines; adding]
This option specifies a string of text that is expanded and added to the header
portion of a message as it is transported, as described in section
<<SECTheadersaddrem>>. Additional header lines can also be specified by routers.
If the result of the expansion is an empty string, or if the expansion is
forced to fail, no action is taken. Other expansion failures are treated as
errors and cause the delivery to be deferred.



oindex:[%headers_only%]
`..'=
%headers_only%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[transport,header lines only]
cindex:[message,transporting headers only]
cindex:[header lines,transporting]
If this option is set, the message's body is not transported. It is mutually
exclusive with %body_only%. If it is used with the ^appendfile^ or ^pipe^
transports, the settings of %message_prefix% and %message_suffix% should be
checked, since this option does not automatically suppress them.


oindex:[%headers_remove%]
`..'=
%headers_remove%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[header lines,removing]
cindex:[transport,header lines; removing]
This option specifies a string that is expanded into a list of header names;
these headers are omitted from the message as it is transported, as described
in section <<SECTheadersaddrem>>. Header removal can also be specified by
routers. If the result of the expansion is an empty string, or if the expansion
is forced to fail, no action is taken. Other expansion failures are treated as
errors and cause the delivery to be deferred.



oindex:[%headers_rewrite%]
`..'=
%headers_rewrite%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[transport,header lines; rewriting]
cindex:[rewriting,at transport time]
This option allows addresses in header lines to be rewritten at transport time,
that is, as the message is being copied to its destination. The contents of the
option are a colon-separated list of rewriting rules. Each rule is in exactly
the same form as one of the general rewriting rules that are applied when a
message is received. These are described in chapter <<CHAPrewrite>>. For example,

....
headers_rewrite = a@b c@d f : \
                  x@y w@z
....

changes %a@b% into %c@d% in 'From:' header lines, and %x@y% into %w@z% in
all address-bearing header lines. The rules are applied to the header lines
just before they are written out at transport time, so they affect only those
copies of the message that pass through the transport. However, only the
message's original header lines, and any that were added by a system filter,
are rewritten. If a router or transport adds header lines, they are
not affected by this option. These rewriting rules are 'not' applied to the
envelope. You can change the return path using %return_path%, but you cannot
change envelope recipients at this time.


oindex:[%home_directory%]
`..'=
%home_directory%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[transport,home directory for]
This option specifies a home directory setting for the transport, overriding
any value that may be set by the router. The home directory is placed in
$home$ while expanding the transport's private options. It is also used as
the current directory if no current directory is set by the
%current_directory% option on the transport or the
%transport_current_directory% option on the router.
If the expansion fails for any reason, including forced failure, an error is
logged, and delivery is deferred.


oindex:[%initgroups%]
`..'=
%initgroups%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[additional groups]
cindex:[groups, additional]
cindex:[transport,group; additional]
If this option is true and the uid for the delivery process is provided by the
transport, the 'initgroups()' function is called when running the transport
to ensure that any additional groups associated with the uid are set up.


oindex:[%message_size_limit%]
`..'=
%message_size_limit%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: '0'
===

cindex:[limit,message size per transport]
cindex:[size of message, limit]
cindex:[transport,message size; limiting]
This option controls the size of messages passed through the transport. It is
expanded before use; the result of the expansion must be a sequence of digits,
optionally followed by K or M.
If the expansion fails for any reason, including forced failure, or if the
result is not of the required form, delivery is deferred.
If the value is greater than zero and the size of a message exceeds this
limit, the address is failed. If there is any chance that the resulting bounce
message could be routed to the same transport, you should ensure that
%return_size_limit% is less than the transport's %message_size_limit%, as
otherwise the bounce message will fail to get delivered.



oindex:[%rcpt_include_affixes%]
`..'=
%rcpt_include_affixes%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[prefix,for local part; including in envelope]
cindex:[suffix,for local part; including in envelope]
cindex:[local part,prefix]
cindex:[local part,suffix]
When this option is false (the default), and an address that has had any
affixes (prefixes or suffixes) removed from the local part is delivered by any
form of SMTP or LMTP, the affixes are not included. For example, if a router
that contains

  local_part_prefix = *-

routes the address 'abc-xyz@some.domain' to an SMTP transport, the envelope
is delivered with

  RCPT TO:<xyz@some.domain>

If %rcpt_include_affixes% is set true, the whole local part is included in
the RCPT command. This option applies to BSMTP deliveries by the
^appendfile^ and ^pipe^ transports as well as to the ^lmtp^ and ^smtp^
transports.


oindex:[%retry_use_local_part%]
`..'=
%retry_use_local_part%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[hints database,retry keys]
When a delivery suffers a temporary failure, a retry record is created
in Exim's hints database. For remote deliveries, the key for the retry record
is based on the name and/or IP address of the failing remote host. For local
deliveries, the key is normally the entire address, including both the local
part and the domain. This is suitable for most common cases of local delivery
temporary failure -- for example, exceeding a mailbox quota should delay only
deliveries to that mailbox, not to the whole domain.

However, in some special cases you may want to treat a temporary local delivery
as a failure associated with the domain, and not with a particular local part.
(For example, if you are storing all mail for some domain in files.) You can do
this by setting %retry_use_local_part% false.

For all the local transports, its default value is true. For remote transports,
the default value is false for tidiness, but changing the value has no effect
on a remote transport in the current implementation.


oindex:[%return_path%]
`..'=
%return_path%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[envelope sender]
cindex:[transport,return path; changing]
cindex:[return path,changing in transport]
If this option is set, the string is expanded at transport time and replaces
the existing return path (envelope sender) value in the copy of the message
that is being delivered. An empty return path is permitted. This feature is
designed for remote deliveries, where the value of this option is used in the
SMTP MAIL command. If you set %return_path% for a local transport, the
only effect is to change the address that is placed in the 'Return-path:'
header line, if one is added to the message (see the next option).

The expansion can refer to the existing value via $return_path$. This is
either the message's envelope sender, or an address set by the
%errors_to% option on a router. If the expansion is forced to fail, no
replacement occurs; if it fails for another reason, delivery is deferred. This
option can be used to support VERP (Variable Envelope Return Paths) -- see
chapter <<CHAPSMTP>>.

*Note*: If a delivery error is detected locally,
including the case when a remote server rejects a message at SMTP time,
the bounce message is not sent to the value of this option, but to the
previously set errors address (which defaults to the incoming sender address).



oindex:[%return_path_add%]
`..'=
%return_path_add%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:['Return-path:' header line]
If this option is true, a 'Return-path:' header is added to the message.
Although the return path is normally available in the prefix line of BSD
mailboxes, this is commonly not displayed by MUAs, and so the user does not
have easy access to it.

RFC 2821 states that the 'Return-path:' header is added to a message ``when the
delivery SMTP server makes the final delivery''. This implies that this header
should not be present in incoming messages. Exim has a configuration option,
%return_path_remove%, which requests removal of this header from incoming
messages, so that delivered messages can safely be resent to other recipients.


oindex:[%shadow_condition%]
`..'=
%shadow_condition%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

See %shadow_transport% below.


oindex:[%shadow_transport%]
`..'=
%shadow_transport%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[shadow transport]
cindex:[transport,shadow]
A local transport may set the %shadow_transport% option to the name of another
local transport. Shadow remote transports are not supported.

Whenever a delivery to the main transport succeeds, and either
%shadow_condition% is unset, or its expansion does not result in the empty
string or one of the strings ``0'' or ``no'' or ``false'', the message is also passed
to the shadow transport, with the same delivery address or addresses.
If expansion fails, no action is taken except that non-forced expansion
failures cause a log line to be written.

The result of the shadow transport is discarded and does not affect the
subsequent processing of the message. Only a single level of shadowing is
provided; the %shadow_transport% option is ignored on any transport when it is
running as a shadow. Options concerned with output from pipes are also ignored.

The log line for the successful delivery has an item added on the end, of the
form

  ST=<shadow transport name>

If the shadow transport did not succeed, the error message is put in
parentheses afterwards.

Shadow transports can be used for a number of different purposes, including
keeping more detailed log information than Exim normally provides, and
implementing automatic acknowledgement policies based on message headers that
some sites insist on.


oindex:[%transport_filter%]
`..'=
%transport_filter%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[transport,filter]
cindex:[filter,transport filter]
This option sets up a filtering (in the Unix shell sense) process for messages
at transport time. It should not be confused with mail filtering as set up by
individual users or via a system filter.

When the message is about to be written out, the command specified by
%transport_filter% is started up in a separate process, and the entire
message, including the header lines, is passed to it on its standard input
(this in fact is done from a third process, to avoid deadlock).
The command must be specified as an absolute path.

The lines of the message that are written to the transport filter are
terminated by newline (``\n'').

The message is passed to the filter before any SMTP-specific processing, such
as turning ``\n'' into ``\r\n'' and escaping lines beginning with a dot, and
also before any processing implied by the settings of %check_string% and
%escape_string% in the ^appendfile^ or ^pipe^ transports.

The standard error for the filter process is set to the same destination as its
standard output; this is read and written to the message's ultimate
destination.

The filter can perform any transformations it likes, but of course should take
care not to break RFC 2822 syntax. A demonstration Perl script is provided in
_util/transport-filter.pl_; this makes a few arbitrary modifications just to
show the possibilities. Exim does not check the result, except to test for a
final newline when SMTP is in use. All messages transmitted over SMTP must end
with a newline, so Exim supplies one if it is missing.

cindex:[SMTP,SIZE]
A problem might arise if the filter increases the size of a message that is
being sent down an SMTP connection. If the receiving SMTP server has indicated
support for the SIZE parameter, Exim will have sent the size of the message
at the start of the SMTP session. If what is actually sent is substantially
more, the server might reject the message. This can be worked round by setting
the %size_addition% option on the ^smtp^ transport, either to allow for
additions to the message, or to disable the use of SIZE altogether.

The value of the %transport_filter% option is the command string for starting
the filter, which is run directly from Exim, not under a shell. The string is
parsed by Exim in the same way as a command string for the ^pipe^ transport:
Exim breaks it up into arguments and then expands each argument separately. The
special argument $pipe_addresses$ is replaced by a number of arguments, one
for each address that applies to this delivery. (This isn't an ideal name for
this feature here, but as it was already implemented for the ^pipe^
transport, it seemed sensible not to change it.)

cindex:[$host$]
cindex:[$host_address$]
The expansion variables $host$ and $host_address$ are available when the
transport is a remote one. They contain the name and IP address of the host to
which the message is being sent. For example:

....
transport_filter = /some/directory/transport-filter.pl \
  $host $host_address $sender_address $pipe_addresses
....

The filter process is run under the same uid and gid as the normal delivery.
For remote deliveries this is the Exim uid/gid by default.

The command should normally yield a zero return code. A non-zero code is taken
to mean that the transport filter failed in some way. Delivery of the message
is deferred. It is not possible to cause a message to be bounced from a
transport filter.


If a transport filter is set on an autoreply transport, the original message is
passed through the filter as it is being copied into the newly generated
message, which happens if the %return_message% option is set.


oindex:[%transport_filter_timeout%]
`..'=
%transport_filter_timeout%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'time', Default: '5m'
===

cindex:[transport filter, timeout]
When Exim is reading the output of a transport filter, it a applies a timeout
that can be set by this option. Exceeding the timeout is treated as a
temporary delivery failure.



oindex:[%user%]
`..'=
%user%, Use: 'transports', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'Exim user'
===

cindex:[uid (user id),local delivery]
cindex:[transport user, specifying]
This option specifies the user under whose uid the delivery process is to be
run, overriding any uid that may have been set by the router. If the user is
given as a name, the uid is looked up from the password data, and the
associated group is taken as the value of the gid to be used if the %group%
option is not set.

For deliveries that use local transports, a user and group are normally
specified explicitly or implicitly (for example, as a result of
%check_local_user%) by the router or transport.

cindex:[hints database,access by remote transport]
For remote transports, you should leave this option unset unless you really are
sure you know what you are doing. When a remote transport is running, it needs
to be able to access Exim's hints databases, because each host may have its own
retry data.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPbatching]]
[titleabbrev="Address batching"]
Address batching in local transports
------------------------------------
cindex:[transport,local; address batching in]
The only remote transport (^smtp^) is normally configured to handle more than
one address at a time, so that when several addresses are routed to the same
remote host, just one copy of the message is sent. Local transports, however,
normally handle one address at a time. That is, a separate instance of the
transport is run for each address that is routed to the transport. A separate
copy of the message is delivered each time.

cindex:[batched local delivery]
cindex:[%batch_max%]
cindex:[%batch_id%]
In special cases, it may be desirable to handle several addresses at once in a
local transport, for example:

- In an ^appendfile^ transport, when storing messages in files for later
delivery by some other means, a single copy of the message with multiple
recipients saves space.

- In an ^lmtp^ transport, when delivering over ``local SMTP'' to some process,
a single copy saves time, and is the normal way LMTP is expected to work.

- In a ^pipe^ transport, when passing the message
to a scanner program or
to some other delivery mechanism such as UUCP, multiple recipients may be
acceptable.

The three local transports (^appendfile^, ^lmtp^, and ^pipe^) all have
the same options for controlling multiple (``batched'') deliveries, namely
%batch_max% and %batch_id%. To save repeating the information for each
transport, these options are described here.

The %batch_max% option specifies the maximum number of addresses that can be
delivered together in a single run of the transport. Its default value is one.
When more than one address is routed to a transport that has a %batch_max%
value greater than one, the addresses are delivered in a batch (that is, in a
single run of the transport), subject to certain conditions:

- If any of the transport's options contain a reference to $local_part$, no
batching is possible.

- If any of the transport's options contain a reference to $domain$, only
addresses with the same domain are batched.

- cindex:[customizing,batching condition]
If %batch_id% is set, it is expanded for each address, and only those
addresses with the same expanded value are batched. This allows you to specify
customized batching conditions.
Failure of the expansion for any reason, including forced failure, disables
batching, but it does not stop the delivery from taking place.

- Batched addresses must also have the same errors address (where to send
delivery errors), the same header additions and removals, the same user and
group for the transport, and if a host list is present, the first host must
be the same.

cindex:['Envelope-to:' header line]
If the generic %envelope_to_add% option is set for the transport, the
'Envelope-to:' header that is added to the message contains all the addresses
that are batched together.

The ^appendfile^ and ^pipe^ transports have an option called %use_bsmtp%,
which causes them to deliver the message in ``batched SMTP'' format, with the
envelope represented as SMTP commands. The %check_string% and %escape_string%
options are forced to the values

  check_string = "."
  escape_string = ".."

when batched SMTP is in use. A full description of the batch SMTP mechanism is
given in section <<SECTbatchSMTP>>. The ^lmtp^ transport does not have a
%use_bsmtp% option, because it always delivers using the SMTP protocol.

cindex:[^pipe^ transport,with multiple addresses]
If you are not using BSMTP, but are using a ^pipe^ transport, you can include
$pipe_addresses$ as part of the command. This is not a true variable; it is
a bit of magic that causes each of the recipient addresses to be inserted into
the command as a separate argument. This provides a way of accessing all the
addresses that are being delivered in the batch.

If you are using a batching ^appendfile^ transport without %use_bsmtp%, the
only way to preserve the recipient addresses is to set the %envelope_to_add%
option. This causes an 'Envelope-to:' header line to be added to the message,
containing all the recipients.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPappendfile]]
The appendfile transport
------------------------
cindex:[^appendfile^ transport]
cindex:[transports,^appendfile^]
cindex:[directory creation]
cindex:[creating directories]
The ^appendfile^ transport delivers a message by appending it to an existing
file, or by creating an entirely new file in a specified directory. Single
files to which messages are appended can be in the traditional Unix mailbox
format, or optionally in the MBX format supported by the Pine MUA and
University of Washington IMAP daemon, 'inter alia'. When each message is
being delivered as a separate file, ``maildir'' format can optionally be used to
give added protection against failures that happen part-way through the
delivery. A third form of separate-file delivery known as ``mailstore'' is also
supported. For all file formats, Exim attempts to create as many levels of
directory as necessary, provided that %create_directory% is set.

The code for the optional formats is not included in the Exim binary by
default. It is necessary to set SUPPORT_MBX, SUPPORT_MAILDIR and/or
SUPPORT_MAILSTORE in _Local/Makefile_ to have the appropriate code
included.

cindex:[quota,system]
Exim recognises system quota errors, and generates an appropriate message. Exim
also supports its own quota control within the transport, for use when the
system facility is unavailable or cannot be used for some reason.

If there is an error while appending to a file (for example, quota exceeded or
partition filled), Exim attempts to reset the file's length and last
modification time back to what they were before. If there is an error while
creating an entirely new file, the new file is removed.

Before appending to a file, a number of security checks are made, and the
file is locked. A detailed description is given below, after the list of
private options.

^appendfile^ is most commonly used for local deliveries to users' mailboxes.
However, it can also be used as a pseudo-remote transport for putting messages
into files for remote delivery by some means other than Exim. ``Batch SMTP''
format is often used in this case (see the %use_bsmtp% option).



[[SECTfildiropt]]
The file and directory options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The %file% option specifies a single file, to which the message is appended;
the %directory% option specifies a directory, in which a new file containing
the message is created. Only one of these two options can be set, and for
normal deliveries to mailboxes, one of them 'must' be set.

However, ^appendfile^ is also used for delivering messages to files or
directories whose names (or parts of names) are obtained from alias,
forwarding, or filtering operations (for example, a %save% command in a user's
Exim filter). When such a transport is running, $local_part$ contains the
local part that was aliased or forwarded, and $address_file$ contains the
name (or partial name) of the file or directory generated by the redirection
operation. There are two cases:

- If neither %file% nor %directory% is set, the redirection operation
must specify an absolute path (one that begins with `/`). This is the most
common case when users with local accounts use filtering to sort mail into
different folders. See for example, the ^address_file^ transport in the
default configuration. If the path ends with a slash, it is assumed to be the
name of a directory. A delivery to a directory can also be forced by setting
%maildir_format% or %mailstore_format%.

- If %file% or %directory% is set for a delivery from a redirection, it is used
to determine the file or directory name for the delivery. Normally, the
contents of $address_file$ are used in some way in the string expansion.


cindex:[Sieve filter,configuring ^appendfile^]
cindex:[Sieve filter,relative mailbox path handling]
As an example of the second case, consider an environment where users do not
have home directories. They may be permitted to use Exim filter commands of the
form:

  save folder23

or Sieve filter commands of the form:

  require "fileinto";
  fileinto "folder23";

In this situation, the expansion of %file% or %directory% in the transport must
transform the relative path into an appropriate absolute file name. In the case
of Sieve filters, the name 'inbox' must be handled. It is the name that is
used as a result of a ``keep'' action in the filter. This example shows one way
of handling this requirement:

....
file = ${if eq{$address_file}{inbox} \
            {/var/mail/$local_part} \
            {${if eq{${substr_0_1:$address_file}}{/} \
                  {$address_file} \
                  {$home/mail/$address_file} \
            }} \
       }
....

With this setting of %file%, 'inbox' refers to the standard mailbox location,
absolute paths are used without change, and other folders are in the _mail_
directory within the home directory.

*Note 1*: While processing an Exim filter, a relative path such as
_folder23_ is turned into an absolute path if a home directory is known to
the router. In particular, this is the case if %check_local_user% is set. If
you want to prevent this happening at routing time, you can set
%router_home_directory% empty. This forces the router to pass the relative
path to the transport.

*Note 2*: An absolute path in $address_file$ is not treated specially;
the %file% or %directory% option is still used if it is set.




Private options for appendfile
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^appendfile^ transport]



oindex:[%allow_fifo%]
`..'=
%allow_fifo%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[fifo (named pipe)]
cindex:[named pipe (fifo)]
cindex:[pipe,named (fifo)]
Setting this option permits delivery to named pipes (FIFOs) as well as to
regular files. If no process is reading the named pipe at delivery time, the
delivery is deferred.


oindex:[%allow_symlink%]
`..'=
%allow_symlink%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[symbolic link,to mailbox]
cindex:[mailbox,symbolic link]
By default, ^appendfile^ will not deliver if the path name for the file is
that of a symbolic link. Setting this option relaxes that constraint, but there
are security issues involved in the use of symbolic links. Be sure you know
what you are doing if you set this. Details of exactly what this option affects
are included in the discussion which follows this list of options.


oindex:[%batch_id%]
`..'=
%batch_id%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

See the description of local delivery batching in chapter <<CHAPbatching>>.
However, batching is automatically disabled for ^appendfile^ deliveries that
happen as a result of forwarding or aliasing or other redirection directly to a
file.


oindex:[%batch_max%]
`..'=
%batch_max%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'integer', Default: '1'
===

See the description of local delivery batching in chapter <<CHAPbatching>>.


oindex:[%check_group%]
`..'=
%check_group%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

When this option is set, the group owner of the file defined by the %file%
option is checked to see that it is the same as the group under which the
delivery process is running. The default setting is false because the default
file mode is 0600, which means that the group is irrelevant.


oindex:[%check_owner%]
`..'=
%check_owner%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

When this option is set, the owner of the file defined by the %file% option is
checked to ensure that it is the same as the user under which the delivery
process is running.


oindex:[%check_string%]
`..'=
%check_string%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[``From'' line]
As ^appendfile^ writes the message, the start of each line is tested for
matching %check_string%, and if it does, the initial matching characters are
replaced by the contents of %escape_string%. The value of %check_string% is a
literal string, not a regular expression, and the case of any letters it
contains is significant.

If %use_bsmtp% is set the values of %check_string% and %escape_string% are
forced to ``.'' and ``..'' respectively, and any settings in the configuration are
ignored. Otherwise, they default to ``From '' and ``>From '' when the %file% option
is set, and unset when
any of the %directory%, %maildir%, or %mailstore% options are set.

The default settings, along with %message_prefix% and %message_suffix%, are
suitable for traditional ``BSD'' mailboxes, where a line beginning with ``From
'' indicates the start of a new message. All four options need changing if
another format is used. For example, to deliver to mailboxes in MMDF format:
cindex:[MMDF format mailbox]
cindex:[mailbox,MMDF format]

  check_string = "\1\1\1\1\n"
  escape_string = "\1\1\1\1 \n"
  message_prefix = "\1\1\1\1\n"
  message_suffix = "\1\1\1\1\n"

oindex:[%create_directory%]
`..'=
%create_directory%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[directory creation]
When this option is true, Exim attempts to create any missing superior
directories for the file that it is about to write. A created directory's mode
is given by the %directory_mode% option.

The group ownership of a newly created directory is highly dependent on the
operating system (and possibly the file system) that is being used. For
example, in Solaris, if the parent directory has the setgid bit set, its group
is propagated to the child; if not, the currently set group is used. However,
in FreeBSD, the parent's group is always used.



oindex:[%create_file%]
`..'=
%create_file%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string', Default: 'anywhere'
===

This option constrains the location of files and directories that are created
by this transport. It applies to files defined by the %file% option and
directories defined by the %directory% option. In the case of maildir delivery,
it applies to the top level directory, not the maildir directories beneath.

The option must be set to one of the words ``anywhere'', ``inhome'', or
``belowhome''. In the second and third cases, a home directory must have been set
for the transport. This option is not useful when an explicit file name is
given for normal mailbox deliveries. It is intended for the case when file
names are generated from users' _.forward_ files. These are usually handled
by an ^appendfile^ transport called %address_file%. See also
%file_must_exist%.


oindex:[%directory%]
`..'=
%directory%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option is mutually exclusive with the %file% option, but one of %file% or
%directory% must be set, unless the delivery is the direct result of a
redirection (see section <<SECTfildiropt>>).

When %directory% is set, the string is expanded, and the message is delivered
into a new file or files in or below the given directory, instead of being
appended to a single mailbox file. A number of different formats are provided
(see %maildir_format% and %mailstore_format%), and see section <<SECTopdir>>
for further details of this form of delivery.


oindex:[%directory_file%]
`..'=
%directory_file%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: `q\$\{base62{co}\$tod_epoch\}-\$inode`
===

cindex:[base62]
When %directory% is set, but neither %maildir_format% nor %mailstore_format%
is set, ^appendfile^ delivers each message into a file whose name is obtained
by expanding this string. The default value generates a unique name from the
current time, in base 62 form, and the inode of the file. The variable
$inode$ is available only when expanding this option.


oindex:[%directory_mode%]
`..'=
%directory_mode%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'octal integer', Default: '0700'
===

If ^appendfile^ creates any directories as a result of the %create_directory%
option, their mode is specified by this option.


oindex:[%escape_string%]
`..'=
%escape_string%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string', Default: 'see description'
===

See %check_string% above.


oindex:[%file%]
`..'=
%file%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option is mutually exclusive with the %directory% option, but one of
%file% or %directory% must be set, unless the delivery is the direct result of
a redirection (see section <<SECTfildiropt>>). The %file% option specifies a
single file, to which the message is appended. One or more of
%use_fcntl_lock%, %use_flock_lock%, or %use_lockfile% must be set with
%file%.

cindex:[NFS,lock file]
cindex:[locking files]
cindex:[lock files]
If you are using more than one host to deliver over NFS into the same
mailboxes, you should always use lock files.

The string value is expanded for each delivery, and must yield an absolute
path. The most common settings of this option are variations on one of these
examples:

  file = /var/spool/mail/$local_part
  file = /home/$local_part/inbox
  file = $home/inbox

cindex:[``sticky'' bit]
In the first example, all deliveries are done into the same directory. If Exim
is configured to use lock files (see %use_lockfile% below) it must be able to
create a file in the directory, so the ``sticky'' bit must be turned on for
deliveries to be possible, or alternatively the %group% option can be used to
run the delivery under a group id which has write access to the directory.



oindex:[%file_format%]
`..'=
%file_format%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[file,mailbox; checking existing format]
This option requests the transport to check the format of an existing file
before adding to it. The check consists of matching a specific string at the
start of the file. The value of the option consists of an even number of
colon-separated strings. The first of each pair is the test string, and the
second is the name of a transport. If the transport associated with a matched
string is not the current transport, control is passed over to the other
transport. For example, suppose the standard ^local_delivery^ transport has
this added to it:

....
file_format = "From       : local_delivery :\
               \1\1\1\1\n : local_mmdf_delivery"
....

Mailboxes that begin with ``From'' are still handled by this transport, but if a
mailbox begins with four binary ones followed by a newline, control is passed
to a transport called %local_mmdf_delivery%, which presumably is configured
to do the delivery in MMDF format. If a mailbox does not exist or is empty, it
is assumed to match the current transport. If the start of a mailbox doesn't
match any string, or if the transport named for a given string is not defined,
delivery is deferred.


oindex:[%file_must_exist%]
`..'=
%file_must_exist%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, the file specified by the %file% option must exist, and
an error occurs if it does not. Otherwise, it is created if it does not exist.


oindex:[%lock_fcntl_timeout%]
`..'=
%lock_fcntl_timeout%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'time', Default: '0s'
===

cindex:[timeout,mailbox locking]
cindex:[mailbox locking,blocking and non-blocking]
cindex:[locking files]
By default, the ^appendfile^ transport uses non-blocking calls to 'fcntl()'
when locking an open mailbox file. If the call fails, the delivery process
sleeps for %lock_interval% and tries again, up to %lock_retries% times.
Non-blocking calls are used so that the file is not kept open during the wait
for the lock; the reason for this is to make it as safe as possible for
deliveries over NFS in the case when processes might be accessing an NFS
mailbox without using a lock file. This should not be done, but
misunderstandings and hence misconfigurations are not unknown.

On a busy system, however, the performance of a non-blocking lock approach is
not as good as using a blocking lock with a timeout. In this case, the waiting
is done inside the system call, and Exim's delivery process acquires the lock
and can proceed as soon as the previous lock holder releases it.

If %lock_fcntl_timeout% is set to a non-zero time, blocking locks, with that
timeout, are used. There may still be some retrying: the maximum number of
retries is

  (lock_retries * lock_interval) / lock_fcntl_timeout

rounded up to the next whole number. In other words, the total time during
which ^appendfile^ is trying to get a lock is roughly the same, unless
%lock_fcntl_timeout% is set very large.

You should consider setting this option if you are getting a lot of delayed
local deliveries because of errors of the form

  failed to lock mailbox /some/file (fcntl)



oindex:[%lock_flock_timeout%]
`..'=
%lock_flock_timeout%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'time', Default: '0s'
===

This timeout applies to file locking when using 'flock()' (see %use_flock%);
the timeout operates in a similar manner to %lock_fcntl_timeout%.


oindex:[%lock_interval%]
`..'=
%lock_interval%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'time', Default: '3s'
===

This specifies the time to wait between attempts to lock the file. See below
for details of locking.


oindex:[%lock_retries%]
`..'=
%lock_retries%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'integer', Default: '10'
===

This specifies the maximum number of attempts to lock the file. A value of zero
is treated as 1. See below for details of locking.


oindex:[%lockfile_mode%]
`..'=
%lockfile_mode%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'octal integer', Default: '0600'
===

This specifies the mode of the created lock file, when a lock file is being
used (see %use_lockfile%).


oindex:[%lockfile_timeout%]
`..'=
%lockfile_timeout%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'time', Default: '30m'
===

cindex:[timeout,mailbox locking]
When a lock file is being used (see %use_lockfile%), if a lock file already
exists and is older than this value, it is assumed to have been left behind by
accident, and Exim attempts to remove it.


oindex:[%mailbox_filecount%]
`..'=
%mailbox_filecount%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[mailbox,specifying size of]
cindex:[size,of mailbox]
If this option is set, it is expanded, and the result is taken as the current
number of files in the mailbox. It must be a decimal number, optionally
followed by K or M. This provides a way of obtaining this information from an
external source that maintains the data.


oindex:[%mailbox_size%]
`..'=
%mailbox_size%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[mailbox,specifying size of]
cindex:[size,of mailbox]
If this option is set, it is expanded, and the result is taken as the current
size the mailbox. It must be a decimal number, optionally followed by K or M.
This provides a way of obtaining this information from an external source that
maintains the data. This is likely to be helpful for maildir deliveries where
it is computationally expensive to compute the size of a mailbox.



oindex:[%maildir_format%]
`..'=
%maildir_format%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[maildir format,specifying]
If this option is set with the %directory% option, the delivery is into a new
file, in the ``maildir'' format that is used by other mail software. When the
transport is activated directly from a ^redirect^ router (for example, the
^address_file^ transport in the default configuration), setting
%maildir_format% causes the path received from the router to be treated as a
directory, whether or not it ends with `/`. This option is available only if
SUPPORT_MAILDIR is present in _Local/Makefile_. See section
<<SECTmaildirdelivery>> below for further details.


oindex:[%maildir_quota_directory_regex%]
`..'=
%maildir_quota_directory_regex%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string', Default: 'See below'
===

cindex:[maildir format,quota; directories included in]
cindex:[quota,maildir; directories included in]
This option is relevant only when %maildir_use_size_file% is set. It defines
a regular expression for specifying directories that should be included in the
quota calculation. The default value is

  maildir_quota_directory_regex = ^(?:cur|new|\..*)$

which includes the _cur_ and _new_ directories, and any maildir++ folders
(directories whose names begin with a dot). If you want to exclude the
_Trash_
folder from the count (as some sites do), you need to change this setting to

  maildir_quota_directory_regex = ^(?:cur|new|\.(?!Trash).*)$

This uses a negative lookahead in the regular expression to exclude the
directory whose name is _.Trash_.


oindex:[%maildir_retries%]
`..'=
%maildir_retries%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'integer', Default: '10'
===

This option specifies the number of times to retry when writing a file in
``maildir'' format. See section <<SECTmaildirdelivery>> below.


oindex:[%maildir_tag%]
`..'=
%maildir_tag%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option applies only to deliveries in maildir format, and is described in
section <<SECTmaildirdelivery>> below.


oindex:[%maildir_use_size_file%]
`..'=
%maildir_use_size_file%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[maildir format,_maildirsize_ file]
Setting this option true enables support for _maildirsize_ files. Exim
creates a _maildirsize_ file in a maildir if one does not exist, taking the
quota from the %quota% option of the transport. If %quota% is unset, the value
is zero. See section <<SECTmaildirdelivery>> below for further details.


oindex:[%mailstore_format%]
`..'=
%mailstore_format%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[mailstore format,specifying]
If this option is set with the %directory% option, the delivery is into two new
files in  ``mailstore'' format. The option is available only if
SUPPORT_MAILSTORE is present in _Local/Makefile_. See section
<<SECTopdir>> below for further details.


oindex:[%mailstore_prefix%]
`..'=
%mailstore_prefix%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option applies only to deliveries in mailstore format, and is described in
section <<SECTopdir>> below.


oindex:[%mailstore_suffix%]
`..'=
%mailstore_suffix%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option applies only to deliveries in mailstore format, and is described in
section <<SECTopdir>> below.


oindex:[%mbx_format%]
`..'=
%mbx_format%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[locking files]
cindex:[file,locking]
cindex:[file,MBX format]
cindex:[MBX format, specifying]
This option is available only if Exim has been compiled with SUPPORT_MBX
set in _Local/Makefile_. If %mbx_format% is set with the %file% option,
the message is appended to the mailbox file in MBX format instead of
traditional Unix format. This format is supported by Pine4 and its associated
IMAP and POP daemons, by means of the 'c-client' library that they all use.

*Note*: The %message_prefix% and %message_suffix% options are not
automatically changed by the use of %mbx_format%. They should normally be set
empty when using MBX format, so this option almost always appears in this
combination:

  mbx_format = true
  message_prefix =
  message_suffix =


If none of the locking options are mentioned in the configuration,
%use_mbx_lock% is assumed and the other locking options default to false. It
is possible to specify the other kinds of locking with %mbx_format%, but
%use_fcntl_lock% and %use_mbx_lock% are mutually exclusive. MBX locking
interworks with 'c-client', providing for shared access to the mailbox. It
should not be used if any program that does not use this form of locking is
going to access the mailbox, nor should it be used if the mailbox file is NFS
mounted, because it works only when the mailbox is accessed from a single host.

If you set %use_fcntl_lock% with an MBX-format mailbox, you cannot use
the standard version of 'c-client', because as long as it has a mailbox open
(this means for the whole of a Pine or IMAP session), Exim will not be able to
append messages to it.


oindex:[%message_prefix%]
`..'=
%message_prefix%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[``From'' line]
The string specified here is expanded and output at the start of every message.
The default is unset unless %file% is specified and %use_bsmtp% is not set, in
which case it is:

....
message_prefix = "From ${if def:return_path{$return_path}\
  {MAILER-DAEMON}} $tod_bsdinbox\n"
....



oindex:[%message_suffix%]
`..'=
%message_suffix%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

The string specified here is expanded and output at the end of every message.
The default is unset unless %file% is specified and %use_bsmtp% is not set, in
which case it is a single newline character. The suffix can be suppressed by
setting

  message_suffix =



oindex:[%mode%]
`..'=
%mode%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'octal integer', Default: '0600'
===

If the output file is created, it is given this mode. If it already exists and
has wider permissions, they are reduced to this mode. If it has narrower
permissions, an error occurs unless %mode_fail_narrower% is false. However,
if the delivery is the result of a %save% command in a filter file specifing a
particular mode, the mode of the output file is always forced to take that
value, and this option is ignored.


oindex:[%mode_fail_narrower%]
`..'=
%mode_fail_narrower%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

This option applies in the case when an existing mailbox file has a narrower
mode than that specified by the %mode% option. If %mode_fail_narrower% is
true, the delivery is deferred (``mailbox has the wrong mode''); otherwise Exim
continues with the delivery attempt, using the existing mode of the file.


oindex:[%notify_comsat%]
`..'=
%notify_comsat%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, the 'comsat' daemon is notified after every successful
delivery to a user mailbox. This is the daemon that notifies logged on users
about incoming mail.


oindex:[%quota%]
`..'=
%quota%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[quota,imposed by Exim]
This option imposes a limit on the size of the file to which Exim is appending,
or to the total space used in the directory tree when the %directory% option is
set. In the latter case, computation of the space used is expensive, because
all the files in the directory (and any sub-directories) have to be
individually inspected and their sizes summed.
(See %quota_size_regex% and %maildir_use_size_file% for ways to avoid this
in environments where users have no shell access to their mailboxes).

As there is no interlock against two simultaneous deliveries into a
multi-file mailbox, it is possible for the quota to be overrun in this case.
For single-file mailboxes, of course, an interlock is a necessity.

A file's size is taken as its 'used' value. Because of blocking effects, this
may be a lot less than the actual amount of disk space allocated to the file.
If the sizes of a number of files are being added up, the rounding effect can
become quite noticeable, especially on systems that have large block sizes.
Nevertheless, it seems best to stick to the 'used' figure, because this is
the obvious value which users understand most easily.

The value of the option is expanded, and must then be a numerical value
(decimal point allowed), optionally followed by one of the letters K or M. The
expansion happens while Exim is running as root, before it changes uid for the
delivery. This means that files which are inaccessible to the end user can be
used to hold quota values that are looked up in the expansion. When delivery
fails because this quota is exceeded, the handling of the error is as for
system quota failures.

*Note*: A value of zero is interpreted as ``no quota''.

By default, Exim's quota checking mimics system quotas, and restricts the
mailbox to the specified maximum size, though the value is not accurate to the
last byte, owing to separator lines and additional headers that may get added
during message delivery. When a mailbox is nearly full, large messages may get
refused even though small ones are accepted, because the size of the current
message is added to the quota when the check is made. This behaviour can be
changed by setting %quota_is_inclusive% false. When this is done, the check
for exceeding the quota does not include the current message. Thus, deliveries
continue until the quota has been exceeded; thereafter, no further messages are
delivered. See also %quota_warn_threshold%.


oindex:[%quota_directory%]
`..'=
%quota_directory%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option defines the directory to check for quota purposes when delivering
into individual files. The default is the delivery directory, or, if a file
called _maildirfolder_ exists in a maildir directory, the parent of the
delivery directory.


oindex:[%quota_filecount%]
`..'=
%quota_filecount%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: '0'
===

This option applies when the %directory% option is set. It limits the total
number of files in the directory (compare the inode limit in system quotas). It
can only be used if %quota% is also set. The value is expanded; an expansion
failure causes delivery to be deferred.


oindex:[%quota_is_inclusive%]
`..'=
%quota_is_inclusive%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

See %quota% above.


oindex:[%quota_size_regex%]
`..'=
%quota_size_regex%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

This option applies when one of the delivery modes that writes a separate file
for each message is being used. When Exim wants to find the size of one of
these files in order to test the quota, it first checks %quota_size_regex%.
If this is set to a regular expression that matches the file name, and it
captures one string, that string is interpreted as a representation of the
file's size. The value of %quota_size_regex% is not expanded.

This feature is useful only when users have no shell access to their mailboxes
-- otherwise they could defeat the quota simply by renaming the files. This
facility can be used with maildir deliveries, by setting %maildir_tag% to add
the file length to the file name. For example:

  maildir_tag = ,S=$message_size
  quota_size_regex = ,S=(\d+)

The regular expression should not assume that the length is at the end of the
file name (even though %maildir_tag% puts it there) because maildir MUAs
sometimes add other information onto the ends of message file names.


oindex:[%quota_warn_message%]
`..'=
%quota_warn_message%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

See below for the use of this option. If it is not set when
%quota_warn_threshold% is set, it defaults to

....
quota_warn_message = "\
  To: $local_part@$domain\n\
  Subject: Your mailbox\n\n\
  This message is automatically created \
  by mail delivery software.\n\n\
  The size of your mailbox has exceeded \
  a warning threshold that is\n\
  set by the system administrator.\n"
....



oindex:[%quota_warn_threshold%]
`..'=
%quota_warn_threshold%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'string'!!, Default: '0'
===

cindex:[quota,warning threshold]
cindex:[mailbox,size warning]
cindex:[size,of mailbox]
This option is expanded in the same way as %quota% (see above). If the
resulting value is greater than zero, and delivery of the message causes the
size of the file or total space in the directory tree to cross the given
threshold, a warning message is sent. If %quota% is also set, the threshold may
be specified as a percentage of it by following the value with a percent sign.
For example:

  quota = 10M
  quota_warn_threshold = 75%

If %quota% is not set, a setting of %quota_warn_threshold% that ends with a
percent sign is ignored.

The warning message itself is specified by the %quota_warn_message% option,
and it must start with a 'To:' header line containing the recipient(s). A
'Subject:' line should also normally be supplied. The %quota% option does not
have to be set in order to use this option; they are independent of one
another except when the threshold is specified as a percentage.


oindex:[%use_bsmtp%]
`..'=
%use_bsmtp%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[envelope sender]
If this option is set true, ^appendfile^ writes messages in ``batch SMTP''
format, with the envelope sender and recipient(s) included as SMTP commands. If
you want to include a leading HELO command with such messages, you can do
so by setting the %message_prefix% option. See section <<SECTbatchSMTP>> for
details of batch SMTP.


oindex:[%use_crlf%]
`..'=
%use_crlf%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[carriage return]
cindex:[linefeed]
This option causes lines to be terminated with the two-character CRLF sequence
(carriage return, linefeed) instead of just a linefeed character. In the case
of batched SMTP, the byte sequence written to the file is then an exact image
of what would be sent down a real SMTP connection.

The contents of the %message_prefix% and %message_suffix% options are written
verbatim, so must contain their own carriage return characters if these are
needed. In cases where these options have non-empty defaults, the values end
with a single linefeed, so they
must
be changed to end with `\r\n` if %use_crlf% is set.


oindex:[%use_fcntl_lock%]
`..'=
%use_fcntl_lock%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'see below'
===

This option controls the use of the 'fcntl()' function to lock a file for
exclusive use when a message is being appended. It is set by default unless
%use_flock_lock% is set. Otherwise, it should be turned off only if you know
that all your MUAs use lock file locking. When both %use_fcntl_lock% and
%use_flock_lock% are unset, %use_lockfile% must be set.


oindex:[%use_flock_lock%]
`..'=
%use_flock_lock%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

This option is provided to support the use of 'flock()' for file locking, for
the few situations where it is needed. Most modern operating systems support
'fcntl()' and 'lockf()' locking, and these two functions interwork with
each other. Exim uses 'fcntl()' locking by default.

This option is required only if you are using an operating system where
'flock()' is used by programs that access mailboxes (typically MUAs), and
where 'flock()' does not correctly interwork with 'fcntl()'. You can use
both 'fcntl()' and 'flock()' locking simultaneously if you want.

cindex:[Solaris,'flock()' support]
Not all operating systems provide 'flock()'. Some versions of Solaris do not
have it (and some, I think, provide a not quite right version built on top of
'lockf()'). If the OS does not have 'flock()', Exim will be built without
the ability to use it, and any attempt to do so will cause a configuration
error.

*Warning*: 'flock()' locks do not work on NFS files (unless 'flock()'
is just being mapped onto 'fcntl()' by the OS).


oindex:[%use_lockfile%]
`..'=
%use_lockfile%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'see below'
===

If this option is turned off, Exim does not attempt to create a lock file when
appending to a mailbox file. In this situation, the only locking is by
'fcntl()'. You should only turn %use_lockfile% off if you are absolutely
sure that every MUA that is ever going to look at your users' mailboxes uses
'fcntl()' rather than a lock file, and even then only when you are not
delivering over NFS from more than one host.

cindex:[NFS,lock file]
In order to append to an NFS file safely from more than one host, it is
necessary to take out a lock 'before' opening the file, and the lock file
achieves this. Otherwise, even with 'fcntl()' locking, there is a risk of
file corruption.

The %use_lockfile% option is set by default unless %use_mbx_lock% is set. It
is not possible to turn both %use_lockfile% and %use_fcntl_lock% off, except
when %mbx_format% is set.


oindex:[%use_mbx_lock%]
`..'=
%use_mbx_lock%, Use: 'appendfile', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'see below'
===

This option is available only if Exim has been compiled with SUPPORT_MBX
set in _Local/Makefile_. Setting the option specifies that special MBX
locking rules be used. It is set by default if %mbx_format% is set and none of
the locking options are mentioned in the configuration. The locking rules are
the same as are used by the 'c-client' library that underlies Pine and the
IMAP4 and POP daemons that come with it (see the discussion below). The rules
allow for shared access to the mailbox. However, this kind of locking does not
work when the mailbox is NFS mounted.

You can set %use_mbx_lock% with either (or both) of %use_fcntl_lock% and
%use_flock_lock% to control what kind of locking is used in implementing the
MBX locking rules. The default is to use 'fcntl()' if %use_mbx_lock% is set
without %use_fcntl_lock% or %use_flock_lock%.




[[SECTopappend]]
Operational details for appending
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[appending to a file]
cindex:[file,appending]
Before appending to a file, the following preparations are made:

- If the name of the file is _/dev/null_, no action is taken, and a success
return is given.

- cindex:[directory creation]
If any directories on the file's path are missing, Exim creates them if the
%create_directory% option is set. A created directory's mode is given by the
%directory_mode% option.

- If %file_format% is set, the format of an existing file is checked. If this
indicates that a different transport should be used, control is passed to that
transport.

- cindex:[file,locking]
cindex:[locking files]
cindex:[NFS,lock file]
If %use_lockfile% is set, a lock file is built in a way that will work
reliably over NFS, as follows:
+
--
. Create a ``hitching post'' file whose name is that of the lock file with the
current time, primary host name, and process id added, by opening for writing
as a new file. If this fails with an access error, delivery is deferred.

. Close the hitching post file, and hard link it to the lock file name.

. If the call to 'link()' succeeds, creation of the lock file has succeeded.
Unlink the hitching post name.

. Otherwise, use 'stat()' to get information about the hitching post file, and
then unlink hitching post name. If the number of links is exactly two, creation
of the lock file succeeded but something (for example, an NFS server crash and
restart) caused this fact not to be communicated to the 'link()' call.

. If creation of the lock file failed, wait for %lock_interval% and try again,
up to %lock_retries% times. However, since any program that writes to a
mailbox should complete its task very quickly, it is reasonable to time out old
lock files that are normally the result of user agent and system crashes. If an
existing lock file is older than %lockfile_timeout% Exim attempts to unlink it
before trying again.
--
+
- A call is made to 'lstat()' to discover whether the main file exists, and if
so, what its characteristics are. If 'lstat()' fails for any reason other
than non-existence, delivery is deferred.

- cindex:[symbolic link,to mailbox]
cindex:[mailbox,symbolic link]
If the file does exist and is a symbolic link, delivery is deferred, unless the
%allow_symlink% option is set, in which case the ownership of the link is
checked, and then 'stat()' is called to find out about the real file, which
is then subjected to the checks below. The check on the top-level link
ownership prevents one user creating a link for another's mailbox in a sticky
directory, though allowing symbolic links in this case is definitely not a good
idea. If there is a chain of symbolic links, the intermediate ones are not
checked.

- If the file already exists but is not a regular file, or if the file's owner
and group (if the group is being checked -- see %check_group% above) are
different from the user and group under which the delivery is running,
delivery is deferred.

- If the file's permissions are more generous than specified, they are reduced.
If they are insufficient, delivery is deferred, unless %mode_fail_narrower%
is set false, in which case the delivery is tried using the existing
permissions.

- The file's inode number is saved, and the file is then opened for appending.
If this fails because the file has vanished, ^appendfile^ behaves as if it
hadn't existed (see below). For any other failures, delivery is deferred.

- If the file is opened successfully, check that the inode number hasn't
changed, that it is still a regular file, and that the owner and permissions
have not changed. If anything is wrong, defer delivery and freeze the message.

- If the file did not exist originally, defer delivery if the %file_must_exist%
option is set. Otherwise, check that the file is being created in a permitted
directory if the %create_file% option is set (deferring on failure), and then
open for writing as a new file, with the O_EXCL and O_CREAT options,
except when dealing with a symbolic link (the %allow_symlink% option must be
set). In this case, which can happen if the link points to a non-existent file,
the file is opened for writing using O_CREAT but not O_EXCL, because
that prevents link following.

- cindex:[loop,while file testing]
If opening fails because the file exists, obey the tests given above for
existing files. However, to avoid looping in a situation where the file is
being continuously created and destroyed, the exists/not-exists loop is broken
after 10 repetitions, and the message is then frozen.

- If opening fails with any other error, defer delivery.

- cindex:[file,locking]
cindex:[locking files]
Once the file is open, unless both %use_fcntl_lock% and %use_flock_lock%
are false, it is locked using 'fcntl()' or 'flock()' or both. If
%use_mbx_lock% is false, an exclusive lock is requested in each case.
However, if %use_mbx_lock% is true,
Exim takes out a shared lock on the open file,
and an exclusive lock on the file whose name is

  /tmp/.<device-number>.<inode-number>
+
using the device and inode numbers of the open mailbox file, in accordance with
the MBX locking rules.
+
If Exim fails to lock the file, there are two possible courses of action,
depending on the value of the locking timeout. This is obtained from
%lock_fcntl_timeout% or %lock_flock_timeout%, as appropriate.
+
If the timeout value is zero, the file is closed, Exim waits for
%lock_interval%, and then goes back and re-opens the file as above and tries
to lock it again. This happens up to %lock_retries% times, after which the
delivery is deferred.
+
If the timeout has a value greater than zero, blocking calls to 'fcntl()' or
'flock()' are used (with the given timeout), so there has already been some
waiting involved by the time locking fails. Nevertheless, Exim does not give up
immediately. It retries up to

  (lock_retries * lock_interval) / <timeout>
+
times (rounded up).


At the end of delivery, Exim closes the file (which releases the 'fcntl()'
and/or 'flock()' locks) and then deletes the lock file if one was created.


[[SECTopdir]]
Operational details for delivery to a new file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[delivery,to single file]
cindex:[``From'' line]
When the %directory% option is set instead of %file%, each message is delivered
into a newly-created file or set of files. When ^appendfile^ is activated
directly from a ^redirect^ router, neither %file% nor %directory% is normally
set, because the path for delivery is supplied by the router. (See for example,
the ^address_file^ transport in the default configuration.) In this case,
delivery is to a new file if either the path name ends in `/`, or the
%maildir_format% or %mailstore_format% option is set.

No locking is required while writing the message to a new file, so the various
locking options of the transport are ignored. The ``From'' line that by default
separates messages in a single file is not normally needed, nor is the escaping
of message lines that start with ``From'', and there is no need to ensure a
newline at the end of each message. Consequently, the default values for
%check_string%, %message_prefix%, and %message_suffix% are all unset when
any of %directory%, %maildir_format%, or %mailstore_format% is set.

If Exim is required to check a %quota% setting, it adds up the sizes of all the
files in the delivery directory by default. However, you can specify a
different directory by setting %quota_directory%. Also, for maildir deliveries
(see below) the _maildirfolder_ convention is honoured.


cindex:[maildir format]
cindex:[mailstore format]
There are three different ways in which delivery to individual files can be
done, controlled by the settings of the %maildir_format% and
%mailstore_format% options. Note that code to support maildir or mailstore
formats is not included in the binary unless SUPPORT_MAILDIR or
SUPPORT_MAILSTORE, respectively, is set in _Local/Makefile_.

cindex:[directory creation]
In all three cases an attempt is made to create the directory and any necessary
sub-directories if they do not exist, provided that the %create_directory%
option is set (the default). The location of a created directory can be
constrained by setting %create_file%. A created directory's mode is given by
the %directory_mode% option. If creation fails, or if the %create_directory%
option is not set when creation is required, delivery is deferred.



[[SECTmaildirdelivery]]
Maildir delivery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[maildir format,description of]
If the %maildir_format% option is true, Exim delivers each message by writing
it to a file whose name is _tmp/<stime>.H<mtime>P<pid>.<host>_ in the
given directory. If the delivery is successful, the file is renamed into the
_new_ subdirectory.

In the file name, <'stime'> is the current time of day in seconds, and
<'mtime'> is the microsecond fraction of the time. After a maildir delivery,
Exim checks that the time-of-day clock has moved on by at least one microsecond
before terminating the delivery process. This guarantees uniqueness for the
file name. However, as a precaution, Exim calls 'stat()' for the file before
opening it. If any response other than ENOENT (does not exist) is given,
Exim waits 2 seconds and tries again, up to %maildir_retries% times.

cindex:[quota,in maildir delivery]
cindex:[maildir++]
If Exim is required to check a %quota% setting before a maildir delivery, and
%quota_directory% is not set, it looks for a file called _maildirfolder_ in
the maildir directory (alongside _new_, _cur_, _tmp_). If this exists,
Exim assumes the directory is a maildir++ folder directory, which is one level
down from the user's top level mailbox directory. This causes it to start at
the parent directory instead of the current directory when calculating the
amount of space used.

One problem with delivering into a multi-file mailbox is that it is
computationally expensive to compute the size of the mailbox for quota
checking. Various approaches have been taken to reduce the amount of work
needed. The next two sections describe two of them. A third alternative is to
use some external process for maintaining the size data, and use the expansion
of the %mailbox_size% option as a way of importing it into Exim.




Using tags to record message sizes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If %maildir_tag% is set, the string is expanded for each delivery.
When the maildir file is renamed into the _new_ sub-directory, the
tag is added to its name. However, if adding the tag takes the length of the
name to the point where the test 'stat()' call fails with ENAMETOOLONG,
the tag is dropped and the maildir file is created with no tag.

Tags can be used to encode the size of files in their names; see
%quota_size_regex% above for an example. The expansion of %maildir_tag%
happens after the message has been written. The value of the $message_size$
variable is set to the number of bytes actually written. If the expansion is
forced to fail, the tag is ignored, but a non-forced failure causes delivery to
be deferred. The expanded tag may contain any printing characters except ``/''.
Non-printing characters in the string are ignored; if the resulting string is
empty, it is ignored. If it starts with an alphanumeric character, a leading
colon is inserted.



Using a maildirsize file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[quota,in maildir delivery]
cindex:[maildir format,_maildirsize_ file]
If %maildir_use_size_file% is true, Exim implements the maildir++ rules for
storing quota and message size information in a file called _maildirsize_
within the maildir directory. If this file does not exist, Exim creates it,
setting the quota from the %quota% option of the transport. If the maildir
directory itself does not exist, it is created before any attempt to write a
_maildirsize_ file.

The _maildirsize_ file is used to hold information about the sizes of
messages in the maildir, thus speeding up quota calculations. The quota value
in the file is just a cache; if the quota is changed in the transport, the new
value overrides the cached value when the next message is delivered. The cache
is maintained for the benefit of other programs that access the maildir and
need to know the quota.

If the %quota% option in the transport is unset or zero, the _maildirsize_
file is maintained (with a zero quota setting), but no quota is imposed.

A regular expression is available for controlling which directories in the
maildir participate in quota calculations. See the description of the
%maildir_quota_directory_regex% option above for details.



Mailstore delivery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[mailstore format,description of]
If the %mailstore_format% option is true, each message is written as two files
in the given directory. A unique base name is constructed from the message id
and the current delivery process, and the files that are written use this base
name plus the suffixes _.env_ and _.msg_. The _.env_ file contains the
message's envelope, and the _.msg_ file contains the message itself.

During delivery, the envelope is first written to a file with the suffix
_.tmp_. The _.msg_ file is then written, and when it is complete, the
_.tmp_ file is renamed as the _.env_ file. Programs that access messages in
mailstore format should wait for the presence of both a _.msg_ and a _.env_
file before accessing either of them. An alternative approach is to wait for
the absence of a _.tmp_ file.

The envelope file starts with any text defined by the %mailstore_prefix%
option, expanded and terminated by a newline if there isn't one. Then follows
the sender address on one line, then all the recipient addresses, one per line.
There can be more than one recipient only if the %batch_max% option is set
greater than one. Finally, %mailstore_suffix% is expanded and the result
appended to the file, followed by a newline if it does not end with one.

If expansion of %mailstore_prefix% or %mailstore_suffix% ends with a forced
failure, it is ignored. Other expansion errors are treated as serious
configuration errors, and delivery is deferred.



Non-special new file delivery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If neither %maildir_format% nor %mailstore_format% is set, a single new file
is created directly in the named directory. For example, when delivering
messages into files in batched SMTP format for later delivery to some host (see
section <<SECTbatchSMTP>>), a setting such as

  directory = /var/bsmtp/$host

might be used. A message is written to a file with a temporary name, which is
then renamed when the delivery is complete. The final name is obtained by
expanding the contents of the %directory_file% option.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The autoreply transport
-----------------------
cindex:[transports,^autoreply^]
cindex:[^autoreply^ transport]
The ^autoreply^ transport is not a true transport in that it does not cause
the message to be transmitted. Instead, it generates a new mail message.

If the router that passes the message to this transport does not have the
%unseen% option set, the original message (for the current recipient) is not
delivered anywhere. However, when the %unseen% option is set on the router that
passes the message to this transport, routing of the address continues, so
another router can set up a normal message delivery.


The ^autoreply^ transport is usually run as the result of mail filtering, a
``vacation'' message being the standard example. However, it can also be run
directly from a router like any other transport. To reduce the possibility of
message cascades, messages created by the ^autoreply^ transport always have
empty envelope sender addresses, like bounce messages.

The parameters of the message to be sent can be specified in the configuration
by options described below. However, these are used only when the address
passed to the transport does not contain its own reply information. When the
transport is run as a consequence of a
%mail%
or %vacation% command in a filter file, the parameters of the message are
supplied by the filter, and passed with the address. The transport's options
that define the message are then ignored (so they are not usually set in this
case). The message is specified entirely by the filter or by the transport; it
is never built from a mixture of options. However, the %file_optional%,
%mode%, and %return_message% options apply in all cases.

^Autoreply^ is implemented as a local transport. When used as a result of a
command in a user's filter file, ^autoreply^ normally runs under the uid and
gid of the user, and with appropriate current and home directories (see chapter
<<CHAPenvironment>>).

There is a subtle difference between routing a message to a ^pipe^ transport
that generates some text to be returned to the sender, and routing it to an
^autoreply^ transport. This difference is noticeable only if more than one
address from the same message is so handled. In the case of a pipe, the
separate outputs from the different addresses are gathered up and returned to
the sender in a single message, whereas if ^autoreply^ is used, a separate
message is generated for each address that is passed to it.

Non-printing characters are not permitted in the header lines generated for the
message that ^autoreply^ creates, with the exception of newlines that are
immediately followed by whitespace. If any non-printing characters are found,
the transport defers.
Whether characters with the top bit set count as printing characters or not is
controlled by the %print_topbitchars% global option.

If any of the generic options for manipulating headers (for example,
%headers_add%) are set on an ^autoreply^ transport, they apply to the copy of
the original message that is included in the generated message when
%return_message% is set. They do not apply to the generated message itself.

If the ^autoreply^ transport receives return code 2 from Exim when it submits
the message, indicating that there were no recipients, it does not treat this
as an error. This means that autoreplies sent to $sender_address$ when this
is empty (because the incoming message is a bounce message) do not cause
problems. They are just discarded.



Private options for autoreply
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^autoreply^ transport]

oindex:[%bcc%]
`..'=
%bcc%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies the addresses that are to receive ``blind carbon copies'' of the
message when the message is specified by the transport.


oindex:[%cc%]
`..'=
%cc%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies recipients of the message and the contents of the 'Cc:' header
when the message is specified by the transport.


oindex:[%file%]
`..'=
%file%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

The contents of the file are sent as the body of the message when the message
is specified by the transport. If both %file% and %text% are set, the text
string comes first.


oindex:[%file_expand%]
`..'=
%file_expand%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this is set, the contents of the file named by the %file% option are
subjected to string expansion as they are added to the message.


oindex:[%file_optional%]
`..'=
%file_optional%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, no error is generated if the file named by the %file%
option or passed with the address does not exist or cannot be read.


oindex:[%from%]
`..'=
%from%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies the contents of the 'From:' header when the message is specified
by the transport.


oindex:[%headers%]
`..'=
%headers%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies additional RFC 2822 headers that are to be added to the message when
the message is specified by the transport. Several can be given by using ``\n''
to separate them. There is no check on the format.


oindex:[%log%]
`..'=
%log%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option names a file in which a record of every message sent is logged when
the message is specified by the transport.


oindex:[%mode%]
`..'=
%mode%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'octal integer', Default: '0600'
===

If either the log file or the ``once'' file has to be created, this mode is used.


oindex:[%never_mail%]
`..'=
%never_mail%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'address list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

If any run of the transport creates a message with a recipient that matches any
item in the list, that recipient is quietly discarded. If all recipients are
discarded, no message is created.



oindex:[%once%]
`..'=
%once%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option names a file or DBM database in which a record of each
'To:' recipient is kept when the message is specified by the transport.
*Note*: This does not apply to 'Cc:' or 'Bcc:' recipients.
If %once_file_size% is not set, a DBM database is used, and it is allowed to
grow as large as necessary. If a potential recipient is already in the
database, no message is sent by default. However, if %once_repeat% specifies a
time greater than zero, the message is sent if that much time has elapsed since
a message was last sent to this recipient. If %once% is unset, the message is
always sent.

If %once_file_size% is set greater than zero, it changes the way Exim
implements the %once% option. Instead of using a DBM file to record every
recipient it sends to, it uses a regular file, whose size will never get larger
than the given value. In the file, it keeps a linear list of recipient
addresses and times at which they were sent messages. If the file is full when
a new address needs to be added, the oldest address is dropped. If
%once_repeat% is not set, this means that a given recipient may receive
multiple messages, but at unpredictable intervals that depend on the rate of
turnover of addresses in the file. If %once_repeat% is set, it specifies a
maximum time between repeats.


oindex:[%once_file_size%]
`..'=
%once_file_size%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'integer', Default: '0'
===

See %once% above.


oindex:[%once_repeat%]
`..'=
%once_repeat%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'time'!!, Default: '0s'
===

See %once% above.
After expansion, the value of this option must be a valid time value.


oindex:[%reply_to%]
`..'=
%reply_to%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies the contents of the 'Reply-To:' header when the message is
specified by the transport.


oindex:[%return_message%]
`..'=
%return_message%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this is set, a copy of the original message is returned with the new
message, subject to the maximum size set in the %return_size_limit% global
configuration option.


oindex:[%subject%]
`..'=
%subject%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies the contents of the 'Subject:' header when the message is
specified by the transport.

It is tempting to quote the original subject in automatic responses. For
example:

  subject = Re: $h_subject:

There is a danger in doing this, however. It may allow a third party to
subscribe your users to an opt-in mailing list, provided that the list accepts
bounce messages as subscription confirmations. Well-managed lists require a
non-bounce message to confirm a subscription, so the danger is relatively
small.



oindex:[%text%]
`..'=
%text%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies a single string to be used as the body of the message when the
message is specified by the transport. If both %text% and %file% are set, the
text comes first.


oindex:[%to%]
`..'=
%to%, Use: 'autoreply', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies recipients of the message and the contents of the 'To:' header
when the message is specified by the transport.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPLMTP]]
The lmtp transport
------------------
cindex:[transports,^lmtp^]
cindex:[^lmtp^ transport]
cindex:[LMTP,over a pipe]
cindex:[LMTP,over a socket]
The ^lmtp^ transport runs the LMTP protocol (RFC 2033) over a pipe to a
specified command
or by interacting with a Unix domain socket.
This transport is something of a cross between the ^pipe^ and ^smtp^
transports. Exim also has support for using LMTP over TCP/IP; this is
implemented as an option for the ^smtp^ transport. Because LMTP is expected
to be of minority interest, the default build-time configure in _src/EDITME_
has it commented out. You need to ensure that

  TRANSPORT_LMTP=yes

is present in your _Local/Makefile_ in order to have the ^lmtp^ transport
included in the Exim binary.

cindex:[options,^lmtp^ transport]
The private options of the ^lmtp^ transport are as follows:

oindex:[%batch_id%]
`..'=
%batch_id%, Use: 'lmtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

See the description of local delivery batching in chapter <<CHAPbatching>>.


oindex:[%batch_max%]
`..'=
%batch_max%, Use: 'lmtp', Type: 'integer', Default: '1'
===

This limits the number of addresses that can be handled in a single delivery.
Most LMTP servers can handle several addresses at once, so it is normally a
good idea to increase this value. See the description of local delivery
batching in chapter <<CHAPbatching>>.


oindex:[%command%]
`..'=
%command%, Use: 'lmtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option must be set if %socket% is not set.
The string is a command which is run in a separate process. It is split up into
a command name and list of arguments, each of which is separately expanded (so
expansion cannot change the number of arguments). The command is run directly,
not via a shell. The message is passed to the new process using the standard
input and output to operate the LMTP protocol.


oindex:[%socket%]
`..'=
%socket%, Use: 'lmtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option must be set if %command% is not set. The result of expansion must
be the name of a Unix domain socket. The transport connects to the socket and
delivers the message to it using the LMTP protocol.


oindex:[%timeout%]
`..'=
%timeout%, Use: 'lmtp', Type: 'time', Default: '5m'
===

The transport is aborted if the created process
or Unix domain socket
does not respond to LMTP commands or message input within this timeout.


Here is an example of a typical LMTP transport:

  lmtp:
    driver = lmtp
    command = /some/local/lmtp/delivery/program
    batch_max = 20
    user = exim

This delivers up to 20 addresses at a time, in a mixture of domains if
necessary, running as the user 'exim'.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPpipetransport]]
The pipe transport
------------------
cindex:[transports,^pipe^]
cindex:[^pipe^ transport]
The ^pipe^ transport is used to deliver messages via a pipe to a command
running in another process.

One example is the
use of ^pipe^ as a pseudo-remote transport for passing messages to some other
delivery mechanism (such as UUCP). Another is the use by individual users to
automatically process their incoming messages. The ^pipe^ transport can be
used in one of the following ways:

- A router routes one address to a transport in the normal way, and the transport
is configured as a ^pipe^ transport. In this case, $local_part$ contains
the local part of the address (as usual), and the command that is run is
specified by the %command% option on the transport.

- If the %batch_max% option is set greater than 1 (the default), the transport
can be called upon to handle more than one address in a single run. In this
case, $local_part$ is not set (because it is not unique). However, the
pseudo-variable $pipe_addresses$ (described in section <<SECThowcommandrun>>
below) contains all the addresses that are being handled.

- A router redirects an address directly to a pipe command (for example, from an
alias or forward file). In this case, $local_part$ contains the local part
that was redirected, and $address_pipe$ contains the text of the pipe
command itself. The %command% option on the transport is ignored.


The ^pipe^ transport is a non-interactive delivery method. Exim can also
deliver messages over pipes using the LMTP interactive protocol. This is
implemented by the ^lmtp^ transport.

In the case when ^pipe^ is run as a consequence of an entry in a local user's
_.forward_ file, the command runs under the uid and gid of that user. In
other cases, the uid and gid have to be specified explicitly, either on the
transport or on the router that handles the address. Current and ``home''
directories are also controllable. See chapter <<CHAPenvironment>> for details of
the local delivery environment.



Concurrent delivery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If two messages arrive at almost the same time, and both are routed to a pipe
delivery, the two pipe transports may be run concurrently. You must ensure that
any pipe commands you set up are robust against this happening. If the commands
write to a file, the %exim_lock% utility might be of use.




Returned status and data
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[^pipe^ transport,returned data]
If the command exits with a non-zero return code, the delivery is deemed to
have failed, unless either the %ignore_status% option is set (in which case
the return code is treated as zero), or the return code is one of those listed
in the %temp_errors% option, which are interpreted as meaning ``try again
later''. In this case, delivery is deferred. Details of a permanent failure are
logged, but are not included in the bounce message, which merely contains
``local delivery failed''.

If the return code is greater than 128 and the command being run is a shell
script, it normally means that the script was terminated by a signal whose
value is the return code minus 128.

If Exim is unable to run the command (that is, if 'execve()' fails), the
return code is set to 127. This is the value that a shell returns if it is
asked to run a non-existent command. The wording for the log line suggests that
a non-existent command may be the problem.

The %return_output% option can affect the result of a pipe delivery. If it is
set and the command produces any output on its standard output or standard
error streams, the command is considered to have failed, even if it gave a zero
return code or if %ignore_status% is set. The output from the command is
included as part of the bounce message. The %return_fail_output% option is
similar, except that output is returned only when the command exits with a
failure return code, that is, a value other than zero or a code that matches
%temp_errors%.



[[SECThowcommandrun]]
How the command is run
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[^pipe^ transport,path for command]
The command line is (by default) broken down into a command name and arguments
by the ^pipe^ transport itself. The %allow_commands% and %restrict_to_path%
options can be used to restrict the commands that may be run.

cindex:[quoting,in pipe command]
Unquoted arguments are delimited by white space. If an argument appears in
double quotes, backslash is interpreted as an escape character in the usual
way. If an argument appears in single quotes, no escaping is done.

String expansion is applied to the command line except when it comes from a
traditional _.forward_ file (commands from a filter file are expanded). The
expansion is applied to each argument in turn rather than to the whole line.
For this reason, any string expansion item that contains white space must be
quoted so as to be contained within a single argument. A setting such as

  command = /some/path ${if eq{$local_part}{postmaster}{xxx}{yyy}}

will not work, because the expansion item gets split between several
arguments. You have to write

  command = /some/path "${if eq{$local_part}{postmaster}{xxx}{yyy}}"

to ensure that it is all in one argument. The expansion is done in this way,
argument by argument, so that the number of arguments cannot be changed as a
result of expansion, and quotes or backslashes in inserted variables do not
interact with external quoting.

cindex:[transport,filter]
cindex:[filter,transport filter]
Special handling takes place when an argument consists of precisely the text
`\$pipe_addresses\}`. This is not a general expansion variable; the only
place this string is recognized is when it appears as an argument for a pipe or
transport filter command. It causes each address that is being handled to be
inserted in the argument list at that point 'as a separate argument'. This
avoids any problems with spaces or shell metacharacters, and is of use when a
^pipe^ transport is handling groups of addresses in a batch.

After splitting up into arguments and expansion, the resulting command is run
in a subprocess directly from the transport, 'not' under a shell. The
message that is being delivered is supplied on the standard input, and the
standard output and standard error are both connected to a single pipe that is
read by Exim. The %max_output% option controls how much output the command may
produce, and the %return_output% and %return_fail_output% options control
what is done with it.

Not running the command under a shell (by default) lessens the security risks
in cases when a command from a user's filter file is built out of data that was
taken from an incoming message. If a shell is required, it can of course be
explicitly specified as the command to be run. However, there are circumstances
where existing commands (for example, in _.forward_ files) expect to be run
under a shell and cannot easily be modified. To allow for these cases, there is
an option called %use_shell%, which changes the way the ^pipe^ transport
works. Instead of breaking up the command line as just described, it expands it
as a single string and passes the result to _/bin/sh_. The
%restrict_to_path% option and the $pipe_addresses$ facility cannot be used
with %use_shell%, and the whole mechanism is inherently less secure.



[[SECTpipeenv]]
Environment variables
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[^pipe^ transport,environment for command]
cindex:[environment for pipe transport]
The environment variables listed below are set up when the command is invoked.
This list is a compromise for maximum compatibility with other MTAs. Note that
the %environment% option can be used to add additional variables to this
environment.

&&&
`DOMAIN            `   the domain of the address
`HOME              `   the home directory, if set
`HOST              `   the host name when called from a router (see below)
`LOCAL_PART        `   see below
`LOCAL_PART_PREFIX `   see below
`LOCAL_PART_SUFFIX `   see below
`LOGNAME           `   see below
`MESSAGE_ID        `   the message's id
`PATH              `   as specified by the %path% option below
`QUALIFY_DOMAIN    `   the sender qualification domain
`RECIPIENT         `   the complete recipient address
`SENDER            `   the sender of the message (empty if a bounce)
`SHELL             `   `/bin/sh`
`TZ                `   the value of the %timezone% option, if set
`USER              `   see below
&&&

When a ^pipe^ transport is called directly from (for example) an ^accept^
router, LOCAL_PART is set to the local part of the address. When it is
called as a result of a forward or alias expansion, LOCAL_PART is set to
the local part of the address that was expanded. In both cases, any affixes are
removed from the local part, and made available in LOCAL_PART_PREFIX and
LOCAL_PART_SUFFIX, respectively. LOGNAME and USER are set to the
same value as LOCAL_PART for compatibility with other MTAs.

cindex:[HOST]
HOST is set only when a ^pipe^ transport is called from a router that
associates hosts with an address, typically when using ^pipe^ as a
pseudo-remote transport. HOST is set to the first host name specified by
the router.

cindex:[HOME]
If the transport's generic %home_directory% option is set, its value is used
for the HOME environment variable. Otherwise, a home directory may be set
by the router's %transport_home_directory% option, which defaults to the
user's home directory if %check_local_user% is set.


Private options for pipe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^pipe^ transport]



oindex:[%allow_commands%]
`..'=
%allow_commands%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[^pipe^ transport,permitted commands]
The string is expanded, and is then interpreted as a colon-separated list of
permitted commands. If %restrict_to_path% is not set, the only commands
permitted are those in the %allow_commands% list. They need not be absolute
paths; the %path% option is still used for relative paths. If
%restrict_to_path% is set with %allow_commands%, the command must either be
in the %allow_commands% list, or a name without any slashes that is found on
the path. In other words, if neither %allow_commands% nor %restrict_to_path%
is set, there is no restriction on the command, but otherwise only commands
that are permitted by one or the other are allowed. For example, if

  allow_commands = /usr/bin/vacation

and %restrict_to_path% is not set, the only permitted command is
_/usr/bin/vacation_. The %allow_commands% option may not be set if
%use_shell% is set.


oindex:[%batch_id%]
`..'=
%batch_id%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

See the description of local delivery batching in chapter <<CHAPbatching>>.


oindex:[%batch_max%]
`..'=
%batch_max%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'integer', Default: '1'
===

This limits the number of addresses that can be handled in a single delivery.
See the description of local delivery batching in chapter <<CHAPbatching>>.


oindex:[%check_string%]
`..'=
%check_string%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

As ^pipe^ writes the message, the start of each line is tested for matching
%check_string%, and if it does, the initial matching characters are replaced
by the contents of %escape_string%, provided both are set. The value of
%check_string% is a literal string, not a regular expression, and the case of
any letters it contains is significant. When %use_bsmtp% is set, the contents
of %check_string% and %escape_string% are forced to values that implement the
SMTP escaping protocol. Any settings made in the configuration file are
ignored.


oindex:[%command%]
`..'=
%command%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option need not be set when ^pipe^ is being used to deliver to pipes
obtained directly from address redirections. In other cases, the option must be
set, to provide a command to be run. It need not yield an absolute path (see
the %path% option below). The command is split up into separate arguments by
Exim, and each argument is separately expanded, as described in section
<<SECThowcommandrun>> above.


oindex:[%environment%]
`..'=
%environment%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[^pipe^ transport,environment for command]
cindex:[environment for ^pipe^ transport]
This option is used to add additional variables to the environment in which the
command runs (see section <<SECTpipeenv>> for the default list). Its value is a
string which is expanded, and then interpreted as a colon-separated list of
environment settings of the form ``<''name'>=<'value'>'.


oindex:[%escape_string%]
`..'=
%escape_string%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

See %check_string% above.


oindex:[%freeze_exec_fail%]
`..'=
%freeze_exec_fail%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[exec failure]
cindex:[failure of exec]
cindex:[^pipe^ transport,failure of exec]
Failure to exec the command in a pipe transport is by default treated like
any other failure while running the command. However, if %freeze_exec_fail%
is set, failure to exec is treated specially, and causes the message to be
frozen, whatever the setting of %ignore_status%.


oindex:[%ignore_status%]
`..'=
%ignore_status%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, the status returned by the subprocess that is set up to
run the command is ignored, and Exim behaves as if zero had been returned.
Otherwise, a non-zero status
or termination by signal
causes an error return from the transport unless the status value is one of
those listed in %temp_errors%; these cause the delivery to be deferred and
tried again later.


oindex:[%log_defer_output%]
`..'=
%log_defer_output%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[^pipe^ transport,logging output]
If this option is set, and the status returned by the command is
one of the codes listed in %temp_errors% (that is, delivery was deferred),
and any output was produced, the first line of it is written to the main log.


oindex:[%log_fail_output%]
`..'=
%log_fail_output%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is set, and the command returns any output, and also ends with a
return code that is neither zero nor one of the return codes listed in
%temp_errors% (that is, the delivery failed), the first line of output is
written to the main log.

This option and %log_output% are mutually exclusive. Only one of them may be
set.



oindex:[%log_output%]
`..'=
%log_output%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is set and the command returns any output, the first line of
output is written to the main log, whatever the return code.

This option and %log_fail_output% are mutually exclusive. Only one of them
may be set.



oindex:[%max_output%]
`..'=
%max_output%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'integer', Default: '20K'
===

This specifies the maximum amount of output that the command may produce on its
standard output and standard error file combined. If the limit is exceeded, the
process running the command is killed. This is intended as a safety measure to
catch runaway processes. The limit is applied independently of the settings of
the options that control what is done with such output (for example,
%return_output%). Because of buffering effects, the amount of output may
exceed the limit by a small amount before Exim notices.


oindex:[%message_prefix%]
`..'=
%message_prefix%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

The string specified here is expanded and output at the start of every message.
The default is unset if %use_bsmtp% is set. Otherwise it is

....
message_prefix = \
  From ${if def:return_path{$return_path}{MAILER-DAEMON}}\
  ${tod_bsdinbox}\n
....

cindex:[Cyrus]
cindex:[%tmail%]
cindex:[``From'' line]
This is required by the commonly used _/usr/bin/vacation_ program.
However, it must 'not' be present if delivery is to the Cyrus IMAP server,
or to the %tmail% local delivery agent. The prefix can be suppressed by setting

  message_prefix =



oindex:[%message_suffix%]
`..'=
%message_suffix%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

The string specified here is expanded and output at the end of every message.
The default is unset if %use_bsmtp% is set. Otherwise it is a single newline.
The suffix can be suppressed by setting

  message_suffix =



oindex:[%path%]
`..'=
%path%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string', Default: `/usr/bin`
===

This option specifies the string that is set up in the PATH environment
variable of the subprocess. If the %command% option does not yield an absolute
path name, the command is sought in the PATH directories, in the usual way.
*Warning*: This does not apply to a command specified as a transport
filter.


oindex:[%pipe_as_creator%]
`..'=
%pipe_as_creator%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[uid (user id),local delivery]
If the generic %user% option is not set and this option is true, the delivery
process is run under the uid that was in force when Exim was originally called
to accept the message. If the group id is not otherwise set (via the generic
%group% option), the gid that was in force when Exim was originally called to
accept the message is used.


oindex:[%restrict_to_path%]
`..'=
%restrict_to_path%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

When this option is set, any command name not listed in %allow_commands% must
contain no slashes. The command is searched for only in the directories listed
in the %path% option. This option is intended for use in the case when a pipe
command has been generated from a user's _.forward_ file. This is usually
handled by a ^pipe^ transport called %address_pipe%.


oindex:[%return_fail_output%]
`..'=
%return_fail_output%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, and the command produced any output and ended with a
return code other than zero or one of the codes listed in %temp_errors% (that
is, the delivery failed), the output is returned in the bounce message.
However, if the message has a null sender (that is, it is itself a bounce
message), output from the command is discarded.

This option and %return_output% are mutually exclusive. Only one of them may
be set.



oindex:[%return_output%]
`..'=
%return_output%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true, and the command produced any output, the delivery is
deemed to have failed whatever the return code from the command, and the output
is returned in the bounce message. Otherwise, the output is just discarded.
However, if the message has a null sender (that is, it is a bounce message),
output from the command is always discarded, whatever the setting of this
option.

This option and %return_fail_output% are mutually exclusive. Only one of them
may be set.



oindex:[%temp_errors%]
`..'=
%temp_errors%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'string list', Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[^pipe^ transport,temporary failure]
This option contains either a colon-separated list of numbers, or a single
asterisk. If %ignore_status% is false
and %return_output% is not set,
and the command exits with a non-zero return code, the failure is treated as
temporary and the delivery is deferred if the return code matches one of the
numbers, or if the setting is a single asterisk. Otherwise, non-zero return
codes are treated as permanent errors. The default setting contains the codes
defined by EX_TEMPFAIL and EX_CANTCREAT in _sysexits.h_. If Exim is
compiled on a system that does not define these macros, it assumes values of 75
and 73, respectively.


oindex:[%timeout%]
`..'=
%timeout%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'time', Default: '1h'
===

If the command fails to complete within this time, it is killed. This normally
causes the delivery to fail. A zero time interval specifies no timeout. In
order to ensure that any subprocesses created by the command are also killed,
Exim makes the initial process a process group leader, and kills the whole
process group on a timeout. However, this can be defeated if one of the
processes starts a new process group.


oindex:[%umask%]
`..'=
%umask%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'octal integer', Default: '022'
===

This specifies the umask setting for the subprocess that runs the command.


oindex:[%use_bsmtp%]
`..'=
%use_bsmtp%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[envelope sender]
If this option is set true, the ^pipe^ transport writes messages in ``batch
SMTP'' format, with the envelope sender and recipient(s) included as SMTP
commands. If you want to include a leading HELO command with such messages,
you can do so by setting the %message_prefix% option. See section
<<SECTbatchSMTP>> for details of batch SMTP.


oindex:[%use_crlf%]
`..'=
%use_crlf%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[carriage return]
cindex:[linefeed]
This option causes lines to be terminated with the two-character CRLF sequence
(carriage return, linefeed) instead of just a linefeed character. In the case
of batched SMTP, the byte sequence written to the pipe is then an exact image
of what would be sent down a real SMTP connection.

The contents of the %message_prefix% and %message_suffix% options are written
verbatim, so must contain their own carriage return characters if these are
needed. Since the default values for both %message_prefix% and
%message_suffix% end with a single linefeed, their values
must
be changed to end with `\r\n` if %use_crlf% is set.


oindex:[%use_shell%]
`..'=
%use_shell%, Use: 'pipe', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is set, it causes the command to be passed to _/bin/sh_
instead of being run directly from the transport, as described in section
<<SECThowcommandrun>>. This is less secure, but is needed in some situations
where the command is expected to be run under a shell and cannot easily be
modified. The %allow_commands% and %restrict_to_path% options, and the
`\$pipe_addresses` facility are incompatible with %use_shell%. The
command is expanded as a single string, and handed to _/bin/sh_ as data for
its %-c% option.



Using an external local delivery agent
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[local delivery,using an external agent]
cindex:['procmail']
cindex:[external local delivery]
cindex:[delivery,'procmail']
cindex:[delivery,by external agent]
The ^pipe^ transport can be used to pass all messages that require local
delivery to a separate local delivery agent such as %procmail%. When doing
this, care must be taken to ensure that the pipe is run under an appropriate
uid and gid. In some configurations one wants this to be a uid that is trusted
by the delivery agent to supply the correct sender of the message. It may be
necessary to recompile or reconfigure the delivery agent so that it trusts an
appropriate user. The following is an example transport and router
configuration for %procmail%:

  # transport
  procmail_pipe:
    driver = pipe
    command = /usr/local/bin/procmail -d $local_part
    return_path_add
    delivery_date_add
    envelope_to_add
    check_string = "From "
    escape_string = ">From "
    user = $local_part
    group = mail

  # router
  procmail:
    driver = accept
    check_local_user
    transport = procmail_pipe


In this example, the pipe is run as the local user, but with the group set to
'mail'. An alternative is to run the pipe as a specific user such as 'mail'
or 'exim', but in this case you must arrange for %procmail% to trust that
user to supply a correct sender address. If you do not specify either a %group%
or a %user% option, the pipe command is run as the local user. The home
directory is the user's home directory by default.

Note that the command that the pipe transport runs does 'not' begin with

  IFS=" "

as shown in the %procmail% documentation, because Exim does not by default use
a shell to run pipe commands.

cindex:[Cyrus]
The next example shows a transport and a router for a system where local
deliveries are handled by the Cyrus IMAP server.

....
# transport
local_delivery_cyrus:
  driver = pipe
  command = /usr/cyrus/bin/deliver \
            -m ${substr_1:$local_part_suffix} -- $local_part
  user = cyrus
  group = mail
  return_output
  log_output
  message_prefix =
  message_suffix =

# router
local_user_cyrus:
  driver = accept
  check_local_user
  local_part_suffix = .*
  transport = local_delivery_cyrus
....

Note the unsetting of %message_prefix% and %message_suffix%, and the use of
%return_output% to cause any text written by Cyrus to be returned to the
sender.


////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPsmtptrans]]
The smtp transport
------------------
cindex:[transports,^smtp^]
cindex:[^smtp^ transport]
The ^smtp^ transport delivers messages over TCP/IP connections using the SMTP
or LMTP protocol. The list of hosts to try can either be taken from the address
that is being processed (having been set up by the router), or specified
explicitly for the transport. Timeout and retry processing (see chapter
<<CHAPretry>>) is applied to each IP address independently.


Multiple messages on a single connection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sending of multiple messages over a single TCP/IP connection can arise in
two ways:

- If a message contains more than %max_rcpt% (see below) addresses that are
routed to the same host, more than one copy of the message has to be sent to
that host. In this situation, multiple copies may be sent in a single run of
the ^smtp^ transport over a single TCP/IP connection. (What Exim actually does
when it has too many addresses to send in one message also depends on the value
of the global %remote_max_parallel% option. Details are given in section
<<SECToutSMTPTCP>>.)

- cindex:[hints database,remembering routing]
When a message has been successfully delivered over a TCP/IP connection, Exim
looks in its hints database to see if there are any other messages awaiting a
connection to the same host. If there are, a new delivery process is started
for one of them, and the current TCP/IP connection is passed on to it. The new
process may in turn send multiple copies and possibly create yet another
process.


For each copy sent over the same TCP/IP connection, a sequence counter is
incremented, and if it ever gets to the value of %connection_max_messages%,
no further messages are sent over that connection.



Use of the \$host variable
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[$host$]
cindex:[$host_address$]
At the start of a run of the ^smtp^ transport, the values of $host$ and
$host_address$ are the name and IP address of the first host on the host list
passed by the router. However, when the transport is about to connect to a
specific host, and while it is connected to that host, $host$ and
$host_address$ are set to the values for that host. These are the values
that are in force when the %helo_data%, %hosts_try_auth%, %interface%,
%serialize_hosts%, and the various TLS options are expanded.



Private options for smtp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^smtp^ transport]
The private options of the ^smtp^ transport are as follows:


oindex:[%allow_localhost%]
`..'=
%allow_localhost%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[local host,sending to]
cindex:[fallback,hosts specified on transport]
When a host specified in %hosts% or %fallback_hosts% (see below) turns out to
be the local host, or is listed in %hosts_treat_as_local%, delivery is
deferred by default. However, if %allow_localhost% is set, Exim goes on to do
the delivery anyway. This should be used only in special cases when the
configuration ensures that no looping will result (for example, a differently
configured Exim is listening on the port to which the message is sent).


oindex:[%authenticated_sender%]
`..'=
%authenticated_sender%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[Cyrus]
When Exim has authenticated as a client, this option sets a value for the
AUTH= item on outgoing MAIL commands, overriding any existing
authenticated sender value. If the string expansion is forced to fail, the
option is ignored. Other expansion failures cause delivery to be deferred. If
the result of expansion is an empty string, that is also ignored.

If the SMTP session is not authenticated, the expansion of
%authenticated_sender% still happens (and can cause the delivery to be
deferred if it fails), but no AUTH= item is added to MAIL commands.

This option allows you to use the ^smtp^ transport in LMTP mode to
deliver mail to Cyrus IMAP and provide the proper local part as the
``authenticated sender'', via a setting such as:

  authenticated_sender = $local_part

This removes the need for IMAP subfolders to be assigned special ACLs to
allow direct delivery to those subfolders.

Because of expected uses such as that just described for Cyrus (when no
domain is involved), there is no checking on the syntax of the provided
value.


oindex:[%command_timeout%]
`..'=
%command_timeout%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'time', Default: '5m'
===

This sets a timeout for receiving a response to an SMTP command that has been
sent out. It is also used when waiting for the initial banner line from the
remote host. Its value must not be zero.


oindex:[%connect_timeout%]
`..'=
%connect_timeout%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'time', Default: '5m'
===

This sets a timeout for the 'connect()' function, which sets up a TCP/IP call
to a remote host. A setting of zero allows the system timeout (typically
several minutes) to act. To have any effect, the value of this option must be
less than the system timeout. However, it has been observed that on some
systems there is no system timeout, which is why the default value for this
option is 5 minutes, a value recommended by RFC 1123.


oindex:[%connection_max_messages%]
`..'=
%connection_max_messages%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'integer', Default: '500'
===

cindex:[SMTP,passed connection]
cindex:[SMTP,multiple deliveries]
cindex:[multiple SMTP deliveries]
This controls the maximum number of separate message deliveries that are sent
over a single TCP/IP connection. If the value is zero, there is no limit.
For testing purposes, this value can be overridden by the %-oB% command line
option.


oindex:[%data_timeout%]
`..'=
%data_timeout%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'time', Default: '5m'
===

This sets a timeout for the transmission of each block in the data portion of
the message. As a result, the overall timeout for a message depends on the size
of the message. Its value must not be zero. See also %final_timeout%.


oindex:[%delay_after_cutoff%]
`..'=
%delay_after_cutoff%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

This option controls what happens when all remote IP addresses for a given
domain have been inaccessible for so long that they have passed their retry
cutoff times.

In the default state, if the next retry time has not been reached for any of
them, the address is bounced without trying any deliveries. In other words,
Exim delays retrying an IP address after the final cutoff time until a new
retry time is reached, and can therefore bounce an address without ever trying
a delivery, when machines have been down for a long time. Some people are
unhappy at this prospect, so...

If %delay_after_cutoff% is set false, Exim behaves differently. If all IP
addresses are past their final cutoff time, Exim tries to deliver to those
IP addresses that have not been tried since the message arrived. If there are
none, of if they all fail, the address is bounced. In other words, it does not
delay when a new message arrives, but immediately tries those expired IP
addresses that haven't been tried since the message arrived. If there is a
continuous stream of messages for the dead hosts, unsetting
%delay_after_cutoff% means that there will be many more attempts to deliver
to them.


oindex:[%dns_qualify_single%]
`..'=
%dns_qualify_single%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

If the %hosts% or %fallback_hosts% option is being used,
and the %gethostbyname% option is false,
the RES_DEFNAMES resolver option is set. See the %qualify_single% option
in chapter <<CHAPdnslookup>> for more details.


oindex:[%dns_search_parents%]
`..'=
%dns_search_parents%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[%search_parents%]
If the %hosts% or %fallback_hosts% option is being used, and the
%gethostbyname% option is false, the RES_DNSRCH resolver option is set.
See the %search_parents% option in chapter <<CHAPdnslookup>> for more details.



oindex:[%fallback_hosts%]
`..'=
%fallback_hosts%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string list', Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[fallback,hosts specified on transport]
String expansion is not applied to this option. The argument must be a
colon-separated list of host names or IP addresses. Fallback hosts can also be
specified on routers, which associate them with the addresses they process. As
for the %hosts% option without %hosts_override%, %fallback_hosts% specified
on the transport is used only if the address does not have its own associated
fallback host list. Unlike %hosts%, a setting of %fallback_hosts% on an
address is not overridden by %hosts_override%. However, %hosts_randomize%
does apply to fallback host lists.

If Exim is unable to deliver to any of the hosts for a particular address, and
the errors are not permanent rejections, the address is put on a separate
transport queue with its host list replaced by the fallback hosts, unless the
address was routed via MX records and the current host was in the original MX
list. In that situation, the fallback host list is not used.

Once normal deliveries are complete, the fallback queue is delivered by
re-running the same transports with the new host lists. If several failing
addresses have the same fallback hosts (and %max_rcpt% permits it), a single
copy of the message is sent.

The resolution of the host names on the fallback list is controlled by the
%gethostbyname% option, as for the %hosts% option. Fallback hosts apply
both to cases when the host list comes with the address and when it is taken
from %hosts%. This option provides a ``use a smart host only if delivery fails''
facility.


oindex:[%final_timeout%]
`..'=
%final_timeout%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'time', Default: '10m'
===

This is the timeout that applies while waiting for the response to the final
line containing just ``.'' that terminates a message. Its value must not be zero.


oindex:[%gethostbyname%]
`..'=
%gethostbyname%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is true when the %hosts% and/or %fallback_hosts% options are
being used, names are looked up using 'gethostbyname()'
(or 'getipnodebyname()' when available)
instead of using the DNS. Of course, that function may in fact use the DNS, but
it may also consult other sources of information such as _/etc/hosts_.

oindex:[%helo_data%]
`..'=
%helo_data%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: `\$primary_hostname`
===

cindex:[HELO argument, setting]
cindex:[EHLO argument, setting]
The value of this option is expanded, and used as the argument for the EHLO
or HELO command that starts the outgoing SMTP session.


oindex:[%hosts%]
`..'=
%hosts%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

Hosts are associated with an address by a router such as ^dnslookup^, which
finds the hosts by looking up the address domain in the DNS. However, addresses
can be passed to the ^smtp^ transport by any router, and not all of them can
provide an associated host list. The %hosts% option specifies a list of hosts
which are used if the address being processed does not have any hosts
associated with it. The hosts specified by %hosts% are also used, whether or
not the address has its own hosts, if %hosts_override% is set.

The string is first expanded, before being interpreted as a colon-separated
list of host names or IP addresses. If the expansion fails, delivery is
deferred. Unless the failure was caused by the inability to complete a lookup,
the error is logged to the panic log as well as the main log. Host names are
looked up either by searching directly for address records in the DNS or by
calling 'gethostbyname()'
(or 'getipnodebyname()' when available),
depending on the setting of the %gethostbyname% option. When Exim is compiled
with IPv6 support, if a host that is looked up in the DNS has both IPv4 and
IPv6 addresses, both types of address are used.

During delivery, the hosts are tried in order, subject to their retry status,
unless %hosts_randomize% is set.


oindex:[%hosts_avoid_esmtp%]
`..'=
%hosts_avoid_esmtp%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[ESMTP, avoiding use of]
cindex:[HELO,forcing use of]
cindex:[EHLO,avoiding use of]
cindex:[PIPELINING,avoiding the use of]
This option is for use with broken hosts that announce ESMTP facilities (for
example, PIPELINING) and then fail to implement them properly. When a host
matches %hosts_avoid_esmtp%, Exim sends HELO rather than EHLO at the
start of the SMTP session. This means that it cannot use any of the ESMTP
facilities such as AUTH, PIPELINING, SIZE, and STARTTLS.


oindex:[%hosts_avoid_tls%]
`..'=
%hosts_avoid_tls%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,avoiding for certain hosts]
Exim will not try to start a TLS session when delivering to any host that
matches this list. See chapter <<CHAPTLS>> for details of TLS.


oindex:[%hosts_max_try%]
`..'=
%hosts_max_try%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'integer', Default: '5'
===

cindex:[host,maximum number to try]
cindex:[limit,number of hosts tried]
cindex:[limit,number of MX tried]
cindex:[MX record,maximum tried]
This option limits the number of IP addresses that are tried for any one
delivery in cases where there are temporary delivery errors. Section
<<SECTvalhosmax>> describes in detail how the value of this option is used.


oindex:[%hosts_max_try_hardlimit%]
`..'=
%hosts_max_try_hardlimit%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'integer', Default: '50'
===

This is an additional check on the maximum number of IP addresses that Exim
tries for any one delivery. Section <<SECTvalhosmax>> describes its use and why
it exists.



oindex:[%hosts_nopass_tls%]
`..'=
%hosts_nopass_tls%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,passing connection]
cindex:[multiple SMTP deliveries]
cindex:[TLS,multiple message deliveries]
For any host that matches this list, a connection on which a TLS session has
been started will not be passed to a new delivery process for sending another
message on the same connection. See section <<SECTmulmessam>> for an explanation
of when this might be needed.


oindex:[%hosts_override%]
`..'=
%hosts_override%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

If this option is set and the %hosts% option is also set, any hosts that are
attached to the address are ignored, and instead the hosts specified by the
%hosts% option are always used. This option does not apply to
%fallback_hosts%.


oindex:[%hosts_randomize%]
`..'=
%hosts_randomize%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'false'
===

cindex:[randomized host list]
cindex:[host,list of; randomized]
cindex:[fallback,randomized hosts]
If this option is set, and either the list of hosts is taken from the
%hosts% or the %fallback_hosts% option, or the hosts supplied by the router
were not obtained from MX records (this includes fallback hosts from the
router), and were not randomizied by the router, the order of trying the hosts
is randomized each time the transport runs. Randomizing the order of a host
list can be used to do crude load sharing.

When %hosts_randomize% is true, a host list may be split into groups whose
order is separately randomized. This makes it possible to set up MX-like
behaviour. The boundaries between groups are indicated by an item that is just
`+` in the host list. For example:

  hosts = host1:host2:host3:+:host4:host5

The order of the first three hosts and the order of the last two hosts is
randomized for each use, but the first three always end up before the last two.
If %hosts_randomize% is not set, a `+` item in the list is ignored.

oindex:[%hosts_require_auth%]
`..'=
%hosts_require_auth%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[authentication,required by client]
This option provides a list of servers for which authentication must succeed
before Exim will try to transfer a message. If authentication fails for
servers which are not in this list, Exim tries to send unauthenticated. If
authentication fails for one of these servers, delivery is deferred. This
temporary error is detectable in the retry rules, so it can be turned into a
hard failure if required. See also %hosts_try_auth%, and chapter
<<CHAPSMTPAUTH>> for details of authentication.


oindex:[%hosts_require_tls%]
`..'=
%hosts_require_tls%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,requiring for certain servers]
Exim will insist on using a TLS session when delivering to any host that
matches this list. See chapter <<CHAPTLS>> for details of TLS.
*Note*: This option affects outgoing mail only. To insist on TLS for
incoming messages, use an appropriate ACL.

oindex:[%hosts_try_auth%]
`..'=
%hosts_try_auth%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[authentication,optional in client]
This option provides a list of servers to which, provided they announce
authentication support, Exim will attempt to authenticate as a client when it
connects. If authentication fails, Exim will try to transfer the message
unauthenticated. See also %hosts_require_auth%, and chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>>
for details of authentication.

oindex:[%interface%]
`..'=
%interface%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[bind IP address]
cindex:[IP address,binding]
This option specifies which interface to bind to when making an outgoing SMTP
call. The variables $host$ and $host_address$ refer to the host to which a
connection is about to be made during the expansion of the string. Forced
expansion failure, or an empty string result causes the option to be ignored.
Otherwise, after expansion,
the string must be a list of IP addresses, colon-separated by default, but the
separator can be changed in the usual way.
For example:

  interface = <; 192.168.123.123 ; 3ffe:ffff:836f::fe86:a061

The first interface of the correct type (IPv4 or IPv6) is used for the outgoing
connection. If none of them are the correct type, the option is ignored. If
%interface% is not set, or is ignored, the system's IP functions choose which
interface to use if the host has more than one.


oindex:[%keepalive%]
`..'=
%keepalive%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

cindex:[keepalive,on outgoing connection]
This option controls the setting of SO_KEEPALIVE on outgoing TCP/IP socket
connections. When set, it causes the kernel to probe idle connections
periodically, by sending packets with ``old'' sequence numbers. The other end of
the connection should send a acknowledgement if the connection is still okay or
a reset if the connection has been aborted. The reason for doing this is that
it has the beneficial effect of freeing up certain types of connection that can
get stuck when the remote host is disconnected without tidying up the TCP/IP
call properly. The keepalive mechanism takes several hours to detect
unreachable hosts.


oindex:[%max_rcpt%]
`..'=
%max_rcpt%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'integer', Default: '100'
===

cindex:[RCPT,maximum number of outgoing]
This option limits the number of RCPT commands that are sent in a single
SMTP message transaction. Each set of addresses is treated independently, and
so can cause parallel connections to the same host if %remote_max_parallel%
permits this.


oindex:[%multi_domain%]
`..'=
%multi_domain%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

When this option is set, the ^smtp^ transport can handle a number of addresses
containing a mixture of different domains provided they all resolve to the same
list of hosts. Turning the option off restricts the transport to handling only
one domain at a time. This is useful if you want to use $domain$ in an
expansion for the transport, because it is set only when there is a single
domain involved in a remote delivery.


oindex:[%port%]
`..'=
%port%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'see below'
===

cindex:[port,sending TCP/IP]
cindex:[TCP/IP,setting outgoing port]
This option specifies the TCP/IP port on the server to which Exim connects. If
it begins with a digit it is taken as a port number; otherwise it is looked up
using 'getservbyname()'. The default value is normally ``smtp'', but if
%protocol% is set to ``lmtp'', the default is ``lmtp''.
If the expansion fails, or if a port number cannot be found, delivery is
deferred.



oindex:[%protocol%]
`..'=
%protocol%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string', Default: 'smtp'
===

cindex:[LMTP,over TCP/IP]
If this option is set to ``lmtp'' instead of ``smtp'', the default value for the
%port% option changes to ``lmtp'', and the transport operates the LMTP protocol
(RFC 2033) instead of SMTP. This protocol is sometimes used for local
deliveries into closed message stores. Exim also has support for running LMTP
over a pipe to a local process -- see chapter <<CHAPLMTP>>.


oindex:[%retry_include_ip_address%]
`..'=
%retry_include_ip_address%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

Exim normally includes both the host name and the IP address in the key it
constructs for indexing retry data after a temporary delivery failure. This
means that when one of several IP addresses for a host is failing, it gets
tried periodically (controlled by the retry rules), but use of the other IP
addresses is not affected.

However, in some dialup environments hosts are assigned a different IP address
each time they connect. In this situation the use of the IP address as part of
the retry key leads to undesirable behaviour. Setting this option false causes
Exim to use only the host name. This should normally be done on a separate
instance of the ^smtp^ transport, set up specially to handle the dialup hosts.


oindex:[%serialize_hosts%]
`..'=
%serialize_hosts%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'host list'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[serializing connections]
cindex:[host,serializing connections]
Because Exim operates in a distributed manner, if several messages for the same
host arrive at around the same time, more than one simultaneous connection to
the remote host can occur. This is not usually a problem except when there is a
slow link between the hosts. In that situation it may be helpful to restrict
Exim to one connection at a time. This can be done by setting
%serialize_hosts% to match the relevant hosts.

cindex:[hints database,serializing deliveries to a host]
Exim implements serialization by means of a hints database in which a record is
written whenever a process connects to one of the restricted hosts. The record
is deleted when the connection is completed. Obviously there is scope for
records to get left lying around if there is a system or program crash. To
guard against this, Exim ignores any records that are more than six hours old.

If you set up this kind of serialization, you should also arrange to delete the
relevant hints database whenever your system reboots. The names of the files
start with _misc_ and they are kept in the _spool/db_ directory. There
may be one or two files, depending on the type of DBM in use. The same files
are used for ETRN serialization.


oindex:[%size_addition%]
`..'=
%size_addition%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'integer', Default: '1024'
===

cindex:[SMTP,SIZE]
cindex:[message,size issue for transport filter]
cindex:[size,of message]
cindex:[transport,filter]
cindex:[filter,transport filter]
If a remote SMTP server indicates that it supports the SIZE option of the
MAIL command, Exim uses this to pass over the message size at the start of
an SMTP transaction. It adds the value of %size_addition% to the value it
sends, to allow for headers and other text that may be added during delivery by
configuration options or in a transport filter. It may be necessary to increase
this if a lot of text is added to messages.

Alternatively, if the value of %size_addition% is set negative, it disables
the use of the SIZE option altogether.


oindex:[%tls_certificate%]
`..'=
%tls_certificate%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS client certificate, location of]
cindex:[certificate for client, location of]
The value of this option must be the absolute path to a file which contains the
client's certificate, for use when sending a message over an encrypted
connection. The values of $host$ and $host_address$ are set to the name
and address of the server during the expansion. See chapter <<CHAPTLS>> for
details of TLS.

*Note*: This option must be set if you want Exim to use TLS when sending
messages as a client. The global option of the same name specifies the
certificate for Exim as a server; it is not automatically assumed that the same
certificate should be used when Exim is operating as a client.


oindex:[%tls_crl%]
`..'=
%tls_crl%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,client certificate revocation list]
cindex:[certificate,revocation list for client]
This option specifies a certificate revocation list. The expanded value must
be the name of a file that contains a CRL in PEM format.


oindex:[%tls_privatekey%]
`..'=
%tls_privatekey%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS client private key, location of]
The value of this option must be the absolute path to a file which contains the
client's private key, for use when sending a message over an encrypted
connection. The values of $host$ and $host_address$ are set to the name
and address of the server during the expansion.
If this option is unset, the private key is assumed to be in the same file as
the certificate.
See chapter <<CHAPTLS>> for details of TLS.


oindex:[%tls_require_ciphers%]
`..'=
%tls_require_ciphers%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,requiring specific ciphers]
cindex:[cipher,requiring specific]
The value of this option must be a list of permitted cipher suites, for use
when setting up an outgoing encrypted connection. (There is a global option of
the same name for controlling incoming connections.) The values of $host$ and
$host_address$ are set to the name and address of the server during the
expansion. See chapter <<CHAPTLS>> for details of TLS; note that this option is
used in different ways by OpenSSL and GnuTLS (see sections <<SECTreqciphssl>>
and <<SECTreqciphgnu>>). For GnuTLS, the order of the ciphers is a preference
order.



oindex:[%tls_tempfail_tryclear%]
`..'=
%tls_tempfail_tryclear%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'boolean', Default: 'true'
===

When the server host is not in %hosts_require_tls%, and there is a problem in
setting up a TLS session, this option determines whether or not Exim should try
to deliver the message unencrypted. If it is set false, delivery to the
current host is deferred; if there are other hosts, they are tried. If this
option is set true, Exim attempts to deliver unencrypted after a 4##'xx'
response to STARTTLS. Also, if STARTTLS is accepted, but the subsequent
TLS negotiation fails, Exim closes the current connection (because it is in an
unknown state), opens a new one to the same host, and then tries the delivery
in clear.


oindex:[%tls_verify_certificates%]
`..'=
%tls_verify_certificates%, Use: 'smtp', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[TLS,server certificate verification]
cindex:[certificate,verification of server]
The value of this option must be the absolute path to a file containing
permitted server certificates, for use when setting up an encrypted connection.
Alternatively, if you are using OpenSSL, you can set
%tls_verify_certificates% to the name of a directory containing certificate
files. This does not work with GnuTLS; the option must be set to the name of a
single file if you are using GnuTLS. The values of $host$ and
$host_address$ are set to the name and address of the server during the
expansion of this option. See chapter <<CHAPTLS>> for details of TLS.




[[SECTvalhosmax]]
How the limits for the number of hosts to try are used
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[host,maximum number to try]
cindex:[limit,hosts; maximum number tried]
There are two options that are concerned with the number of hosts that are
tried when an SMTP delivery takes place. They are %hosts_max_try% and
%hosts_max_try_hardlimit%.


The %hosts_max_try% option limits the number of hosts that are tried
for a single delivery. However, despite the term ``host'' in its name, the option
actually applies to each IP address independently. In other words, a multihomed
host is treated as several independent hosts, just as it is for retrying.

Many of the larger ISPs have multiple MX records which often point to
multihomed hosts. As a result, a list of a dozen or more IP addresses may be
created as a result of routing one of these domains.

Trying every single IP address on such a long list does not seem sensible; if
several at the top of the list fail, it is reasonable to assume there is some
problem that is likely to affect all of them. Roughly speaking, the value of
%hosts_max_try% is the maximum number that are tried before deferring the
delivery. However, the logic cannot be quite that simple.

Firstly, IP addresses that are skipped because their retry times have not
arrived do not count, and in addition, addresses that are past their retry
limits are also not counted, even when they are tried. This means that when
some IP addresses are past their retry limits, more than the value of
%hosts_max_retry% may be tried. The reason for this behaviour is to ensure
that all IP addresses are considered before timing out an email address (but
see below for an exception).

Secondly, when the %hosts_max_try% limit is reached, Exim looks down the host
list to see if there is a subsequent host with a different (higher valued) MX.
If there is, that host is considered next, and the current IP address is used
but not counted. This behaviour helps in the case of a domain with a retry rule
that hardly ever delays any hosts, as is now explained:

Consider the case of a long list of hosts with one MX value, and a few with a
higher MX value. If %hosts_max_try% is small (the default is 5) only a few
hosts at the top of the list are tried at first. With the default retry rule,
which specifies increasing retry times, the higher MX hosts are eventually
tried when those at the top of the list are skipped because they have not
reached their retry times.

However, it is common practice to put a fixed short retry time on domains for
large ISPs, on the grounds that their servers are rarely down for very long.
Unfortunately, these are exactly the domains that tend to resolve to long lists
of hosts. The short retry time means that the lowest MX hosts are tried every
time. The attempts may be in a different order because of random sorting, but
without the special MX check, the higher MX hosts would never be tried

until all the lower MX hosts had timed out (which might be several days),
because there are always some lower MX hosts that have reached their retry
times. With the special check, Exim considers at least one IP address from each
MX value at every delivery attempt, even if the %hosts_max_try% limit has
already been reached.

The above logic means that %hosts_max_try% is not a hard limit, and in
particular, Exim normally eventually tries all the IP addresses before timing
out an email address. When %hosts_max_try% was implemented, this seemed a
reasonable thing to do. Recently, however, some lunatic DNS configurations have
been set up with hundreds of IP addresses for some domains. It can
take a very long time indeed for an address to time out in these cases.

The %hosts_max_try_hardlimit% option was added to help with this problem.
Exim never tries more than this number of IP addresses; if it hits this limit
and they are all timed out, the email address is bounced, even though not all
possible IP addresses have been tried.





////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPrewrite]]
Address rewriting
-----------------
cindex:[rewriting,addresses]
There are some circumstances in which Exim automatically rewrites domains in
addresses. The two most common are when an address is given without a domain
(referred to as an ``unqualified address'') or when an address contains an
abbreviated domain that is expanded by DNS lookup.

Unqualified envelope addresses are accepted only for locally submitted
messages, or messages from hosts that match %sender_unqualified_hosts% or
%recipient_unqualified_hosts%, respectively. Unqualified addresses in header
lines are qualified if they are in locally submitted messages, or messages from
hosts that are permitted to send unqualified envelope addresses. Otherwise,
unqualified addresses in header lines are neither qualified nor rewritten.

One situation in which Exim does 'not' automatically rewrite a domain is
when it is the name of a CNAME record in the DNS. The older RFCs suggest that
such a domain should be rewritten using the ``canonical'' name, and some MTAs do
this. The new RFCs do not contain this suggestion.


Explicitly configured address rewriting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This chapter describes the rewriting rules that can be used in the
main rewrite section of the configuration file, and also in the generic
%headers_rewrite% option that can be set on any transport.

Some people believe that configured address rewriting is a Mortal Sin.
Others believe that life is not possible without it. Exim provides the
facility; you do not have to use it.

The main rewriting rules that appear in the ``rewrite'' section of the
configuration file are applied to addresses in incoming messages, both envelope
addresses and addresses in header lines. Each rule specifies the types of
address to which it applies.

Rewriting of addresses in header lines applies only to those headers that
were received with the message, and, in the case of transport rewriting, those
that were added by a system filter. That is, it applies only to those headers
that are common to all copies of the message. Header lines that are added by
individual routers or transports (and which are therefore specific to
individual recipient addresses) are not rewritten.

In general, rewriting addresses from your own system or domain has some
legitimacy. Rewriting other addresses should be done only with great care and
in special circumstances. The author of Exim believes that rewriting should be
used sparingly, and mainly for ``regularizing'' addresses in your own domains.
Although it can sometimes be used as a routing tool, this is very strongly
discouraged.

There are two commonly encountered circumstances where rewriting is used, as
illustrated by these examples:

- The company whose domain is 'hitch.fict.example' has a number of hosts that
exchange mail with each other behind a firewall, but there is only a single
gateway to the outer world. The gateway rewrites '*.hitch.fict.example' as
'hitch.fict.example' when sending mail off-site.

- A host rewrites the local parts of its own users so that, for example,
'fp42@hitch.fict.example' becomes 'Ford.Prefect@hitch.fict.example'.



When does rewriting happen?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[rewriting,timing of]
cindex:[{ACL},rewriting addresses in]
Configured address rewriting can take place at several different stages of a
message's processing.

At the start of an ACL for MAIL, the sender address may have been rewritten
by a special SMTP-time rewrite rule (see section <<SECTrewriteS>>), but no
ordinary rewrite rules have yet been applied. If, however, the sender address
is verified in the ACL, it is rewritten before verification, and remains
rewritten thereafter. The subsequent value of $sender_address$ is the
rewritten address. This also applies if sender verification happens in a
RCPT ACL. Otherwise, when the sender address is not verified, it is
rewritten as soon as a message's header lines have been received.

Similarly, at the start of an ACL for RCPT, the current recipient's address
may have been rewritten by a special SMTP-time rewrite rule, but no ordinary
rewrite rules have yet been applied to it. However, the behaviour is different
from the sender address when a recipient is verified. The address is rewritten
for the verification, but the rewriting is not remembered at this stage. The
value of $local_part$ and $domain$ after verification are always the same
as they were before (that is, they contain the unrewritten -- except for
SMTP-time rewriting -- address).

Once a message's header lines have been received, all the envelope recipient
addresses are permanently rewritten, and rewriting is also applied to the
addresses in the header lines (if configured).
cindex:['local_scan()' function,address rewriting; timing of]
Thus, all the rewriting is completed before the DATA ACL and
'local_scan()' functions are run.

When an address is being routed, either for delivery or for verification,
rewriting is applied immediately to child addresses that are generated by
redirection, unless %no_rewrite% is set on the router.

cindex:[envelope sender, rewriting]
cindex:[rewriting,at transport time]
At transport time, additional rewriting of addresses in header lines can be
specified by setting the generic %headers_rewrite% option on a transport. This
option contains rules that are identical in form to those in the rewrite
section of the configuration file. In addition, the outgoing envelope sender
can be rewritten by means of the %return_path% transport option. However, it
is not possible to rewrite envelope recipients at transport time.




Testing the rewriting rules that apply on input
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[rewriting,testing]
cindex:[testing,rewriting]
Exim's input rewriting configuration appears in a part of the run time
configuration file headed by ``begin rewrite''. It can be tested by the %-brw%
command line option. This takes an address (which can be a full RFC 2822
address) as its argument. The output is a list of how the address would be
transformed by the rewriting rules for each of the different places it might
appear in an incoming message, that is, for each different header and for the
envelope sender and recipient fields. For example,

  exim -brw ph10@exim.workshop.example

might produce the output

    sender: Philip.Hazel@exim.workshop.example
      from: Philip.Hazel@exim.workshop.example
        to: ph10@exim.workshop.example
        cc: ph10@exim.workshop.example
       bcc: ph10@exim.workshop.example
  reply-to: Philip.Hazel@exim.workshop.example
  env-from: Philip.Hazel@exim.workshop.example
    env-to: ph10@exim.workshop.example

which shows that rewriting has been set up for that address when used in any of
the source fields, but not when it appears as a recipient address. At the
present time, there is no equivalent way of testing rewriting rules that are
set for a particular transport.


Rewriting rules
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[rewriting,rules]
The rewrite section of the configuration file consists of lines of rewriting
rules in the form

  <source pattern>  <replacement>  <flags>

Rewriting rules that are specified for the %headers_rewrite% generic transport
option are given as a colon-separated list. Each item in the list takes the
same form as a line in the main rewriting configuration
(except that any colons must be doubled, of course).

The formats of source patterns and replacement strings are described below.
Each is terminated by white space, unless enclosed in double quotes, in which
case normal quoting conventions apply inside the quotes. The flags are single
characters which may appear in any order. Spaces and tabs between them are
ignored.

For each address that could potentially be rewritten, the rules are scanned in
order, and replacements for the address from earlier rules can themselves be
replaced by later rules (but see the ``q'' and ``R'' flags).

The order in which addresses are rewritten is undefined, may change between
releases, and must not be relied on, with one exception: when a message is
received, the envelope sender is always rewritten first, before any header
lines are rewritten. For example, the replacement string for a rewrite of an
address in 'To:' must not assume that the message's address in 'From:' has (or
has not) already been rewritten. However, a rewrite of 'From:' may assume that
the envelope sender has already been rewritten.

The variables $local_part$ and $domain$ can be used in the replacement
string to refer to the address that is being rewritten. Note that lookup-driven
rewriting can be done by a rule of the form

  *@*   ${lookup ...

where the lookup key uses $1$ and $2$ or $local_part$ and $domain$ to
refer to the address that is being rewritten.


Rewriting patterns
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[rewriting,patterns]
cindex:[address list,in a rewriting pattern]
The source pattern in a rewriting rule is any item which may appear in an
address list (see section <<SECTaddresslist>>). It is in fact processed as a
single-item address list, which means that it is expanded before being tested
against the address.

Domains in patterns should be given in lower case. Local parts in patterns are
case-sensitive. If you want to do case-insensitive matching of local parts, you
can use a regular expression that starts with `^(?i)`.

cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc),in rewriting rules]
After matching, the numerical variables $1$, $2$, etc. may be set,
depending on the type of match which occurred. These can be used in the
replacement string to insert portions of the incoming address. $0$ always
refers to the complete incoming address. When a regular expression is used, the
numerical variables are set from its capturing subexpressions. For other types
of pattern they are set as follows:

- If a local part or domain starts with an asterisk, the numerical variables
refer to the character strings matched by asterisks, with $1$ associated with
the first asterisk, and $2$ with the second, if present. For example, if the
pattern

  *queen@*.fict.example
+
is matched against the address 'hearts-queen@wonderland.fict.example' then

  $0 = hearts-queen@wonderland.fict.example
  $1 = hearts-
  $2 = wonderland
+
Note that if the local part does not start with an asterisk, but the domain
does, it is $1$ that contains the wild part of the domain.

- If the domain part of the pattern is a partial lookup, the wild and fixed parts
of the domain are placed in the next available numerical variables. Suppose,
for example, that the address 'foo@bar.baz.example' is processed by a
rewriting rule of the form

  *@partial-dbm;/some/dbm/file    <replacement string>
+
and the key in the file that matches the domain is `*.baz.example`. Then

  $1 = foo
  $2 = bar
  $3 = baz.example
+
If the address 'foo@baz.example' is looked up, this matches the same
wildcard file entry, and in this case $2$ is set to the empty string, but
$3$ is still set to 'baz.example'. If a non-wild key is matched in a
partial lookup, $2$ is again set to the empty string and $3$ is set to the
whole domain. For non-partial domain lookups, no numerical variables are set.



Rewriting replacements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[rewriting,replacements]
If the replacement string for a rule is a single asterisk, addresses that
match the pattern and the flags are 'not' rewritten, and no subsequent
rewriting rules are scanned. For example,

  hatta@lookingglass.fict.example  *  f

specifies that 'hatta@lookingglass.fict.example' is never to be rewritten in
'From:' headers.

If the replacement string is not a single asterisk, it is expanded, and must
yield a fully qualified address. Within the expansion, the variables
$local_part$ and $domain$ refer to the address that is being rewritten.
Any letters they contain retain their original case -- they are not lower
cased. The numerical variables are set up according to the type of pattern that
matched the address, as described above. If the expansion is forced to fail by
the presence of ``fail'' in a conditional or lookup item, rewriting by the
current rule is abandoned, but subsequent rules may take effect. Any other
expansion failure causes the entire rewriting operation to be abandoned, and an
entry written to the panic log.



Rewriting flags
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are three different kinds of flag that may appear on rewriting rules:

- Flags that specify which headers and envelope addresses to rewrite: E, F, T, b,
c, f, h, r, s, t.

- A flag that specifies rewriting at SMTP time: S.

- Flags that control the rewriting process: Q, q, R, w.

For rules that are part of the %headers_rewrite% generic transport option,
E, F, T, and S are not permitted.



Flags specifying which headers and envelope addresses to rewrite
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[rewriting,flags]
If none of the following flag letters, nor the ``S'' flag (see section
<<SECTrewriteS>>) are present, a main rewriting rule applies to all headers and
to both the sender and recipient fields of the envelope, whereas a
transport-time rewriting rule just applies to all headers. Otherwise, the
rewriting rule is skipped unless the relevant addresses are being processed.

&&&
`E`       rewrite all envelope fields
`F`       rewrite the envelope From field
`T`       rewrite the envelope To field
`b`       rewrite the 'Bcc:' header
`c`       rewrite the 'Cc:' header
`f`       rewrite the 'From:' header
`h`       rewrite all headers
`r`       rewrite the 'Reply-To:' header
`s`       rewrite the 'Sender:' header
`t`       rewrite the 'To:' header
&&&

You should be particularly careful about rewriting 'Sender:' headers, and
restrict this to special known cases in your own domains.


[[SECTrewriteS]]
The SMTP-time rewriting flag
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP,rewriting malformed addresses]
cindex:[RCPT,rewriting argument of]
cindex:[MAIL,rewriting argument of]
The rewrite flag ``S'' specifies a rewrite of incoming envelope addresses at SMTP
time, as soon as an address is received in a MAIL or RCPT command, and
before any other processing; even before syntax checking. The pattern is
required to be a regular expression, and it is matched against the whole of the
data for the command, including any surrounding angle brackets.

This form of rewrite rule allows for the handling of addresses that are not
compliant with RFCs 2821 and 2822 (for example, ``bang paths'' in batched SMTP
input). Because the input is not required to be a syntactically valid address,
the variables $local_part$ and $domain$ are not available during the
expansion of the replacement string. The result of rewriting replaces the
original address in the MAIL or RCPT command.


Flags controlling the rewriting process
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are four flags which control the way the rewriting process works. These
take effect only when a rule is invoked, that is, when the address is of the
correct type (matches the flags) and matches the pattern:

- If the ``Q'' flag is set on a rule, the rewritten address is permitted to be an
unqualified local part. It is qualified with %qualify_recipient%. In the
absence of ``Q'' the rewritten address must always include a domain.

- If the ``q'' flag is set on a rule, no further rewriting rules are considered,
even if no rewriting actually takes place because of a ``fail'' in the expansion.
The ``q'' flag is not effective if the address is of the wrong type (does not
match the flags) or does not match the pattern.

- The ``R'' flag causes a successful rewriting rule to be re-applied to the new
address, up to ten times. It can be combined with the ``q'' flag, to stop
rewriting once it fails to match (after at least one successful rewrite).

- cindex:[rewriting,whole addresses]
When an address in a header is rewritten, the rewriting normally applies only
to the working part of the address, with any comments and RFC 2822 ``phrase''
left unchanged. For example, rewriting might change

  From: Ford Prefect <fp42@restaurant.hitch.fict.example>
+
into

  From: Ford Prefect <prefectf@hitch.fict.example>
+
Sometimes there is a need to replace the whole address item, and this can be
done by adding the flag letter ``w'' to a rule. If this is set on a rule that
causes an address in a header line to be rewritten, the entire address is
replaced, not just the working part. The replacement must be a complete RFC
2822 address, including the angle brackets if necessary. If text outside angle
brackets contains a character whose value is greater than 126 or less than 32
(except for tab), the text is encoded according to RFC 2047.
The character set is taken from %headers_charset%, which defaults to
ISO-8859-1.
+
When the ``w'' flag is set on a rule that causes an envelope address to be
rewritten, all but the working part of the replacement address is discarded.



Rewriting examples
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is an example of the two common rewriting paradigms:

....
*@*.hitch.fict.example  $1@hitch.fict.example
*@hitch.fict.example    ${lookup{$1}dbm{/etc/realnames}\
                     {$value}fail}@hitch.fict.example bctfrF
....

Note the use of ``fail'' in the lookup expansion in the second rule, forcing
the string expansion to fail if the lookup does not succeed. In this context it
has the effect of leaving the original address unchanged, but Exim goes on to
consider subsequent rewriting rules, if any, because the ``q'' flag is not
present in that rule. An alternative to ``fail'' would be to supply $1$
explicitly, which would cause the rewritten address to be the same as before,
at the cost of a small bit of processing. Not supplying either of these is an
error, since the rewritten address would then contain no local part.

The first example above replaces the domain with a superior, more general
domain. This may not be desirable for certain local parts. If the rule

  root@*.hitch.fict.example  *

were inserted before the first rule, rewriting would be suppressed for the
local part 'root' at any domain ending in 'hitch.fict.example'.

Rewriting can be made conditional on a number of tests, by making use of
$\{if$ in the expansion item. For example, to apply a rewriting rule only to
messages that originate outside the local host:

....
*@*.hitch.fict.example  "${if !eq {$sender_host_address}{}\
                         {$1@hitch.fict.example}fail}"
....

The replacement string is quoted in this example because it contains white
space.

cindex:[rewriting,bang paths]
cindex:[bang paths,rewriting]
Exim does not handle addresses in the form of ``bang paths''. If it sees such an
address it treats it as an unqualified local part which it qualifies with the
local qualification domain (if the source of the message is local or if the
remote host is permitted to send unqualified addresses). Rewriting can
sometimes be used to handle simple bang paths with a fixed number of
components. For example, the rule

  \N^([^!]+)!(.*)@your.domain.example$\N   $2@$1

rewrites a two-component bang path 'host.name!user' as the domain address
'user@host.name'. However, there is a security implication in using this as
a global rewriting rule for envelope addresses. It can provide a backdoor
method for using your system as a relay, because the incoming addresses appear
to be local. If the bang path addresses are received via SMTP, it is safer to
use the ``S'' flag to rewrite them as they are received, so that relay checking
can be done on the rewritten addresses.





////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPretry]]
Retry configuration
-------------------
cindex:[retry configuration, description of]
cindex:[configuration file,retry section]
The ``retry'' section of the run time configuration file contains a list of retry
rules which control how often Exim tries to deliver messages that cannot be
delivered at the first attempt. If there are no retry rules, temporary errors
are treated as permanent. The %-brt% command line option can be used to test
which retry rule will be used for a given address or domain.

The most common cause of retries is temporary failure to deliver to a remote
host because the host is down, or inaccessible because of a network problem.
Exim's retry processing in this case is applied on a per-host (strictly, per IP
address) basis, not on a per-message basis. Thus, if one message has recently
been delayed, delivery of a new message to the same host is not immediately
tried, but waits for the host's retry time to arrive. If the %retry_defer% log
selector is set, the message
cindex:[retry,time not reached]
``retry time not reached'' is written to the main log whenever a delivery is
skipped for this reason. Section <<SECToutSMTPerr>> contains more details of the
handling of errors during remote deliveries.

Retry processing applies to routing as well as to delivering, except as covered
in the next paragraph. The retry rules do not distinguish between these
actions. It is not possible, for example, to specify different behaviour for
failures to route the domain 'snark.fict.example' and failures to deliver to
the host 'snark.fict.example'. I didn't think anyone would ever need this
added complication, so did not implement it. However, although they share the
same retry rule, the actual retry times for routing and transporting a given
domain are maintained independently.

When a delivery is not part of a queue run (typically an immediate delivery on
receipt of a message), the routers are always run, and local deliveries are
always attempted, even if retry times are set for them. This makes for better
behaviour if one particular message is causing problems (for example, causing
quota overflow, or provoking an error in a filter file). If such a delivery
suffers a temporary failure, the retry data is updated as normal, and
subsequent delivery attempts from queue runs occur only when the retry time for
the local address is reached.



Retry rules
~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[retry,rules]
Each retry rule occupies one line and consists of three or four parts,
separated by white space: a pattern, an error name, an optional list of sender
addresses, and a list of retry parameters. The pattern and sender lists must be
enclosed in double quotes if they contain white space. The rules are searched in
order until one is found where the pattern, error name, and sender list (if
present) match the failing host or address, the error that occurred, and the
message's sender, respectively.


The pattern is any single item that may appear in an address list (see section
<<SECTaddresslist>>). It is in fact processed as a one-item address list, which
means that it is expanded before being tested against the address that has
been delayed. Address list processing treats a plain domain name as if it were
preceded by ``\*@'', which makes it possible for many retry rules to start with
just a domain. For example,

  lookingglass.fict.example        *  F,24h,30m;

provides a rule for any address in the 'lookingglass.fict.example' domain,
whereas

  alice@lookingglass.fict.example  *  F,24h,30m;

applies only to temporary failures involving the local part %alice%.
In practice, almost all rules start with a domain name pattern without a local
part.

cindex:[regular expressions,in retry rules]
*Warning*: If you use a regular expression in a routing rule pattern, it
must match a complete address, not just a domain, because that is how regular
expressions work in address lists.

&&&
`\^\Nxyz\d+\.abc\.example\\$\N        \*  G,1h,10m,2`     %Wrong%
`\^\N[^@]+@xyz\d+\.abc\.example\\$\N  \*  G,1h,10m,2`     %Right%
&&&



Choosing which retry rule to use
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Exim is looking for a retry rule after a routing attempt has failed (for
example, after a DNS timeout), each line in the retry configuration is tested
against the complete address only if %retry_use_local_part% is set for the
router. Otherwise, only the domain is used, except when matching against a
regular expression, when the local part of the address is replaced with ``\*''.
A domain on its own can match a domain pattern, or a pattern that starts with
``\*@''. By default, %retry_use_local_part% is true for routers where
%check_local_user% is true, and false for other routers.

Similarly, when Exim is looking for a retry rule after a local delivery has
failed (for example, after a mailbox full error), each line in the retry
configuration is tested against the complete address only if
%retry_use_local_part% is set for the transport (it defaults true for all
local transports).

When Exim is looking for a retry rule after a remote delivery attempt has
failed, what happens depends on the type of failure. After a 4##'xx' SMTP
response for a recipient address, the whole address is used when searching the
retry rules. The rule that is found is used to create a retry time for the
failing address.

For a temporary error that is not related to an individual address,
(for example, a connection timeout), each line in the retry configuration is
checked twice. First, the name of the remote host is used as a domain name
(preceded by ``\*@'' when matching a regular expression). If this does not match
the line, the domain from the email address is tried in a similar fashion. For
example, suppose the MX records for 'a.b.c.example' are

  a.b.c.example  MX  5  x.y.z.example
                 MX  6  p.q.r.example
                 MX  7  m.n.o.example

and the retry rules are

  p.q.r.example    *      F,24h,30m;
  a.b.c.example    *      F,4d,45m;

and a delivery to the host 'x.y.z.example' fails. The first rule matches
neither the host nor the domain, so Exim looks at the second rule. This does
not match the host, but it does match the domain, so it is used to calculate
the retry time for the host 'x.y.z.example'. Meanwhile, Exim tries to deliver
to 'p.q.r.example'. If this fails, the first retry rule is used, because it
matches the host.

In other words, failures to deliver to host 'p.q.r.example' use the first
rule to determine retry times, but for all the other hosts for the domain
'a.b.c.example', the second rule is used. The second rule is also used if
routing to 'a.b.c.example' suffers a temporary failure.


Retry rules for specific errors
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[retry,specific errors; specifying]
The second field in a retry rule is the name of a particular error, or an
asterisk, which matches any error. The errors that can be tested for are:

%auth_failed%::
Authentication failed when trying to send to a host in the %hosts_require_auth%
list in an ^smtp^ transport.

%rcpt_4xx%::
A 4##'xx' error was received for an outgoing RCPT command. Either the first or
both of the x's can be given as specific digits, for example: `rcpt_45x` or
`rcpt_436`. For example, to recognize 452 errors given to RCPT commands by a
particular host, and have retries every ten minutes and a one-hour timeout, you
could set up a retry rule of this form:

  the.host.name  rcpt_452   F,1h,10m
+
These errors apply to both outgoing SMTP (the ^smtp^ transport) and outgoing
LMTP (either the ^lmtp^ transport, or the ^smtp^ transport in LMTP mode).
Note, however, that they apply only to responses to RCPT commands.

%refused_MX%::
A connection to a host obtained from an MX record was refused.

%refused_A%::
A connection to a host not obtained from an MX record was refused.

%refused%::
A connection was refused.

%timeout_connect_MX%::
A connection attempt to a host obtained from an MX record timed out.

%timeout_connect_A%::
A connection attempt to a host not obtained from an MX record timed out.

%timeout_connect%::
A connection attempt timed out.

%timeout_MX%::
There was a timeout while connecting or during an SMTP session with a host
obtained from an MX record.

%timeout_A%::
There was a timeout while connecting or during an SMTP session with a host not
obtained from an MX record.

%timeout%::
There was a timeout while connecting or during an SMTP session.

%quota%::
A mailbox quota was exceeded in a local delivery by the ^appendfile^ transport.

%quota_%<'time'>::
cindex:[quota,error testing in retry rule]
cindex:[retry,quota error testing]
A mailbox quota was exceeded in a local delivery by the ^appendfile^ transport,
and the mailbox has not been accessed for <'time'>. For example, 'quota_4d'
applies to a quota error when the mailbox has not been accessed for four days.

///
End of list
///

cindex:[mailbox,time of last read]
The idea of %quota_%<'time'> is to make it possible to have shorter timeouts
when the mailbox is full and is not being read by its owner. Ideally, it should
be based on the last time that the user accessed the mailbox. However, it is
not always possible to determine this. Exim uses the following heuristic rules:

- If the mailbox is a single file, the time of last access (the ``atime'') is used.
As no new messages are being delivered (because the mailbox is over quota),
Exim does not access the file, so this is the time of last user access.

- cindex:[maildir format,time of last read]
For a maildir delivery, the time of last modification of the _new_
subdirectory is used. As the mailbox is over quota, no new files are created in
the _new_ subdirectory, because no new messages are being delivered. Any
change to the _new_ subdirectory is therefore assumed to be the result of an
MUA moving a new message to the _cur_ directory when it is first read. The
time that is used is therefore the last time that the user read a new message.

- For other kinds of multi-file mailbox, the time of last access cannot be
obtained, so a retry rule that uses this type of error field is never matched.

The quota errors apply both to system-enforced quotas and to Exim's own quota
mechanism in the ^appendfile^ transport. The 'quota' error also applies
when a local delivery is deferred because a partition is full (the ENOSPC
error).



Retry rules for specified senders
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[retry,rules; sender-specific]
You can specify retry rules that apply only when the failing message has a
specific sender. In particular, this can be used to define retry rules that
apply only to bounce messages. The third item in a retry rule can be of this
form:

  senders=<address list>

The retry timings themselves are then the fourth item. For example:

....
*   *   senders=:   F,1h,30m
....

matches all temporary errors for bounce messages sent to any host. If the
address list contains white space, it must be enclosed in quotes. For example:

  a.domain  timeout  senders="xb.dom : yc.dom"  G,8h,10m,1.5

When testing retry rules using %-brt%, you can supply a sender using the %-f%
command line option, like this:

  exim -f "" -brt user@dom.ain

If you do not set %-f% with %-brt%, a retry rule that contains a senders list
is never matched.





Retry parameters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[retry,parameters in rules]
The third (or fourth, if a senders list is present) field in a retry rule is a
sequence of retry parameter sets, separated by semicolons. Each set consists of

  <letter>,<cutoff time>,<arguments>

The letter identifies the algorithm for computing a new retry time; the cutoff
time is the time beyond which this algorithm no longer applies, and the
arguments vary the algorithm's action. The cutoff time is measured from the
time that the first failure for the domain (combined with the local part if
relevant) was detected, not from the time the message was received.

cindex:[retry,algorithms]
The available algorithms are:

- 'F': retry at fixed intervals. There is a single time parameter specifying
the interval.

- 'G': retry at geometrically increasing intervals. The first argument
specifies a starting value for the interval, and the second a multiplier, which
is used to increase the size of the interval at each retry.

When computing the next retry time, the algorithm definitions are scanned in
order until one whose cutoff time has not yet passed is reached. This is then
used to compute a new retry time that is later than the current time. In the
case of fixed interval retries, this simply means adding the interval to the
current time. For geometrically increasing intervals, retry intervals are
computed from the rule's parameters until one that is greater than the previous
interval is found. The main configuration variable
cindex:[limit,retry interval]
cindex:[retry interval, maximum]
cindex:[%retry_interval_max%]
%retry_interval_max% limits the maximum interval between retries.

A single remote domain may have a number of hosts associated with it, and each
host may have more than one IP address. Retry algorithms are selected on the
basis of the domain name, but are applied to each IP address independently. If,
for example, a host has two IP addresses and one is unusable, Exim will
generate retry times for it and will not try to use it until its next retry
time comes. Thus the good IP address is likely to be tried first most of the
time.

cindex:[hints database,use for retrying]
Retry times are hints rather than promises. Exim does not make any attempt to
run deliveries exactly at the computed times. Instead, a queue runner process
starts delivery processes for delayed messages periodically, and these attempt
new deliveries only for those addresses that have passed their next retry time.
If a new message arrives for a deferred address, an immediate delivery attempt
occurs only if the address has passed its retry time. In the absence of new
messages, the minimum time between retries is the interval between queue runner
processes. There is not much point in setting retry times of five minutes if
your queue runners happen only once an hour, unless there are a significant
number of incoming messages (which might be the case on a system that is
sending everything to a smart host, for example).

The data in the retry hints database can be inspected by using the
'exim_dumpdb' or 'exim_fixdb' utility programs (see chapter <<CHAPutils>>). The
latter utility can also be used to change the data. The 'exinext' utility
script can be used to find out what the next retry times are for the hosts
associated with a particular mail domain, and also for local deliveries that
have been deferred.


Retry rule examples
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here are some example retry rules:

  alice@wonderland.fict.example quota_5d  F,7d,3h
  wonderland.fict.example       quota_5d
  wonderland.fict.example       *         F,1h,15m; G,2d,1h,2;
  lookingglass.fict.example     *         F,24h,30m;
  *     refused_A F,2h,20m;
  *     *         F,2h,15m; G,16h,1h,1.5; F,5d,8h

The first rule sets up special handling for mail to
'alice@wonderland.fict.example' when there is an over-quota error and the
mailbox has not been read for at least 5 days. Retries continue every three
hours for 7 days. The second rule handles over-quota errors for all other local
parts at 'wonderland.fict.example'; the absence of a local part has the same
effect as supplying ``\*@''. As no retry algorithms are supplied, messages that
fail are bounced immediately if the mailbox has not been read for at least 5
days.

The third rule handles all other errors at 'wonderland.fict.example'; retries
happen every 15 minutes for an hour, then with geometrically increasing
intervals until two days have passed since a delivery first failed. After the
first hour there is a delay of one hour, then two hours, then four hours, and
so on (this is a rather extreme example).

The fourth rule controls retries for the domain 'lookingglass.fict.example'.
They happen every 30 minutes for 24 hours only. The remaining two rules handle
all other domains, with special action for connection refusal from hosts that
were not obtained from an MX record.

The final rule in a retry configuration should always have asterisks in the
first two fields so as to provide a general catch-all for any addresses that do
not have their own special handling. This example tries every 15 minutes for 2
hours, then with intervals starting at one hour and increasing by a factor of
1.5 up to 16 hours, then every 8 hours up to 5 days.



Timeout of retry data
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[timeout,of retry data]
cindex:[%retry_data_expire%]
cindex:[hints database,data expiry]
cindex:[retry,timeout of data]
Exim timestamps the data that it writes to its retry hints database. When it
consults the data during a delivery it ignores any that is older than the value
set in %retry_data_expire% (default 7 days). If, for example, a host hasn't
been tried for 7 days, Exim will try to deliver to it immediately a message
arrives, and if that fails, it will calculate a retry time as if it were
failing for the first time.

This improves the behaviour for messages routed to rarely-used hosts such as MX
backups. If such a host was down at one time, and happens to be down again when
Exim tries a month later, using the old retry data would imply that it had been
down all the time, which is not a justified assumption.

If a host really is permanently dead, this behaviour causes a burst of retries
every now and again, but only if messages routed to it are rare. It there is a
message at least once every 7 days the retry data never expires.




Long-term failures
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[delivery failure, long-term]
cindex:[retry,after long-term failure]
Special processing happens when an email address has been failing for so long
that the cutoff time for the last algorithm is reached. For example, using the
default retry rule:

....
* * F,2h,15m; G,16h,1h,1.5; F,4d,6h
....

the cutoff time is four days. Reaching the retry cutoff is independent of how
long any specific message has been failing; it is the length of continuous
failure for the recipient address that counts.

When the cutoff time is reached for a local delivery, or for all the IP
addresses associated with a remote delivery, a subsequent delivery failure
causes Exim to give up on the address, and a bounce message is generated.
In order to cater for new messages that use the failing address, a next retry
time is still computed from the final algorithm, and is used as follows:

For local deliveries, one delivery attempt is always made for any subsequent
messages. If this delivery fails, the address fails immediately. The
post-cutoff retry time is not used.

If the delivery is remote, there are two possibilities, controlled by the
cindex:[%delay_after_cutoff%]
%delay_after_cutoff% option of the ^smtp^ transport. The option is true by
default. Until the post-cutoff retry time for one of the IP addresses is
reached, the failing email address is bounced immediately, without a delivery
attempt taking place. After that time, one new delivery attempt is made to
those IP addresses that are past their retry times, and if that still fails,
the address is bounced and new retry times are computed.

In other words, when all the hosts for a given email address have been failing
for a long time, Exim bounces rather then defers until one of the hosts' retry
times is reached. Then it tries once, and bounces if that attempt fails. This
behaviour ensures that few resources are wasted in repeatedly trying to deliver
to a broken destination, but if the host does recover, Exim will eventually
notice.

If %delay_after_cutoff% is set false, Exim behaves differently. If all IP
addresses are past their final cutoff time, Exim tries to deliver to those IP
addresses that have not been tried since the message arrived. If there are
no suitable IP addresses, or if they all fail, the address is bounced. In other
words, it does not delay when a new message arrives, but tries the expired
addresses immediately, unless they have been tried since the message arrived.
If there is a continuous stream of messages for the failing domains, setting
%delay_after_cutoff% false means that there will be many more attempts to
deliver to permanently failing IP addresses than when %delay_after_cutoff% is
true.


Ultimate address timeout
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[retry,ultimate address timeout]
An additional rule is needed to cope with cases where a host is intermittently
available, or when a message has some attribute that prevents its delivery when
others to the same address get through. In this situation, because some
messages are successfully delivered, the ``retry clock'' for the address keeps
getting restarted, and so a message could remain on the queue for ever. To
prevent this, if a message has been on the queue for longer than the cutoff
time of any applicable retry rule for a given address, a delivery is attempted
for that address, even if it is not yet time, and if this delivery fails, the
address is timed out. A new retry time is not computed in this case, so that
other messages for the same address are considered immediately.





////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPSMTPAUTH]]
SMTP authentication
-------------------
cindex:[SMTP,authentication configuration]
cindex:[authentication]
The ``authenticators'' section of Exim's run time configuration is concerned with
SMTP authentication. This facility is an extension to the SMTP protocol,
described in RFC 2554, which allows a client SMTP host to authenticate itself
to a server. This is a common way for a server to recognize clients that
are permitted to use it as a relay. SMTP authentication is not of relevance to
the transfer of mail between servers that have no managerial connection with
each other.

cindex:[AUTH,description of]
Very briefly, the way SMTP authentication works is as follows:

- The server advertises a number of authentication 'mechanisms' in response to
the client's EHLO command.

- The client issues an AUTH command, naming a specific mechanism. The command
may, optionally, contain some authentication data.

- The server may issue one or more 'challenges', to which the client must send
appropriate responses. In simple authentication mechanisms, the challenges are
just prompts for user names and passwords. The server does not have to issue
any challenges -- in some mechanisms the relevant data may all be transmitted
with the AUTH command.

- The server either accepts or denies authentication.

- If authentication succeeds, the client may optionally make use of the AUTH
option on the MAIL command to pass an authenticated sender in subsequent
mail transactions. Authentication lasts for the remainder of the SMTP
connection.

- If authentication fails, the client may give up, or it may try a different
authentication mechanism, or it may try transferring mail over the
unauthenticated connection.

If you are setting up a client, and want to know which authentication
mechanisms the server supports, you can use Telnet to connect to port 25 (the
SMTP port) on the server, and issue an EHLO command. The response to this
includes the list of supported mechanisms. For example:

&&&
`\$ `##*`telnet server.example 25`*
`Trying 192.168.34.25...`
`Connected to server.example.`
`Escape character is \'^]\'.`
`220 server.example ESMTP Exim 4.20 ...`
*`ehlo client.example`*
`250-server.example Hello client.example [10.8.4.5]`
`250-SIZE 52428800`
`250-PIPELINING`
`250-AUTH PLAIN`
`250 HELP`
&&&

The second-last line of this example output shows that the server supports
authentication using the PLAIN mechanism. In Exim, the different authentication
mechanisms are configured by specifying 'authenticator' drivers. Like the
routers and transports, which authenticators are included in the binary is
controlled by build-time definitions. The following are currently available,
included by setting

  AUTH_CRAM_MD5=yes
  AUTH_PLAINTEXT=yes
  AUTH_SPA=yes

in _Local/Makefile_, respectively. The first of these supports the CRAM-MD5
authentication mechanism (RFC 2195), and the second can be configured to
support the PLAIN authentication mechanism (RFC 2595) or the LOGIN mechanism,
which is not formally documented, but used by several MUAs. The third
authenticator supports Microsoft's 'Secure Password Authentication'
mechanism.

The authenticators are configured using the same syntax as other drivers (see
section <<SECTfordricon>>). If no authenticators are required, no authentication
section need be present in the configuration file. Each authenticator can in
principle have both server and client functions. When Exim is receiving SMTP
mail, it is acting as a server; when it is sending out messages over SMTP, it
is acting as a client. Authenticator configuration options are provided for use
in both these circumstances.

To make it clear which options apply to which situation, the prefixes
%server_% and %client_% are used on option names that are specific to either
the server or the client function, respectively. Server and client functions
are disabled if none of their options are set. If an authenticator is to be
used for both server and client functions, a single definition, using both sets
of options, is required. For example:

  cram:
    driver = cram_md5
    public_name = CRAM-MD5
    server_secret = ${if eq{$1}{ph10}{secret1}fail}
    client_name = ph10
    client_secret = secret2

The %server_% option is used when Exim is acting as a server, and the
%client_% options when it is acting as a client.

Descriptions of the individual authenticators are given in subsequent chapters.
The remainder of this chapter covers the generic options for the
authenticators, followed by general discussion of the way authentication works
in Exim.



Generic options for authenticators
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[authentication,generic options]
cindex:[options,generic; for authenticators]


oindex:[%driver%]
`..'=
%driver%, Use: 'authenticators', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

This option must always be set. It specifies which of the available
authenticators is to be used.


oindex:[%public_name%]
`..'=
%public_name%, Use: 'authenticators', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

This option specifies the name of the authentication mechanism that the driver
implements, and by which it is known to the outside world. These names should
contain only upper case letters, digits, underscores, and hyphens (RFC 2222),
but Exim in fact matches them caselessly. If %public_name% is not set, it
defaults to the driver's instance name.


oindex:[%server_advertise_condition%]
`..'=
%server_advertise_condition%, Use: 'authenticators', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

When a server is about to advertise an authentication mechanism, the condition
is expanded. If it yields the empty string, ``0'', ``no'', or ``false'', the
mechanism is not advertised.
If the expansion fails, the mechanism is not advertised. If the failure was not
forced, and was not caused by a lookup defer, the incident is logged.
See section <<SECTauthexiser>> below for further discussion.


oindex:[%server_debug_print%]
`..'=
%server_debug_print%, Use: 'authenticators', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

If this option is set and authentication debugging is enabled (see the %-d%
command line option), the string is expanded and included in the debugging
output when the authenticator is run as a server. This can help with checking
out the values of variables.
If expansion of the string fails, the error message is written to the debugging
output, and Exim carries on processing.


oindex:[%server_set_id%]
`..'=
%server_set_id%, Use: 'authenticators', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

When an Exim server successfully authenticates a client, this string is
expanded using data from the authentication, and preserved for any incoming
messages in the variable $authenticated_id$. It is also included in the log
lines for incoming messages. For example, a user/password authenticator
configuration might preserve the user name that was used to authenticate, and
refer to it subsequently during delivery of the message.
If expansion fails, the option is ignored.


oindex:[%server_mail_auth_condition%]
`..'=
%server_mail_auth_condition%, Use: 'authenticators', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option allows a server to discard authenticated sender addresses supplied
as part of MAIL commands in SMTP connections that are authenticated by the
driver on which %server_mail_auth_condition% is set. The option is not used
as part of the authentication process; instead its (unexpanded) value is
remembered for later use.
How it is used is described in the following section.





[[SECTauthparamail]]
The AUTH parameter on MAIL commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[authentication,sender; authenticated]
cindex:[AUTH,on MAIL command]
When a client supplied an AUTH= item on a MAIL command, Exim applies
the following checks before accepting it as the authenticated sender of the
message:

- If the connection is not using extended SMTP (that is, HELO was used rather
than EHLO), the use of AUTH= is a syntax error.

- If the value of the AUTH= parameter is ``<>'', it is ignored.

- If %acl_smtp_mailauth% is defined, the ACL it specifies is run. While it is
running, the value of $authenticated_sender$ is set to the value obtained
from the AUTH= parameter. If the ACL does not yield ``accept'', the value of
$authenticated_sender$ is deleted. The %acl_smtp_mailauth% ACL may not
return ``drop'' or ``discard''. If it defers, a temporary error code (451) is given
for the MAIL command.

- If %acl_smtp_mailauth% is not defined, the value of the AUTH= parameter
is accepted and placed in $authenticated_sender$ only if the client has
authenticated.

- If the AUTH= value was accepted by either of the two previous rules, and
the client has authenticated, and the authenticator has a setting for the
%server_mail_auth_condition%, the condition is checked at this point. The
valued that was saved from the authenticator is expanded. If the expansion
fails, or yields an empty string, ``0'', ``no'', or ``false'', the value of
$authenticated_sender$ is deleted. If the expansion yields any other value,
the value of $authenticated_sender$ is retained and passed on with the
message.


When $authenticated_sender$ is set for a message, it is passed on to other
hosts to which Exim authenticates as a client. Do not confuse this value with
$authenticated_id$, which is a string obtained from the authentication
process, and which is not usually a complete email address.

Whenever an AUTH= value is ignored, the incident is logged. The ACL for
MAIL, if defined, is run after AUTH= is accepted or ignored. It can
therefore make use of $authenticated_sender$. The converse is not true: the
value of $sender_address$ is not yet set up when the %acl_smtp_mailauth%
ACL is run.



[[SECTauthexiser]]
Authentication on an Exim server
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[authentication,on an Exim server]
When Exim receives an EHLO command, it advertises the public names of those
authenticators that are configured as servers, subject to the following
conditions:

- The client host must match %auth_advertise_hosts% (default \*).

- It the %server_advertise_condition% option is set, its expansion must not
yield the empty string, ``0'', ``no'', or ``false''.

The order in which the authenticators are defined controls the order in which
the mechanisms are advertised.

Some mail clients (for example, some versions of Netscape) require the user to
provide a name and password for authentication whenever AUTH is advertised,
even though authentication may not in fact be needed (for example, Exim may be
set up to allow unconditional relaying from the client by an IP address check).
You can make such clients more friendly by not advertising AUTH to them.
For example, if clients on the 10.9.8.0/24 network are permitted (by the ACL
that runs for RCPT) to relay without authentication, you should set

  auth_advertise_hosts = ! 10.9.8.0/24

so that no authentication mechanisms are advertised to them.

The %server_advertise_condition% controls the advertisement of individual
authentication mechanisms. For example, it can be used to restrict the
advertisement of a patricular mechanism to encrypted connections, by a setting
such as:

  server_advertise_condition = ${if eq{$tls_cipher}{}{no}{yes}}

If the session is encrypted, $tls_cipher$ is not empty, and so the expansion
yields ``yes'', which allows the advertisement to happen.

When an Exim server receives an AUTH command from a client, it rejects it
immediately if AUTH was not advertised in response to an earlier EHLO
command. This is the case if

- The client host does not match %auth_advertise_hosts%; or

- No authenticators are configured with server options; or

- Expansion of %server_advertise_condition% blocked the advertising of all the
server authenticators.


Otherwise, Exim runs the ACL specified by %acl_smtp_auth% in order
to decide whether to accept the command. If %acl_smtp_auth% is not set,
AUTH is accepted from any client host.

If AUTH is not rejected by the ACL, Exim searches its configuration for a
server authentication mechanism that was advertised in response to EHLO and
that matches the one named in the AUTH command. If it finds one, it runs
the appropriate authentication protocol, and authentication either succeeds or
fails. If there is no matching advertised mechanism, the AUTH command is
rejected with a 504 error.

When a message is received from an authenticated host, the value of
$received_protocol$ is set to ``esmtpa'' instead of ``esmtp'', and
$sender_host_authenticated$ contains the name (not the public name) of the
authenticator driver that successfully authenticated the client from which the
message was received. This variable is empty if there was no successful
authentication.




Testing server authentication
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[authentication,testing a server]
cindex:[AUTH,testing a server]
cindex:[base64 encoding,creating authentication test data]
Exim's %-bh% option can be useful for testing server authentication
configurations. The data for the AUTH command has to be sent using base64
encoding. A quick way to produce such data for testing is the following Perl
script:

  use MIME::Base64;
  printf ("%s", encode_base64(eval "\"$ARGV[0]\""));

cindex:[binary zero,in authentication data]
This interprets its argument as a Perl string, and then encodes it. The
interpretation as a Perl string allows binary zeros, which are required for
some kinds of authentication, to be included in the data. For example, a
command line to run this script on such data might be

  encode '\0user\0password'

Note the use of single quotes to prevent the shell interpreting the
backslashes, so that they can be interpreted by Perl to specify characters
whose code value is zero.

*Warning 1*: If either of the user or password strings starts with an octal
digit, you must use three zeros instead of one after the leading backslash. If
you do not, the octal digit that starts your string will be incorrectly
interpreted as part of the code for the first character.

*Warning 2*: If there are characters in the strings that Perl interprets
specially, you must use a Perl escape to prevent them being misinterpreted. For
example, a command such as

  encode '\0user@domain.com\0pas$$word'

gives an incorrect answer because of the unescaped ``@'' and ``\$'' characters.

If you have the %mimencode% command installed, another way to do produce
base64-encoded strings is to run the command

  echo -e -n `\0user\0password' | mimencode

The %-e% option of %echo% enables the interpretation of backslash escapes in
the argument, and the %-n% option specifies no newline at the end of its
output. However, not all versions of %echo% recognize these options, so you
should check your version before relying on this suggestion.



Authentication by an Exim client
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[authentication,on an Exim client]
The ^smtp^ transport has two options called %hosts_require_auth% and
%hosts_try_auth%. When the ^smtp^ transport connects to a server that
announces support for authentication, and the host matches an entry in either
of these options, Exim (as a client) tries to authenticate as follows:

- For each authenticator that is configured as a client, it searches the
authentication mechanisms announced by the server for one whose name
matches the public name of the authenticator.

- When it finds one that matches, it runs the authenticator's client code.
The variables $host$ and $host_address$ are available for any string
expansions that the client might do. They are set to the server's name and
IP address. If any expansion is forced to fail, the authentication attempt
is abandoned,
and Exim moves on to the next authenticator.
Otherwise an expansion failure causes delivery to be
deferred.

- If the result of the authentication attempt is a temporary error or a timeout,
Exim abandons trying to send the message to the host for the moment. It will
try again later. If there are any backup hosts available, they are tried in the
usual way.

- If the response to authentication is a permanent error (5xx code), Exim carries
on searching the list of authenticators and tries another one if possible. If
all authentication attempts give permanent errors, or if there are no attempts
because no mechanisms match
(or option expansions force failure),
what happens depends on whether the host matches %hosts_require_auth% or
%hosts_try_auth%. In the first case, a temporary error is generated, and
delivery is deferred. The error can be detected in the retry rules, and thereby
turned into a permanent error if you wish. In the second case, Exim tries to
deliver the message unauthenticated.

cindex:[AUTH,on MAIL command]
When Exim has authenticated itself to a remote server, it adds the AUTH
parameter to the MAIL commands it sends, if it has an authenticated sender
for the message.
If the message came from a remote host, the authenticated sender is the one
that was receiving on an incoming MAIL command, provided that the incoming
connection was authenticated and the %server_mail_auth% condition allowed the
authenticated sender to be retained. If a local process calls Exim to send a
message, the sender address that is built from the login name and
%qualify_domain% is treated as authenticated. However, if the
%authenticated_sender% option is set on the ^smtp^ transport, it overrides
the authenticated sender that was received with the message.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPplaintext]]
The plaintext authenticator
---------------------------
cindex:[^plaintext^ authenticator]
cindex:[authenticators,^plaintext^]
The ^plaintext^ authenticator can be configured to support the PLAIN and
LOGIN authentication mechanisms, both of which transfer authentication data as
plain (unencrypted) text (though base64 encoded). The use of plain text is a
security risk. If you use one of these mechanisms without also making use of
SMTP encryption (see chapter <<CHAPTLS>>) you should not use the same passwords
for SMTP connections as you do for login accounts.


Using plaintext in a server
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^plaintext^ authenticator (server)]
When running as a server, ^plaintext^ performs the authentication test by
expanding a string. It has the following options:

oindex:[%server_prompts%]
`..'=
%server_prompts%, Use: 'plaintext', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

The contents of this option, after expansion, must be a colon-separated list of
prompt strings. If expansion fails, a temporary authentication rejection is
given.

oindex:[%server_condition%]
`..'=
%server_condition%, Use: 'plaintext', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option must be set in order to configure the driver as a server. Its use
is described below.

cindex:[AUTH,in ^plaintext^ authenticator]
cindex:[binary zero,in ^plaintext^ authenticator]
cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc),in ^plaintext^ authenticator]
cindex:[base64 encoding,in ^plaintext^ authenticator]
The data sent by the client with the AUTH command, or in response to
subsequent prompts, is base64 encoded, and so may contain any byte values
when decoded. If any data is supplied with the command, it is treated as a
list of strings, separated by NULs (binary zeros), which are placed in the
expansion variables $1$, $2$, etc. If there are more strings in
%server_prompts% than the number of strings supplied with the AUTH
command, the remaining prompts are used to obtain more data. Each response from
the client may be a list of NUL-separated strings.

Once a sufficient number of data strings have been received,
%server_condition% is expanded.
If the expansion is forced to fail, authentication fails. Any other expansion
failure causes a temporary error code to be returned.
If the result of a successful expansion is an empty string, ``0'', ``no'', or
``false'', authentication fails. If the result of the expansion is ``1'', ``yes'', or
``true'', authentication succeeds and the generic %server_set_id% option is
expanded and saved in $authenticated_id$. For any other result, a temporary
error code is returned, with the expanded string as the error text.

*Warning*: If you use a lookup in the expansion to find the user's
password, be sure to make the authentication fail if the user is unknown.
There are good and bad examples at the end of the next section.



The PLAIN authentication mechanism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[PLAIN authentication mechanism]
cindex:[authentication,PLAIN mechanism]
cindex:[binary zero,in ^plaintext^ authenticator]
The PLAIN authentication mechanism (RFC 2595) specifies that three strings be
sent as one item of data (that is, one combined string containing two NUL
separators). The data is sent either as part of the AUTH command, or
subsequently in response to an empty prompt from the server.

The second and third strings are a user name and a corresponding password.
Using a single fixed user name and password as an example, this could be
configured as follows:

....
fixed_plain:
  driver = plaintext
  public_name = PLAIN
  server_prompts = :
  server_condition = \
    ${if and {{eq{$2}{username}}{eq{$3}{mysecret}}}{yes}{no}}
  server_set_id = $2
....

The %server_prompts% setting specifies a single, empty prompt (empty items at
the end of a string list are ignored). If all the data comes as part of the
AUTH command, as is commonly the case, the prompt is not used. This
authenticator is advertised in the response to EHLO as

  250-AUTH PLAIN

and a client host can authenticate itself by sending the command

  AUTH PLAIN AHVzZXJuYW1lAG15c2VjcmV0

As this contains three strings (more than the number of prompts), no further
data is required from the client. Alternatively, the client may just send

  AUTH PLAIN

to initiate authentication, in which case the server replies with an empty
prompt. The client must respond with the combined data string.

The data string is base64 encoded, as required by the RFC. This example,
when decoded, is <'NUL'>`username`<'NUL'>`mysecret`, where <'NUL'> represents a
zero byte. This is split up into three strings, the first of which is empty.
The %server_condition% option in the authenticator checks that the second two
are `username` and `mysecret` respectively.

Having just one fixed user name and password, as in this example, is not very
realistic, though for a small organization with only a handful of
authenticating clients it could make sense.

A more sophisticated instance of this authenticator could use the user name in
$2$ to look up a password in a file or database, and maybe do an encrypted
comparison (see %crypteq% in chapter <<CHAPexpand>>). Here is a example of this
approach, where the passwords are looked up in a DBM file. *Warning*: This
is an incorrect example:

....
server_condition = \
  ${if eq{$3}{${lookup{$2}dbm{/etc/authpwd}}}{yes}{no}}
....

The expansion uses the user name ($2$) as the key to look up a password,
which it then compares to the supplied password ($3$). Why is this example
incorrect? It works fine for existing users, but consider what happens if a
non-existent user name is given. The lookup fails, but as no success/failure
strings are given for the lookup, it yields an empty string. Thus, to defeat
the authentication, all a client has to do is to supply a non-existent user
name and an empty password. The correct way of writing this test is:

....
server_condition = ${lookup{$2}dbm{/etc/authpwd}\
  {${if eq{$value}{$3}{yes}{no}}}{no}}
....

In this case, if the lookup succeeds, the result is checked; if the lookup
fails, authentication fails. If %crypteq% is being used instead of %eq%, the
first example is in fact safe, because %crypteq% always fails if its second
argument is empty. However, the second way of writing the test makes the logic
clearer.



The LOGIN authentication mechanism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[LOGIN authentication mechanism]
cindex:[authentication,LOGIN mechanism]
The LOGIN authentication mechanism is not documented in any RFC, but is in use
in a number of programs. No data is sent with the AUTH command. Instead, a
user name and password are supplied separately, in response to prompts. The
plaintext authenticator can be configured to support this as in this example:

....
fixed_login:
  driver = plaintext
  public_name = LOGIN
  server_prompts = User Name : Password
  server_condition = \
    ${if and {{eq{$1}{username}}{eq{$2}{mysecret}}}{yes}{no}}
  server_set_id = $1
....

Because of the way plaintext operates, this authenticator accepts data supplied
with the AUTH command (in contravention of the specification of LOGIN), but
if the client does not supply it (as is the case for LOGIN clients), the prompt
strings are used to obtain two data items.

Some clients are very particular about the precise text of the prompts. For
example, Outlook Express is reported to recognize only ``Username:'' and
``Password:''. Here is an example of a LOGIN authenticator which uses those
strings, and which uses the %ldapauth% expansion condition to check the user
name and password by binding to an LDAP server:

....
login:
  driver = plaintext
  public_name = LOGIN
  server_prompts = Username:: : Password::
  server_condition = ${if ldapauth \
    {user="cn=${quote_ldap_dn:$1},ou=people,o=example.org" \
    pass=${quote:$2} \
    ldap://ldap.example.org/}{yes}{no}}
  server_set_id = uid=$1,ou=people,o=example.org
....

Note the use of the %quote_ldap_dn% operator to correctly quote the DN for
authentication. However, the basic %quote% operator, rather than any of the
LDAP quoting operators, is the correct one to use for the password, because
quoting is needed only to make the password conform to the Exim syntax. At the
LDAP level, the password is an uninterpreted string.



Support for different kinds of authentication
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A number of string expansion features are provided for the purpose of
interfacing to different ways of user authentication. These include checking
traditionally encrypted passwords from _/etc/passwd_ (or equivalent), PAM,
Radius, %ldapauth%, and 'pwcheck'. For details see section <<SECTexpcond>>.




Using plaintext in a client
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^plaintext^ authenticator (client)]
The ^plaintext^ authenticator has just one client option:



oindex:[%client_send%]
`..'=
%client_send%, Use: 'plaintext', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

The string is a colon-separated list of authentication data strings. Each
string is independently expanded before being sent to the server. The first
string is sent with the AUTH command; any more strings are sent in response
to prompts from the server.

*Note*: you cannot use expansion to create multiple strings, because
splitting takes priority and happens first.

Because the PLAIN authentication mechanism requires NUL (binary zero) bytes in
the data, further processing is applied to each string before it is sent. If
there are any single circumflex characters in the string, they are converted to
NULs. Should an actual circumflex be required as data, it must be doubled in
the string.

This is an example of a client configuration that implements the PLAIN
authentication mechanism with a fixed user name and password:

  fixed_plain:
    driver = plaintext
    public_name = PLAIN
    client_send = ^username^mysecret

The lack of colons means that the entire text is sent with the AUTH
command, with the circumflex characters converted to NULs. A similar example
that uses the LOGIN mechanism is:

  fixed_login:
    driver = plaintext
    public_name = LOGIN
    client_send = : username : mysecret

The initial colon means that the first string is empty, so no data is sent with
the AUTH command itself. The remaining strings are sent in response to
prompts.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The cram_md5 authenticator
--------------------------
cindex:[^cram_md5^ authenticator]
cindex:[authenticators,^cram_md5^]
cindex:[CRAM-MD5 authentication mechanism]
cindex:[authentication,CRAM-MD5 mechanism]
The CRAM-MD5 authentication mechanism is described in RFC 2195. The server
sends a challenge string to the client, and the response consists of a user
name and the CRAM-MD5 digest of the challenge string combined with a secret
string (password) which is known to both server and client. Thus, the secret
is not sent over the network as plain text, which makes this authenticator more
secure than ^plaintext^. However, the downside is that the secret has to be
available in plain text at either end.


Using cram_md5 as a server
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^cram_md5^ authenticator (server)]
This authenticator has one server option, which must be set to configure the
authenticator as a server:

oindex:[%server_secret%]
`..'=
%server_secret%, Use: 'cram_md5', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc),in ^cram_md5^ authenticator]
When the server receives the client's response, the user name is placed in
the expansion variable $1$, and %server_secret% is expanded to obtain the
password for that user. The server then computes the CRAM-MD5 digest that the
client should have sent, and checks that it received the correct string. If the
expansion of %server_secret% is forced to fail, authentication fails. If the
expansion fails for some other reason, a temporary error code is returned to
the client.

For example, the following authenticator checks that the user name given by the
client is ``ph10'', and if so, uses ``secret'' as the password. For any other user
name, authentication fails.

  fixed_cram:
    driver = cram_md5
    public_name = CRAM-MD5
    server_secret = ${if eq{$1}{ph10}{secret}fail}
    server_set_id = $1

If authentication succeeds, the setting of %server_set_id% preserves the user
name in $authenticated_id$.
A more tyical configuration might look up the secret string in a file, using
the user name as the key. For example:

  lookup_cram:
    driver = cram_md5
    public_name = CRAM-MD5
    server_secret = ${lookup{$1}lsearch{/etc/authpwd}{$value}fail}
    server_set_id = $1

Note that this expansion explicitly forces failure if the lookup fails
because $1$ contains an unknown user name.


Using cram_md5 as a client
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^cram_md5^ authenticator (client)]
When used as a client, the ^cram_md5^ authenticator has two options:



oindex:[%client_name%]
`..'=
%client_name%, Use: 'cram_md5', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'the primary host name'
===

This string is expanded, and the result used as the user name data when
computing the response to the server's challenge.


oindex:[%client_secret%]
`..'=
%client_secret%, Use: 'cram_md5', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option must be set for the authenticator to work as a client. Its value is
expanded and the result used as the secret string when computing the response.


Different user names and secrets can be used for different servers by referring
to $host$ or $host_address$ in the options.

Forced failure of either expansion string is treated as an indication that this
authenticator is not prepared to handle this case. Exim moves on to the next
configured client authenticator. Any other expansion failure causes Exim to
give up trying to send the message to the current server.

A simple example configuration of a ^cram_md5^ authenticator, using fixed
strings, is:

  fixed_cram:
    driver = cram_md5
    public_name = CRAM-MD5
    client_name = ph10
    client_secret = secret





////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The cyrus_sasl authenticator
----------------------------
cindex:[^cyrus_sasl^ authenticator]
cindex:[authenticators,^cyrus_sasl^]
cindex:[Cyrus, SASL library]
The code for this authenticator was provided by Matthew Byng-Maddick of A L
Digital Ltd (*http://www.aldigital.co.uk[]*).

The ^cyrus_sasl^ authenticator provides server support for the Cyrus SASL
library implementation of the RFC 2222 (``Simple Authentication and Security
Layer''). This library supports a number of authentication mechanisms, including
PLAIN and LOGIN, but also several others that Exim does not support directly.
In particular, there is support for Kerberos authentication.

The ^cyrus_sasl^ authenticator provides a gatewaying mechanism directly to
the Cyrus interface, so if your Cyrus library can do, for example, CRAM-MD5,
then so can the ^cyrus_sasl^ authenticator. By default it uses the public
name of the driver to determine which mechanism to support.

Where access to some kind of secret file is required, for example in GSSAPI
or CRAM-MD5, it is worth noting that the authenticator runs as the 'exim'
user, and that the Cyrus SASL library has no way of escalating privileges
by default. You may also find you need to set environment variables,
depending on the driver you are using.


Using cyrus_sasl as a server
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ^cyrus_sasl^ authenticator has four private options. It puts the
username (on a successful authentication) into $1$.

oindex:[%server_hostname%]
`..'=
%server_hostname%, Use: 'cyrus_sasl', Type: 'string'!!, Default: `$primary_hostname`
===

This option selects the hostname that is used when communicating with
the library. It is up to the underlying SASL plug-in what it does with
this data.


oindex:[%server_mech%]
`..'=
%server_mech%, Use: 'cyrus_sasl', Type: 'string', Default: `public_name`
===

This option selects the authentication mechanism this driver should
use. It allows you to use a different underlying mechanism from the
advertised name. For example:

  sasl:
    driver = cyrus_sasl
    public_name = X-ANYTHING
    server_mech = CRAM-MD5
    server_set_id = $1



oindex:[%server_realm%]
`..'=
%server_realm%, Use: 'cyrus_sasl', Type: 'string', Default: 'unset'
===

This specifies the SASL realm that the server claims to be in.


oindex:[%server_service%]
`..'=
%server_service%, Use: 'cyrus_sasl', Type: 'string', Default: `smtp`
===

This is the SASL service that the server claims to implement.


For straightforward cases, you do not need to set any of the authenticator's
private options. All you need to do is to specify an appropriate mechanism as
the public name. Thus, if you have a SASL library that supports CRAM-MD5 and
PLAIN, you could have two authenticators as follows:

  sasl_cram_md5:
    driver = cyrus_sasl
    public_name = CRAM-MD5
    server_set_id = $1

  sasl_plain:
    driver = cyrus_sasl
    public_name = PLAIN
    server_set_id = $1


Cyrus SASL does implement the LOGIN authentication method, even though it is
not a standard method. It is disabled by default in the source distribution,
but it is present in many binary distributions.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The spa authenticator
---------------------
cindex:[^spa^ authenticator]
cindex:[authenticators,^spa^]
cindex:[authentication,Microsoft Secure Password]
cindex:[authentication,NTLM]
cindex:[Microsoft Secure Password Authentication]
cindex:[NTLM authentication]
The ^spa^ authenticator provides client support for Microsoft's 'Secure
Password Authentication' mechanism,
which is also sometimes known as NTLM (NT LanMan). The code for client side of
this authenticator was contributed by Marc Prud'hommeaux, and much of it is
taken from the Samba project (*http://www.samba.org[]*). The code for the
server side was subsequently contributed by Tom Kistner. The mechanism works as
follows:

- After the AUTH command has been accepted, the client sends an SPA
authentication request based on the user name and optional domain.

- The server sends back a challenge.

- The client builds a challenge response which makes use of the user's password
and sends it to the server, which then accepts or rejects it.

Encryption is used to protect the password in transit.



Using spa as a server
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^spa^ authenticator (server)]
The ^spa^ authenticator has just one server option:

oindex:[%server_password%]
`..'=
%server_password%, Use: 'spa', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc),in ^spa^ authenticator]
This option is expanded, and the result must be the cleartext password for the
authenticating user, whose name is at this point in $1$. For example:

  spa:
    driver = spa
    public_name = NTLM
    server_password = ${lookup{$1}lsearch{/etc/exim/spa_clearpass}}

If the expansion is forced to fail, authentication fails. Any other expansion
failure causes a temporary error code to be returned.





Using spa as a client
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[options,^spa^ authenticator (client)]
The ^spa^ authenticator has the following client options:



oindex:[%client_domain%]
`..'=
%client_domain%, Use: 'spa', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option specifies an optional domain for the authentication.


oindex:[%client_password%]
`..'=
%client_password%, Use: 'spa', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option specifies the user's password, and must be set.


oindex:[%client_username%]
`..'=
%client_username%, Use: 'spa', Type: 'string'!!, Default: 'unset'
===

This option specifies the user name, and must be set.


Here is an example of a configuration of this authenticator for use with the
mail servers at 'msn.com':

  msn:
    driver = spa
    public_name = MSN
    client_username = msn/msn_username
    client_password = msn_plaintext_password
    client_domain = DOMAIN_OR_UNSET







////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPTLS]]
[titleabbrev="Encrypted SMTP connections"]
Encrypted SMTP connections using TLS/SSL
----------------------------------------
cindex:[encryption,on SMTP connection]
cindex:[SMTP,encryption]
cindex:[TLS,on SMTP connection]
cindex:[OpenSSL]
cindex:[GnuTLS]
Support for TLS (Transport Layer Security), formerly known as SSL (Secure
Sockets Layer), is implemented by making use of the OpenSSL library or the
GnuTLS library (Exim requires GnuTLS release 1.0 or later). There is no
cryptographic code in the Exim distribution itself for implementing TLS. In
order to use this feature you must install OpenSSL or GnuTLS, and then build a
version of Exim that includes TLS support (see section <<SECTinctlsssl>>). You
also need to understand the basic concepts of encryption at a managerial level,
and in particular, the way that public keys, private keys, and certificates are
used.

RFC 2487 defines how SMTP connections can make use of encryption. Once a
connection is established, the client issues a STARTTLS command. If the
server accepts this, the client and the server negotiate an encryption
mechanism. If the negotiation succeeds, the data that subsequently passes
between them is encrypted.

Exim's ACLs can detect whether the current SMTP session is encrypted or not,
and if so, what cipher suite is in use, whether the client supplied a
certificate, and whether or not that certificate was verified. This makes it
possible for an Exim server to deny or accept certain commands based on the
encryption state.

*Warning*: certain types of firewall and certain anti-virus products can
disrupt TLS connections. You need to turn off SMTP scanning for these products
in order to get TLS to work.



Support for the legacy ``ssmtp'' (aka ``smtps'') protocol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[ssmtp protocol]
cindex:[smtps protocol]
cindex:[SMTP,ssmtp protocol]
cindex:[SMTP,smtps protocol]
Early implementations of encrypted SMTP used a different TCP port from normal
SMTP, and expected an encryption negotiation to start immediately, instead of
waiting for a STARTTLS command from the client using the standard SMTP
port. The protocol was called ``ssmtp'' or ``smtps'', and port 465 was allocated
for this purpose.

This approach was abandoned when encrypted SMTP was standardised, but there are
still some legacy clients that use it. Exim supports these clients by means of
the %tls_on_connect_ports% global option. Its value must be a list of port
numbers; the most common use is expected to be:

  tls_on_connect_ports = 465

The port numbers specified by this option apply to all SMTP connections, both
via the daemon and via 'inetd'. You still need to specify all the ports that
the daemon uses (by setting %daemon_smtp_ports% or %local_interfaces% or the
%-oX% command line option) because %tls_on_connect_ports% does not add an
extra port -- rather, it specifies different behaviour on a port that is
defined elsewhere.

There is also a %-tls-on-connect% command line option. This overrides
%tls_on_connect_ports%; it forces the legacy behaviour for all ports.






[[SECTopenvsgnu]]
OpenSSL vs GnuTLS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[TLS,OpenSSL 'vs' GnuTLS]
The first TLS support in Exim was implemented using OpenSSL. Support for GnuTLS
followed later, when the first versions of GnuTLS were released. To build Exim
to use GnuTLS, you need to set

  USE_GNUTLS=yes

in Local/Makefile, in addition to

  SUPPORT_TLS=yes

You must also set TLS_LIBS and TLS_INCLUDE appropriately, so that the
include files and libraries for GnuTLS can be found.

There are some differences in usage when using GnuTLS instead of OpenSSL:

- The %tls_verify_certificates% option must contain the name of a file, not the
name of a directory (for OpenSSL it can be either).

- The %tls_dhparam% option is ignored, because early versions of GnuTLS had no
facility for varying its Diffie-Hellman parameters. I understand that this has
changed, but Exim has not been updated to provide this facility.

- GnuTLS uses RSA and D-H parameters that take a substantial amount of
time to compute. It is unreasonable to re-compute them for every TLS
session. Therefore, Exim keeps this data in a file in its spool
directory, called _gnutls-params_. The file is owned by the Exim user and is
readable only by its owner. Every Exim process that start up GnuTLS reads the
RSA and D-H parameters from this file. If the file does not exist, the first
Exim process that needs it computes the data and writes it to a temporary file
which is renamed once it is complete. It does not matter if several Exim
processes do this simultaneously (apart from wasting a few resources). Once a
file is in place, new Exim processes immediately start using it.
+
For maximum security, the parameters that are stored in this file should be
recalculated periodically, the frequency depending on your paranoia level.
Arranging this is easy; just delete the file when you want new values to be
computed.

- Distinguished Name (DN) strings reported by the OpenSSL library use a slash for
separating fields; GnuTLS uses commas, in accordance with RFC 2253. This
affects the value of the $tls_peerdn$ variable.

- OpenSSL identifies cipher suites using hyphens as separators, for example:
DES-CBC3-SHA. GnuTLS uses underscores, for example: RSA_ARCFOUR_SHA. What is
more, OpenSSL complains if underscores are present in a cipher list. To make
life simpler, Exim changes underscores to hyhens for OpenSSL and hyphens to
underscores for GnuTLS when processing lists of cipher suites in the
%tls_require_ciphers% options (the global option and the ^smtp^ transport
option).

- The %tls_require_ciphers% options operate differently, as described in the
following sections.



[[SECTreqciphssl]]
Requiring specific ciphers in OpenSSL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[TLS,requiring specific ciphers (OpenSSL)]
cindex:[%tls_require_ciphers%,OpenSSL]
There is a function in the OpenSSL library that can be passed a list of cipher
suites before the cipher negotiation takes place. This specifies which ciphers
are acceptable. The list is colon separated and may contain names like
DES-CBC3-SHA. Exim passes the expanded value of %tls_require_ciphers%
directly to this function call. The following quotation from the OpenSSL
documentation specifies what forms of item are allowed in the cipher string:

- It can consist of a single cipher suite such as RC4-SHA.

- It can represent a list of cipher suites containing a certain algorithm,
or cipher suites of a certain type. For example SHA1 represents all
ciphers suites using the digest algorithm SHA1 and SSLv3 represents all
SSL v3 algorithms.

- Lists of cipher suites can be combined in a single cipher string using
the + character. This is used as a logical and operation. For example
SHA1+DES represents all cipher suites containing the SHA1 and the DES
algorithms.

- Each cipher string can be optionally preceded by the characters `!`, `-` or
`+`.
+
If `!` is used then the ciphers are permanently deleted from the list. The
ciphers deleted can never reappear in the list even if they are explicitly
stated.
+
If `-` is used then the ciphers are deleted from the list, but some or all
of the ciphers can be added again by later options.
+
If `+` is used then the ciphers are moved to the end of the list. This
option doesn't add any new ciphers it just moves matching existing ones.
+
If none of these characters is present then the string is just interpreted as
a list of ciphers to be appended to the current preference list. If the list
includes any ciphers already present they will be ignored: that is, they will
not moved to the end of the list.




[[SECTreqciphgnu]]
Requiring specific ciphers in GnuTLS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[TLS,requiring specific ciphers (GnuTLS)]
cindex:[%tls_require_ciphers%,GnuTLS]
The GnuTLS library does not have a combined function like OpenSSL. Instead,
it allows the caller to specify separate lists of key-exchange methods,
main cipher algorithms, and MAC algorithms. Unfortunately, these lists are
numerical, and the library does not have a function for turning names into
numbers. Consequently, the list of recognized names has to be built into
the application.

At present, Exim permits only the list of main cipher algorithms to be
changed. The %tls_require_ciphers% option is in the same format as for
OpenSSL. Exim searches each item for the name of available algorithm. For
example, if the list contains RSA_AES_SHA then AES is recognized.

The cipher algorithms list starts out with a default set of algorithms. If
the first item in %tls_require_ciphers% does 'not' start with an
exclamation mark, all the default items are deleted. Thus, only those specified
can be used. If the first item in %tls_require_ciphers% 'does' start with
an exclamation mark, the defaults are left on the list.

Then, any item that starts with an exclamation mark causes the relevent
algorithms to be removed from the list, and any item that does not start
with an exclamation mark causes the relevant algorithms to be added to the
list. Thus,

  tls_require_ciphers = !RSA_ARCFOUR_SHA

allows all the defaults except those that use ARCFOUR, whereas

  tls_require_ciphers = AES : 3DES

allows only cipher suites that use AES and 3DES. The currently recognized
algorithms are: AES_256, AES_128, AES (both of the preceding), 3DES, and
ARCFOUR_128. Unrecognized algorithms are ignored. In a server, the order of the
list is unimportant; the server will advertise the availability of all the
relevant cipher suites. However, in a client, the order of the list specifies a
preference order for the algorithms. The first one in the client's list that is
also advertised by the server is tried first. The default order is as listed
above.




Configuring an Exim server to use TLS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[TLS,configuring an Exim server]
When Exim has been built with TLS support, it advertises the availability of
the STARTTLS command to client hosts that match %tls_advertise_hosts%,
but not to any others. The default value of this option is unset, which means
that STARTTLS is not advertised at all. This default is chosen because you
need to set some other options in order to make TLS avaliable, and also it is
sensible for systems that want to use TLS only as a client.

If a client issues a STARTTLS command and there is some configuration
problem in the server, the command is rejected with a 454 error. If the client
persists in trying to issue SMTP commands, all except QUIT are rejected
with the error

  554 Security failure

If a STARTTLS command is issued within an existing TLS session, it is
rejected with a 554 error code.

To enable TLS operations on a server, you must set %tls_advertise_hosts% to
match some hosts. You can, of course, set it to \* to match all hosts.
However, this is not all you need to do. TLS sessions to a server won't work
without some further configuration at the server end.

It is rumoured that all existing clients that support TLS/SSL use RSA
encryption. To make this work you need to set, in the server,

  tls_certificate = /some/file/name
  tls_privatekey = /some/file/name

The first file contains the server's X509 certificate, and the second contains
the private key that goes with it. These files need to be readable by the Exim
user, and must always be given as full path names. They can be the same file if
both the certificate and the key are contained within it. If %tls_privatekey%
is not set, this is assumed to be the case. The certificate file may also
contain intermediate certificates that need to be sent to the client to enable
it to authenticate the server's certificate.

If you do not understand about certificates and keys, please try to find a
source of this background information, which is not Exim-specific. (There are a
few comments below in section <<SECTcerandall>>.)

*Note*: These options do not apply when Exim is operating as a client --
they apply only in the case of a server. For a client, you must set the options
of the same name in an ^smtp^ transport.

With just these options, Exim will work as a server with clients such as
Netscape. It does not require the client to have a certificate (but see below
for how to insist on this). There is one other option that may be needed in
other situations. If

  tls_dhparam = /some/file/name

is set, the SSL library is initialized for the use of Diffie-Hellman ciphers
with the parameters contained in the file. This increases the set of cipher
suites that the server supports. See the command

  openssl dhparam

for a way of generating this data.
At present, %tls_dhparam% is used only when Exim is linked with OpenSSL. It is
ignored if GnuTLS is being used.

The strings supplied for these three options are expanded every time a client
host connects. It is therefore possible to use different certificates and keys
for different hosts, if you so wish, by making use of the client's IP address
in $sender_host_address$ to control the expansion. If a string expansion is
forced to fail, Exim behaves as if the option is not set.

cindex:[cipher,logging]
cindex:[log,TLS cipher]
The variable $tls_cipher$ is set to the cipher suite that was negotiated for
an incoming TLS connection. It is included in the 'Received:' header of an
incoming message (by default -- you can, of course, change this), and it is
also included in the log line that records a message's arrival, keyed by ``X='',
unless the %tls_cipher% log selector is turned off.
The %encrypted% condition can be used to test for specific cipher suites in
ACLs.

The ACLs that run for subsequent SMTP commands can check the name of the cipher
suite and vary their actions accordingly. The cipher suite names are those used
by OpenSSL. These may differ from the names used elsewhere. For example,
OpenSSL uses the name DES-CBC3-SHA for the cipher suite which in other contexts
is known as TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA. Check the OpenSSL
documentation for more details.



Requesting and verifying client certificates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[certificate,verification of client]
cindex:[TLS,client certificate verification]
If you want an Exim server to request a certificate when negotiating a TLS
session with a client, you must set either %tls_verify_hosts% or
%tls_try_verify_hosts%. You can, of course, set either of them to \* to
apply to all TLS connections. For any host that matches one of these options,
Exim requests a certificate as part of the setup of the TLS session. The
contents of the certificate are verified by comparing it with a list of
expected certificates. These must be available in a file or,
for OpenSSL only (not GnuTLS), a directory, identified by
%tls_verify_certificates%.

A file can contain multiple certificates, concatenated end to end. If a
directory is used
(OpenSSL only),
each certificate must be in a separate file, with a name (or a symbolic link)
of the form <'hash'>.0, where <'hash'> is a hash value constructed from the
certificate. You can compute the relevant hash by running the command

  openssl x509 -hash -noout -in /cert/file

where _/cert/file_ contains a single certificate.

The difference between %tls_verify_hosts% and %tls_try_verify_hosts% is
what happens if the client does not supply a certificate, or if the certificate
does not match any of the certificates in the collection named by
%tls_verify_certificates%. If the client matches %tls_verify_hosts%, the
attempt to set up a TLS session is aborted, and the incoming connection is
dropped. If the client matches %tls_try_verify_hosts%, the (encrypted) SMTP
session continues. ACLs that run for subsequent SMTP commands can detect the
fact that no certificate was verified, and vary their actions accordingly. For
example, you can insist on a certificate before accepting a message for
relaying, but not when the message is destined for local delivery.

When a client supplies a certificate (whether it verifies or not), the value of
the Distinguished Name of the certificate is made available in the variable
$tls_peerdn$ during subsequent processing of the message.

cindex:[log,distinguished name]
Because it is often a long text string, it is not included in the log line or
'Received:' header by default. You can arrange for it to be logged, keyed by
``DN='', by setting the %tls_peerdn% log selector, and you can use
%received_header_text% to change the 'Received:' header. When no certificate
is supplied, $tls_peerdn$ is empty.


Revoked certificates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[TLS,revoked certificates]
cindex:[revocation list]
cindex:[certificate,revocation list]
Certificate issuing authorities issue Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) when
certificates are revoked. If you have such a list, you can pass it to an Exim
server using the global option called %tls_crl% and to an Exim client using an
identically named option for the ^smtp^ transport. In each case, the value of
the option is expanded and must then be the name of a file that contains a CRL
in PEM format.


Configuring an Exim client to use TLS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[cipher,logging]
cindex:[log,TLS cipher]
cindex:[log,distinguished name]
cindex:[TLS,configuring an Exim client]
The %tls_cipher% and %tls_peerdn% log selectors apply to outgoing SMTP
deliveries as well as to incoming, the latter one causing logging of the
server certificate's DN. The remaining client configuration for TLS is all
within the ^smtp^ transport.

It is not necessary to set any options to have TLS work in the ^smtp^
transport. If Exim is built with TLS support, and TLS is advertised by a
server, the ^smtp^ transport always tries to start a TLS session. However,
this can be prevented by setting %hosts_avoid_tls% (an option of the
transport) to a list of server hosts for which TLS should not be used.

If you do not want Exim to attempt to send messages unencrypted when an attempt
to set up an encrypted connection fails in any way, you can set
%hosts_require_tls% to a list of hosts for which encryption is mandatory. For
those hosts, delivery is always deferred if an encrypted connection cannot be
set up. If there are any other hosts for the address, they are tried in the
usual way.

When the server host is not in %hosts_require_tls%, Exim may try to deliver
the message unencrypted. It always does this if the response to STARTTLS is
a 5##'xx' code. For a temporary error code, or for a failure to negotiate a TLS
session after a success response code, what happens is controlled by the
%tls_tempfail_tryclear% option of the ^smtp^ transport. If it is false,
delivery to this host is deferred, and other hosts (if available) are tried. If
it is true, Exim attempts to deliver unencrypted after a 4##'xx' response to
STARTTLS, and if STARTTLS is accepted, but the subsequent TLS
negotiation fails, Exim closes the current connection (because it is in an
unknown state), opens a new one to the same host, and then tries the delivery
unencrypted.


The %tls_certificate% and %tls_privatekey% options of the ^smtp^ transport
provide the client with a certificate, which is passed to the server if it
requests it. If the server is Exim, it will request a certificate only if
%tls_verify_hosts% or %tls_try_verify_hosts% matches the client.
*Note*: these options must be set in the ^smtp^ transport for Exim to use
TLS when it is operating as a client. Exim does not assume that a server
certificate (set by the global options of the same name) should also be used
when operating as a client.

If %tls_verify_certificates% is set, it must name a file or,
for OpenSSL only (not GnuTLS), a directory, that contains a collection of
expected server certificates. The client verifies the server's certificate
against this collection, taking into account any revoked certificates that are
in the list defined by %tls_crl%.

If
%tls_require_ciphers% is set on the ^smtp^ transport, it must contain a
list of permitted cipher suites. If either of these checks fails, delivery to
the current host is abandoned, and the ^smtp^ transport tries to deliver to
alternative hosts, if any.

All the TLS options in the ^smtp^ transport are expanded before use, with
$host$ and $host_address$ containing the name and address of the server to
which the client is connected. Forced failure of an expansion causes Exim to
behave as if the relevant option were unset.



[[SECTmulmessam]]
Multiple messages on the same encrypted TCP/IP connection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[multiple SMTP deliveries with TLS]
cindex:[TLS,multiple message deliveries]
Exim sends multiple messages down the same TCP/IP connection by starting up
an entirely new delivery process for each message, passing the socket from
one process to the next. This implementation does not fit well with the use
of TLS, because there is quite a lot of state information associated with a TLS
connection, not just a socket identification. Passing all the state information
to a new process is not feasible. Consequently, Exim shuts down an existing TLS
session before passing the socket to a new process. The new process may then
try to start a new TLS session, and if successful, may try to re-authenticate
if AUTH is in use, before sending the next message.

The RFC is not clear as to whether or not an SMTP session continues in clear
after TLS has been shut down, or whether TLS may be restarted again later, as
just described. However, if the server is Exim, this shutdown and
reinitialization works. It is not known which (if any) other servers operate
successfully if the client closes a TLS session and continues with unencrypted
SMTP, but there are certainly some that do not work. For such servers, Exim
should not pass the socket to another process, because the failure of the
subsequent attempt to use it would cause Exim to record a temporary host error,
and delay other deliveries to that host.

To test for this case, Exim sends an EHLO command to the server after
closing down the TLS session. If this fails in any way, the connection is
closed instead of being passed to a new delivery process, but no retry
information is recorded.

There is also a manual override; you can set %hosts_nopass_tls% on the
^smtp^ transport to match those hosts for which Exim should not pass
connections to new processes if TLS has been used.




[[SECTcerandall]]
Certificates and all that
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[certificate,references to discussion]
In order to understand fully how TLS works, you need to know about
certificates, certificate signing, and certificate authorities. This is not the
place to give a tutorial, especially as I do not know very much about it
myself. Some helpful introduction can be found in the FAQ for the SSL addition
to Apache, currently at

&&&
*http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.7/ssl_faq.html#ToC24[]*
&&&

Other parts of the 'modssl' documentation are also helpful, and have
links to further files.
Eric Rescorla's book, 'SSL and TLS', published by Addison-Wesley (ISBN
0-201-61598-3), contains both introductory and more in-depth descriptions.
Some sample programs taken from the book are available from

&&&
*http://www.rtfm.com/openssl-examples/[]*
&&&



Certificate chains
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The file named by %tls_certificate% may contain more than one
certificate. This is useful in the case where the certificate that is being
sent is validated by an intermediate certificate which the other end does
not have. Multiple certificates must be in the correct order in the file.
First the host's certificate itself, then the first intermediate
certificate to validate the issuer of the host certificate, then the next
intermediate certificate to validate the issuer of the first intermediate
certificate, and so on, until finally (optionally) the root certificate.
The root certificate must already be trusted by the recipient for
validation to succeed, of course, but if it's not preinstalled, sending the
root certificate along with the rest makes it available for the user to
install if the receiving end is a client MUA that can interact with a user.


Self-signed certificates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[certificate,self-signed]
You can create a self-signed certificate using the 'req' command provided
with OpenSSL, like this:

....
openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout file1 -out file2 \
            -days 9999 -nodes
....

_file1_ and _file2_ can be the same file; the key and the certificate are
delimited and so can be identified independently. The %-days% option
specifies a period for which the certificate is valid. The %-nodes% option is
important: if you do not set it, the key is encrypted with a passphrase
that you are prompted for, and any use that is made of the key causes more
prompting for the passphrase. This is not helpful if you are going to use
this certificate and key in an MTA, where prompting is not possible.

A self-signed certificate made in this way is sufficient for testing, and
may be adequate for all your requirements if you are mainly interested in
encrypting transfers, and not in secure identification.

However, many clients require that the certificate presented by the server be a
user (also called ``leaf'' or ``site'') certificate, and not a self-signed
certificate. In this situation, the self-signed certificate described above
must be installed on the client host as a trusted root 'certification
authority' (CA), and the certificate used by Exim must be a user certificate
signed with that self-signed certificate.

For information on creating self-signed CA certificates and using them to sign
user certificates, see the 'General implementation overview' chapter of the
Open-source PKI book, available online at *http://ospkibook.sourceforge.net/[]*.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPACL]]
Access control lists
--------------------
cindex:[{ACL},description]
cindex:[control of incoming mail]
cindex:[message,controlling incoming]
cindex:[policy control,access control lists]
Access Control Lists (ACLs) are defined in a separate section of the run time
configuration file, headed by ``begin acl''. Each ACL definition starts with a
name, terminated by a colon. Here is a complete ACL section that contains just
one very small ACL:

  begin acl

  small_acl:
    accept   hosts = one.host.only

You can have as many lists as you like in the ACL section, and the order in
which they appear does not matter. The lists are self-terminating.

The majority of ACLs are used to control Exim's behaviour when it receives
certain SMTP commands. This applies both to incoming TCP/IP connections, and
when a local process submits a message using SMTP by specifying the %-bs%
option. The most common use is for controlling which recipients are accepted
in incoming messages. In addition, you can define an ACL that is used to check
local non-SMTP messages. The default configuration file contains an example of
a realistic ACL for checking RCPT commands. This is discussed in chapter
<<CHAPdefconfil>>.


Testing ACLs
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The %-bh% command line option provides a way of testing your ACL configuration
locally by running a fake SMTP session with which you interact. The host
'relay-test.mail-abuse.org' provides a service for checking your relaying
configuration (see section <<SECTcheralcon>> for more details).



Specifying when ACLs are used
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},options for specifying]
In order to cause an ACL to be used, you have to name it in one of the relevant
options in the main part of the configuration. These options are:
cindex:[AUTH,ACL for]
cindex:[DATA, ACLs for]
cindex:[ETRN,ACL for]
cindex:[EXPN,ACL for]
cindex:[HELO,ACL for]
cindex:[EHLO,ACL for]
cindex:[MAIL,ACL for]
cindex:[QUIT, ACL for]
cindex:[RCPT,ACL for]
cindex:[STARTTLS, ACL for]
cindex:[VRFY,ACL for]
cindex:[SMTP connection, ACL for]
cindex:[non-smtp message, ACL for]

[frame="none"]
`--`--------------------`---------------------------------------
   %acl_not_smtp%       ACL for non-SMTP messages
   %acl_smtp_auth%      ACL for AUTH
   %acl_smtp_connect%   ACL for start of SMTP connection
   %acl_smtp_data%      ACL after DATA is complete
   %acl_smtp_etrn%      ACL for ETRN
   %acl_smtp_expn%      ACL for EXPN
   %acl_smtp_helo%      ACL for HELO or EHLO
   %acl_smtp_mail%      ACL for MAIL
   %acl_smtp_mailauth%  ACL for the AUTH parameter of MAIL
   %acl_smtp_mime%      ACL for content-scanning MIME parts
   %acl_smtp_predata%   ACL at start of DATA command
   %acl_smtp_quit%      ACL for QUIT
   %acl_smtp_rcpt%      ACL for RCPT
   %acl_smtp_starttls%  ACL for STARTTLS
   %acl_smtp_vrfy%      ACL for VRFY
----------------------------------------------------------------

For example, if you set

  acl_smtp_rcpt = small_acl

the little ACL defined above is used whenever Exim receives a RCPT command
in an SMTP dialogue. The majority of policy tests on incoming messages can be
done when RCPT commands arrive. A rejection of RCPT should cause the
sending MTA to give up on the recipient address contained in the RCPT
command, whereas rejection at other times may cause the client MTA to keep on
trying to deliver the message. It is therefore recommended that you do as much
testing as possible at RCPT time.


The non-SMTP ACL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[non-smtp message, ACL for]
The non-SMTP ACL applies to all non-interactive incoming messages, that is, it
applies to batch SMTP as well as to non-SMTP messages. (Batch SMTP is not
really SMTP.) This ACL is run just before the 'local_scan()' function. Any
kind of rejection is treated as permanent, because there is no way of sending a
temporary error for these kinds of message. Many of the ACL conditions (for
example, host tests, and tests on the state of the SMTP connection such as
encryption and authentication) are not relevant and are forbidden in this ACL.


The connect ACL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP connection, ACL for]
The ACL test specified by %acl_smtp_connect% happens after the test specified
by %host_reject_connection% (which is now an anomaly) and any TCP Wrappers
testing (if configured).


The DATA ACLs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DATA, ACLs for]
Two ACLs are associated with the DATA command, because it is two-stage
command, with two responses being sent to the client.
When the DATA command is received, the ACL defined by %acl_smtp_predata%
is obeyed. This gives you control after all the RCPT commands, but before
the message itself is received. It offers the opportunity to give a negative
response to the DATA command before the data is transmitted. Header lines
added by MAIL or RCPT ACLs are not visible at this time, but any that
are defined here are visible when the %acl_smtp_data% ACL is run.

You cannot test the contents of the message, for example, to verify addresses
in the headers, at RCPT time or when the DATA command is received. Such
tests have to appear in the ACL that is run after the message itself has been
received, before the final response to the DATA command is sent. This is
the ACL specified by %acl_smtp_data%, which is the second ACL that is
associated with the DATA command.

For both of these ACLs, it is not possible to reject individual recipients. An
error response rejects the entire message. Unfortunately, it is known that some
MTAs do not treat hard (5##'xx') responses to the DATA command (either
before or after the data) correctly -- they keep the message on their queues
and try again later, but that is their problem, though it does waste some of
your resources.


The MIME ACL
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The %acl_smtp_mime% option is available only when Exim is compiled with the
content-scanning extension. For details, see chapter <<CHAPexiscan>>.


[[SECTQUITACL]]
The QUIT ACL
~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[QUIT, ACL for]
The ACL for the SMTP QUIT command is anomalous, in that the
outcome of the ACL does not affect the response code to QUIT,
which is always 221. Thus, the ACL does not in fact control any access.
For this reason, the only verbs that are permitted are %accept% and %warn%.

This ACL can be used for tasks such as custom logging at the end of an SMTP
session. For example, you can use ACL variables in other ACLs to count
messages, recipients, etc., and log the totals at QUIT time using one or
more %logwrite% modifiers on a %warn% verb.

You do not need to have a final %accept%, but if you do, you can use a
%message% modifier to specify custom text that is sent as part of the 221
response to QUIT.

This ACL is run only for a ``normal'' QUIT. For certain kinds of disastrous
failure (for example, failure to open a log file, or when Exim is bombing out
because it has detected an unrecoverable error), all SMTP commands from the
client are given temporary error responses until QUIT is received or the
connection is closed. In these special cases, the QUIT ACL does not run.



Finding an ACL to use
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},finding which to use]
The value of an %acl_smtp_'xxx'% option is expanded before use, so you can
use different ACLs in different circumstances. The resulting string does not
have to be the name of an ACL in the configuration file; there are other
possibilities. Having expanded the string, Exim searches for an ACL as follows:

- If the string begins with a slash, Exim uses it as a file name, and reads its
contents as an ACL. The lines are processed in the same way as lines in the
Exim configuration file. In particular, continuation lines are supported, blank
lines are ignored, as are lines whose first non-whitespace character is ``#''.
If the file does not exist or cannot be read, an error occurs (typically
causing a temporary failure of whatever caused the ACL to be run). For example:
+
....
acl_smtp_data = /etc/acls/\
  ${lookup{$sender_host_address}lsearch\
  {/etc/acllist}{$value}{default}}
....
+
This looks up an ACL file to use on the basis of the host's IP address, falling
back to a default if the lookup fails. If an ACL is successfully read from a
file, it is retained in memory for the duration of the Exim process, so that it
can be re-used without having to re-read the file.

- If the string does not start with a slash, and does not contain any spaces,
Exim searches the ACL section of the configuration for an ACL whose name
matches the string.

- If no named ACL is found, or if the string contains spaces, Exim parses
the string as an inline ACL. This can save typing in cases where you just
want to have something like
+
  acl_smtp_vrfy = accept
+
in order to allow free use of the VRFY command. Such a string may contain
newlines; it is processed in the same way as an ACL that is read from a file.




ACL return codes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},return codes]
Except for the QUIT ACL, which does not affect the SMTP return code (see
section <<SECTQUITACL>> above), the

result of running an ACL is either ``accept'' or ``deny'', or, if some test
cannot be completed (for example, if a database is down), ``defer''. These
results cause 2##'xx', 5##'xx', and 4##'xx' return codes, respectively, to be
used in the SMTP dialogue. A fourth return, ``error'', occurs when there is an
error such as invalid syntax in the ACL. This also causes a 4'##xx' return
code.

For the non-SMTP ACL, ``defer'' and ``error'' are treated in the same way as
``deny'', because there is no mechanism for passing temporary errors to the
submitters of non-SMTP messages.


ACLs that are relevant to message reception may also return ``discard''. This
has the effect of ``accept'', but causes either the entire message or an
individual recipient address to be discarded. In other words, it is a
blackholing facility. Use it with care.

If the ACL for MAIL returns ``discard'', all recipients are discarded, and no
ACL is run for subsequent RCPT commands. The effect of ``discard'' in a
RCPT ACL is to discard just the one recipient address. If there are no
recipients left when the message's data is received, the DATA ACL is not
run. A ``discard'' return from the DATA or the non-SMTP ACL discards all the
remaining recipients.

The ``discard'' return is not permitted for the %acl_smtp_predata% ACL.


cindex:['local_scan()' function,when all recipients discarded]
The 'local_scan()' function is always run, even if there are no remaining
recipients; it may create new recipients.



Unset ACL options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},unset options]
The default actions when any of the %acl_'xxx'% options are unset are not
all the same. *Note*: These defaults apply only when the relevant ACL is
not defined at all. For any defined ACL, the default action when control reaches
the end of the ACL statements is ``deny''.

For %acl_not_smtp%, %acl_smtp_auth%, %acl_smtp_connect%, %acl_smtp_data%,
%acl_smtp_helo%, %acl_smtp_mail%, %acl_smtp_mailauth%, %acl_smtp_mime%,
%acl_smtp_predata%, %acl_smtp_quit%, and %acl_smtp_starttls%, the action when
the ACL is not defined is ``accept''.

For the others (%acl_smtp_etrn%, %acl_smtp_expn%, %acl_smtp_rcpt%, and
%acl_smtp_vrfy%), the action when the ACL is not defined is ``deny''.
This means that %acl_smtp_rcpt% must be defined in order to receive any
messages over an SMTP connection. For an example, see the ACL in the default
configuration file.




Data for message ACLs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},data for message ACL]
When a MAIL or RCPT ACL, or either of the DATA ACLs, is running,
the variables that contain information about the host and the message's sender
(for example, $sender_host_address$ and $sender_address$) are set, and
can be used in ACL statements. In the case of RCPT (but not MAIL or
DATA), $domain$ and $local_part$ are set from the argument address.

When an ACL for the AUTH parameter of MAIL is running, the variables that
contain information about the host are set, but $sender_address$ is not yet
set. Section <<SECTauthparamail>> contains a discussion of this parameter and
how it is used.

The $message_size$ variable is set to the value of the SIZE parameter on
the MAIL command at MAIL, RCPT and pre-data time, or to -1 if
that parameter is not given. The value is updated to the true message size by
the time the final DATA ACL is run (after the message data has been
received).

The $rcpt_count$ variable increases by one for each RCPT command
received. The $recipients_count$ variable increases by one each time a
RCPT command is accepted, so while an ACL for RCPT is being processed,
it contains the number of previously accepted recipients. At DATA time (for
both the DATA ACLs), $rcpt_count$ contains the total number of RCPT
commands, and $recipients_count$ contains the total number of accepted
recipients.





[[SECTdatfornon]]
Data for non-message ACLs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},data for non-message ACL]
When an ACL is being run for AUTH, EHLO, ETRN, EXPN, HELO, STARTTLS, or VRFY,
the remainder of the SMTP command line is placed in $smtp_command_argument$.
This can be tested using a %condition% condition. For example, here is an ACL
for use with AUTH, which insists that either the session is encrypted, or the
CRAM-MD5 authentication method is used. In other words, it does not permit
authentication methods that use cleartext passwords on unencrypted connections.

....
acl_check_auth:
  accept encrypted = *
  accept condition = ${if eq{${uc:$smtp_command_argument}}\
                     {CRAM-MD5}}
  deny   message   = TLS encryption or CRAM-MD5 required
....

(Another way of applying this restriction is to arrange for the authenticators
that use cleartext passwords not to be advertised when the connection is not
encrypted. You can use the generic %server_advertise_condition% authenticator
option to do this.)



Format of an ACL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},format of]
cindex:[{ACL},verbs; definition of]
An individual ACL consists of a number of statements. Each statement starts
with a verb, optionally followed by a number of conditions and ``modifiers''.
Modifiers can change the way the verb operates, define error and log messages,
set variables, insert delays, and vary the processing of accepted messages.

If all the conditions are met, the verb is obeyed. The same condition may be
used (with different arguments) more than once in the same statement. This
provides a means of specifying an ``and'' conjunction between conditions. For
example:

  deny  dnslists = list1.example
        dnslists = list2.example

If there are no conditions, the verb is always obeyed. Exim stops evaluating
the conditions and modifiers when it reaches a condition that fails. What
happens then depends on the verb (and in one case, on a special modifier). Not
all the conditions make sense at every testing point. For example, you cannot
test a sender address in the ACL that is run for a VRFY command.


ACL verbs
~~~~~~~~~
The ACL verbs are as follows:

- cindex:[%accept%, ACL verb]
%accept%: If all the conditions are met, the ACL returns ``accept''. If any of
the conditions are not met, what happens depends on whether %endpass% appears
among the conditions (for syntax see below). If the failing condition is before
%endpass%, control is passed to the next ACL statement; if it is after
%endpass%, the ACL returns ``deny''. Consider this statement, used to check a
RCPT command:

  accept domains = +local_domains
         endpass
         verify = recipient
+
If the recipient domain does not match the %domains% condition, control passes
to the next statement. If it does match, the recipient is verified, and the
command is accepted if verification succeeds. However, if verification fails,
the ACL yields ``deny'', because the failing condition is after %endpass%.

- cindex:[%defer%, ACL verb]
%defer%: If all the conditions are met, the ACL returns ``defer'' which, in an
SMTP session, causes a 4##'xx' response to be given. For a non-SMTP ACL,
%defer% is the same as %deny%, because there is no way of sending a temporary
error. For a RCPT command, %defer% is much the same as using a
^redirect^ router and `:defer:` while verifying, but the %defer% verb can
be used in any ACL, and even for a recipient it might be a simpler approach.

- cindex:[%deny%, ACL verb]
%deny%: If all the conditions are met, the ACL returns ``deny''. If any of the
conditions are not met, control is passed to the next ACL statement. For
example,

  deny dnslists = blackholes.mail-abuse.org
+
rejects commands from hosts that are on a DNS black list.

- cindex:[%discard%, ACL verb]
%discard%: This verb behaves like %accept%, except that it returns ``discard''
from the ACL instead of ``accept''. It is permitted only on ACLs that are
concerned with receiving messages, and it causes recipients to be discarded.
If the %log_message% modifier is set when %discard% operates, its contents are
added to the line that is automatically written to the log.
+
If %discard% is used in an ACL for RCPT, just the one recipient is
discarded; if used for MAIL, DATA or in the non-SMTP ACL, all the
message's recipients are discarded. Recipients that are discarded before
DATA do not appear in the log line when the %log_recipients% log selector
is set.

- cindex:[%drop%, ACL verb]
%drop%: This verb behaves like %deny%, except that an SMTP connection is
forcibly closed after the 5##'xx' error message has been sent. For example:

  drop   message   = I don't take more than 20 RCPTs

         condition = ${if > {$rcpt_count}{20}}
+
There is no difference between %deny% and %drop% for the connect-time ACL. The
connection is always dropped after sending a 550 response.

- cindex:[%require%, ACL verb]
%require%: If all the conditions are met, control is passed to the next ACL
statement. If any of the conditions are not met, the ACL returns ``deny''. For
example, when checking a RCPT command,

  require verify = sender
+
passes control to subsequent statements only if the message's sender can be
verified. Otherwise, it rejects the command.

- cindex:[%warn%, ACL verb]
%warn%: If all the conditions are met, a header line is added to an incoming
message and/or a line is written to Exim's main log. In all cases, control
passes to the next ACL statement. The text of the added header line and the log
line are specified by modifiers; if they are not present, a %warn% verb just
checks its conditions and obeys any ``immediate'' modifiers such as %set% and
%logwrite%. There is more about adding header lines in section
<<SECTaddheadwarn>>.
+
If any condition on a %warn% statement cannot be completed (that is, there is
some sort of defer), no header lines are added and the configured log line is
not written. No further conditions or modifiers in the %warn% statement are
processed. The incident is logged, but the ACL continues to be processed, from
the next statement onwards.
+
If a %message% modifier is present on a %warn% verb in an ACL that is not
testing an incoming message, it is ignored, and the incident is logged.
+
A %warn% statement may use the %log_message% modifier to cause a line to be
written to the main log when the statement's conditions are true.
If an identical log line is requested several times in the same message, only
one copy is actually written to the log. If you want to force duplicates to be
written, use the %logwrite% modifier instead.
+
When one of the %warn% conditions is an address verification that fails, the
text of the verification failure message is in $acl_verify_message$. If you
want this logged, you must set it up explicitly. For example:

  warn   !verify = sender
          log_message = sender verify failed: $acl_verify_message

At the end of each ACL there is an implicit unconditional %deny%.

As you can see from the examples above, the conditions and modifiers are
written one to a line, with the first one on the same line as the verb, and
subsequent ones on following lines. If you have a very long condition, you can
continue it onto several physical lines by the usual backslash continuation
mechanism. It is conventional to align the conditions vertically.



[[SECTaclvariables]]
ACL variables
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},variables]
There are some special variables that can be set during ACL processing. They
can be used to pass information between different ACLs, different invocations
of the same ACL in the same SMTP connection, and between ACLs and the routers,
transports, and filters that are used to deliver a message. There are two sets
of these variables:

- The values of $acl_c0$ to $acl_c9$ persist throughout an SMTP connection.
They are never reset. Thus, a value that is set while receiving one message is
still available when receiving the next message on the same SMTP connection.

- The values of $acl_m0$ to $acl_m9$ persist only while a message is being
received. They are reset afterwards. They are also reset by MAIL, RSET,
EHLO, HELO, and after starting up a TLS session.

When a message is accepted, the current values of all the ACL variables are
preserved with the message and are subsequently made available at delivery
time. The ACL variables are set by modifier called %set%. For example:

  accept hosts = whatever
         set acl_m4 = some value

*Note*: a leading dollar sign is not used when naming a variable that is to
be set. If you want to set a variable without taking any action, you can use a
%warn% verb without any other modifiers or conditions.



Condition and modifier processing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},conditions; processing]
cindex:[{ACL},modifiers; processing]
An exclamation mark preceding a condition negates its result. For example,

  deny   domains = *.dom.example
        !verify = recipient

causes the ACL to return ``deny'' if the recipient domain ends in
'dom.example' and the recipient address cannot be verified.

The arguments of conditions and modifiers are expanded. A forced failure
of an expansion causes a condition to be ignored, that is, it behaves as if the
condition is true. Consider these two statements:

....
accept  senders = ${lookup{$host_name}lsearch\
                  {/some/file}{$value}fail}
accept  senders = ${lookup{$host_name}lsearch\
                  {/some/file}{$value}{}}
....

Each attempts to look up a list of acceptable senders. If the lookup succeeds,
the returned list is searched, but if the lookup fails the behaviour is
different in the two cases. The %fail% in the first statement causes the
condition to be ignored, leaving no further conditions. The %accept% verb
therefore succeeds. The second statement, however, generates an empty list when
the lookup fails. No sender can match an empty list, so the condition fails,
and therefore the %accept% also fails.

ACL modifiers appear mixed in with conditions in ACL statements. Some of them
specify actions that are taken as the conditions for a statement are checked;
others specify text for messages that are used when access is denied or a
warning is generated. The %control% modifier affects the way an incoming
message is handled.

The positioning of the modifiers in an ACL statement important, because the
processing of a verb ceases as soon as its outcome is known. Only those
modifiers that have already been encountered will take effect. For example,
consider this use of the %message% modifier:

  require message = Can't verify sender
          verify  = sender
          message = Can't verify recipient
          verify  = recipient
          message = This message cannot be used

If sender verification fails, Exim knows that the result of the statement is
``deny'', so it goes no further. The first %message% modifier has been seen, so
its text is used as the error message. If sender verification succeeds, but
recipient verification fails, the second message is used. If recipient
verification succeeds, the third message becomes ``current'', but is never used
because there are no more conditions to cause failure.

For the %deny% verb, on the other hand, it is always the last %message%
modifier that is used, because all the conditions must be true for rejection to
happen. Specifying more than one %message% modifier does not make sense, and
the message can even be specified after all the conditions. For example:

  deny   hosts = ...
        !senders = *@my.domain.example
         message = Invalid sender from client host

The ``deny'' result does not happen until the end of the statement is reached,
by which time Exim has set up the message.



[[SECTACLmodi]]
ACL modifiers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},modifiers; list of]
The ACL modifiers are as follows:

*control*~=~<'text'>::
cindex:[%control%, ACL modifier]
This modifier affects the subsequent processing of the SMTP connection or of an
incoming message that is accepted. The effect of the first type of control
lasts for the duration of the connection, whereas the effect of the second type
lasts only until the current message has been received. The message-specific
controls always apply to the whole message, not to individual recipients,
even if the %control% modifier appears in a RCPT ACL.
+
As there are now quite a few controls that can be applied, they are described
separately in section <<SECTcontrols>>. The %control% modifier can be used in
several different ways. For example:
+
- It can be at the end of an %accept% statement:
+
....
   accept  ...some conditions
           control = queue_only
....
+
In this case, the control is applied when this statement yields ``accept'', in
other words, when the conditions are all true.

- It can be in the middle of an %accept% statement:
+
....
   accept  ...some conditions...
           control = queue_only
           ...some more conditions...
....
+
If the first set of conditions are true, the control is applied, even if the
statement does not accept because one of the second set of conditions is false.
In this case, some subsequent statement must yield ``accept'' for the control to
be relevant.

- It can be used with %warn% to apply the control, leaving the
decision about accepting or denying to a subsequent verb. For
example:
+
....
   warn    ...some conditions...
           control = freeze
   accept  ...
....
+
This example of %warn% does not contain %message%, %log_message%, or
%logwrite%, so it does not add anything to the message and does not write a log
entry.

- If you want to apply a control unconditionally, you can use it with a
%require% verb. For example:
+
....
   require  control = no_multiline_response
....

///
End of bulleted list, continue with variable list
///


*delay*~=~<'time'>::
cindex:[%delay%, ACL modifier]
cindex:[%-bh% option]
This modifier causes Exim to wait for the time interval before proceeding. The
time is given in the usual Exim notation. This modifier may appear in any ACL.
The delay happens as soon as the modifier is processed. However, when testing
Exim using the %-bh% option, the delay is not actually imposed (an appropriate
message is output instead).
+
Like %control%, %delay% can be used with %accept% or
%deny%, for example:

  deny    ...some conditions...
          delay = 30s
+
The delay happens if all the conditions are true, before the statement returns
``deny''. Compare this with:

  deny    delay = 30s
          ...some conditions...
+
which waits for 30s before processing the conditions. The %delay% modifier can
also be used with %warn% and together with %control%:

  warn    ...some conditions...
          delay = 2m
          control = freeze
  accept  ...

*endpass*::
cindex:[%endpass%, ACL modifier]
This modifier, which has no argument, is recognized only in %accept%
statements. It marks the boundary between the conditions whose failure causes
control to pass to the next statement, and the conditions whose failure causes
the ACL to return ``deny''. See the description of %accept% above.

*log_message*~=~<'text'>::
cindex:[%log_message%, ACL modifier]
This modifier sets up a message that is used as part of the log message if the
ACL denies access or a %warn% statement's conditions are true. For example:

  require log_message = wrong cipher suite $tls_cipher
          encrypted   = DES-CBC3-SHA
+
%log_message% adds to any underlying error message that may exist because of
the condition failure. For example, while verifying a recipient address, a
':fail:' redirection might have already set up a message. Although the message
is usually defined before the conditions to which it applies, the expansion
does not happen until Exim decides that access is to be denied. This means that
any variables that are set by the condition are available for inclusion in the
message. For example, the $dnslist_$<'xxx'> variables are set after a DNS
black list lookup succeeds. If the expansion of %log_message% fails, or if the
result is an empty string, the modifier is ignored.
+
If you want to use a %warn% statement to log the result of an address
verification, you can use $acl_verify_message$ to include the verification
error message.
+
If %log_message% is used with a %warn% statement, ``Warning:'' is added to the
start of the logged message. If the same warning log message is requested more
than once while receiving  a single email message, only one copy is actually
logged. If you want to log multiple copies, use %logwrite% instead of
%log_message%. In the absence of %log_message% and %logwrite%, nothing is
logged for a succesful %warn% statement.
+
If %log_message% is not present and there is no underlying error message (for
example, from the failure of address verification), but %message% is present,
the %message% text is used for logging rejections. However, if any text for
logging contains newlines, only the first line is logged. In the absence of
both %log_message% and %message%, a default built-in message is used for
logging rejections.

*logwrite*~=~<'text'>::
cindex:[%logwrite%, ACL modifier]
cindex:[logging in ACL, immediate]
This modifier writes a message to a log file as soon as it is encountered when
processing an ACL. (Compare %log_message%, which, except in the case of
%warn%, is used only if the ACL statement denies access.) The %logwrite%
modifier can be used to log special incidents in ACLs. For example:

  accept <some special conditions>
         control  = freeze
         logwrite = froze message because ...
+
By default, the message is written to the main log. However, it may begin
with a colon, followed by a comma-separated list of log names, and then
another colon, to specify exactly which logs are to be written. For
example:

  logwrite = :main,reject: text for main and reject logs
  logwrite = :panic: text for panic log only

*message*~=~<'text'>::
cindex:[%message%, ACL modifier]
This modifier sets up a text string that is expanded and used as an error
message if the current statement causes the ACL to deny access. The expansion
happens at the time Exim decides that access is to be denied, not at the time
it processes %message%. If the expansion fails, or generates an empty string,
the modifier is ignored. For ACLs that are triggered by SMTP commands, the
message is returned as part of the SMTP error response.
+
The %message% modifier is also used with the %warn% verb to specify one or more
header lines to be added to an incoming message when all the conditions are
true. See section <<SECTaddheadwarn>> for more details. If %message% is used
with %warn% in an ACL that is not concerned with receiving a message, it has no
effect.
+
The text is literal; any quotes are taken as literals, but because the string
is expanded, backslash escapes are processed anyway. If the message contains
newlines, this gives rise to a multi-line SMTP response. Like %log_message%,
the contents of %message% are not expanded until after a condition has failed.
+
If %message% is used on a statement that verifies an address, the message
specified overrides any message that is generated by the verification process.
However, the original message is available in the variable
$acl_verify_message$, so you can incorporate it into your message if you
wish. In particular, if you want the text from %:fail:% items in ^redirect^
routers to be passed back as part of the SMTP response, you should either not
use a %message% modifier, or make use of $acl_verify_message$.

*set*~<'acl_name'>~=~<'value'>::
cindex:[%set%, ACL modifier]
This modifier puts a value into one of the ACL variables (see section
<<SECTaclvariables>>).



[[SECTcontrols]]
Use of the control modifier
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[%control%, ACL modifier]
The %control% modifier supports the following settings:

*control~=~caseful_local_part*::
See below.

*control~=~caselower_local_part*::
cindex:[{ACL},case of local part in]
cindex:[case of local parts]
These two controls are permitted only in the ACL specified by %acl_smtp_rcpt%
(that is, during RCPT processing). By default, the contents of $local_part$ are
lower cased before ACL processing. If ``caseful_local_part'' is specified, any
uppercase letters in the original local part are restored in $local_part$ for
the rest of the ACL, or until a control that sets ``caselower_local_part'' is
encountered.
+
These controls affect only the current recipient. Moreover, they apply only to
local part handling that takes place directly in the ACL (for example, as a key
in lookups). If a test to verify the recipient is obeyed, the case-related
handling of the local part during the verification is controlled by the router
configuration (see the %caseful_local_part% generic router option).
+
This facility could be used, for example, to add a spam score to local parts
containing upper case letters. For example, using $acl_m4$ to accumulate the
spam score:
+
....
warn  control = caseful_local_part
      set acl_m4 = ${eval:\
                     $acl_m4 + \
                     ${if match{$local_part}{[A-Z]}{1}{0}}\
                    }
      control = caselower_local_part
....
+
Notice that we put back the lower cased version afterwards, assuming that
is what is wanted for subsequent tests.

*control~=~enforce_sync*::
See below.

*control~=~no_enforce_sync*::
cindex:[SMTP,synchronization checking]
cindex:[synchronization checking in SMTP]
These controls make it possible to be selective about when SMTP synchronization
is enforced. The global option %smtp_enforce_sync% specifies the initial
state of the switch (it is true by default). See the description of this option
in chapter <<CHAPmainconfig>> for details of SMTP synchronization checking.
+
The effect of these two controls lasts for the remainder of the SMTP
connection. They can appear in any ACL except the one for the non-SMTP
messages. The most straightforward place to put them is in the ACL defined by
%acl_smtp_connect%, which is run at the start of an incoming SMTP connection,
before the first synchronization check. The expected use is to turn off the
synchronization checks for badly-behaved hosts that you nevertheless need to
work with.

*control~=~fakereject/*<'message'>::
cindex:[fake rejection]
cindex:[rejection, fake]
This control is permitted only for the MAIL, RCPT, and DATA ACLs, in other
words, only when an SMTP message is being received. If Exim accepts the
message, instead the final 250 response, a 550 rejection message is sent.
However, Exim proceeds to deliver the message as normal. The control applies
only to the current message, not to any subsequent ones that may be received in
the same SMTP connection.
+
The text for the 550 response is taken from the %control% modifier. If no
message is supplied, the following is used:

  550-Your message has been rejected but is being
  550-kept for evaluation.
  550-If it was a legitimate message, it may still be
  550 delivered to the target recipient(s).
+
This facilty should be used with extreme caution.

*control~=~freeze*::
cindex:[frozen messages,forcing in ACL]
This control is permitted only for the MAIL, RCPT, DATA, and non-SMTP ACLs, in
other words, only when a message is being received. If the message is accepted,
it is placed on Exim's queue and frozen. The control applies only to the
current message, not to any subsequent ones that may be received in the same
SMTP connection.

*control~=~no_mbox_unspool*::
This control is available when Exim is compiled with the content scanning
extension. Content scanning may require a copy of the current message, or parts
of it, to be written in ``mbox format'' to a spool file, for passing to a virus
or spam scanner. Normally, such copies are deleted when they are no longer
needed. If this control is set, the copies are not deleted. The control applies
only to the current message, not to any subsequent ones that may be received in
the same SMTP connection. It is provided for debugging purposes and is unlikely
to be useful in production.

*control~=~no_multiline_response*::
cindex:[multiline responses, suppressing]
This control is permitted for any ACL except the one for non-SMTP messages.
It seems that there are broken clients in use that cannot handle multiline
SMTP responses, despite the fact that RFC 821 defined them over 20 years ago.
+
If this control is set, multiline SMTP responses from ACL rejections are
suppressed. One way of doing this would have been to put out these responses as
one long line. However, RFC 2821 specifies a maximum of 512 bytes per response
(``use multiline responses for more'' it says -- ha!), and some of the responses
might get close to that. So this facility, which is after all only a sop to
broken clients, is implemented by doing two very easy things:
+
--
. Extra information that is normally output as part of a rejection caused by
sender verification failure is omitted. Only the final line (typically ``sender
verification failed'') is sent.

. If a %message% modifier supplies a multiline response, only the first
line is output.
--
+
The setting of the switch can, of course, be made conditional on the
calling host. Its effect lasts until the end of the SMTP connection.

*control~=~queue_only*::
cindex:[%queue_only%]
cindex:[queueing incoming messages]
This control is permitted only for the MAIL, RCPT, DATA, and non-SMTP ACLs, in
other words, only when a message is being received. If the message is accepted,
it is placed on Exim's queue and left there for delivery by a subsequent queue
runner. No immediate delivery process is started. In other words, it has the
effect as the %queue_only% global option. However, the control applies only to
the current message, not to any subsequent ones that may be received in the
same SMTP connection.

*control~=~submission/*<'options'>::
cindex:[message,submission]
cindex:[submission mode]
This control is permitted only for the MAIL, RCPT, and start of data ACLs (the
latter is the one defined by %acl_smtp_predata%). Setting it tells Exim that
the current message is a submission from a local MUA. In this case, Exim
operates in ``submission mode'', and applies certain fixups to the message if
necessary. For example, it add a 'Date:' header line if one is not present.
This control is not permitted in the %acl_smtp_data% ACL, because that is too
late (the message has already been created).
+
Chapter <<CHAPmsgproc>> describes the processing that Exim applies to messages.
Section <<SECTsubmodnon>> covers the processing that happens in submission mode;
the available options for this control are described there. The control applies
only to the current message, not to any subsequent ones that may be received in
the same SMTP connection.



[[SECTaddheadwarn]]
Adding header lines with the warn verb
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[header lines,adding in an ACL]
cindex:[header lines,position of added lines]
cindex:[%warn%, ACL verb]
cindex:[%message%, ACL modifier]
The %message% modifier can be used on a %warn% statement to add an extra header
line to an incoming message, as in this example:

....
warn message = X-blacklisted-at: $dnslist_domain
     dnslists = sbl.spamhaus.org : \
                dialup.mail-abuse.org
....

If an identical header line is requested several times (provoked, for example,
by multiple RCPT commands), only one copy is actually added to the message.
If the text of the %message% modifier contains one or more newlines that are
not followed by a space or a tab, it is assumed to contain multiple header
lines. Each one is checked for valid syntax; `X-ACL-Warn:` is added to the
front of any line that is not a valid header line.

By default, new lines are added at the end of the existing header lines.
However, you can specify that any particular header line should be added right
at the start (before all the 'Received:' lines), immediately after the first
block of 'Received:' lines, or immediately before any line that is not a
'Received:' or 'Resent-something:' header.

This is done by specifying ``:at_start:'', ``:after_received:'', or
``:at_start_rfc:'' (or, for completeness, ``:at_end:'') before the text of the
header line, respectively. (Header text cannot start with a colon, as there has
to be a header name first.) For example:

  warn message = :after_received:X-My-Header: something or other...


If more than one header is supplied in a single warn statement, each one is
treated independently and can therefore be placed differently. If you add
more than one line at the start, or after the Received: block, they will
end up in reverse order.

*Warning*: This facility currently applies only to header lines that are
added in an ACL. It does NOT work for header lines that are added in a
system filter or in a router or transport.

cindex:[header lines,added; visibility of]
Header lines that are added by an ACL at MAIL or RCPT time are not
visible in string expansions in ACLs for subsequent RCPT commands or in the
%acl_smtp_predata% ACL. However, they are visible in string expansions in the
ACL that is run after DATA is complete (the %acl_smtp_data% ACL). This is
also true for header lines that are added in the %acl_smtp_predata% ACL.
If a message is rejected after DATA, all added header lines are included in
the entry that is written to the reject log.

If you want to preserve data between MAIL, RCPT, and the
%acl_smtp_predata% ACLs, you can use ACL variables, as described in section
<<SECTaclvariables>>.





[[SECTaclconditions]]
ACL conditions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},conditions; list of]
Some of conditions listed in this section are available only when Exim is
compiled with the content-scanning extension. They are included here briefly
for completeness. More detailed descriptions can be found in the discussion on
content scanning in chapter <<CHAPexiscan>>.

Not all conditions are relevant in all circumstances. For example, testing
senders and recipients does not make sense in an ACL that is being run as the
result of the arrival of an ETRN command, and checks on message headers can be
done only in the ACLs specified by %acl_smtp_data% and %acl_not_smtp%. You can
use the same condition (with different parameters) more than once in the same
ACL statement. This provides a way of specifying an ``and'' conjunction. The
conditions are as follows:


*acl~=~*<'name~of~acl~or~ACL~string~or~file~name~'>::
cindex:[{ACL},nested]
cindex:[{ACL},indirect]
cindex:[%acl%, ACL condition]
The possible values of the argument are the same as for the %acl_smtp_%##'xxx'
options. The named or inline ACL is run. If it returns ``accept'' the condition
is true; if it returns ``deny'' the condition is false. If it returns
``defer'', the current ACL returns ``defer'' unless the condition is on a
%warn% verb. In that case, a ``defer'' return makes the condition false. This
means that further processing of the %warn% verb ceases, but processing of the
ACL continues.
+
If the nested %acl% returns ``drop'' and the outer condition denies access, the
connection is dropped. If it returns ``discard'', the verb must be %accept% or
%discard%, and the action is taken immediately -- no further conditions are
tested.
+
ACLs may be nested up to 20 deep; the limit exists purely to catch runaway
loops. This condition allows you to use different ACLs in different
circumstances. For example, different ACLs can be used to handle RCPT commands
for different local users or different local domains.

*authenticated~=~*<'string~list'>::
cindex:[%authenticated%, ACL condition]
cindex:[authentication,ACL checking]
cindex:[{ACL},testing for authentication]
If the SMTP connection is not authenticated, the condition is false. Otherwise,
the name of the authenticator is tested against the list. To test for
authentication by any authenticator, you can set

  authenticated = *

*condition~=~*<'string'>::
cindex:[%condition%, ACL condition]
cindex:[customizing,ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},customized test]
cindex:[{ACL},testing; customized]
This feature allows you to make up custom conditions. If the result of
expanding the string is an empty string, the number zero, or one of the strings
``no'' or ``false'', the condition is false. If the result is any non-zero
number, or one of the strings ``yes'' or ``true'', the condition is true. For
any other values, some error is assumed to have occured, and the ACL returns
``defer''.

*decode~=~*<'location'>::
cindex:[%decode%, ACL condition]
This condition is available only when Exim is compiled with the
content-scanning extension, and it is allowed only the the ACL defined by
%acl_smtp_mime%. It causes the current MIME part to be decoded into a file. For
details, see chapter <<CHAPexiscan>>.

*dnslists~=~*<'list~of~domain~names~and~other~data'>::
cindex:[%dnslists%, ACL condition]
cindex:[DNS list,in ACL]
cindex:[black list (DNS)]
cindex:[{ACL},testing a DNS list]
This condition checks for entries in DNS black lists. These are also known as
``RBL lists'', after the original Realtime Blackhole List, but note that the
use of the lists at 'mail-abuse.org' now carries a charge. There are too many
different variants of this condition to describe briefly here. See sections
<<SECTmorednslists>>--<<SECTmorednslistslast>> for details.

*domains~=~*<'domain~list'>::
cindex:[%domains%, ACL condition]
cindex:[domain,ACL checking]
cindex:[{ACL},testing a recipient domain]
This condition is relevant only after a RCPT command. It checks that the domain
of the recipient address is in the domain list. If percent-hack processing is
enabled, it is done before this test is done. If the check succeeds with a
lookup, the result of the lookup is placed in $domain_data$ until the next
%domains% test.

*encrypted~=~*<'string~list'>::
cindex:[%encrypted%, ACL condition]
cindex:[encryption,checking in an ACL]
cindex:[{ACL},testing for encryption]
If the SMTP connection is not encrypted, the condition is false. Otherwise, the
name of the cipher suite in use is tested against the list. To test for
encryption without testing for any specific cipher suite(s), set

  encrypted = *

*hosts~=~*<'~host~list'>::
cindex:[%hosts%, ACL condition]
cindex:[host,ACL checking]
cindex:[{ACL},testing the client host]
This condition tests that the calling host matches the host list. If you have
name lookups or wildcarded host names and IP addresses in the same host list,
you should normally put the IP addresses first. For example, you could have:

  accept hosts = 10.9.8.7 : dbm;/etc/friendly/hosts
+
The reason for this lies in the left-to-right way that Exim processes lists.
It can test IP addresses without doing any DNS lookups, but when it reaches an
item that requires a host name, it fails if it cannot find a host name to
compare with the pattern. If the above list is given in the opposite order, the
%accept% statement fails for a host whose name cannot be found, even if its
IP address is 10.9.8.7.
+
If you really do want to do the name check first, and still recognize the IP
address even if the name lookup fails, you can rewrite the ACL like this:

  accept hosts = dbm;/etc/friendly/hosts
  accept hosts = 10.9.8.7
+
The default action on failing to find the host name is to assume that the host
is not in the list, so the first %accept% statement fails. The second statement
can then check the IP address.
+
If a %hosts% condition is satisfied by means of a lookup, the result
of the lookup is made available in the $host_data$ variable. This
allows you, for example, to set up a statement like this:

  deny  hosts = net-lsearch;/some/file
        message = $host_data
+
which gives a custom error message for each denied host.

*local_parts~=~*<'local~part~list'>::
cindex:[%local_parts%, ACL condition]
cindex:[local part,ACL checking]
cindex:[{ACL},testing a local part]
This condition is relevant only after a RCPT command. It checks that the local
part of the recipient address is in the list. If percent-hack processing is
enabled, it is done before this test. If the check succeeds with a lookup, the
result of the lookup is placed in $local_part_data$ until the next
%local_parts% test.

*malware~=~*<'option'>::
cindex:[%malware%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},virus scanning]
cindex:[{ACL},scanning for viruses]
This condition is available only when Exim is compiled with the
content-scanning extension. It causes the incoming message to be scanned for
viruses. For details, see chapter <<CHAPexiscan>>.

*mime_regex~=~*<'list~of~regular~expressions'>::
cindex:[%mime_regex%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},testing by regex matching]
This condition is available only when Exim is compiled with the
content-scanning extension, and it is allowed only the the ACL defined by
%acl_smtp_mime%. It causes the current MIME part to be scanned for a match with
any of the regular expressions. For details, see chapter <<CHAPexiscan>>.

*recipients~=~*<'address~list'>::
cindex:[%recipients%, ACL condition]
cindex:[recipient,ACL checking]
cindex:[{ACL},testing a recipient]
This condition is relevant only after a RCPT command. It checks the entire
recipient address against a list of recipients.

*regex~=~*<'list~of~regular~expressions'>::
cindex:[%regex%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},testing by regex matching]
This condition is available only when Exim is compiled with the
content-scanning extension. It causes the incoming message to be scanned for a
match with any of the regular expressions. For details, see chapter
<<CHAPexiscan>>.

*sender_domains~=~*<'domain~list'>::
cindex:[%sender_domains%, ACL condition]
cindex:[sender,ACL checking]
cindex:[{ACL},testing a sender domain]
This condition tests the domain of the sender of the message against the given
domain list. *Note*: the domain of the sender address is in
$sender_address_domain$. It is 'not' put in $domain$ during the testing of this
condition. This is an exception to the general rule for testing domain lists.
It is done this way so that, if this condition is used in an ACL for a RCPT
command, the recipient's domain (which is in $domain$) can be used to influence
the sender checking.

*senders~=~*<'address~list'>::
cindex:[%senders%, ACL condition]
cindex:[sender,ACL checking]
cindex:[{ACL},testing a sender]
This condition tests the sender of the message against the given list. To test
for a bounce message, which has an empty sender, set

  senders = :

*spam~=~*<'username'>::
cindex:[%spam%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},scanning for spam]
This condition is available only when Exim is compiled with the
content-scanning extension. It causes the incoming message to be scanned by
SpamAssassin. For details, see chapter <<CHAPexiscan>>.

*verify~=~certificate*::
cindex:[%verify%, ACL condition]
cindex:[TLS,client certificate verification]
cindex:[certificate,verification of client]
cindex:[{ACL},certificate verification]
cindex:[{ACL},testing a TLS certificate]
This condition is true in an SMTP session if the session is encrypted, and a
certificate was received from the client, and the certificate was verified. The
server requests a certificate only if the client matches %tls_verify_hosts% or
%tls_try_verify_hosts% (see chapter <<CHAPTLS>>).

*verify~=~header_sender/*<'options'>::
cindex:[%verify%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},verifying sender in the header]
cindex:[header lines,verifying the sender in]
cindex:[sender,verifying in header]
cindex:[verifying,sender in header]
This condition is relevant only in an ACL that is run after a message has been
received, that is, in an ACL specified by %acl_smtp_data% or %acl_not_smtp%. It
checks that there is a verifiable address in at least one of the 'Sender:',
'Reply-To:', or 'From:' header lines. Such an address is loosely thought of as
a ``sender'' address (hence the name of the test). However, an address that
appears in one of these headers need not be an address that accepts bounce
messages; only sender addresses in envelopes are required to accept bounces.
Therefore, if you use the callout option on this check, you might want to
arrange for a non-empty address in the MAIL command.
+
Details of address verification and the options are given later, starting at
section <<SECTaddressverification>> (callouts are described in section
<<SECTcallver>>). You can combine this condition with the %senders% condition to
restrict it to bounce messages only:

  deny    senders = :
          message = A valid sender header is required for bounces
         !verify  = header_sender

*verify~=~header_syntax*::
cindex:[%verify%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},verifying header syntax]
cindex:[header lines,verifying syntax]
cindex:[verifying,header syntax]
This condition is relevant only in an ACL that is run after a message has been
received, that is, in an ACL specified by %acl_smtp_data% or %acl_not_smtp%. It
checks the syntax of all header lines that can contain lists of addresses
('Sender:', 'From:', 'Reply-To:', 'To:', 'Cc:', and 'Bcc:'). Unqualified
addresses (local parts without domains) are permitted only in locally generated
messages and from hosts that match %sender_unqualified_hosts% or
%recipient_unqualified_hosts%, as appropriate.
+
Note that this condition is a syntax check only. However, a common spamming
ploy used to be to send syntactically invalid headers such as

  To: @
+
and this condition can be used to reject such messages, though they are not as
common as they used to be.

*verify~=~helo*::
cindex:[%verify%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},verifying HELO/EHLO]
cindex:[HELO,verifying]
cindex:[EHLO,verifying]
cindex:[verifying,EHLO]
cindex:[verifying,HELO]
This condition is true if a HELO or EHLO command has been received from the
client host, and its contents have been verified. Verification of these
commands does not happen by default. See the description of the
%helo_verify_hosts% and %helo_try_verify_hosts% options for details of how to
request it.

*verify~=~recipient/*<'options'>::
cindex:[%verify%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},verifying recipient]
cindex:[recipient,verifying]
cindex:[verifying,recipient]
This condition is relevant only after a RCPT command. It verifies the current
recipient. Details of address verification are given later, starting at section
<<SECTaddressverification>>. After a recipient has been verified, the value of
$address_data$ is the last value that was set while routing the address. This
applies even if the verification fails. When an address that is being verified
is redirected to a single address, verification continues with the new address,
and in that case, the subsequent value of $address_data$ is the value for the
child address.

*verify~=~reverse_host_lookup*::
cindex:[%verify%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},verifying host reverse lookup]
cindex:[host,verifying reverse lookup]
This condition ensures that a verified host name has been looked up from the IP
address of the client host. (This may have happened already if the host name
was needed for checking a host list, or if the host matched %host_lookup%.)
Verification ensures that the host name obtained from a reverse DNS lookup, or
one of its aliases, does, when it is itself looked up in the DNS, yield the
original IP address.
+
If this condition is used for a locally generated message (that is, when there
is no client host involved), it always succeeds.

*verify~=~sender/*<'options'>::
cindex:[%verify%, ACL condition]
cindex:[{ACL},verifying sender]
cindex:[sender,verifying]
cindex:[verifying,sender]
This condition is relevant only after a MAIL or RCPT command, or after a
message has been received (the %acl_smtp_data% or %acl_not_smtp% ACLs). If the
message's sender is empty (that is, this is a bounce message), the condition is
true. Otherwise, the sender address is verified.
+
If there is data in the $address_data$ variable at the end of routing, its
value is placed in $sender_address_data$ at the end of verification. This
value can be used in subsequent conditions and modifiers in the same ACL
statement. It does not persist after the end of the current statement. If you
want to preserve the value for longer, you can save it in an ACL variable.
+
Details of verification are given later, starting at section
<<SECTaddressverification>>. Exim caches the result of sender verification, to
avoid doing it more than once per message.

*verify~=~sender=*<'address'>*/*<'options'>::
cindex:[%verify%, ACL condition]
This is a variation of the previous option, in which a modified address is
verified as a sender.



[[SECTmorednslists]]
Using DNS lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DNS list,in ACL]
cindex:[black list (DNS)]
cindex:[{ACL},testing a DNS list]
In its simplest form, the %dnslists% condition tests whether the calling host
is on at least one of a number of DNS lists by looking up the inverted IP
address in one or more DNS domains. For example, if the calling host's IP
address is 192.168.62.43, and the ACL statement is

....
deny dnslists = blackholes.mail-abuse.org : \
                dialups.mail-abuse.org
....

the following records are looked up:

  43.62.168.192.blackholes.mail-abuse.org
  43.62.168.192.dialups.mail-abuse.org

As soon as Exim finds an existing DNS record, processing of the list stops.
Thus, multiple entries on the list provide an ``or'' conjunction. If you want to
test that a host is on more than one list (an ``and'' conjunction), you can use
two separate conditions:

  deny dnslists = blackholes.mail-abuse.org
       dnslists = dialups.mail-abuse.org

If a DNS lookup times out or otherwise fails to give a decisive answer, Exim
behaves as if the host does not match the list item, that is, as if the DNS
record does not exist. If there are further items in the DNS list, they are
processed.

This is usually the required action when %dnslists% is used with %deny% (which
is the most common usage), because it prevents a DNS failure from blocking
mail. However, you can change this behaviour by putting one of the following
special items in the list:

cindex:[`+include_unknown`]
cindex:[`+exclude_unknown`]
cindex:[`+defer_unknown`]
&&&
`+include_unknown `   behave as if the item is on the list
`+exclude_unknown `   behave as if the item is not on the list (default)
`+defer_unknown   `   give a temporary error
&&&
Each of these applies to any subsequent items on the list. For example:

  deny dnslists = +defer_unknown : foo.bar.example


Testing the list of domains stops as soon as a match is found. If you want to
warn for one list and block for another, you can use two different statements:

  deny  dnslists = blackholes.mail-abuse.org
  warn  message  = X-Warn: sending host is on dialups list
        dnslists = dialups.mail-abuse.org


DNS list lookups are cached by Exim for the duration of the SMTP session,
so a lookup based on the IP address is done at most once for any incoming
connection. Exim does not share information between multiple incoming
connections (but your local name server cache should be active).



Specifying the IP address for a DNS list lookup
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DNS list,keyed by explicit IP address]
By default, the IP address that is used in a DNS list lookup is the IP address
of the calling host. However, you can specify another IP address by listing it
after the domain name, introduced by a slash. For example:

  deny dnslists = black.list.tls/192.168.1.2

This feature is not very helpful with explicit IP addresses; it is intended for
use with IP addresses that are looked up, for example, the IP addresses of the
MX hosts or nameservers of an email sender address. For an example, see section
<<SECTmulkeyfor>> below.




DNS lists keyed on domain names
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DNS list,keyed by domain name]
There are some lists that are keyed on domain names rather than inverted IP
addresses (see for example the 'domain based zones' link at
*http://www.rfc-ignorant.org/[]*). No reversing of components is used with
these lists. You can change the name that is looked up in a DNS list by listing
it after the domain name, introduced by a slash. For example,

  deny  message  = Sender's domain is listed at $dnslist_domain
        dnslists = dsn.rfc-ignorant.org/$sender_address_domain

This particular example is useful only in ACLs that are obeyed after the
RCPT or DATA commands, when a sender address is available. If (for
example) the message's sender is 'user@tld.example' the name that is looked
up by this example is

  tld.example.dsn.rfc-ignorant.org

A single %dnslists% condition can contain entries for both names and IP
addresses. For example:

....
deny dnslists = sbl.spamhaus.org : \
                dsn.rfc-ignorant.org/$sender_address_domain
....

The first item checks the sending host's IP address; the second checks a domain
name. The whole condition is true if either of the DNS lookups succeeds.




[[SECTmulkeyfor]]
Multiple explicit keys for a DNS list
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DNS list,multiple keys for]
The syntax described above for looking up explicitly-defined values (either
names or IP addresses) in a DNS blacklist is a simplification. After the domain
name for the DNS list, what follows the slash can in fact be a list of items.
As with all lists in Exim, the default separator is a colon. However, because
this is a sublist within the list of DNS blacklist domains, it is necessary
either to double the separators like this:

  dnslists = black.list.tld/name.1::name.2

or to change the separator character, like this:

  dnslists = black.list.tld/<;name.1;name.2

If an item in the list is an IP address, it is inverted before the DNS
blacklist domain is appended. If it is not an IP address, no inversion
occurs. Consider this condition:

  dnslists = black.list.tld/<;192.168.1.2;a.domain

The DNS lookups that occur are:

  2.1.168.192.black.list.tld
  a.domain.black.list.tld

Once a DNS record has been found (that matches a specific IP return
address, if specified -- see section <<SECTaddmatcon>>), no further lookups are
done. If there is a temporary DNS error, the rest of the sublist of domains or
IP addresses is tried. A temporary error for the whole dnslists item occurs
only if no other DNS lookup in this sublist succeeds. In other words, a
successful lookup for any of the items in the sublist overrides a temporary
error for a previous item.

The ability to supply a list of items after the slash is in some sense just a
syntactic convenience. These two examples have the same effect:

  dnslists = black.list.tld/a.domain : black.list.tld/b.domain
  dnslists = black.list.tld/a.domain::b.domain

However, when the data for the list is obtained from a lookup, the second form
is usually much more convenient. Consider this example:

....
deny message  =  The mail servers for the domain \
                 $sender_address_domain \
                 are listed at $dnslist_domain ($dnslist_value); \
                 see $dnslist_text.
     dnslists =  sbl.spamhaus.org/<|${lookup dnsdb {>|a=<|\
                                    ${lookup dnsdb {>|mxh=\
                                    $sender_address_domain} }} }
....

Note the use of `>|` in the dnsdb lookup to specify the separator for
multiple DNS records. The inner dnsdb lookup produces a list of MX hosts
and the outer dnsdb lookup finds the IP addresses for these hosts. The result
of expanding the condition might be something like this:

  dnslists = sbl.spahmaus.org/<|192.168.2.3|192.168.5.6|...

Thus, this example checks whether or not the IP addresses of the sender
domain's mail servers are on the Spamhaus black list.





Data returned by DNS lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DNS list,data returned from]
DNS lists are constructed using address records in the DNS. The original RBL
just used the address 127.0.0.1 on the right hand side of each record, but the
RBL+ list and some other lists use a number of values with different meanings.
The values used on the RBL+ list are:

&&&
127.1.0.1  RBL
127.1.0.2  DUL
127.1.0.3  DUL and RBL
127.1.0.4  RSS
127.1.0.5  RSS and RBL
127.1.0.6  RSS and DUL
127.1.0.7  RSS and DUL and RBL
&&&

Some DNS lists may return more than one address record.


Variables set from DNS lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DNS list,variables set from]
When an entry is found in a DNS list, the variable $dnslist_domain$
contains the name of the domain that matched, $dnslist_value$ contains the
data from the entry, and $dnslist_text$ contains the contents of any
associated TXT record. If more than one address record is returned by the DNS
lookup, all the IP addresses are included in $dnslist_value$, separated by
commas and spaces.

You can use these variables in %message% or %log_message% modifiers --
although these appear before the condition in the ACL, they are not expanded
until after it has failed. For example:

....
deny    hosts = !+local_networks
        message = $sender_host_address is listed \
                  at $dnslist_domain
        dnslists = rbl-plus.mail-abuse.example
....




[[SECTaddmatcon]]
Additional matching conditions for DNS lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DNS list,matching specific returned data]
You can add an equals sign and an IP address after a %dnslists% domain name in
order to restrict its action to DNS records with a matching right hand side.
For example,

  deny dnslists = rblplus.mail-abuse.org=127.0.0.2

rejects only those hosts that yield 127.0.0.2. Without this additional data,
any address record is considered to be a match. If more than one address record
is found on the list, they are all checked for a matching right-hand side.

More than one IP address may be given for checking, using a comma as a
separator. These are alternatives -- if any one of them matches, the %dnslists%
condition is true. For example:

  deny  dnslists = a.b.c=127.0.0.2,127.0.0.3


If you want to specify a constraining address list and also specify names or IP
addresses to be looked up, the constraining address list must be specified
first. For example:

....
deny dnslists = dsn.rfc-ignorant.org\
                =127.0.0.2/$sender_address_domain
....


If the character ``&'' is used instead of ``='', the comparison for each listed
IP address is done by a bitwise ``and'' instead of by an equality test. In
other words, the listed addresses are used as bit masks. The comparison is
true if all the bits in the mask are present in the address that is being
tested. For example:

  dnslists = a.b.c&0.0.0.3

matches if the address is 'x.x.x.'3, 'x.x.x.'7, 'x.x.x.'11, etc. If you
want to test whether one bit or another bit is present (as opposed to both
being present), you must use multiple values. For example:

  dnslists = a.b.c&0.0.0.1,0.0.0.2

matches if the final component of the address is an odd number or two times
an odd number.



Negated DNS matching conditions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can supply a negative list of IP addresses as part of a %dnslists%
condition. Whereas

  deny  dnslists = a.b.c=127.0.0.2,127.0.0.3

means ``deny if the host is in the black list at the domain 'a.b.c' and the IP
address yielded by the list is either 127.0.0.2 or 127.0.0.3'',

  deny  dnslists = a.b.c!=127.0.0.2,127.0.0.3

means ``deny if the host is in the black list at the domain 'a.b.c' and the IP
address yielded by the list is not 127.0.0.2 and not 127.0.0.3''. In other
words, the result of the test is inverted if an exclamation mark appears before
the ``='' (or the ``&'') sign.

*Note*: this kind of negation is not the same as negation in a domain,
host, or address list (which is why the syntax is different).

If you are using just one list, the negation syntax does not gain you much. The
previous example is precisely equivalent to

  deny  dnslists = a.b.c
       !dnslists = a.b.c=127.0.0.2,127.0.0.3

However, if you are using multiple lists, the negation syntax is clearer.
Consider this example:

....
deny  dnslists = sbl.spamhaus.org : \
                 list.dsbl.org : \
                 dnsbl.njabl.org!=127.0.0.3 : \
                 relays.ordb.org
....

Using only positive lists, this would have to be:

....
deny  dnslists = sbl.spamhaus.org : \
                 list.dsbl.org
deny  dnslists = dnsbl.njabl.org
     !dnslists = dnsbl.njabl.org=127.0.0.3
deny  dnslists = relays.ordb.org
....

which is less clear, and harder to maintain.




[[SECTmorednslistslast]]
DNS lists and IPv6
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[IPv6,DNS black lists]
cindex:[DNS list,IPv6 usage]
If Exim is asked to do a dnslist lookup for an IPv6 address, it inverts it
nibble by nibble. For example, if the calling host's IP address is
3ffe:ffff:836f:0a00:000a:0800:200a:c031, Exim might look up

  1.3.0.c.a.0.0.2.0.0.8.0.a.0.0.0.0.0.a.0.f.6.3.8.
    f.f.f.f.e.f.f.3.blackholes.mail-abuse.org

(split over two lines here to fit on the page). Unfortunately, some of the DNS
lists contain wildcard records, intended for IPv4, that interact badly with
IPv6. For example, the DNS entry

  *.3.some.list.example.    A    127.0.0.1

is probably intended to put the entire 3.0.0.0/8 IPv4 network on the list.
Unfortunately, it also matches the entire 3::/4 IPv6 network.

You can exclude IPv6 addresses from DNS lookups by making use of a suitable
%condition% condition, as in this example:

  deny   condition = ${if isip4{$sender_host_address}}
         dnslists  = some.list.example




[[SECTaddressverification]]
Address verification
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[verifying address, options for]
cindex:[policy control,address verification]
Several of the %verify% conditions described in section <<SECTaclconditions>>
cause addresses to be verified. These conditions can be followed by options
that modify the verification process. The options are separated from the
keyword and from each other by slashes, and some of them contain parameters.
For example:

  verify = sender/callout
  verify = recipient/defer_ok/callout=10s,defer_ok

The first stage of address verification, which always happens, is to run the
address through the routers, in ``verify mode''. Routers can detect the
difference between verification and routing for delivery, and their actions can
be varied by a number of generic options such as %verify% and %verify_only%
(see chapter <<CHAProutergeneric>>). If routing fails, verification fails.
The available options are as follows:

- If the %callout% option is specified, successful routing to one or more remote
hosts is followed by a ``callout'' to those hosts as an additional check.
Callouts and their sub-options are discussed in the next section.

- If there is a defer error while doing verification routing, the ACL
normally returns ``defer''. However, if you include %defer_ok% in the options,
the condition is forced to be true instead. Note that this is a main
verification option as well as a suboption for callouts.

- The %no_details% option is covered in section <<SECTsenaddver>>, which discusses
the reporting of sender address verification failures.

cindex:[verifying address, differentiating failures]
After an address verification failure, $sender_verify_failure$ or
$recipient_verify_failure$ (as appropriate) contains one of the following
words:

- %qualify%: The address was unqualified (no domain), and the message
was neither local nor came from an exempted host.

- %route%: Routing failed.

- %mail%: Routing succeeded, and a callout was attempted; rejection
occurred at or before the MAIL command (that is, on initial
connection, HELO, or MAIL).

- %recipient%: The RCPT command in a callout was rejected.

- %postmaster%: The postmaster check in a callout was rejected.


The main use of these variables is expected to be to distinguish between
rejections of MAIL and rejections of RCPT in callouts.




[[SECTcallver]]
Callout verification
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[verifying address, by callout]
cindex:[callout,verification]
cindex:[SMTP,callout verification]
For non-local addresses, routing verifies the domain, but is unable to do any
checking of the local part. There are situations where some means of verifying
the local part is desirable. One way this can be done is to make an SMTP
'callback' to the sending host (for a sender address) or a 'callforward' to
a subsequent host (for a recipient address), to see if the host accepts the
address. We use the term 'callout' to cover both cases. This facility should
be used with care, because it can add a lot of resource usage to the cost of
verifying an address. However, Exim does cache the results of callouts, which
helps to reduce the cost. Details of caching are in the next section.

Recipient callouts are usually used only between hosts that are controlled by
the same administration. For example, a corporate gateway host could use
callouts to check for valid recipients on an internal mailserver.
A successful callout does not guarantee that a real delivery to the address
would succeed; on the other hand, a failing callout does guarantee that
a delivery would fail.

If the %callout% option is present on a condition that verifies an address, a
second stage of verification occurs if the address is successfully routed to
one or more remote hosts. The usual case is routing by a ^dnslookup^ or a
^manualroute^ router, where the router specifies the hosts. However, if a
router that does not set up hosts routes to an ^smtp^ transport with a
%hosts% setting, the transport's hosts are used. If an ^smtp^ transport has
%hosts_override% set, its hosts are always used, whether or not the router
supplies a host list.

The port that is used is taken from the transport, if it is specified and is a
remote transport. (For routers that do verification only, no transport need be
specified.) Otherwise, the default SMTP port is used. If a remote transport
specifies an outgoing interface, this is used; otherwise the interface is not
specified.

For a sender callout check, Exim makes SMTP connections to the remote hosts, to
test whether a bounce message could be delivered to the sender address. The
following SMTP commands are sent:

&&&
`HELO `<'smtp active host name'>
`MAIL FROM:<>`
`RCPT TO:`<'the address to be tested'>
`QUIT`
&&&

LHLO is used instead of HELO if the transport's %protocol% option is
set to ``lmtp''.

A recipient callout check is similar. By default, it also uses an empty address
for the sender. This default is chosen because most hosts do not make use of
the sender address when verifying a recipient. Using the same address means
that a single cache entry can be used for each recipient. Some sites, however,
do make use of the sender address when verifying. These are catered for by the
%use_sender% and %use_postmaster% options, described in the next section.

If the response to the RCPT command is a 2'##xx' code, the verification
succeeds. If it is 5##'xx', the verification fails. For any other condition,
Exim tries the next host, if any. If there is a problem with all the remote
hosts, the ACL yields ``defer'', unless the %defer_ok% parameter of the
%callout% option is given, in which case the condition is forced to succeed.





[[CALLaddparcall]]
Additional parameters for callouts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[callout,additional parameters for]
The %callout% option can be followed by an equals sign and a number of optional
parameters, separated by commas. For example:

  verify = recipient/callout=10s,defer_ok

The old syntax, which had %callout_defer_ok% and %check_postmaster% as
separate verify options, is retained for backwards compatibility, but is now
deprecated. The additional parameters for %callout% are as follows:


<'a~time~interval'>::
cindex:[callout timeout, specifying]
This specifies the timeout that applies for the callout attempt to each host.
For example:

  verify = sender/callout=5s
+
The default is 30 seconds. The timeout is used for each response from the
remote host. It is also used for the intial connection, unless overridden by
the %connect% parameter.


*connect~=~*<'time~interval'>::
cindex:[callout connection timeout, specifying]
This parameter makes it possible to set a different (usually smaller) timeout
for making the SMTP connection. For example:

  verify = sender/callout=5s,connect=1s
+
If not specified, this timeout defaults to the general timeout value.

*defer_ok*::
cindex:[callout defer, action on]
When this parameter is present, failure to contact any host, or any other kind
of temporary error, is treated as success by the ACL. However, the cache is not
updated in this circumstance.

*mailfrom~=~*<'email~address'>::
cindex:[callout,sender when verifying header]
When verifying addresses in header lines using the %header_sender% verification
option, Exim behaves by default as if the addresses are envelope sender
addresses from a message. Callout verification therefore tests to see whether a
bounce message could be delivered, by using an empty address in the MAIL
command. However, it is arguable that these addresses might never be used as
envelope senders, and could therefore justifiably reject bounce messages (empty
senders). The %mailfrom% callout parameter allows you to specify what address
to use in the MAIL command. For example:

  require  verify = header_sender/callout=mailfrom=abcd@x.y.z
+
This parameter is available only for the %header_sender% verification option.


*maxwait~=~*<'time~interval'>::
cindex:[callout overall timeout, specifying]
This parameter sets an overall timeout for performing a callout verification.
For example:

  verify = sender/callout=5s,maxwait=30s
+
This timeout defaults to four times the callout timeout for individual SMTP
commands. The overall timeout applies when there is more than one host that can
be tried. The timeout is checked before trying the next host. This prevents
very long delays if there are a large number of hosts and all are timing out
(for example, when network connections are timing out).


*no_cache*::
cindex:[callout cache, suppressing]
cindex:[caching callout, suppressing]
When this parameter is given, the callout cache is neither read nor updated.

*postmaster*::
cindex:[callout,postmaster; checking]
When this parameter is set, a sucessful callout check is followed by a similar
check for the local part 'postmaster' at the same domain. If this address is
rejected, the callout fails. The result of the postmaster check is recorded in
a cache record; if it is a failure, this is used to fail subsequent callouts
for the domain without a connection being made, until the cache record expires.

*postmaster_mailfrom~=~*<'email~address'>::
The postmaster check uses an empty sender in the MAIL command by default.
You can use this parameter to do a postmaster check using a different address.
For example:

  require  verify = sender/callout=postmaster_mailfrom=abc@x.y.z
+
If both %postmaster% and %postmaster_mailfrom% are present, the rightmost one
overrides. The %postmaster% parameter is equivalent to this example:

  require  verify = sender/callout=postmaster_mailfrom=
+
*Warning*: The caching arrangements for postmaster checking do not take
account of the sender address. It is assumed that either the empty address or
a fixed non-empty address will be used. All that Exim remembers is that the
postmaster check for the domain succeeded or failed.


*random*::
cindex:[callout,``random'' check]
When this parameter is set, before doing the normal callout check, Exim does a
check for a ``random'' local part at the same domain. The local part is not
really random -- it is defined by the expansion of the option
%callout_random_local_part%, which defaults to

  $primary_host_name-$tod_epoch-testing
+
The idea here is to try to determine whether the remote host accepts all local
parts without checking. If it does, there is no point in doing callouts for
specific local parts. If the ``random'' check succeeds, the result is saved in
a cache record, and used to force the current and subsequent callout checks to
succeed without a connection being made, until the cache record expires.

*use_postmaster*::
cindex:[callout,sender for recipient check]
This parameter applies to recipient callouts only. For example:

  deny  !verify = recipient/callout=use_postmaster
+
It causes a non-empty postmaster address to be used in the MAIL command
when performing the callout. The local part of the address is `postmaster`
and the domain is the contents of $qualify_domain$.

*use_sender*::
This option applies to recipient callouts only. For example:

  require  verify = recipient/callout=use_sender
+
It causes the message's actual sender address to be used in the MAIL
command when performing the callout, instead of an empty address. There is no
need to use this option unless you know that the called hosts make use of the
sender when checking recipients. If used indiscriminately, it reduces the
usefulness of callout caching.

///
End of list
///

If you use any of the parameters that set a non-empty sender for the MAIL
command (%mailfrom%, %postmaster_mailfrom%, %use_postmaster%, or
%use_sender%), you should think about possible loops. Recipient checking is
usually done between two hosts that are under the same management, and the host
that receives the callouts is not normally configured to do callouts itself.
Therefore, it is normally safe to use %use_postmaster% or %use_sender% in
these circumstances.

However, if you use a non-empty sender address for a callout to an arbitrary
host, there is the likelihood that the remote host will itself initiate a
callout check back to your host. As it is checking what appears to be a message
sender, it is likely to use an empty address in MAIL, thus avoiding a
callout loop. However, to be on the safe side it would be best to set up your
own ACLs so that they do not do sender verification checks when the recipient
is the address you use for header sender or postmaster callout checking.

Another issue to think about when using non-empty senders for callouts is
caching. When you set %mailfrom% or %use_sender%, the cache record is keyed by
the sender/recipient combination; thus, for any given recipient, many more
actual callouts are performed than when an empty sender or postmaster is used.




[[SECTcallvercache]]
Callout caching
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[hints database,callout cache]
cindex:[callout,caching]
cindex:[caching,callout]
Exim caches the results of callouts in order to reduce the amount of resources
used, unless you specify the %no_cache% parameter with the %callout% option.
A hints database called ``callout'' is used for the cache. Two different record
types are used: one records the result of a callout check for a specific
address, and the other records information that applies to the entire domain
(for example, that it accepts the local part 'postmaster').

When an original callout fails, a detailed SMTP error message is given about
the failure. However, for subsequent failures use the cache data, this message
is not available.

The expiry times for negative and positive address cache records are
independent, and can be set by the global options %callout_negative_expire%
(default 2h) and %callout_positive_expire% (default 24h), respectively.

If a host gives a negative response to an SMTP connection, or rejects any
commands up to and including

  MAIL FROM:<>

(but not including the MAIL command with a non-empty address),
any callout attempt is bound to fail. Exim remembers such failures in a
domain cache record, which it uses to fail callouts for the domain without
making new connections, until the domain record times out. There are two
separate expiry times for domain cache records:
%callout_domain_negative_expire% (default 3h) and
%callout_domain_positive_expire% (default 7d).

Domain records expire when the negative expiry time is reached if callouts
cannot be made for the domain, or if the postmaster check failed.
Otherwise, they expire when the positive expiry time is reached. This
ensures that, for example, a host that stops accepting ``random'' local parts
will eventually be noticed.

The callout caching mechanism is based on the domain of the address that is
being tested. If the domain routes to several hosts, it is assumed that their
behaviour will be the same.



[[SECTsenaddver]]
Sender address verification reporting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[verifying,suppressing error details]
When sender verification fails in an ACL, the details of the failure are
given as additional output lines before the 550 response to the relevant
SMTP command (RCPT or DATA). For example, if sender callout is in use,
you might see:

  MAIL FROM:<xyz@abc.example>
  250 OK
  RCPT TO:<pqr@def.example>
  550-Verification failed for <xyz@abc.example>
  550-Called:   192.168.34.43
  550-Sent:     RCPT TO:<xyz@abc.example>
  550-Response: 550 Unknown local part xyz in <xyz@abc.example>
  550 Sender verification failed

If more than one RCPT command fails in the same way, the details are given
only for the first of them. However, some administrators do not want to send
out this much information. You can suppress the details by adding
``/no_details'' to the ACL statement that requests sender verification. For
example:

  verify = sender/no_details




Redirection while verifying
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[verifying,redirection while]
cindex:[address redirection,while verifying]
A dilemma arises when a local address is redirected by aliasing or forwarding
during verification: should the generated addresses themselves be verified,
or should the successful expansion of the original address be enough to verify
it? Exim takes the following pragmatic approach:

- When an incoming address is redirected to just one child address, verification
continues with the child address, and if that fails to verify, the original
verification also fails.

- When an incoming address is redirected to more than one child address,
verification does not continue. A success result is returned.

This seems the most reasonable behaviour for the common use of aliasing as a
way of redirecting different local parts to the same mailbox. It means, for
example, that a pair of alias entries of the form

  A.Wol:   aw123
  aw123:   :fail: Gone away, no forwarding address

work as expected, with both local parts causing verification failure. When a
redirection generates more than one address, the behaviour is more like a
mailing list, where the existence of the alias itself is sufficient for
verification to succeed.



[[SECTrelaycontrol]]
Using an ACL to control relaying
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[{ACL},relay control]
cindex:[relaying,control by ACL]
cindex:[policy control,relay control]
An MTA is said to 'relay' a message if it receives it from some host and
delivers it directly to another host as a result of a remote address contained
within it. Redirecting a local address via an alias or forward file and then
passing the message on to another host is not relaying,

cindex:[``percent hack'']
but a redirection as a result of the ``percent hack'' is.

Two kinds of relaying exist, which are termed ``incoming'' and ``outgoing''.
A host which is acting as a gateway or an MX backup is concerned with incoming
relaying from arbitrary hosts to a specific set of domains. On the other hand,
a host which is acting as a smart host for a number of clients is concerned
with outgoing relaying from those clients to the Internet at large. Often the
same host is fulfilling both functions,
///
as illustrated in the diagram below,
///
but in principle these two kinds of relaying are entirely independent. What is
not wanted is the transmission of mail from arbitrary remote hosts through your
system to arbitrary domains.


You can implement relay control by means of suitable statements in the ACL that
runs for each RCPT command. For convenience, it is often easiest to use
Exim's named list facility to define the domains and hosts involved. For
example, suppose you want to do the following:

- Deliver a number of domains to mailboxes on the local host (or process them
locally in some other way). Let's say these are 'my.dom1.example' and
'my.dom2.example'.

- Relay mail for a number of other domains for which you are the secondary MX.
These might be 'friend1.example' and 'friend2.example'.

- Relay mail from the hosts on your local LAN, to whatever domains are involved.
Suppose your LAN is 192.168.45.0/24.


In the main part of the configuration, you put the following definitions:

  domainlist local_domains = my.dom1.example : my.dom2.example
  domainlist relay_domains = friend1.example : friend2.example
  hostlist   relay_hosts   = 192.168.45.0/24

Now you can use these definitions in the ACL that is run for every RCPT
command:

  acl_check_rcpt:
    accept domains = +local_domains : +relay_domains
    accept hosts   = +relay_hosts

The first statement accepts any RCPT command that contains an address in
the local or relay domains. For any other domain, control passes to the second
statement, which accepts the command only if it comes from one of the relay
hosts. In practice, you will probably want to make your ACL more sophisticated
than this, for example, by including sender and recipient verification. The
default configuration includes a more comprehensive example, which is described
in chapter <<CHAPdefconfil>>.



[[SECTcheralcon]]
Checking a relay configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[relaying,checking control of]
You can check the relay characteristics of your configuration in the same way
that you can test any ACL behaviour for an incoming SMTP connection, by using
the %-bh% option to run a fake SMTP session with which you interact.

For specifically testing for unwanted relaying, the host
'relay-test.mail-abuse.org' provides a useful service. If you telnet to this
host from the host on which Exim is running, using the normal telnet port, you
will see a normal telnet connection message and then quite a long delay. Be
patient. The remote host is making an SMTP connection back to your host, and
trying a number of common probes to test for open relay vulnerability. The
results of the tests will eventually appear on your terminal.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPexiscan]]
Content scanning
----------------
cindex:[content scanning]
The content-scanning extension of Exim, formerly known as ``exiscan'', was
originally implemented as a patch by Tom Kistner. The code was integrated into
the main source for Exim release 4.50, and Tom continues to maintain it. Most
of the wording of this chapter is taken from Tom's specification.

If you want to include the content-scanning features when you compile Exim, you
need to arrange for WITH_CONTENT_SCAN to be defined in your
_Local/Makefile_. When you do that, the Exim binary is built with:

- An additional ACL (%acl_smtp_mime%) that is run for all MIME parts.

- Additional ACL conditions and modifiers: %decode%, %malware%, %mime_regex%,
%regex%, and %spam%. These can be used in the ACL that is run at the end of
message reception (the %acl_smtp_data% ACL).

- An additional control feature (``no_mbox_unspool'') that saves spooled copies
of messages, or parts of messages, for debugging purposes.

- Additional expansion variables that are set in the new ACL and by the new
conditions.

- Two new main configuration options: %av_scanner% and %spamd_address%.

There is another content-scanning configuration option for _Local/Makefile_,
called WITH_OLD_DEMIME. If this is set, the old, deprecated %demime% ACL
condition is compiled, in addition to all the other content-scanning features.

Content-scanning is continually evolving, and new features are still being
added. While such features are still unstable and liable to incompatible
changes, they are made available in Exim by setting options whose names begin
EXPERIMENTAL_ in _Local/Makefile_. Such features are not documented in
this manual. You can find out about them by reading the file called
_doc/experimental.txt_.

All the content-scanning facilites work on a MBOX copy of the message that is
temporarily created in a file called:

  <spool_directory>/scan/<message_id>/<message_id>.eml

The _.eml_ extension is a friendly hint to virus scanners that they can
expect an MBOX-like structure inside that file. The file is created when the
first content scanning facility is called. Subsequent calls to content
scanning conditions open the same file again. The directory is recursively
removed when the %acl_smtp_data% ACL has finished running, unless

  control = no_mbox_unspool

has been encountered. When the MIME ACL decodes files, they are put into the
same directory by default.



[[SECTscanvirus]]
Scanning for viruses
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[virus scanning]
cindex:[content scanning,for viruses]
cindex:[content scanning,the %malware% condition]
The %malware% ACL condition lets you connect virus scanner software to Exim. It
supports a ``generic'' interface to scanners called via the shell, and
specialized interfaces for ``daemon'' type virus scanners, which are resident in
memory and thus are much faster.

cindex:[%av_scanner%]
You can set the %av_scanner% option in first part of the Exim configuration
file to specify which scanner to use, together with any additional options that
are needed. The basic syntax is as follows:

  av_scanner = <scanner-type>:<option1>:<option2>:[...]

If you do not set %av_scanner%, it defaults to

  av_scanner = sophie:/var/run/sophie

If the value of %av_scanner% starts with dollar character, it is expanded
before use.

The following scanner types are supported in this release:

%aveserver%::
cindex:[virus scanners,Kaspersky]
This is the scanner daemon of Kaspersky Version 5. You can get a trial version
at *http://www.kaspersky.com[]*. This scanner type takes one option, which is
the path to the daemon's UNIX socket. The default is shown in this example:

  av_scanner = aveserver:/var/run/aveserver

%clamd%::
cindex:[virus scanners,clamd]
This daemon-type scanner is GPL and free. You can get it at
*http://www.clamav.net/[]*. Clamd does not seem to unpack MIME containers, so
it is recommended to unpack MIME attachments in the MIME ACL. It takes one
option: either the path and name of a UNIX socket file, or a hostname or IP
number, and a port, separated by space, as in the second of these examples:

  av_scanner = clamd:/opt/clamd/socket
  av_scanner = clamd:192.168.2.100 1234
+
If the option is unset, the default is _/tmp/clamd_. Thanks to David Saez for
contributing the code for this scanner.

%cmdline%::
cindex:[virus scanners,command line interface]
This is the keyword for the generic command line scanner interface. It can be
used to attach virus scanners that are invoked from the shell. This scanner
type takes 3 mandatory options:
+
--
. The full path and name of the scanner binary, with all command line options,
and a placeholder (%s) for the directory to scan.

. A regular expression to match against the STDOUT and STDERR output of the
virus scanner. If the expression matches, a virus was found. You must make
absolutely sure that this expression matches on ``virus found''. This is called
the ``trigger'' expression.

. Another regular expression, containing exactly one pair of parentheses, to
match the name of the virus found in the scanners output. This is called the
``name'' expression.
--
+
For example, Sophos Sweep reports a virus on a line like this:

  Virus 'W32/Magistr-B' found in file ./those.bat
+
For the trigger expression, we can just match the word ``found''. For the name
expression, we want to extract the W32/Magistr-B string, so we can match for
the single quotes left and right of it. Altogether, this makes the
configuration setting:
+
....
av_scanner = cmdline:\
             /path/to/sweep -all -rec -archive %s:\
             found:'(.+)'
....


%drweb%::
cindex:[virus scanners,DrWeb]
The DrWeb daemon scanner (*http://www.sald.com/[]*) interface takes one
argument, either a full path to a UNIX socket, or an IP address and port
separated by whitespace, as in these examples:

  av_scanner = drweb:/var/run/drwebd.sock
  av_scanner = drweb:192.168.2.20 31337
+
If you omit the argument, the default path _/usr/local/drweb/run/drwebd.sock_
is used. Thanks to Alex Miller for contributing the code for this scanner.

%fsecure%::
cindex:[virus scanners,F-Secure]
The F-Secure daemon scanner (*http://www.f-secure.com[]*) takes one argument
which is the path to a UNIX socket. For example:

  av_scanner = fsecure:/path/to/.fsav
+
If no argument is given, the default is _/var/run/.fsav_. Thanks to Johan
Thelmen for contributing the code for this scanner.

%kavdaemon%::
cindex:[virus scanners,Kaspersky]
This is the scanner daemon of Kaspersky Version 4. This version of the
Kaspersky scanner is outdated. Please upgrade (see %aveserver% above). This
scanner type takes one option, which is the path to the daemon's UNIX socket.
For example:

  av_scanner = kavdaemon:/opt/AVP/AvpCtl
+
The default path is _/var/run/AvpCtl_.

%mksd%::
cindex:[virus scanners,mksd]
This is a daemon type scanner that is aimed mainly at Polish users, though some
parts of documentation are now available in English. You can get it at
*http://linux.mks.com.pl/[]*. The only option for this scanner type is the
maximum number of processes used simultaneously to scan the attachments,
provided that the demime facility is employed and also provided that mksd has
been run with at least the same number of child processes. For example:

  av_scanner = mksd:2
+
You can safely omit this option (the default value is 1).

%sophie%::
cindex:[virus scanners,Sophos and Sophie]
Sophie is a daemon that uses Sophos' %libsavi% library to scan for viruses. You
can get Sophie at *http://www.vanja.com/tools/sophie/[]*. The only option for
this scanner type is the path to the UNIX socket that Sophie uses for client
communication. For example:

  av_scanner = sophie:/tmp/sophie
+
The default path is _/var/run/sophie_, so if you are using this, you can omit
the option.

///
End of list
///

When %av_scanner% is correctly set, you can use the %malware% condition in the
DATA ACL. The %av_scanner% option is expanded each time %malware% is
called. This makes it possible to use different scanners. See further below for
an example. The %malware% condition caches its results, so when you use it
multiple times for the same message, the actual scanning process is only
carried out once. However, using expandable items in %av_scanner% disables
this caching, in which case each use of the %malware% condition causes a new
scan of the message.

The %malware% condition takes a right-hand argument that is expanded before
use. It can then be one of

- ``true'', ``\*'', or ``1'', in which case the message is scanned for viruses.
The condition succeeds if a virus was found, and fail otherwise. This is the
recommended usage.

- ``false'' or ``0'', in which case no scanning is done and the condition fails
immediately.

- A regular expression, in which case the message is scanned for viruses. The
condition succeeds if a virus is found and its name matches the regular
expression. This allows you to take special actions on certain types of virus.

You can append `/defer_ok` to the %malware% condition to accept messages even
if there is a problem with the virus scanner.

cindex:[$malware_name$]
When a virus is found, the condition sets up an expansion variable called
$malware_name$ that contains the name of the virus. You can use it in a
%message% modifier that specifies the error returned to the sender, and/or in
logging data.

If your virus scanner cannot unpack MIME and TNEF containers itself, you should
use the %demime% condition (see section <<SECTdemimecond>>) before the %malware%
condition.

Here is a very simple scanning example:

  deny message = This message contains malware ($malware_name)
     demime = *
     malware = *

The next example accepts messages when there is a problem with the scanner:

  deny message = This message contains malware ($malware_name)
     demime = *
     malware = */defer_ok

The next example shows how to use an ACL variable to scan with both sophie and
aveserver. It assumes you have set:

  av_scanner = $acl_m0

in the main Exim configuration.

  deny message = This message contains malware ($malware_name)
     set acl_m0 = sophie
     malware = *

  deny message = This message contains malware ($malware_name)
     set acl_m0 = aveserver
     malware = *




[[SECTscanspamass]]
Scanning with SpamAssassin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[content scanning,for spam]
cindex:[spam scanning]
cindex:[SpamAssassin, scanning with]
The %spam% ACL condition calls SpamAssassin's %spamd% daemon to get a spam
score and a report for the message. You can get SpamAssassin at
*http://www.spamassassin.org[]*, or, if you have a working Perl installation,
you can use CPAN by running:

  perl -MCPAN -e 'install Mail::SpamAssassin'

SpamAssassin has its own set of configuration files. Please review its
documentation to see how you can tweak it. The default installation should work
nicely, however.

cindex:[%spamd_address%]
After having installed and configured SpamAssassin, start the %spamd% daemon.
By default, it listens on 127.0.0.1, TCP port 783. If you use another host or
port for %spamd%, you must set the %spamd_address% option in the global part
of the Exim configuration as follows (example):

  spamd_address = 192.168.99.45 387

You do not need to set this option if you use the default. As of version 2.60,
%spamd% also supports communication over UNIX sockets. If you want to use
these, supply %spamd_address% with an absolute file name instead of a
address/port pair:

  spamd_address = /var/run/spamd_socket


You can have multiple %spamd% servers to improve scalability. These can reside
on other hardware reachable over the network. To specify multiple %spamd%
servers, put multiple address/port pairs in the %spamd_address% option,
separated with colons:

....
spamd_address = 192.168.2.10 783 : \
                192.168.2.11 783 : \
                192.168.2.12 783
....

Up to 32 %spamd% servers are supported. The servers are
queried in a random fashion. When a server fails to respond
to the connection attempt, all other servers are tried
until one succeeds. If no server responds, the %spam%
condition defers.

*Warning*: It is not possible to use the UNIX socket connection method with
multiple %spamd% servers.

Here is a simple example of the use of the %spam% condition in a DATA ACL:

  deny message = This message was classified as SPAM
          spam = joe

The right-hand side of the %spam% condition specifies the username that
SpamAssassin should scan for. If you do not want to scan for a particular user,
but rather use the SpamAssassin system-wide default profile, you can scan for
an unknown user, or simply use ``nobody''. However, you must put something on the
right-hand side.

The username allows you to use per-domain or per-user antispam profiles. The
right-hand side is expanded before being used, so you can put lookups or
conditions there. When the right-hand side evaluates to ``0'' or ``false'', no
scanning is done and the condition fails immediately.

The %spam% condition returns true if the threshold specified in the user's
SpamAssassin profile has been matched or exceeded. If you want to use the
%spam% condition for its side effects (see the variables below), you can make
it always return ``true'' by appending `:true` to the username.

cindex:[spam scanning,returned variables]
When the %spam% condition is run, it sets up the following expansion
variables:

$spam_score$::
The spam score of the message, for example ``3.4'' or ``30.5''. This is useful
for inclusion in log or reject messages.

$spam_score_int$::
The spam score of the message, multiplied by ten, as an integer value. For
example ``34'' or ``305''. This is useful for numeric comparisons in
conditions. This variable is special; it is saved with the message, and written
to Exim's spool file. This means that it can be used during the whole life of
the message on your Exim system, in particular, in routers or transports during
the later delivery phase.

$spam_bar$::
A string consisting of a number of ``+'' or ``-'' characters, representing the
integer part of the spam score value. A spam score of 4.4 would have a
$spam_bar$ value of ``++++''. This is useful for inclusion in warning headers,
since MUAs can match on such strings.

$spam_report$::
A multiline text table, containing the full SpamAssassin report for the
message. Useful for inclusion in headers or reject messages.

///
End of list
///

The %spam% condition caches its results. If you call it again with the same
user name, it does not scan again, but rather returns the same values as
before.

The %spam% condition returns DEFER if there is any error while running the
message through SpamAssassin. If you want to treat DEFER as FAIL (to pass on to
the next ACL statement block), append `/defer_ok` to the right-hand side of
the spam condition, like this:

  deny message = This message was classified as SPAM
       spam    = joe/defer_ok

This causes messages to be accepted even if there is a
problem with %spamd%.

Here is a longer, commented example of the use of the %spam%
condition:

  # put headers in all messages (no matter if spam or not)
  warn  message = X-Spam-Score: $spam_score ($spam_bar)
        spam = nobody:true
  warn  message = X-Spam-Report: $spam_report
        spam = nobody:true

  # add second subject line with *SPAM* marker when message
  # is over threshold
  warn  message = Subject: *SPAM* $h_Subject:
        spam = nobody

  # reject spam at high scores (> 12)
  deny   message = This message scored $spam_score spam points.
         spam = nobody:true
         condition = ${if >{$spam_score_int}{120}{1}{0}}





[[SECTscanmimepart]]
Scanning MIME parts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[content scanning,MIME parts]
cindex:[MIME content scanning]
cindex:[%acl_smtp_mime%]
The %acl_smtp_mime% global option defines an ACL that is called once for each
MIME part of a message, including multipart types, in the sequence of their
position in the message.

This ACL is called (possibly many times) just before the %acl_smtp_data% ACL,
but only if the message has a 'MIME-Version:' header. When a call to the MIME
ACL does not yield ``accept'', ACL processing is aborted and the appropriate
result code is sent to the remote client. The %acl_smtp_data% ACL is not
called in this circumstance.

At the start of the MIME ACL, a number of variables are set from the header
information for the relevant MIME part. These are described below. The contents
of the MIME part are not by default decoded into a disk file except for MIME
parts whose content-type is ``message/rfc822''. If you want to decode a MIME part
into a disk file, you can use the %decode% modifier. The general syntax is:

  decode = [/<path>/]<filename>

The right hand side is expanded before use. After expansion,
the value can be:

. ``0'' or ``false'', in which case no decoding is done.

. The string ``default''. In that case, the file is put in the temporary
``default'' directory <'spool_directory'>_/scan/_<'message_id'>_/_ with a
sequential file name consisting of the message id and a sequence number. The
full path and name is available in $mime_decoded_filename$ after decoding.

. A full path name starting with a slash. If the full name is an existing
directory, it is used as a replacement for the default directory. The filename
is then sequentially assigned. If the path does not exist, it is used as
the full path and file name.

. If the string does not start with a slash, it is used as the
filename, and the default path is then used.

///
End of list
///

You can easily decode a file with its original, proposed filename using

  decode = $mime_filename

However, you should keep in mind that $mime_filename$ might contain
anything. If you place files outside of the default path, they are not
automatically unlinked.

For RFC822 attachments (these are messages attached to messages, with a
content-type of ``message/rfc822''), the ACL is called again in the same manner
as for the primary message, only that the $mime_is_rfc822$ expansion
variable is set (see below). Attached messages are always decoded to disk
before being checked, and the files are unlinked once the check is done.

The MIME ACL supports the %regex% and %mime_regex% conditions. These can be
used to match regular expressions against raw and decoded MIME parts,
respectively. They are described in section <<SECTscanregex>>.

cindex:[MIME content scanning,returned variables]
The following list describes all expansion variables that are
available in the MIME ACL:

$mime_boundary$::
If the current part is a multipart (see $mime_is_multipart$) below, it should
have a boundary string, which is stored in this variable. If the current part
has no boundary parameter in the 'Content-Type:' header, this variable contains
the empty string.

$mime_charset$::
This variable contains the character set identifier, if one was found in the
'Content-Type:' header. Examples for charset identifiers are:

  us-ascii
  gb2312 (Chinese)
  iso-8859-1
+
Please note that this value is not normalized, so you should do matches
case-insensitively.

$mime_content_description$::
This variable contains the normalized content of the 'Content-Description:'
header. It can contain a human-readable description of the parts content. Some
implementations repeat the filename for attachments here, but they are usually
only used for display purposes.

$mime_content_disposition$::
This variable contains the normalized content of the 'Content-Disposition:'
header. You can expect strings like ``attachment'' or ``inline'' here.

$mime_content_id$::
This variable contains the normalized content of the 'Content-ID:' header.
This is a unique ID that can be used to reference a part from another part.

$mime_content_size$::
This variable is set only after the %decode% modifier (see above) has been
successfully run. It contains the size of the decoded part in kilobytes. The
size is always rounded up to full kilobytes, so only a completely empty part
has a $mime_content_size$ of zero.

$mime_content_transfer_encoding$::
This variable contains the normalized content of the
'Content-transfer-encoding:' header. This is a symbolic name for an encoding
type. Typical values are ``base64'' and ``quoted-printable''.

$mime_content_type$::
If the MIME part has a 'Content-Type:' header, this variable contains its
value, lowercased, and without any options (like ``name'' or ``charset''). Here
are some examples of popular MIME types, as they may appear in this variable:

  text/plain
  text/html
  application/octet-stream
  image/jpeg
  audio/midi
+
If the MIME part has no 'Content-Type:' header, this variable contains the
empty string.

$mime_decoded_filename$::
This variable is set only after the %decode% modifier (see above) has been
successfully run. It contains the full path and file name of the file
containing the decoded data.

$mime_filename$::
This is perhaps the most important of the MIME variables. It contains a
proposed filename for an attachment, if one was found in either the
'Content-Type:' or 'Content-Disposition:' headers. The filename will be RFC2047
decoded, but no additional sanity checks are done. If no filename was found,
this variable contains the empty string.

$mime_is_coverletter$::
This variable attempts to differentiate the ``cover letter'' of an e-mail from
attached data. It can be used to clamp down on flashy or unneccessarily encoded
content in the cover letter, while not restricting attachments at all.
+
The variable contains 1 (true) for a MIME part believed to be part of the
cover letter, and 0 (false) for an attachment. At present, the algorithm is as
follows:
+
--
. The outermost MIME part of a message is always a cover letter.

. If a multipart/alternative or multipart/related MIME part is a cover letter, so
are all MIME subparts within that multipart.

. If any other multipart is a cover letter, the first subpart is a cover letter,
and the rest are attachments.

. All parts contained within an attachment multipart are attachments.
--
+
As an example, the following will ban ``HTML mail'' (including that sent with
alternative plain text), while allowing HTML files to be attached. HTML
coverletter mail attached to non-HMTL coverletter mail will also be allowed:

  deny message = HTML mail is not accepted here
     !condition = $mime_is_rfc822
     condition = $mime_is_coverletter
     condition = ${if eq{$mime_content_type}{text/html}{1}{0}}

$mime_is_multipart$::
This variable has the value 1 (true) when the current part has the main type
``multipart'', for example ``multipart/alternative'' or ``multipart/mixed''.
Since multipart entities only serve as containers for other parts, you may not
want to carry out specific actions on them.

$mime_is_rfc822$::
This variable has the value 1 (true) if the current part is not a part of the
checked message itself, but part of an attached message. Attached message
decoding is fully recursive.

$mime_part_count$::
This variable is a counter that is raised for each processed MIME part. It
starts at zero for the very first part (which is usually a multipart). The
counter is per-message, so it is reset when processing RFC822 attachments (see
$mime_is_rfc822$). The counter stays set after %acl_smtp_mime% is
complete, so you can use it in the DATA ACL to determine the number of MIME
parts of a message. For non-MIME messages, this variable contains the value -1.



[[SECTscanregex]]
Scanning with regular expressions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[content scanning,with regular expressions]
cindex:[regular expressions,content scanning with]
You can specify your own custom regular expression matches on the full body of
the message, or on individual MIME parts.

The %regex% condition takes one or more regular expressions as arguments and
matches them against the full message (when called in the DATA ACL) or a raw
MIME part (when called in the MIME ACL). The %regex% condition matches
linewise, with a maximum line length of 32K characters. That means you cannot
have multiline matches with the %regex% condition.

The %mime_regex% condition can be called only in the MIME ACL. It matches up
to 32K of decoded content (the whole content at once, not linewise). If the
part has not been decoded with the %decode% modifier earlier in the ACL, it is
decoded automatically when %mime_regex% is executed (using default path and
filename values). If the decoded data is larger than  32K, only the first 32K
characters are checked.

The regular expressions are passed as a colon-separated list. To include a
literal colon, you must double it. Since the whole right-hand side string is
expanded before being used, you must also escape dollar signs and backslashes
with more backslashes, or use the `\N` facility to disable expansion.
Here is a simple example that contains two regular expressions:

  deny message = contains blacklisted regex ($regex_match_string)
         regex = [Mm]ortgage : URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL

The conditions returns true if any one of the regular expressions matches. The
$regex_match_string$ expansion variable is then set up and contains the
matching regular expression.

*Warning*: With large messages, these conditions can be fairly
CPU-intensive.




[[SECTdemimecond]]
The demime condition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[content scanning,MIME checking]
cindex:[MIME content scanning]
The %demime% ACL condition provides MIME unpacking, sanity checking and file
extension blocking. It uses a simpler interface to MIME decoding than the MIME
ACL functionality, but provides no additional facilities. Please note that this
condition is deprecated and kept only for for backward compatibility. You must
set the WITH_OLD_DEMIME option in _Local/Makefile_ at build time to be
able to use the %demime% condition.

The %demime% condition unpacks MIME containers in the message. It detects
errors in MIME containers and can match file extensions found in the message
against a list. Using this facility produces files containing the unpacked MIME
parts of the message in the temporary scan directory. If you do antivirus
scanning, it is recommened that you use the %demime% condition before the
antivirus (%malware%) condition.

On the right-hand side of the %demime% condition you can pass a colon-separated
list of file extensions that it should match against. For example:

  deny message = Found blacklisted file attachment
       demime  = vbs:com:bat:pif:prf:lnk

If one of the file extensions is found, the condition is true, otherwise it is
false. If there is a temporary error while demimeing (for example, ``disk
full''), the condition defers, and the message is temporarily rejected (unless
the condition is on a %warn% verb).

The right-hand side is expanded before being treated as a list, so you can have
conditions and lookups there. If it expands to an empty string, ``false'', or
zero (``0''), no demimeing is done and the condition is false.

The %demime% condition set the following variables:

$demime_errorlevel$::
When an error is detected in a MIME container, this variable contains the
severity of the error, as an integer number. The higher the value, the more
severe the error. If this variable is unset or zero, no error occurred.

$demime_reason$::
When $demime_errorlevel$ is greater than zero, this variable contains a
human-readable text string describing the MIME error that occurred.

$found_extension$::
When the %demime% condition is true, this variable contains the file extension
it found.

///
End of list
///

Both $demime_errorlevel$ and $demime_reason$ are set by the first call of
the %demime% condition, and are not changed on subsequent calls.

If you do not want to check for file extensions, but rather use the %demime%
condition for unpacking or error checking purposes, pass ``\*'' as the
right-hand side value. Here is a more elaborate example of how to use this
facility:

  # Reject messages with serious MIME container errors
  deny  message = Found MIME error ($demime_reason).
        demime = *
        condition = ${if >{$demime_errorlevel}{2}{1}{0}}

  # Reject known virus spreading file extensions.
  # Accepting these is pretty much braindead.
  deny  message = contains $found_extension file (blacklisted).
        demime  = com:vbs:bat:pif:scr

  # Freeze .exe and .doc files. Postmaster can
  # examine them and eventually thaw them.
  deny  log_message = Another $found_extension file.
        demime = exe:doc
        control = freeze






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPlocalscan]]
[titleabbrev="Local scan function"]
Adding a local scan function to Exim
------------------------------------
cindex:['local_scan()' function,description of]
cindex:[customizing,input scan using C function]
cindex:[policy control,by local scan function]
In these days of email worms, viruses, and ever-increasing spam, some sites
want to apply a lot of checking to messages before accepting them.

The content scanning extension (chapter <<CHAPexiscan>>) has facilities for
passing messages to external virus and spam scanning software. You can also do

a certain amount in Exim itself through string expansions and the %condition%
condition in the ACL that runs after the SMTP DATA command or the ACL for
non-SMTP messages (see chapter <<CHAPACL>>), but this has its limitations.

To allow for further customization to a site's own requirements, there is the
possibility of linking Exim with a private message scanning function, written
in C. If you want to run code that is written in something other than C, you
can of course use a little C stub to call it.

The local scan function is run once for every incoming message, at the point
when Exim is just about to accept the message.
It can therefore be used to control non-SMTP messages from local processes as
well as messages arriving via SMTP.

Exim applies a timeout to calls of the local scan function, and there is an
option called %local_scan_timeout% for setting it. The default is 5 minutes.
Zero means ``no timeout''.
Exim also sets up signal handlers for SIGSEGV, SIGILL, SIGFPE, and SIGBUS
before calling the local scan function, so that the most common types of crash
are caught. If the timeout is exceeded or one of those signals is caught, the
incoming message is rejected with a temporary error if it is an SMTP message.
For a non-SMTP message, the message is dropped and Exim ends with a non-zero
code. The incident is logged on the main and reject logs.



Building Exim to use a local scan function
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['local_scan()' function,building Exim to use]
To make use of the local scan function feature, you must tell Exim where your
function is before building Exim, by setting LOCAL_SCAN_SOURCE in your
_Local/Makefile_. A recommended place to put it is in the _Local_
directory, so you might set

  LOCAL_SCAN_SOURCE=Local/local_scan.c

for example. The function must be called 'local_scan()'. It is called by
Exim after it has received a message, when the success return code is about to
be sent. This is after all the ACLs have been run. The return code from your
function controls whether the message is actually accepted or not. There is a
commented template function (that just accepts the message) in the file
_src/local_scan.c_.

If you want to make use of Exim's run time configuration file to set options
for your 'local_scan()' function, you must also set

  LOCAL_SCAN_HAS_OPTIONS=yes

in _Local/Makefile_ (see section <<SECTconoptloc>> below).




[[SECTapiforloc]]
API for local_scan()
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['local_scan()' function,API description]
You must include this line near the start of your code:

  #include "local_scan.h"

This header file defines a number of variables and other values, and the
prototype for the function itself. Exim is coded to use unsigned char values
almost exclusively, and one of the things this header defines is a shorthand
for `unsigned char` called `uschar`.
It also contains the following macro definitions, to simplify casting character
strings and pointers to character strings:

  #define CS   (char *)
  #define CCS  (const char *)
  #define CSS  (char **)
  #define US   (unsigned char *)
  #define CUS  (const unsigned char *)
  #define USS  (unsigned char **)


The function prototype for 'local_scan()' is:

  extern int local_scan(int fd, uschar **return_text);

The arguments are as follows:

- %fd% is a file descriptor for the file that contains the body of the message
(the -D file). The file is open for reading and writing, but updating it is not
recommended. *Warning*: You must 'not' close this file descriptor.
+
The descriptor is positioned at character 19 of the file, which is the first
character of the body itself, because the first 19 characters are the message
id followed by `-D` and a newline. If you rewind the file, you should use the
macro SPOOL_DATA_START_OFFSET to reset to the start of the data, just in
case this changes in some future version.

- %return_text% is an address which you can use to return a pointer to a text
string at the end of the function. The value it points to on entry is NULL.

The function must return an %int% value which is one of the following macros:

`LOCAL_SCAN_ACCEPT`::
The message is accepted. If you pass back a string of text, it is saved with
the message, and made available in the variable $local_scan_data$. No
newlines are permitted (if there are any, they are turned into spaces) and the
maximum length of text is 1000 characters.

`LOCAL_SCAN_ACCEPT_FREEZE`::
This behaves as LOCAL_SCAN_ACCEPT, except that the accepted message is
queued without immediate delivery, and is frozen.

`LOCAL_SCAN_ACCEPT_QUEUE`::
This behaves as LOCAL_SCAN_ACCEPT, except that the accepted message is
queued without immediate delivery.

`LOCAL_SCAN_REJECT`::
The message is rejected; the returned text is used as an error message which is
passed back to the sender and which is also logged. Newlines are permitted --
they cause a multiline response for SMTP rejections, but are converted to `\n`
in log lines. If no message is given, ``Administrative prohibition'' is used.

`LOCAL_SCAN_TEMPREJECT`::
The message is temporarily rejected; the returned text is used as an error
message as for LOCAL_SCAN_REJECT. If no message is given, ``Temporary local
problem'' is used.

`LOCAL_SCAN_REJECT_NOLOGHDR`::
This behaves as LOCAL_SCAN_REJECT, except that the header of the rejected
message is not written to the reject log. It has the effect of unsetting the
%rejected_header% log selector for just this rejection. If %rejected_header%
is already unset (see the discussion of the %log_selection% option in section
<<SECTlogselector>>), this code is the same as LOCAL_SCAN_REJECT.

`LOCAL_SCAN_TEMPREJECT_NOLOGHDR`::
This code is a variation of LOCAL_SCAN_TEMPREJECT in the same way that
LOCAL_SCAN_REJECT_NOLOGHDR is a variation of LOCAL_SCAN_REJECT.

///
End of list
///

If the message is not being received by interactive SMTP, rejections are
reported by writing to %stderr% or by sending an email, as configured by the
%-oe% command line options.



[[SECTconoptloc]]
Configuration options for local_scan()
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['local_scan()' function,configuration options]
It is possible to have option settings in the main configuration file
that set values in static variables in the 'local_scan()' module. If you
want to do this, you must have the line

  LOCAL_SCAN_HAS_OPTIONS=yes

in your _Local/Makefile_ when you build Exim. (This line is in
_OS/Makefile-Default_, commented out). Then, in the 'local_scan()' source
file, you must define static variables to hold the option values, and a table to
define them.

The table must be a vector called %local_scan_options%, of type
`optionlist`. Each entry is a triplet, consisting of a name, an option type,
and a pointer to the variable that holds the value. The entries must appear in
alphabetical order. Following %local_scan_options% you must also define a
variable called %local_scan_options_count% that contains the number of
entries in the table. Here is a short example, showing two kinds of option:

  static int my_integer_option = 42;
  static uschar *my_string_option = US"a default string";

  optionlist local_scan_options[] = {
    { "my_integer", opt_int,       &my_integer_option },
    { "my_string",  opt_stringptr, &my_string_option }
  };
  int local_scan_options_count =
    sizeof(local_scan_options)/sizeof(optionlist);

The values of the variables can now be changed from Exim's runtime
configuration file by including a local scan section as in this example:

  begin local_scan
  my_integer = 99
  my_string = some string of text...

The available types of option data are as follows:

*opt_bool*::
This specifies a boolean (true/false) option. The address should point to a
variable of type `BOOL`, which will be set to TRUE or FALSE, which are macros
that are defined as ``1'' and ``0'', respectively. If you want to detect
whether such a variable has been set at all, you can initialize it to
TRUE_UNSET. (BOOL variables are integers underneath, so can hold more than two
values.)

*opt_fixed*::
This specifies a fixed point number, such as is used for load averages.
The address should point to a variable of type `int`. The value is stored
multiplied by 1000, so, for example, 1.4142 is truncated and stored as 1414.

*opt_int*::
This specifies an integer; the address should point to a variable of type
`int`. The value may be specified in any of the integer formats accepted by
Exim.

*opt_mkint*::
This is the same as %opt_int%, except that when such a value is output in a
%-bP% listing, if it is an exact number of kilobytes or megabytes, it is
printed with the suffix K or M.

*opt_octint*::
This also specifies an integer, but the value is always interpeted as an
octal integer, whether or not it starts with the digit zero, and it is
always output in octal.

*opt_stringptr*::
This specifies a string value; the address must be a pointer to a
variable that points to a string (for example, of type `uschar \*`).

*opt_time*::
This specifies a time interval value. The address must point to a variable of
type `int`. The value that is placed there is a number of seconds.

///
End of list
///

If the %-bP% command line option is followed by `local_scan`, Exim prints
out the values of all the 'local_scan()' options.



Available Exim variables
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['local_scan()' function,available Exim variables]
The header _local_scan.h_ gives you access to a number of C variables. These
are the only ones that are guaranteed to be maintained from release to release.
Note, however, that you can obtain the value of any Exim variable by calling
'expand_string()'. The exported variables are as follows:

*unsigned~int~debug_selector*::
This variable is set to zero when no debugging is taking place. Otherwise, it
is a bitmap of debugging selectors. Two bits are identified for use in
'local_scan()'; they are defined as macros:
+
--
- The `D_v` bit is set when %-v% was present on the command line. This is a
testing option that is not privileged -- any caller may set it. All the
other selector bits can be set only by admin users.

- The `D_local_scan` bit is provided for use by 'local_scan()'; it is set
by the `+local_scan` debug selector. It is not included in the default set
of debugging bits.
--
+
Thus, to write to the debugging output only when `+local_scan` has been
selected, you should use code like this:

  if ((debug_selector & D_local_scan) != 0)
    debug_printf("xxx", ...);


*uschar~\*expand_string_message*::
After a failing call to 'expand_string()' (returned value NULL), the
variable %expand_string_message% contains the error message, zero-terminated.

*header_line~\*header_list*::
A pointer to a chain of header lines. The %header_line% structure is discussed
below.

*header_line~\*header_last*::
A pointer to the last of the header lines.

*uschar~\*headers_charset*::
The value of the %headers_charset% configuration option.

*BOOL~host_checking*::
This variable is TRUE during a host checking session that is initiated by the
%-bh% command line option.

*uschar~\*interface_address*::
The IP address of the interface that received the message, as a string. This
is NULL for locally submitted messages.

*int~interface_port*::
The port on which this message was received.

*uschar~\*message_id*::
This variable contains the message id for the incoming message as a
zero-terminated string.

*uschar~\*received_protocol*::
The name of the protocol by which the message was received.

*int~recipients_count*::
The number of accepted recipients.

*recipient_item~\*recipients_list*::
cindex:[recipient,adding in local scan]
cindex:[recipient,removing in local scan]
The list of accepted recipients, held in a vector of length %recipients_count%.
The %recipient_item% structure is discussed below. You can add additional
recipients by calling 'receive_add_recipient()' (see below). You can delete
recipients by removing them from the vector and adusting the value in
%recipients_count%. In particular, by setting %recipients_count% to zero you
remove all recipients. If you then return the value `LOCAL_SCAN_ACCEPT`, the
message is accepted, but immediately blackholed. To replace the recipients, set
%recipients_count% to zero and then call 'receive_add_recipient()' as often as
needed.

*uschar~\*sender_address*::
The envelope sender address. For bounce messages this is the empty string.

*uschar~\*sender_host_address*::
The IP address of the sending host, as a string. This is NULL for
locally-submitted messages.

*uschar~\*sender_host_authenticated*::
The name of the authentication mechanism that was used, or NULL if the message
was not received over an authenticated SMTP connection.

*uschar~\*sender_host_name*::
The name of the sending host, if known.

*int~sender_host_port*::
The port on the sending host.

*BOOL~smtp_input*::
This variable is TRUE for all SMTP input, including BSMTP.

*BOOL~smtp_batched_input*::
This variable is TRUE for BSMTP input.

*int~store_pool*::
The contents of this variable control which pool of memory is used for new
requests. See section <<SECTmemhanloc>> for details.

///
End of list
///



Structure of header lines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The %header_line% structure contains the members listed below.
You can add additional header lines by calling the 'header_add()' function
(see below). You can cause header lines to be ignored (deleted) by setting
their type to \*.


*struct~header_line~\*next*::
A pointer to the next header line, or NULL for the last line.

*int~type*::
A code identifying certain headers that Exim recognizes. The codes are printing
characters, and are documented in chapter <<CHAPspool>> of this manual. Notice
in particular that any header line whose type is \* is not transmitted with the
message. This flagging is used for header lines that have been rewritten, or
are to be removed (for example, 'Envelope-sender:' header lines.) Effectively,
\* means ``deleted''.

*int~slen*::
The number of characters in the header line, including the terminating and any
internal newlines.

*uschar~\*text*::
A pointer to the text of the header. It always ends with a newline, followed by
a zero byte. Internal newlines are preserved.



Structure of recipient items
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The %recipient_item% structure contains these members:

*uschar~\*address*::
This is a pointer to the recipient address as it was received.

*int~pno*::
This is used in later Exim processing when top level addresses are created by
the %one_time% option. It is not relevant at the time 'local_scan()' is run and
must always contain -1 at this stage.

*uschar~\*errors_to*::
If this value is not NULL, bounce messages caused by failing to deliver to the
recipient are sent to the address it contains. In other words, it overrides the
envelope sender for this one recipient. (Compare the %errors_to% generic router
option.) If a 'local_scan()' function sets an %errors_to% field to an
unqualified address, Exim qualifies it using the domain from
%qualify_recipient%. When 'local_scan()' is called, the %errors_to% field is
NULL for all recipients.



Available Exim functions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['local_scan()' function,available Exim functions]
The header _local_scan.h_ gives you access to a number of Exim functions.
These are the only ones that are guaranteed to be maintained from release to
release:

*pid_t~child_open(uschar~{star}{star}argv,~uschar~{star}{star}envp,~int~newumask,~int~{star}infdptr,~int~{star}outfdptr,~BOOL~make_leader)*::

This function creates a child process that runs the command specified by
%argv%. The environment for the process is specified by %envp%, which can be
NULL if no environment variables are to be passed. A new umask is supplied for
the process in %newumask%.
+
Pipes to the standard input and output of the new process are set up
and returned to the caller via the %infdptr% and %outfdptr% arguments. The
standard error is cloned to the standard output. If there are any file
descriptors ``in the way'' in the new process, they are closed. If the final
argument is TRUE, the new process is made into a process group leader.
+
The function returns the pid of the new process, or -1 if things go wrong.

*int~child_close(pid_t~pid,~int~timeout)*::
This function waits for a child process to terminate, or for a timeout (in
seconds) to expire. A timeout value of zero means wait as long as it takes. The
return value is as follows:
+
- >= 0
+
The process terminated by a normal exit and the value is the process ending
status.

- < 0 and > --256
+
The process was terminated by a signal and the value is the negation of the
signal number.

- --256
+
The process timed out.

- --257
+
The was some other error in wait(); %errno% is still set.


*pid_t~child_open_exim(int~{star}fd)*::
This function provide you with a means of submitting a new message to
Exim. (Of course, you can also call _/usr/sbin/sendmail_ yourself if you
want, but this packages it all up for you.) The function creates a pipe,
forks a subprocess that is running

  exim -t -oem -oi -f <>
+
and returns to you (via the `int *` argument) a file descriptor for the pipe
that is connected to the standard input. The yield of the function is the PID
of the subprocess. You can then write a message to the file descriptor, with
recipients in 'To:', 'Cc:', and/or 'Bcc:' header lines.
+
When you have finished, call 'child_close()' to wait for the process to
finish and to collect its ending status. A timeout value of zero is usually
fine in this circumstance. Unless you have made a mistake with the recipient
addresses, you should get a return code of zero.

*void~debug_printf(char~{star},~...)*::
This is Exim's debugging function, with arguments as for '(printf()'. The
output is written to the standard error stream. If no debugging is selected,
calls to 'debug_printf()' have no effect. Normally, you should make calls
conditional on the `local_scan` debug selector by coding like this:

  if ((debug_selector & D_local_scan) != 0)
    debug_printf("xxx", ...);

*uschar~{star}expand_string(uschar~{star}string)*::
This is an interface to Exim's string expansion code. The return value is the
expanded string, or NULL if there was an expansion failure.
The C variable %expand_string_message% contains an error message after an
expansion failure. If expansion does not change the string, the return value is
the pointer to the input string. Otherwise, the return value points to a new
block of memory that was obtained by a call to 'store_get()'. See section
<<SECTmemhanloc>> below for a discussion of memory handling.

*void~header_add(int~type,~char~{star}format,~...)*::
This function allows you to an add additional header line at the end of the
existing ones. The first argument is the type, and should normally be a space
character. The second argument is a format string and any number of
substitution arguments as for 'sprintf()'. You may include internal newlines if
you want, and you must ensure that the string ends with a newline.

*void~header_add_at_position(BOOL~after,~uschar~{star}name,~BOOL~topnot,~int~type,~char~{star}format,~...)*::
This function adds a new header line at a specified point in the header
chain. The header itself is specified as for 'header_add()'.
+
If %name% is NULL, the new header is added at the end of the chain if %after%
is true, or at the start if %after% is false. If %name% is not NULL, the header
lines are searched for the first non-deleted header that matches the name. If
one is found, the new header is added before it if %after% is false. If %after%
is true, the new header is added after the found header and any adjacent
subsequent ones with the same name (even if marked ``deleted''). If no matching
non-deleted header is found, the %topnot% option controls where the header is
added. If it is true, addition is at the top; otherwise at the bottom. Thus, to
add a header after all the 'Received:' headers, or at the top if there are no
'Received:' headers, you could use

  header_add_at_position(TRUE, US"Received", TRUE,
    ' ', "X-xxx: ...");
+
Normally, there is always at least one non-deleted 'Received:' header, but
there may not be if %received_header_text% expands to an empty string.


*void~header_remove(int~occurrence,~uschar~{star}name)*::
This function removes header lines. If %occurrence% is zero or negative, all
occurrences of the header are removed. If occurrence is greater than zero, that
particular instance of the header is removed. If no header(s) can be found that
match the specification, the function does nothing.


*BOOL~header_testname(header_line~{star}hdr,~uschar~{star}name,~int~length,~BOOL~notdel)*::
This function tests whether the given header has the given name. It is not just
a string comparison, because whitespace is permitted between the name and the
colon. If the %notdel% argument is true, a false return is forced for all
``deleted'' headers; otherwise they are not treated specially. For example:

  if (header_testname(h, US"X-Spam", 6, TRUE)) ...


*uschar~{star}lss_b64encode(uschar~{star}cleartext,~int~length)*::
cindex:[base64 encoding,functions for 'local_scan()' use]
This function base64-encodes a string, which is passed by address and length.
The text may contain bytes of any value, including zero. The result is passed
back in dynamic memory that is obtained by calling 'store_get()'. It is
zero-terminated.

*int~lss_b64decode(uschar~{star}codetext,~uschar~{star}{star}cleartext)*::
This function decodes a base64-encoded string. Its arguments are a
zero-terminated base64-encoded string and the address of a variable that is set
to point to the result, which is in dynamic memory. The length of the decoded
string is the yield of the function. If the input is invalid base64 data, the
yield is -1. A zero byte is added to the end of the output string to make it
easy to interpret as a C string (assuming it contains no zeros of its own). The
added zero byte is not included in the returned count.

*int~lss_match_domain(uschar~{star}domain,~uschar~{star}list)*::
This function checks for a match in a domain list. Domains are always
matched caselessly. The return value is one of the following:
+
&&&
`OK     ` match succeeded
`FAIL   ` match failed
`DEFER  ` match deferred
&&&
+
DEFER is usually caused by some kind of lookup defer, such as the
inability to contact a database.

*int~lss_match_local_part(uschar~{star}localpart,~uschar~{star}list,~BOOL~caseless)*::
This function checks for a match in a local part list. The third argument
controls case-sensitivity. The return values are as for
'lss_match_domain()'.

*int~lss_match_address(uschar~{star}address,~uschar~{star}list,~BOOL~caseless)*::
This function checks for a match in an address list. The third argument
controls the case-sensitivity of the local part match. The domain is always
matched caselessly. The return values are as for 'lss_match_domain()'.

*int~lss_match_host(uschar~{star}host_name,~uschar~{star}host_address,~uschar~{star}list)*::
This function checks for a match in a host list. The most common usage is
expected to be

  lss_match_host(sender_host_name, sender_host_address, ...)
+
An empty address field matches an empty item in the host list. If the
host name is NULL, the name corresponding to $sender_host_address$ is
automatically looked up if a host name is required to match an item in the
list. The return values are as for 'lss_match_domain()', but in addition,
'lss_match_host()' returns ERROR in the case when it had to look up a host
name, but the lookup failed.

*void~log_write(unsigned~int~selector,~int~which,~char~{star}format,~...)*::
This function writes to Exim's log files. The first argument should be zero (it
is concerned with %log_selector%). The second argument can be `LOG_MAIN` or
`LOG_REJECT` or `LOG_PANIC` or the inclusive ``or'' of any combination of them.
It specifies to which log or logs the message is written. The remaining
arguments are a format and relevant insertion arguments. The string should not
contain any newlines, not even at the end.


*void~receive_add_recipient(uschar~{star}address,~int~pno)*::
This function adds an additional recipient to the message. The first argument
is the recipient address. If it is unqualified (has no domain), it is qualified
with the %qualify_recipient% domain. The second argument must always be -1.
+
This function does not allow you to specify a private %errors_to% address (as
described with the structure of %recipient_item% above), because it pre-dates
the addition of that field to the structure. However, it is easy to add such a
value afterwards. For example:

  receive_add_recipient(US"monitor@mydom.example", -1);
  recipients_list[recipients_count-1].errors_to =
    US"postmaster@mydom.example";

*BOOL~receive_remove_recipient(uschar~{star}recipient)*::
This is a convenience function to remove a named recipient from the list of
recipients. It returns true if a recipient was removed, and false if no
matching recipient could be found. The argument must be a complete email
address.


*uschar~*rfc2047_decode(uschar~{star}string,~BOOL~lencheck,~uschar~{star}target,~int~zeroval,~int~{star}lenptr,~uschar~{star}{star}error)*::
This function decodes strings that are encoded according to RFC 2047. Typically
these are the contents of header lines. First, each encoded ``word'' is decoded
from the Q or B encoding into a byte-string. Then, if provided with the name of
a charset encoding, and if the 'iconv()' function is available, an attempt is
made  to translate the result to the named character set. If this fails, the
binary string is returned with an error message.
+
The first argument is the string to be decoded. If %lencheck% is TRUE, the
maximum MIME word length is enforced. The third argument is the target
encoding, or NULL if no translation is wanted.
+
cindex:[binary zero,in RFC 2047 decoding]
If a binary zero is encountered in the decoded string, it is replaced by the
contents of the %zeroval% argument. For use with Exim headers, the value must
not be 0 because header lines are handled as zero-terminated strings.
+
The function returns the result of processing the string, zero-terminated; if
%lenptr% is not NULL, the length of the result is set in the variable to which
it points. When %zeroval% is 0, %lenptr% should not be NULL.
+
If an error is encountered, the function returns NULL and uses the %error%
argument to return an error message. The variable pointed to by %error% is set
to NULL if there is no error; it may be set non-NULL even when the function
returns a non-NULL value if decoding was successful, but there was a problem
with translation.


*int~smtp_fflush(void)*::
This function is used in conjunction with 'smtp_printf()', as described
below.

*void~smtp_printf(char~{star},~...)*::
The arguments of this function are like 'printf()'; it writes to the SMTP
output stream. You should use this function only when there is an SMTP output
stream, that is, when the incoming message is being received via interactive
SMTP. This is the case when %smtp_input% is TRUE and %smtp_batched_input% is
FALSE. If you want to test for an incoming message from another host (as
opposed to a local process that used the %-bs% command line option), you can
test the value of %sender_host_address%, which is non-NULL when a remote host
is involved.
+
If an SMTP TLS connection is established, 'smtp_printf()' uses the TLS
output function, so it can be used for all forms of SMTP connection.
+
Strings that are written by 'smtp_printf()' from within 'local_scan()'
must start with an appropriate response code: 550 if you are going to return
LOCAL_SCAN_REJECT, 451 if you are going to return
LOCAL_SCAN_TEMPREJECT, and 250 otherwise. Because you are writing the
initial lines of a multi-line response, the code must be followed by a hyphen
to indicate that the line is not the final response line. You must also ensure
that the lines you write terminate with CRLF. For example:

  smtp_printf("550-this is some extra info\r\n");
  return LOCAL_SCAN_REJECT;
+
Note that you can also create multi-line responses by including newlines in
the data returned via the %return_text% argument. The added value of using
'smtp_printf()' is that, for instance, you could introduce delays between
multiple output lines.
+
The 'smtp_printf()' function does not return any error indication, because it
does not automatically flush pending output, and therefore does not test
the state of the stream. (In the main code of Exim, flushing and error
detection is done when Exim is ready for the next SMTP input command.) If
you want to flush the output and check for an error (for example, the
dropping of a TCP/IP connection), you can call 'smtp_fflush()', which has no
arguments. It flushes the output stream, and returns a non-zero value if there
is an error.

*void~{star}store_get(int)*::
This function accesses Exim's internal store (memory) manager. It gets a new
chunk of memory whose size is given by the argument. Exim bombs out if it ever
runs out of memory. See the next section for a discussion of memory handling.

*void~{star}store_get_perm(int)*::
This function is like 'store_get()', but it always gets memory from the
permanent pool. See the next section for a discussion of memory handling.

*uschar~{star}string_copy(uschar~{star}string)*::
See below.

*uschar~{star}string_copyn(uschar~{star}string,~int~length)*::
See below.

*uschar~{star}string_sprintf(char~{star}format,~...)*::
These three functions create strings using Exim's dynamic memory facilities.
The first makes a copy of an entire string. The second copies up to a maximum
number of characters, indicated by the second argument. The third uses a format
and insertion arguments to create a new string. In each case, the result is a
pointer to a new string in the current memory pool. See the next section for
more discussion.

///
End of list
///




[[SECTmemhanloc]]
More about Exim's memory handling
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['local_scan()' function,memory handling]
No function is provided for freeing memory, because that is never needed.
The dynamic memory that Exim uses when receiving a message is automatically
recycled if another message is received by the same process (this applies only
to incoming SMTP connections -- other input methods can supply only one message
at a time). After receiving the last message, a reception process terminates.

Because it is recycled, the normal dynamic memory cannot be used for holding
data that must be preserved over a number of incoming messages on the same SMTP
connection. However, Exim in fact uses two pools of dynamic memory; the second
one is not recycled, and can be used for this purpose.

If you want to allocate memory that remains available for subsequent messages
in the same SMTP connection, you should set

  store_pool = POOL_PERM

before calling the function that does the allocation. There is no need to
restore the value if you do not need to; however, if you do want to revert to
the normal pool, you can either restore the previous value of %store_pool% or
set it explicitly to POOL_MAIN.

The pool setting applies to all functions that get dynamic memory, including
'expand_string()', 'store_get()', and the 'string_xxx()' functions.
There is also a convenience function called 'store_get_perm()' that gets a
block of memory from the permanent pool while preserving the value of
%store_pool%.





////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPsystemfilter]]
System-wide message filtering
-----------------------------
cindex:[filter,system filter]
cindex:[filtering all mail]
cindex:[system filter]
The previous chapters (on ACLs and the local scan function) describe checks
that can be applied to messages before they are accepted by a host. There is
also a mechanism for checking messages once they have been received, but before
they are delivered. This is called the 'system filter'.

The system filter operates in a similar manner to users' filter files, but it
is run just once per message (however many recipients the message has).
It should not normally be used as a substitute for routing, because %deliver%
commands in a system router provide new envelope recipient addresses.
The system filter must be an Exim filter. It cannot be a Sieve filter.

The system filter is run at the start of a delivery attempt, before any routing
is done. If a message fails to be completely delivered at the first attempt,
the system filter is run again at the start of every retry.
If you want your filter to do something only once per message, you can make use
of the %first_delivery% condition in an %if% command in the filter to prevent
it happening on retries.

*Warning*: Because the system filter runs just once, variables that are
specific to individual recipient addresses, such as $local_part$ and
$domain$, are not set, and the ``personal'' condition is not meaningful. If you
want to run a centrally-specified filter for each recipient address
independently, you can do so by setting up a suitable ^redirect^ router, as
described in section <<SECTperaddfil>> below.


Specifying a system filter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[uid (user id),system filter]
cindex:[gid (group id),system filter]
The name of the file that contains the system filter must be specified by
setting %system_filter%. If you want the filter to run under a uid and gid
other than root, you must also set %system_filter_user% and
%system_filter_group% as appropriate. For example:

  system_filter = /etc/mail/exim.filter
  system_filter_user = exim

If a system filter generates any deliveries directly to files or pipes (via the
%save% or %pipe% commands), transports to handle these deliveries must be
specified by setting %system_filter_file_transport% and
%system_filter_pipe_transport%, respectively. Similarly,
%system_filter_reply_transport% must be set to handle any messages generated
by the %reply% command.


Testing a system filter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can run simple tests of a system filter in the same way as for a user
filter, but you should use %-bF% rather than %-bf%, so that features that
are permitted only in system filters are recognized.

If you want to test the combined effect of a system filter and a user filter,
you can use both %-bF% and %-bf% on the same command line.



Contents of a system filter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The language used to specify system filters is the same as for users' filter
files. It is described in the separate end-user document 'Exim's interface to
mail filtering'. However, there are some additional features that are
available only in system filters; these are described in subsequent sections.
If they are encountered in a user's filter file or when testing with %-bf%,
they cause errors.

cindex:[frozen messages,manual thaw; testing in filter]
There are two special conditions which, though available in users' filter
files, are designed for use in system filters. The condition %first_delivery%
is true only for the first attempt at delivering a message, and
%manually_thawed% is true only if the message has been frozen, and
subsequently thawed by an admin user. An explicit forced delivery counts as a
manual thaw, but thawing as a result of the %auto_thaw% setting does not.

*Warning*: If a system filter uses the %first_delivery% condition to
specify an ``unseen'' (non-significant) delivery, and that delivery does not
succeed, it will not be tried again.
If you want Exim to retry an unseen delivery until it succeeds, you should
arrange to set it up every time the filter runs.

When a system filter finishes running, the values of the variables $n0$ --
$n9$ are copied into $sn0$ -- $sn9$ and are thereby made available to
users' filter files. Thus a system filter can, for example, set up ``scores'' to
which users' filter files can refer.



Additional variable for system filters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The expansion variable $recipients$, containing a list of all the recipients
of the message (separated by commas and white space), is available in system
filters. It is not available in users' filters for privacy reasons.



Defer, freeze, and fail commands for system filters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[freezing messages]
cindex:[message,freezing]
cindex:[message,forced failure]
cindex:[%fail%,in system filter]
cindex:[%freeze% in system filter]
cindex:[%defer% in system filter]
There are three extra commands (%defer%, %freeze% and %fail%) which are always
available in system filters, but are not normally enabled in users' filters.
(See the %allow_defer%,
%allow_freeze% and %allow_fail% options for the ^redirect^ router.) These
commands can optionally be followed by the word %text% and a string containing
an error message, for example:

  fail text "this message looks like spam to me"

The keyword %text% is optional if the next character is a double quote.

The %defer% command defers delivery of the original recipients of the message.
The %fail% command causes all the original recipients to be failed, and a
bounce message to be created. The %freeze% command suspends all delivery
attempts for the original recipients. In all cases, any new deliveries that are
specified by the filter are attempted as normal after the filter has run.

The %freeze% command is ignored if the message has been manually unfrozen and
not manually frozen since. This means that automatic freezing by a system
filter can be used as a way of checking out suspicious messages. If a message
is found to be all right, manually unfreezing it allows it to be delivered.

cindex:[log,%fail% command log line]
cindex:[%fail%,log line; reducing]
The text given with a fail command is used as part of the bounce message as
well as being written to the log. If the message is quite long, this can fill
up a lot of log space when such failures are common. To reduce the size of the
log message, Exim interprets the text in a special way if it starts with the
two characters `<<` and contains `>>` later. The text between these two
strings is written to the log, and the rest of the text is used in the bounce
message. For example:

....
fail "<<filter test 1>>Your message is rejected \
     because it contains attachments that we are \
     not prepared to receive."
....


cindex:[loop,caused by %fail%]
Take great care with the %fail% command when basing the decision to fail on the
contents of the message, because the bounce message will of course include the
contents of the original message and will therefore trigger the %fail% command
again (causing a mail loop) unless steps are taken to prevent this. Testing the
%error_message% condition is one way to prevent this. You could use, for
example

  if $message_body contains "this is spam" and not error_message
    then fail text "spam is not wanted here" endif

though of course that might let through unwanted bounce messages. The
alternative is clever checking of the body and/or headers to detect bounces
generated by the filter.

The interpretation of a system filter file ceases after a
%defer%,
%freeze%, or %fail% command is obeyed. However, any deliveries that were set up
earlier in the filter file are honoured, so you can use a sequence such as

  mail ...
  freeze

to send a specified message when the system filter is freezing (or deferring or
failing) a message. The normal deliveries for the message do not, of course,
take place.



[[SECTaddremheasys]]
Adding and removing headers in a system filter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[header lines,adding; in system filter]
cindex:[header lines,removing; in system filter]
cindex:[filter,header lines; adding/removing]
Two filter commands that are available only in system filters are:

  headers add <string>
  headers remove <string>

The argument for the %headers add% is a string that is expanded and then added
to the end of the message's headers. It is the responsibility of the filter
maintainer to make sure it conforms to RFC 2822 syntax. Leading white space is
ignored, and if the string is otherwise empty, or if the expansion is forced to
fail, the command has no effect.

You can use ``\n'' within the string, followed by white space, to specify
continued header lines. More than one header may be added in one command by
including ``\n'' within the string without any following white space. For
example:

....
headers add "X-header-1: ....\n  \
             continuation of X-header-1 ...\n\
             X-header-2: ...."
....

Note that the header line continuation white space after the first newline must
be placed before the backslash that continues the input string, because white
space after input continuations is ignored.

The argument for %headers remove% is a colon-separated list of header names.
This command applies only to those headers that are stored with the message;
those that are added at delivery time (such as 'Envelope-To:' and
'Return-Path:') cannot be removed by this means. If there is more than one
header with the same name, they are all removed.

The %headers% command in a system filter makes an immediate change to the set
of header lines that was received with the message (with possible additions
from ACL processing). Subsequent commands in the system filter operate on the
modified set, which also forms the basis for subsequent message delivery.
Unless further modified during routing or transporting, this set of headers is
used for all recipients of the message.

During routing and transporting, the variables that refer to the contents of
header lines refer only to those lines that are in this set. Thus, header lines
that are added by a system filter are visible to users' filter files and to all
routers and transports. This contrasts with the manipulation of header lines by
routers and transports, which is not immediate, but which instead is saved up
until the message is actually being written (see section <<SECTheadersaddrem>>).

If the message is not delivered at the first attempt, header lines that were
added by the system filter are stored with the message, and so are still
present at the next delivery attempt. Header lines that were removed are still
present, but marked ``deleted'' so that they are not transported with the
message. For this reason, it is usual to make the %headers% command conditional
on %first_delivery% so that the set of header lines is not modified more than
once.

Because header modification in a system filter acts immediately, you have to
use an indirect approach if you want to modify the contents of a header line.
For example:

  headers add "Old-Subject: $h_subject:"
  headers remove "Subject"
  headers add "Subject: new subject (was: $h_old-subject:)"
  headers remove "Old-Subject"





Setting an errors address in a system filter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[envelope sender]
In a system filter, if a %deliver% command is followed by

  errors_to <some address>

in order to change the envelope sender (and hence the error reporting) for that
delivery, any address may be specified. (In a user filter, only the current
user's address can be set.) For example, if some mail is being monitored, you
might use

  unseen deliver monitor@spying.example errors_to root@local.example

to take a copy which would not be sent back to the normal error reporting
address if its delivery failed.



[[SECTperaddfil]]
Per-address filtering
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In contrast to the system filter, which is run just once per message for each
delivery attempt, it is also possible to set up a system-wide filtering
operation that runs once for each recipient address. In this case, variables
such as $local_part$ and $domain$ can be used, and indeed, the choice of
filter file could be made dependent on them. This is an example of a router
which implements such a filter:

  central_filter:
    check_local_user
    driver = redirect
    domains = +local_domains
    file = /central/filters/$local_part
    no_verify
    allow_filter
    allow_freeze

The filter is run in a separate process under its own uid. Therefore, either
%check_local_user% must be set (as above), in which case the filter is run as
the local user, or the %user% option must be used to specify which user to use.
If both are set, %user% overrides.

Care should be taken to ensure that none of the commands in the filter file
specify a significant delivery if the message is to go on to be delivered to
its intended recipient. The router will not then claim to have dealt with the
address, so it will be passed on to subsequent routers to be delivered in the
normal way.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPmsgproc]]
Message processing
------------------
cindex:[message,general processing]
Exim performs various transformations on the sender and recipient addresses of
all messages that it handles, and also on the messages' header lines. Some of
these are optional and configurable, while others always take place. All of
this processing, except rewriting as a result of routing, and the addition or
removal of header lines while delivering, happens when a message is received,
before it is placed on Exim's queue.

Some of the automatic processing takes place by default only for
``locally-originated'' messages. This adjective is used to describe messages that
are not received over TCP/IP, but instead are passed to an Exim process on its
standard input. This includes the interactive ``local SMTP'' case that is set up
by the %-bs% command line option.

*Note*: messages received over TCP/IP on the loopback interface (127.0.0.1
or ::1) are not considered to be locally-originated. Exim does not treat the
loopback interface specially in any way.

If you want the loopback interface to be treated specially, you must ensure
that there are appropriate entries in your ACLs.




[[SECTsubmodnon]]
Submission mode for non-local messages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[message,submission]
cindex:[submission mode]
Processing that happens automatically for locally-originated messages can also
be requested for other messages. The term ``submission mode'' is used to describe
this state. Submisssion mode is set by the modifier

  control = submission

in a MAIL, RCPT, or pre-data ACL for an incoming SMTP message (see
sections <<SECTACLmodi>> and <<SECTcontrols>>). This makes Exim treat the message
as a local submission, and is normally used when the source of the message is
known to be an MUA running on a client host (as opposed to an MTA). For
example, to set submission mode for messages originating on the IPv4 loopback
interface, you could include the following in the MAIL ACL:

  warn  hosts = 127.0.0.1
        control = submission

There are some options that can be used when setting submission mode. A slash
is used to separate options. For example:

  control = submission/sender_retain

Specifying %sender_retain% has the effect of setting %local_sender_retain%
true and %local_from_check% false for the current incoming message. The first
of these allows an existing 'Sender:' header in the message to remain, and the
second suppresses the check to ensure that 'From:' matches the authenticated
sender. With this setting, Exim still fixes up messages by adding 'Date:' and
'Message-ID:' header lines if they are missing, but makes no attempt to check
sender authenticity in header lines.

A submission mode setting may also specify a domain to be used when generating
a 'From:' or 'Sender:' header. For example:

  control = submission/domain=some.domain

The domain may be empty. How this value is used is described in sections
<<SECTthefrohea>> and <<SECTthesenhea>>.





[[SECTlineendings]]
Line endings
~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[line endings]
cindex:[carriage return]
cindex:[linefeed]
RFC 2821 specifies that CRLF (two characters: carriage-return, followed by
linefeed) is the line ending for messages transmitted over the Internet using
SMTP over TCP/IP. However, within individual operating systems, different
conventions are used. For example, Unix-like systems use just LF, but others
use CRLF or just CR.

Exim was designed for Unix-like systems, and internally, it stores messages
using the system's convention of a single LF as a line terminator. When
receiving a message, all line endings are translated to this standard format.
Originally, it was thought that programs that passed messages directly to an
MTA within an operating system would use that system's convention. Experience
has shown that this is not the case; for example, there are Unix applications
that use CRLF in this circumstance. For this reason, and for compatibility with
other MTAs, the way Exim handles line endings for all messages is now as
follows:

- LF not preceded by CR is treated as a line ending.

- CR is treated as a line ending; if it is immediately followed by LF, the LF
is ignored.

- The sequence ``CR, dot, CR'' does not terminate an incoming SMTP message,
nor a local message in the state where a line containing only a dot is a
terminator.

- If a bare CR is encountered within a header line, an extra space is added after
the line terminator so as not to end the header line. The reasoning behind this
is that bare CRs in header lines are most likely either to be mistakes, or
people trying to play silly games.

- If the first header line received in a message ends with CRLF, a subsequent
bare LF in a header line is treated in the same way as a bare CR in a header
line.





Unqualified addresses
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[unqualified addresses]
cindex:[address,qualification]
By default, Exim expects every envelope address it receives from an external
host to be fully qualified. Unqualified addresses cause negative responses to
SMTP commands. However, because SMTP is used as a means of transporting
messages from MUAs running on personal workstations, there is sometimes a
requirement to accept unqualified addresses from specific hosts or IP networks.

Exim has two options that separately control which hosts may send unqualified
sender or receipient addresses in SMTP commands, namely
%sender_unqualified_hosts% and %recipient_unqualified_hosts%. In both
cases, if an unqualified address is accepted, it is qualified by adding the
value of %qualify_domain% or %qualify_recipient%, as appropriate.

cindex:[%qualify_domain%]
cindex:[%qualify_recipient%]
Unqualified addresses in header lines are automatically qualified for messages
that are locally originated, unless the %-bnq% option is given on the command
line. For messages received over SMTP, unqualified addresses in header lines
are qualified only if unqualified addresses are permitted in SMTP commands. In
other words, such qualification is also controlled by
%sender_unqualified_hosts% and %recipient_unqualified_hosts%,




The UUCP From line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[``From'' line]
cindex:[UUCP,``From'' line]
cindex:[sender,address]
cindex:[%uucp_from_pattern%]
cindex:[%uucp_from_sender%]
cindex:[envelope sender]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,``From'' line]
Messages that have come from UUCP (and some other applications) often begin
with a line containing the envelope sender and a timestamp, following the word
``From''. Examples of two common formats are:

  From a.oakley@berlin.mus Fri Jan  5 12:35 GMT 1996
  From f.butler@berlin.mus Fri, 7 Jan 97 14:00:00 GMT

This line precedes the RFC 2822 header lines. For compatibility with Sendmail,
Exim recognizes such lines at the start of messages that are submitted to it
via the command line (that is, on the standard input). It does not recognize
such lines in incoming SMTP messages, unless the sending host matches
%ignore_fromline_hosts% or the %-bs% option was used for a local message and
%ignore_fromline_local% is set. The recognition is controlled by a regular
expression that is defined by the %uucp_from_pattern% option, whose default
value matches the two common cases shown above and puts the address that
follows ``From'' into $1$.

cindex:[numerical variables ($1$ $2$ etc),in ``From '' line handling]
When the caller of Exim for a non-SMTP message that contains a ``From'' line is a
trusted user, the message's sender address is constructed by expanding the
contents of %uucp_sender_address%, whose default value is ``\$1''. This is then
parsed as an RFC 2822 address. If there is no domain, the local part is
qualified with %qualify_domain% unless it is the empty string. However, if the
command line %-f% option is used, it overrides the ``From'' line.

If the caller of Exim is not trusted, the ``From'' line is recognized, but the
sender address is not changed. This is also the case for incoming SMTP messages
that are permitted to contain ``From'' lines.

Only one ``From'' line is recognized. If there is more than one, the second is
treated as a data line that starts the body of the message, as it is not valid
as a header line. This also happens if a ``From'' line is present in an incoming
SMTP message from a source that is not permitted to send them.



Resent- header lines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[%Resent-% header lines]
RFC 2822 makes provision for sets of header lines starting with the string
`Resent-` to be added to a message when it is resent by the original
recipient to somebody else. These headers are 'Resent-Date:', 'Resent-From:',
'Resent-Sender:', 'Resent-To:', 'Resent-Cc:', 'Resent-Bcc:' and
'Resent-Message-ID:'. The RFC says:

'Resent fields are strictly informational. They MUST NOT be used in the normal
processing of replies or other such automatic actions on messages.'

This leaves things a bit vague as far as other processing actions such as
address rewriting are concerned. Exim treats %Resent-% header lines as
follows:

- A 'Resent-From:' line that just contains the login id of the submitting user
is automatically rewritten in the same way as 'From:' (see below).

- If there's a rewriting rule for a particular header line, it is also applied to
%Resent-% header lines of the same type. For example, a rule that rewrites
'From:' also rewrites 'Resent-From:'.

- For local messages, if 'Sender:' is removed on input, 'Resent-Sender:' is also
removed.

- For a locally-submitted message,
if there are any %Resent-% header lines but no 'Resent-Date:',
'Resent-From:', or 'Resent-Message-Id:', they are added as necessary. It is
the contents of 'Resent-Message-Id:' (rather than 'Message-Id:') which are
included in log lines in this case.

- The logic for adding 'Sender:' is duplicated for 'Resent-Sender:' when any
%Resent-% header lines are present.




The Auto-Submitted: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whenever Exim generates a bounce or a delay warning message, it includes the
header line

  Auto-Submitted: auto-generated




The Bcc: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['Bcc:' header line]
If Exim is called with the %-t% option, to take recipient addresses from a
message's header, it removes any 'Bcc:' header line that may exist (after
extracting its addresses). If %-t% is not present on the command line, any
existing 'Bcc:' is not removed.


The Date: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['Date:' header line]
If a locally-generated
or submission-mode
message has no 'Date:' header line, Exim adds one, using the current date and
time.


The Delivery-date: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['Delivery-date:' header line]
cindex:[%delivery_date_remove%]
'Delivery-date:' header lines are not part of the standard RFC 2822 header
set. Exim can be configured to add them to the final delivery of messages. (See
the generic %delivery_date_add% transport option.) They should not be present
in messages in transit. If the %delivery_date_remove% configuration option is
set (the default), Exim removes 'Delivery-date:' header lines from incoming
messages.


The Envelope-to: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['Envelope-to:' header line]
cindex:[%envelope_to_remove%]
'Envelope-to:' header lines are not part of the standard RFC 2822 header set.
Exim can be configured to add them to the final delivery of messages. (See the
generic %envelope_to_add% transport option.) They should not be present in
messages in transit. If the %envelope_to_remove% configuration option is set
(the default), Exim removes 'Envelope-to:' header lines from incoming
messages.


[[SECTthefrohea]]
The From: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['From:' header line]
cindex:[Sendmail compatibility,``From'' line]
cindex:[message,submission]
cindex:[submission mode]
If a submission-mode message does not contain a 'From:' header line, Exim adds
one if either of the following conditions is true:

- The envelope sender address is not empty (that is, this is not a bounce
message). The added header line copies the envelope sender address.

- The SMTP session is authenticated and $authenticated_id$ is not empty.

.. If no domain is specified by the submission control, the local part is
$authenticated_id$ and the domain is $qualify_domain$.

.. If a non-empty domain is specified by the submission control, the local
part is $authenticated_id$, and the the domain is the specified domain.

.. If an empty domain is specified by the submission control,
$authenticated_id$ is assumed to be the complete address.

A non-empty envelope sender takes precedence.

If a locally-generated incoming message does not contain a 'From:' header
line, Exim adds one containing the sender's address. The calling user's login
name and full name are used to construct the address, as described in section
<<SECTconstr>>. They are obtained from the password data by calling
'getpwuid()' (but see the %unknown_login% configuration option). The address
is qualified with %qualify_domain%.

For compatibility with Sendmail, if an incoming, non-SMTP message has a
'From:' header line containing just the unqualified login name of the calling
user, this is replaced by an address containing the user's login name and full
name as described in section <<SECTconstr>>.


The Message-ID: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['Message-ID:' header line]
cindex:[message,submission]
If a locally-generated or submission-mode incoming message does not contain a
'Message-ID:' or 'Resent-Message-ID:' header line, Exim adds one to the
message. If there are any 'Resent-:' headers in the message, it creates
'Resent-Message-ID:'. The id is constructed from Exim's internal message id,
preceded by the letter E to ensure it starts with a letter, and followed by @
and the primary host name. Additional information can be included in this
header line by setting the
cindex:[%message_id_header_text%]
%message_id_header_text% and/or %message_id_header_domain% options.



The Received: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['Received:' header line]
A 'Received:' header line is added at the start of every message. The contents
are defined by the %received_header_text% configuration option, and Exim
automatically adds a semicolon and a timestamp to the configured string.

The 'Received:' header is generated as soon as the message's header lines have
been received. At this stage, the timestamp in the 'Received:' header line is
the time that the message started to be received. This is the value that is
seen by the DATA ACL and by the 'local_scan()' function.

Once a message is accepted, the timestamp in the 'Received:' header line is
changed to the time of acceptance, which is (apart from a small delay while the
-H spool file is written) the earliest time at which delivery could start.



The Return-path: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['Return-path:' header line]
cindex:[%return_path_remove%]
'Return-path:' header lines are defined as something an MTA may insert when
it does the final delivery of messages. (See the generic %return_path_add%
transport option.) Therefore, they should not be present in messages in
transit. If the %return_path_remove% configuration option is set (the
default), Exim removes 'Return-path:' header lines from incoming messages.



[[SECTthesenhea]]
The Sender: header line
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['Sender:' header line]
cindex:[message,submission]
For a locally-originated message from an untrusted user, Exim may remove an
existing 'Sender:' header line, and it may add a new one. You can modify these
actions by setting %local_sender_retain% true or %local_from_check% false.

When a local message is received from an untrusted user and
%local_from_check% is true (the default), a check is made to see if the
address given in the 'From:' header line is the correct (local) sender of the
message. The address that is expected has the login name as the local part and
the value of %qualify_domain% as the domain. Prefixes and suffixes for the
local part can be permitted by setting %local_from_prefix% and
%local_from_suffix% appropriately. If 'From:' does not contain the correct
sender, a 'Sender:' line is added to the message.

If you set %local_from_check% false, this checking does not occur. However,
the removal of an existing 'Sender:' line still happens, unless you also set
%local_sender_retain% to be true. It is not possible to set both of these
options true at the same time.

cindex:[submission mode]
By default, no processing of 'Sender:' header lines is done for messages
received over TCP/IP or for messages submitted by trusted users. However, when
a message is received over TCP/IP in submission mode, and %sender_retain% is
not specified on the submission control, the following processing takes place:

First, any existing 'Sender:' lines are removed. Then, if the SMTP session is
authenticated, and $authenticated_id$ is not empty, a sender address is
created as follows:

- If no domain is specified by the submission control, the local part is
$authenticated_id$ and the domain is $qualify_domain$.

- If a non-empty domain is specified by the submission control, the local part is
$authenticated_id$, and the the domain is the specified domain.

- If an empty domain is specified by the submission control,
$authenticated_id$ is assumed to be the complete address.

This address is compared with the address in the 'From:' header line. If they
are different, a 'Sender:' header line containing the created address is
added. Prefixes and suffixes for the local part in 'From:' can be permitted by
setting %local_from_prefix% and %local_from_suffix% appropriately.




[[SECTheadersaddrem]]
Adding and removing header lines in routers and transports
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[header lines,adding; in router or transport]
cindex:[header lines,removing; in router or transport]
When a message is delivered, the addition and removal of header lines can be
specified in a system filter, or on any of the routers and transports that
process the message. Section <<SECTaddremheasys>> contains details about
modifying headers in a system filter.

In contrast to what happens in a system filter, header modifications that are
specified on routers and transports apply only to the particular recipient
addresses that are being processed by those routers and transports. These
changes do not actually take place until a copy of the message is being
transported. Therefore, they do not affect the basic set of header lines, and
they do not affect the values of the variables that refer to header lines.

For both routers and transports, the result of expanding a %headers_add%
option must be in the form of one or more RFC 2822 header lines, separated by
newlines (coded as ``\n''). For example:

....
headers_add = X-added-header: added by $primary_hostname\n\
              X-added-second: another added header line
....

Exim does not check the syntax of these added header lines.

The result of expanding %headers_remove% must consist of a colon-separated
list of header names. This is confusing, because header names themselves are
often terminated by colons. In this case, the colons are the list separators,
not part of the names. For example:

  headers_remove = return-receipt-to:acknowledge-to

When %headers_add% or %headers_remove% is specified on a router, its value is
expanded at routing time, and then associated with all addresses that are
accepted by that router, and also with any new addresses that it generates. If
an address passes through several routers as a result of aliasing or
forwarding, the changes are cumulative.

cindex:[%unseen% option]
However, this does not apply to multiple routers that result from the use of
the %unseen% option. Any header modifications that were specified by the
``unseen'' router or its predecessors apply only to the ``unseen'' delivery.

Addresses that end up with different %headers_add% or %headers_remove%
settings cannot be delivered together in a batch, so a transport is always
dealing with a set of addresses that have the same header-processing
requirements.

The transport starts by writing the original set of header lines that arrived
with the message, possibly modified by the system filter. As it writes out
these lines, it consults the list of header names that were attached to the
recipient address(es) by %headers_remove% options in routers, and it also
consults the transport's own %headers_remove% option. Header lines whose names
are on either of these lists are not written out. If there are multiple
instances of any listed header, they are all skipped.

After the remaining original header lines have been written, new header
lines that were specified by routers' %headers_add% options are written, in
the order in which they were attached to the address. These are followed by any
header lines specified by the transport's %headers_add% option.

This way of handling header line modifications in routers and transports has
the following consequences:

- The original set of header lines, possibly modified by the system filter,
remains ``visible'', in the sense that the $header_$'xxx' variables refer to
it, at all times.

- Header lines that are added by a router's
%headers_add% option are not accessible by means of the $header_$'xxx'
expansion syntax in subsequent routers or the transport.

- Conversely, header lines that are specified for removal by %headers_remove% in
a router remain visible to subsequent routers and the transport.

- Headers added to an address by %headers_add% in a router cannot be removed by
a later router or by a transport.

- An added header can refer to the contents of an original header that is to be
removed, even it has the same name as the added header. For example:

  headers_remove = subject
  headers_add = Subject: new subject (was: $h_subject:)


*Warning*: The %headers_add% and %headers_remove% options cannot be used
for a ^redirect^ router that has the %one_time% option set.





[[SECTconstr]]
Constructed addresses
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[address,constructed]
cindex:[constructed address]
When Exim constructs a sender address for a locally-generated message, it uses
the form

  <user name> <<login>@<qualify_domain>>

For example:

  Zaphod Beeblebrox <zaphod@end.univ.example>

The user name is obtained from the %-F% command line option if set, or
otherwise by looking up the calling user by 'getpwuid()' and extracting the
``gecos'' field from the password entry. If the ``gecos'' field contains an
ampersand character, this is replaced by the login name with the first letter
upper cased, as is conventional in a number of operating systems. See the
%gecos_name% option for a way to tailor the handling of the ``gecos'' field. The
%unknown_username% option can be used to specify user names in cases when
there is no password file entry.

In all cases, the user name is made to conform to RFC 2822 by quoting all or
parts of it if necessary. In addition, if it contains any non-printing
characters, it is encoded as described in RFC 2047, which defines a way of
including non-ASCII characters in header lines.
The value of the %headers_charset% option specifies the name of the encoding
that is used (the characters are assumed to be in this encoding).
The setting of %print_topbitchars% controls whether characters with the top
bit set (that is, with codes greater than 127) count as printing characters or
not.



Case of local parts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[case of local parts]
cindex:[local part,case of]
RFC 2822 states that the case of letters in the local parts of addresses cannot
be assumed to be non-significant. Exim preserves the case of local parts of
addresses, but by default it uses a lower-cased form when it is routing,
because on most Unix systems, usernames are in lower case and case-insensitive
routing is required. However, any particular router can be made to use the
original case for local parts by setting the %caseful_local_part% generic
router option.

cindex:[mixed-case login names]
If you must have mixed-case user names on your system, the best way to proceed,
assuming you want case-independent handling of incoming email, is to set up
your first router to convert incoming local parts in your domains to the
correct case by means of a file lookup. For example:

....
correct_case:
  driver = redirect
  domains = +local_domains
  data = ${lookup{$local_part}cdb\
              {/etc/usercased.cdb}{$value}fail}\
              @$domain
....

For this router, the local part is forced to lower case by the default action
(%caseful_local_part% is not set). The lower-cased local part is used to look
up a new local part in the correct case. If you then set %caseful_local_part%
on any subsequent routers which process your domains, they will operate on
local parts with the correct case in a case-sensitive manner.



Dots in local parts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[dot,in local part]
cindex:[local part,dots in]
RFC 2822 forbids empty components in local parts. That is, an unquoted local
part may not begin or end with a dot, nor have two consecutive dots in the
middle. However, it seems that many MTAs do not enforce this, so Exim permits
empty components for compatibility.



Rewriting addresses
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[rewriting,addresses]
Rewriting of sender and recipient addresses, and addresses in headers, can
happen automatically, or as the result of configuration options, as described
in chapter <<CHAPrewrite>>. The headers that may be affected by this are 'Bcc:',
'Cc:', 'From:', 'Reply-To:', 'Sender:', and 'To:'.

Automatic rewriting includes qualification, as mentioned above. The other case
in which it can happen is when an incomplete non-local domain is given. The
routing process may cause this to be expanded into the full domain name. For
example, a header such as

  To: hare@teaparty

might get rewritten as

  To: hare@teaparty.wonderland.fict.example

Rewriting as a result of routing is the one kind of message processing that
does not happen at input time, as it cannot be done until the address has
been routed.

Strictly, one should not do 'any' deliveries of a message until all its
addresses have been routed, in case any of the headers get changed as a
result of routing. However, doing this in practice would hold up many
deliveries for unreasonable amounts of time, just because one address could not
immediately be routed. Exim therefore does not delay other deliveries when
routing of one or more addresses is deferred.


////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPSMTP]]
SMTP processing
---------------
cindex:[SMTP,processing details]
cindex:[LMTP,processing details]
Exim supports a number of different ways of using the SMTP protocol, and its
LMTP variant, which is an interactive protocol for transferring messages into a
closed mail store application. This chapter contains details of how SMTP is
processed. For incoming mail, the following are available:

- SMTP over TCP/IP (Exim daemon or 'inetd');

- SMTP over the standard input and output (the %-bs% option);

- Batched SMTP on the standard input (the %-bS% option).

For mail delivery, the following are available:

- SMTP over TCP/IP (the ^smtp^ transport);

- LMTP over TCP/IP (the ^smtp^ transport with the %protocol% option set to
``lmtp'');

- LMTP over a pipe to a process running in the local host (the ^lmtp^
transport);

- Batched SMTP to a file or pipe (the ^appendfile^ and ^pipe^ transports with
the %use_bsmtp% option set).

'Batched SMTP' is the name for a process in which batches of messages are
stored in or read from files (or pipes), in a format in which SMTP commands are
used to contain the envelope information.



[[SECToutSMTPTCP]]
Outgoing SMTP and LMTP over TCP/IP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP,outgoing over TCP/IP]
cindex:[outgoing SMTP over TCP/IP]
cindex:[LMTP,over TCP/IP]
cindex:[outgoing LMTP over TCP/IP]
cindex:[EHLO]
cindex:[HELO]
cindex:[SIZE option on MAIL command]
Outgoing SMTP and LMTP over TCP/IP is implemented by the ^smtp^ transport.
The %protocol% option selects which protocol is to be used, but the actual
processing is the same in both cases.

If, in response to its EHLO command, Exim is told that the SIZE
parameter is supported, it adds SIZE=<'n'> to each subsequent MAIL
command. The value of <'n'> is the message size plus the value of the
%size_addition% option (default 1024) to allow for additions to the message
such as per-transport header lines, or changes made in a
cindex:[transport,filter]
cindex:[filter,transport filter]
transport filter. If %size_addition% is set negative, the use of SIZE is
suppressed.

If the remote server advertises support for PIPELINING, Exim uses the
pipelining extension to SMTP (RFC 2197) to reduce the number of TCP/IP packets
required for the transaction.

If the remote server advertises support for the STARTTLS command, and Exim
was built to support TLS encryption, it tries to start a TLS session unless the
server matches %hosts_avoid_tls%. See chapter <<CHAPTLS>> for more details.

If the remote server advertises support for the AUTH command, Exim scans
the authenticators configuration for any suitable client settings, as described
in chapter <<CHAPSMTPAUTH>>.

cindex:[carriage return]
cindex:[linefeed]
Responses from the remote host are supposed to be terminated by CR followed by
LF. However, there are known to be hosts that do not send CR characters, so in
order to be able to interwork with such hosts, Exim treats LF on its own as a
line terminator.

If a message contains a number of different addresses, all those with the same
characteristics (for example, the same envelope sender) that resolve to the
same set of hosts, in the same order, are sent in a single SMTP transaction,
even if they are for different domains, unless there are more than the setting
of the %max_rcpts% option in the ^smtp^ transport allows, in which case they
are split into groups containing no more than %max_rcpts% addresses each. If
%remote_max_parallel% is greater than one, such groups may be sent in
parallel sessions. The order of hosts with identical MX values is not
significant when checking whether addresses can be batched in this way.

When the ^smtp^ transport suffers a temporary failure that is not
message-related, Exim updates its transport-specific database, which contains
records indexed by host name that remember which messages are waiting for each
particular host. It also updates the retry database with new retry times.

cindex:[hints database,retry keys]
Exim's retry hints are based on host name plus IP address, so if one address of
a multi-homed host is broken, it will soon be skipped most of the time.
See the next section for more detail about error handling.

cindex:[SMTP,passed connection]
cindex:[SMTP,batching over TCP/IP]
When a message is successfully delivered over a TCP/IP SMTP connection, Exim
looks in the hints database for the transport to see if there are any queued
messages waiting for the host to which it is connected. If it finds one, it
creates a new Exim process using the %-MC% option (which can only be used by a
process running as root or the Exim user) and passes the TCP/IP socket to it so
that it can deliver another message using the same socket. The new process does
only those deliveries that are routed to the connected host, and may in turn
pass the socket on to a third process, and so on.

The %connection_max_messages% option of the ^smtp^ transport can be used to
limit the number of messages sent down a single TCP/IP connection.

cindex:[asterisk,after IP address]
The second and subsequent messages delivered down an existing connection are
identified in the main log by the addition of an asterisk after the closing
square bracket of the IP address.




[[SECToutSMTPerr]]
Errors in outgoing SMTP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[error,in outgoing SMTP]
cindex:[SMTP,errors in outgoing]
cindex:[host,error]
Three different kinds of error are recognized for outgoing SMTP: host errors,
message errors, and recipient errors.

. A host error is not associated with a particular message or with a
particular recipient of a message. The host errors are:
+
--
- Connection refused or timed out,

- Any error response code on connection,

- Any error response code to EHLO or HELO,

- Loss of connection at any time, except after ``.'',

- I/O errors at any time,

- Timeouts during the session, other than in response to MAIL, RCPT or
the ``.'' at the end of the data.
--
+
For a host error, a permanent error response on connection, or in response to
EHLO, causes all addresses routed to the host to be failed. Any other host
error causes all addresses to be deferred, and retry data to be created for the
host. It is not tried again, for any message, until its retry time arrives. If
the current set of addresses are not all delivered in this run (to some
alternative host), the message is added to the list of those waiting for this
host, so if it is still undelivered when a subsequent successful delivery is
made to the host, it will be sent down the same SMTP connection.

. cindex:[message,error]
A message error is associated with a particular message when sent to a
particular host, but not with a particular recipient of the message. The
message errors are:
+
--
- Any error response code to MAIL, DATA, or the ``.'' that terminates
the data,

- Timeout after MAIL,

- Timeout or loss of connection after the ``.'' that terminates the data. A
timeout after the DATA command itself is treated as a host error, as is loss of
connection at any other time.
--
+
For a message error, a permanent error response (5##'xx') causes all addresses
to be failed, and a delivery error report to be returned to the sender. A
temporary error response (4##'xx'), or one of the timeouts, causes all
addresses to be deferred. Retry data is not created for the host, but instead,
a retry record for the combination of host plus message id is created. The
message is not added to the list of those waiting for this host. This ensures
that the failing message will not be sent to this host again until the retry
time arrives. However, other messages that are routed to the host are not
affected, so if it is some property of the message that is causing the error,
it will not stop the delivery of other mail.
+
If the remote host specified support for the SIZE parameter in its response
to EHLO, Exim adds SIZE='nnn' to the MAIL command, so an
over-large message will cause a message error because the error arrives as a
response to MAIL.

. cindex:[recipient,error]
A recipient error is associated with a particular recipient of a message. The
recipient errors are:
+
--
- Any error response to RCPT,

- Timeout after RCPT.
--
+
For a recipient error, a permanent error response (5##'xx') causes the
recipient address to be failed, and a bounce message to be returned to the
sender. A temporary error response (4##'xx') or a timeout causes the failing
address to be deferred, and routing retry data to be created for it. This is
used to delay processing of the address in subsequent queue runs, until its
routing retry time arrives. This applies to all messages, but because it
operates only in queue runs, one attempt will be made to deliver a new message
to the failing address before the delay starts to operate. This ensures that,
if the failure is really related to the message rather than the recipient
(``message too big for this recipient'' is a possible example), other messages
have a chance of getting delivered. If a delivery to the address does succeed,
the retry information gets cleared, so all stuck messages get tried again, and
the retry clock is reset.
+
The message is not added to the list of those waiting for this host. Use of the
host for other messages is unaffected, and except in the case of a timeout,
other recipients are processed independently, and may be successfully delivered
in the current SMTP session. After a timeout it is of course impossible to
proceed with the session, so all addresses get deferred. However, those other
than the one that failed do not suffer any subsequent retry delays. Therefore,
if one recipient is causing trouble, the others have a chance of getting
through when a subsequent delivery attempt occurs before the failing
recipient's retry time.

///
End of list
///

In all cases, if there are other hosts (or IP addresses) available for the
current set of addresses (for example, from multiple MX records), they are
tried in this run for any undelivered addresses, subject of course to their
own retry data. In other words, recipient error retry data does not take effect
until the next delivery attempt.

Some hosts have been observed to give temporary error responses to every
MAIL command at certain times (``insufficient space'' has been seen). It
would be nice if such circumstances could be recognized, and defer data for the
host itself created, but this is not possible within the current Exim design.
What actually happens is that retry data for every (host, message) combination
is created.

The reason that timeouts after MAIL and RCPT are treated specially is that
these can sometimes arise as a result of the remote host's verification
procedures. Exim makes this assumption, and treats them as if a temporary error
response had been received. A timeout after ``.'' is treated specially because
it is known that some broken implementations fail to recognize the end of the
message if the last character of the last line is a binary zero. Thus, it is
helpful to treat this case as a message error.

Timeouts at other times are treated as host errors, assuming a problem with the
host, or the connection to it. If a timeout after MAIL, RCPT,
or ``.'' is really a connection problem, the assumption is that at the next try
the timeout is likely to occur at some other point in the dialogue, causing it
then to be treated as a host error.

There is experimental evidence that some MTAs drop the connection after the
terminating ``.'' if they do not like the contents of the message for some
reason, in contravention of the RFC, which indicates that a 5##'xx' response
should be given. That is why Exim treats this case as a message rather than a
host error, in order not to delay other messages to the same host.





Variable Envelope Return Paths (VERP)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[VERP]
cindex:[Variable Envelope Return Paths]
cindex:[envelope sender]
Variable Envelope Return Paths -- see
*ftp://koobera.math.uic.edu/www/proto/verp.txt[]* -- can be supported in Exim
by using the %return_path% generic transport option to rewrite the return path
at transport time. For example, the following could be used on an ^smtp^
transport:

....
return_path = \
  ${if match {$return_path}{^(.+?)-request@your.dom.example\$}\
  {$1-request=$local_part%$domain@your.dom.example}fail}
....

This has the effect of rewriting the return path (envelope sender) on all
outgoing SMTP messages, if the local part of the original return path ends in
``-request'', and the domain is 'your.dom.example'. The rewriting inserts the
local part and domain of the recipient into the return path. Suppose, for
example, that a message whose return path has been set to
'somelist-request@your.dom.example' is sent to
'subscriber@other.dom.example'. In the transport, the return path is
rewritten as

  somelist-request=subscriber%other.dom.example@your.dom.example

For this to work, you must arrange for outgoing messages that have ``-request''
in their return paths to have just a single recipient. This can be done by
setting

  max_rcpt = 1

in the ^smtp^ transport. Otherwise a single copy of a message might be
addressed to several different recipients in the same domain, in which case
$local_part$ is not available (because it is not unique). Of course, if you
do start sending out messages with this kind of return path, you must also
configure Exim to accept the bounce messages that come back to those paths.
Typically this would be done by setting an %local_part_suffix% option for a
suitable router.

The overhead incurred in using VERP depends very much on the size of the
message, the number of recipient addresses that resolve to the same remote
host, and the speed of the connection over which the message is being sent. If
a lot of addresses resolve to the same host and the connection is slow, sending
a separate copy of the message for each address may take substantially longer
than sending a single copy with many recipients (for which VERP cannot be
used).



Incoming SMTP messages over TCP/IP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP,incoming over TCP/IP]
cindex:[incoming SMTP over TCP/IP]
cindex:[inetd]
cindex:[daemon]
Incoming SMTP messages can be accepted in one of two ways: by running a
listening daemon, or by using 'inetd'. In the latter case, the entry in
_/etc/inetd.conf_ should be like this:

  smtp  stream  tcp  nowait  exim  /opt/exim/bin/exim  in.exim  -bs

Exim distinguishes between this case and the case of a locally running user
agent using the %-bs% option by checking whether or not the standard input is
a socket. When it is, either the port must be privileged (less than 1024), or
the caller must be root or the Exim user. If any other user passes a socket
with an unprivileged port number, Exim prints a message on the standard error
stream and exits with an error code.

By default, Exim does not make a log entry when a remote host connects or
disconnects (either via the daemon or 'inetd'), unless the disconnection is
unexpected. It can be made to write such log entries by setting the
%smtp_connection% log selector.

cindex:[carriage return]
cindex:[linefeed]
Commands from the remote host are supposed to be terminated by CR followed by
LF. However, there are known to be hosts that do not send CR characters. In
order to be able to interwork with such hosts, Exim treats LF on its own as a
line terminator.
Furthermore, because common code is used for receiving messages from all
sources, a CR on its own is also interpreted as a line terminator. However, the
sequence ``CR, dot, CR'' does not terminate incoming SMTP data.

cindex:[EHLO,invalid data]
cindex:[HELO,invalid data]
One area that sometimes gives rise to problems concerns the EHLO or
HELO commands. Some clients send syntactically invalid versions of these
commands, which Exim rejects by default. (This is nothing to do with verifying
the data that is sent, so %helo_verify_hosts% is not relevant.) You can tell
Exim not to apply a syntax check by setting %helo_accept_junk_hosts% to
match the broken hosts that send invalid commands.

cindex:[SIZE option on MAIL command]
cindex:[MAIL,SIZE option]
The amount of disk space available is checked whenever SIZE is received on
a MAIL command, independently of whether %message_size_limit% or
%check_spool_space% is configured, unless %smtp_check_spool_space% is set
false. A temporary error is given if there is not enough space. If
%check_spool_space% is set, the check is for that amount of space plus the
value given with SIZE, that is, it checks that the addition of the incoming
message will not reduce the space below the threshold.

When a message is successfully received, Exim includes the local message id in
its response to the final ``.'' that terminates the data. If the remote host logs
this text it can help with tracing what has happened to a message.

The Exim daemon can limit the number of simultaneous incoming connections it is
prepared to handle (see the %smtp_accept_max% option). It can also limit the
number of simultaneous incoming connections from a single remote host (see the
%smtp_accept_max_per_host% option). Additional connection attempts are
rejected using the SMTP temporary error code 421.

The Exim daemon does not rely on the SIGCHLD signal to detect when a
subprocess has finished, as this can get lost at busy times. Instead, it looks
for completed subprocesses every time it wakes up. Provided there are other
things happening (new incoming calls, starts of queue runs), completed
processes will be noticed and tidied away. On very quiet systems you may
sometimes see a ``defunct'' Exim process hanging about. This is not a problem; it
will be noticed when the daemon next wakes up.

When running as a daemon, Exim can reserve some SMTP slots for specific hosts,
and can also be set up to reject SMTP calls from non-reserved hosts at times of
high system load -- for details see the %smtp_accept_reserve%,
%smtp_load_reserve%, and %smtp_reserve_hosts% options. The load check
applies in both the daemon and 'inetd' cases.

Exim normally starts a delivery process for each message received, though this
can be varied by means of the %-odq% command line option and the
%queue_only%, %queue_only_file%, and %queue_only_load% options. The number
of simultaneously running delivery processes started in this way from SMTP
input can be limited by the %smtp_accept_queue% and
%smtp_accept_queue_per_connection% options. When either limit is reached,
subsequently received messages are just put on the input queue without starting
a delivery process.

The controls that involve counts of incoming SMTP calls (%smtp_accept_max%,
%smtp_accept_queue%, %smtp_accept_reserve%) are not available when Exim is
started up from the 'inetd' daemon, because in that case each connection is
handled by an entirely independent Exim process. Control by load average is,
however, available with 'inetd'.

Exim can be configured to verify addresses in incoming SMTP commands as they
are received. See chapter <<CHAPACL>> for details. It can also be configured to
rewrite addresses at this time -- before any syntax checking is done. See
section <<SECTrewriteS>>.

Exim can also be configured to limit the rate at which a client host submits
MAIL and RCPT commands in a single SMTP session. See the
%smtp_ratelimit_hosts% option.



Unrecognized SMTP commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP,unrecognized commands]
If Exim receives more than %smtp_max_unknown_commands% unrecognized SMTP
commands during a single SMTP connection, it drops the connection after sending
the error response to the last command. The default value for
%smtp_max_unknown_commands% is 3. This is a defence against some kinds of
abuse that subvert web servers into making connections to SMTP ports; in these
circumstances, a number of non-SMTP lines are sent first.


Syntax and protocol errors in SMTP commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP,syntax errors]
cindex:[SMTP,protocol errors]
A syntax error is detected if an SMTP command is recognized, but there is
something syntactically wrong with its data, for example, a malformed email
address in a RCPT command. Protocol errors include invalid command
sequencing such as RCPT before MAIL. If Exim receives more than
%smtp_max_synprot_errors% such commands during a single SMTP connection, it
drops the connection after sending the error response to the last command. The
default value for %smtp_max_synprot_errors% is 3. This is a defence against
broken clients that loop sending bad commands (yes, it has been seen).



Use of non-mail SMTP commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP,non-mail commands]
The ``non-mail'' SMTP commands are those other than MAIL, RCPT, and
DATA. Exim counts such commands, and drops the connection if there are too
many of them in a single SMTP session. This action catches some
denial-of-service attempts and things like repeated failing AUTHs, or a mad
client looping sending EHLO. The global option %smtp_accept_max_nonmail%
defines what ``too many'' means. Its default value is 10.

When a new message is expected, one occurrence of RSET is not counted. This
allows a client to send one RSET between messages (this is not necessary,
but some clients do it). Exim also allows one uncounted occurence of HELO
or EHLO, and one occurrence of STARTTLS between messages. After
starting up a TLS session, another EHLO is expected, and so it too is not
counted.

The first occurrence of AUTH in a connection, or immediately following
STARTTLS is also not counted. Otherwise, all commands other than MAIL,
RCPT, DATA, and QUIT are counted.

You can control which hosts are subject to the limit set by
%smtp_accept_max_nonmail% by setting
%smtp_accept_max_nonmail_hosts%. The default value is `\*`, which makes
the limit apply to all hosts. This option means that you can exclude any
specific badly-behaved hosts that you have to live with.




The VRFY and EXPN commands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Exim receives a VRFY or EXPN command on a TCP/IP connection, it
runs the ACL specified by %acl_smtp_vrfy% or %acl_smtp_expn% (as
appropriate) in order to decide whether the command should be accepted or not.
If no ACL is defined, the command is rejected.

cindex:[VRFY,processing]
When VRFY is accepted, it runs exactly the same code as when Exim is
called with the %-bv% option.

cindex:[EXPN,processing]
When EXPN is accepted, a single-level expansion of the address is done.
EXPN is treated as an ``address test'' (similar to the %-bt% option) rather
than a verification (the %-bv% option). If an unqualified local part is given
as the argument to EXPN, it is qualified with %qualify_domain%. Rejections
of VRFY and EXPN commands are logged on the main and reject logs, and
VRFY verification failures are logged on the main log for consistency with
RCPT failures.



[[SECTETRN]]
The ETRN command
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[ETRN,processing]
RFC 1985 describes an SMTP command called ETRN that is designed to
overcome the security problems of the TURN command (which has fallen into
disuse). When Exim receives an ETRN command on a TCP/IP connection, it runs
the ACL specified by %acl_smtp_etrn% in order to decide whether the command
should be accepted or not. If no ACL is defined, the command is rejected.

The ETRN command is concerned with ``releasing'' messages that are awaiting
delivery to certain hosts. As Exim does not organize its message queue by host,
the only form of ETRN that is supported by default is the one where the
text starts with the ``#'' prefix, in which case the remainder of the text is
specific to the SMTP server. A valid ETRN command causes a run of Exim with
the %-R% option to happen, with the remainder of the ETRN text as its
argument. For example,

  ETRN #brigadoon

runs the command

  exim -R brigadoon

which causes a delivery attempt on all messages with undelivered addresses
containing the text ``brigadoon''. When %smtp_etrn_serialize% is set (the
default), Exim prevents the simultaneous execution of more than one queue run
for the same argument string as a result of an ETRN command. This stops
a misbehaving client from starting more than one queue runner at once.

cindex:[hints database,ETRN serialization]
Exim implements the serialization by means of a hints database in which a
record is written whenever a process is started by ETRN, and deleted when
the process completes. However, Exim does not keep the SMTP session waiting for
the ETRN process to complete. Once ETRN is accepted, the client is sent
a ``success'' return code. Obviously there is scope for hints records to get left
lying around if there is a system or program crash. To guard against this, Exim
ignores any records that are more than six hours old.

cindex:[%smtp_etrn_command%]
For more control over what ETRN does, the %smtp_etrn_command% option can
used. This specifies a command that is run whenever ETRN is received,
whatever the form of its argument. For
example:

  smtp_etrn_command = /etc/etrn_command $domain $sender_host_address

The string is split up into arguments which are independently expanded. The
expansion variable $domain$ is set to the argument of the ETRN command,
and no syntax checking is done on the contents of this argument. Exim does not
wait for the command to complete, so its status code is not checked. Exim runs
under its own uid and gid when receiving incoming SMTP, so it is not possible
for it to change them before running the command.



Incoming local SMTP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP,local incoming]
Some user agents use SMTP to pass messages to their local MTA using the
standard input and output, as opposed to passing the envelope on the command
line and writing the message to the standard input. This is supported by the
%-bs% option. This form of SMTP is handled in the same way as incoming
messages over TCP/IP (including the use of ACLs), except that the envelope
sender given in a MAIL command is ignored unless the caller is trusted. In
an ACL you can detect this form of SMTP input by testing for an empty host
identification. It is common to have this as the first line in the ACL that
runs for RCPT commands:

  accept hosts = :

This accepts SMTP messages from local processes without doing any other tests.



[[SECTbatchSMTP]]
Outgoing batched SMTP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP,batched outgoing]
cindex:[batched SMTP output]
Both the ^appendfile^ and ^pipe^ transports can be used for handling batched
SMTP. Each has an option called %use_bsmtp% which causes messages to be output
in BSMTP format. No SMTP responses are possible for this form of delivery. All
it is doing is using SMTP commands as a way of transmitting the envelope along
with the message.

The message is written to the file or pipe preceded by the SMTP commands
MAIL and RCPT, and followed by a line containing a single dot. Lines in
the message that start with a dot have an extra dot added. The SMTP command
HELO is not normally used. If it is required, the %message_prefix% option
can be used to specify it.

Because ^appendfile^ and ^pipe^ are both local transports, they accept only
one recipient address at a time by default. However, you can arrange for them
to handle several addresses at once by setting the %batch_max% option. When
this is done for BSMTP, messages may contain multiple RCPT commands. See
chapter <<CHAPbatching>> for more details.

When one or more addresses are routed to a BSMTP transport by a router that
sets up a host list, the name of the first host on the list is available to the
transport in the variable $host$. Here is an example of such a transport and
router:

  begin routers
  route_append:
    driver = manualroute
    transport = smtp_appendfile
    route_list = domain.example  batch.host.example

  begin transports
  smtp_appendfile:
    driver = appendfile
    directory = /var/bsmtp/$host
    batch_max = 1000
    use_bsmtp
    user = exim

This causes messages addressed to 'domain.example' to be written in BSMTP
format to _/var/bsmtp/batch.host.example_, with only a single copy of each
message (unless there are more than 1000 recipients).



[[SECTincomingbatchedSMTP]]
Incoming batched SMTP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[SMTP,batched incoming]
cindex:[batched SMTP input]
The %-bS% command line option causes Exim to accept one or more messages by
reading SMTP on the standard input, but to generate no responses. If the caller
is trusted, the senders in the MAIL commands are believed; otherwise the
sender is always the caller of Exim. Unqualified senders and receivers are not
rejected (there seems little point) but instead just get qualified. HELO
and EHLO act as RSET; VRFY, EXPN, ETRN and  HELP, act
as NOOP; QUIT quits.

No policy checking is done for BSMTP input. That is, no ACL is run at anytime.
In this respect it is like non-SMTP local input.

If an error is detected while reading a message, including a missing ``.'' at
the end, Exim gives up immediately. It writes details of the error to the
standard output in a stylized way that the calling program should be able to
make some use of automatically, for example:

  554 Unexpected end of file
  Transaction started in line 10
  Error detected in line 14

It writes a more verbose version, for human consumption, to the standard error
file, for example:

  An error was detected while processing a file of BSMTP input.
  The error message was:

    501 '>' missing at end of address

  The SMTP transaction started in line 10.
  The error was detected in line 12.
  The SMTP command at fault was:

     rcpt to:<malformed@in.com.plete

  1 previous message was successfully processed.
  The rest of the batch was abandoned.

The return code from Exim is zero only if there were no errors. It is 1 if some
messages were accepted before an error was detected, and 2 if no messages were
accepted.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPemsgcust]]
[titleabbrev="Customizing messages"]
Customizing bounce and warning messages
---------------------------------------
When a message fails to be delivered, or remains on the queue for more than a
configured amount of time, Exim sends a message to the original sender, or
to an alternative configured address. The text of these messages is built into
the code of Exim, but it is possible to change it, either by adding a single
string, or by replacing each of the paragraphs by text supplied in a file.

The 'From:' and 'To:' header lines are automatically generated; you can cause
a 'Reply-To:' line to be added by setting the %errors_reply_to% option. Exim
also adds the line

  Auto-Submitted: auto-generated

to all warning and bounce messages,


Customizing bounce messages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[customizing,bounce message]
cindex:[bounce message,customizing]
If %bounce_message_text% is set, its contents are included in the default
message immediately after ``This message was created automatically by mail
delivery software.'' The string is not expanded. It is not used if
%bounce_message_file% is set.

When %bounce_message_file% is set, it must point to a template file for
constructing error messages. The file consists of a series of text items,
separated by lines consisting of exactly four asterisks. If the file cannot be
opened, default text is used and a message is written to the main and panic
logs. If any text item in the file is empty, default text is used for that
item.

Each item of text that is read from the file is expanded, and there are two
expansion variables which can be of use here: $bounce_recipient$ is set to
the recipient of an error message while it is being created, and
$return_size_limit$ contains the value of the %return_size_limit% option,
rounded to a whole number.

The items must appear in the file in the following order:

- The first item is included in the headers, and should include at least a
'Subject:' header. Exim does not check the syntax of these headers.

- The second item forms the start of the error message. After it, Exim lists the
failing addresses with their error messages.

- The third item is used to introduce any text from pipe transports that is to be
returned to the sender. It is omitted if there is no such text.

- The fourth item is used to introduce the copy of the message that is returned
as part of the error report.

- The fifth item is added after the fourth one if the returned message is
truncated because it is bigger than %return_size_limit%.

- The sixth item is added after the copy of the original message.

The default state (%bounce_message_file% unset) is equivalent to the
following file, in which the sixth item is empty. The 'Subject:' line has been
split into two here in order to fit it on the page:

  Subject: Mail delivery failed
    ${if eq{$sender_address}{$bounce_recipient}{: returning message to sender}}
  ****
  This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

  A message ${if eq{$sender_address}{$bounce_recipient}{that you sent }{sent by

    <$sender_address>

  }}could not be delivered to all of its recipients.
  The following address(es) failed:
  ****
  The following text was generated during the delivery attempt(s):
  ****
  ------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------
  ****
  ------ The body of the message is $message_size characters long; only the first
  ------ $return_size_limit or so are included here.
  ****


[[SECTcustwarn]]
Customizing warning messages
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[customizing,warning message]
cindex:[warning of delay,customizing the message]
The option %warn_message_file% can be pointed at a template file for use when
warnings about message delays are created. In this case there are only three
text sections:

- The first item is included in the headers, and should include at least a
'Subject:' header. Exim does not check the syntax of these headers.

- The second item forms the start of the warning message. After it, Exim lists
the delayed addresses.

- The third item then ends the message.

The default state is equivalent to the following file, except that the line
starting ``A message'' has been split here, in order to fit it on the page:

  Subject: Warning: message $message_id delayed $warn_message_delay
  ****
  This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

  A message ${if eq{$sender_address}{$warn_message_recipients}
    {that you sent }{sent by

    <$sender_address>

  }}has not been delivered to all of its recipients after
  more than $warn_message_delay on the queue on $primary_hostname.

  The message identifier is:     $message_id
  The subject of the message is: $h_subject
  The date of the message is:    $h_date

  The following address(es) have not yet been delivered:
  ****
  No action is required on your part. Delivery attempts will continue for
  some time, and this warning may be repeated at intervals if the message
  remains undelivered. Eventually the mail delivery software will give up,
  and when that happens, the message will be returned to you.

except that in the default state the subject and date lines are omitted if no
appropriate headers exist. During the expansion of this file,
$warn_message_delay$ is set to the delay time in one of the forms ``<''n'>
minutes' or ``<''n'> hours', and $warn_message_recipients$ contains a list of
recipients for the warning message. There may be more than one if there are
multiple addresses with different %errors_to% settings on the routers that
handled them.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPcomconreq]]
[titleabbrev="Common configuration settings"]
Some common configuration settings
----------------------------------
This chapter discusses some configuration settings that seem to be fairly
common. More examples and discussion can be found in the Exim book.



Sending mail to a smart host
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[smart host,example router]
If you want to send all mail for non-local domains to a ``smart host'', you
should replace the default ^dnslookup^ router with a router which does the
routing explicitly:

  send_to_smart_host:
    driver = manualroute
    route_list = !+local_domains smart.host.name
    transport = remote_smtp

You can use the smart host's IP address instead of the name if you wish.

If you are using Exim only to submit messages to a smart host, and not for
receiving incoming messages, you can arrange for it to do the submission
synchronously by setting the %mua_wrapper% option (see chapter
<<CHAPnonqueueing>>).




[[SECTmailinglists]]
Using Exim to handle mailing lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[mailing lists]
Exim can be used to run simple mailing lists, but for large and/or complicated
requirements, the use of additional specialized mailing list software such as
Majordomo or Mailman is recommended.

The ^redirect^ router can be used to handle mailing lists where each list
is maintained in a separate file, which can therefore be managed by an
independent manager. The %domains% router option can be used to run these
lists in a separate domain from normal mail. For example:

  lists:
    driver = redirect
    domains = lists.example
    file = /usr/lists/$local_part
    forbid_pipe
    forbid_file
    errors_to = $local_part-request@lists.example
    no_more

This router is skipped for domains other than 'lists.example'. For addresses
in that domain, it looks for a file that matches the local part. If there is no
such file, the router declines, but because %no_more% is set, no subsequent
routers are tried, and so the whole delivery fails.

The %forbid_pipe% and %forbid_file% options prevent a local part from being
expanded into a file name or a pipe delivery, which is usually inappropriate in
a mailing list.

cindex:[%errors_to%]
The %errors_to% option specifies that any delivery errors caused by addresses
taken from a mailing list are to be sent to the given address rather than the
original sender of the message. However, before acting on this, Exim verifies
the error address, and ignores it if verification fails.

For example, using the configuration above, mail sent to
'dicts@lists.example' is passed on to those addresses contained in
_/usr/lists/dicts_, with error reports directed to
'dicts-request@lists.example', provided that this address can be verified.
There could be a file called _/usr/lists/dicts-request_ containing
the address(es) of this particular list's manager(s), but other approaches,
such as setting up an earlier router (possibly using the %local_part_prefix%
or %local_part_suffix% options) to handle addresses of the form %owner-xxx%
or %xxx-request%, are also possible.



Syntax errors in mailing lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[mailing lists,syntax errors in]
If an entry in redirection data contains a syntax error, Exim normally defers
delivery of the original address. That means that a syntax error in a mailing
list holds up all deliveries to the list. This may not be appropriate when a
list is being maintained automatically from data supplied by users, and the
addresses are not rigorously checked.

If the %skip_syntax_errors% option is set, the ^redirect^ router just skips
entries that fail to parse, noting the incident in the log. If in addition
%syntax_errors_to% is set to a verifiable address, a message is sent to it
whenever a broken address is skipped. It is usually appropriate to set
%syntax_errors_to% to the same address as %errors_to%.



Re-expansion of mailing lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[mailing lists,re-expansion of]
Exim remembers every individual address to which a message has been delivered,
in order to avoid duplication, but it normally stores only the original
recipient addresses with a message. If all the deliveries to a mailing list
cannot be done at the first attempt, the mailing list is re-expanded when the
delivery is next tried. This means that alterations to the list are taken into
account at each delivery attempt, so addresses that have been added to
the list since the message arrived will therefore receive a copy of the
message, even though it pre-dates their subscription.

If this behaviour is felt to be undesirable, the %one_time% option can be set
on the ^redirect^ router. If this is done, any addresses generated by the
router that fail to deliver at the first attempt are added to the message as
``top level'' addresses, and the parent address that generated them is marked
``delivered''. Thus, expansion of the mailing list does not happen again at the
subsequent delivery attempts. The disadvantage of this is that if any of the
failing addresses are incorrect, correcting them in the file has no effect on
pre-existing messages.

The original top-level address is remembered with each of the generated
addresses, and is output in any log messages. However, any intermediate parent
addresses are not recorded. This makes a difference to the log only if the
%all_parents% selector is set, but for mailing lists there is normally only
one level of expansion anyway.



Closed mailing lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[mailing lists,closed]
The examples so far have assumed open mailing lists, to which anybody may
send mail. It is also possible to set up closed lists, where mail is accepted
from specified senders only. This is done by making use of the generic
%senders% option to restrict the router that handles the list.

The following example uses the same file as a list of recipients and as a list
of permitted senders. It requires three routers:

....
lists_request:
  driver = redirect
  domains = lists.example
  local_part_suffix = -request
  file = /usr/lists/$local_part$local_part_suffix
  no_more

lists_post:
  driver = redirect
  domains = lists.example
  senders = ${if exists {/usr/lists/$local_part}\
             {lsearch;/usr/lists/$local_part}{*}}
  file = /usr/lists/$local_part
  forbid_pipe
  forbid_file
  errors_to = $local_part-request@lists.example
  no_more

lists_closed:
  driver = redirect
  domains = lists.example
  allow_fail
  data = :fail: $local_part@lists.example is a closed mailing list
....

All three routers have the same %domains% setting, so for any other domains,
they are all skipped. The first router runs only if the local part ends in
%-request%. It handles messages to the list manager(s) by means of an open
mailing list.

The second router runs only if the %senders% precondition is satisfied. It
checks for the existence of a list that corresponds to the local part, and then
checks that the sender is on the list by means of a linear search. It is
necessary to check for the existence of the file before trying to search it,
because otherwise Exim thinks there is a configuration error. If the file does
not exist, the expansion of %senders% is \*, which matches all senders. This
means that the router runs, but because there is no list, declines, and
%no_more% ensures that no further routers are run. The address fails with an
``unrouteable address'' error.

The third router runs only if the second router is skipped, which happens when
a mailing list exists, but the sender is not on it. This router forcibly fails
the address, giving a suitable error message.




[[SECTvirtualdomains]]
Virtual domains
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[virtual domains]
cindex:[domain,virtual]
The phrase 'virtual domain' is unfortunately used with two rather different
meanings:

- A domain for which there are no real mailboxes; all valid local parts are
aliases for other email addresses. Common examples are organizational
top-level domains and ``vanity'' domains.

- One of a number of independent domains that are all handled by the same host,
with mailboxes on that host, but where the mailbox owners do not necessarily
have login accounts on that host.

The first usage is probably more common, and does seem more ``virtual'' than the
second. This kind of domain can be handled in Exim with a straightforward
aliasing router. One approach is to create a separate alias file for each
virtual domain. Exim can test for the existence of the alias file to determine
whether the domain exists. The ^dsearch^ lookup type is useful here, leading
to a router of this form:

  virtual:
    driver = redirect
    domains = dsearch;/etc/mail/virtual
    data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/mail/virtual/$domain}}
    no_more

The %domains% option specifies that the router is to be skipped, unless there
is a file in the _/etc/mail/virtual_ directory whose name is the same as the
domain that is being processed. When the router runs, it looks up the local
part in the file to find a new address (or list of addresses). The %no_more%
setting ensures that if the lookup fails (leading to %data% being an empty
string), Exim gives up on the address without trying any subsequent routers.

This one router can handle all the virtual domains because the alias file names
follow a fixed pattern. Permissions can be arranged so that appropriate people
can edit the different alias files. A successful aliasing operation results in
a new envelope recipient address, which is then routed from scratch.

The other kind of ``virtual'' domain can also be handled in a straightforward
way. One approach is to create a file for each domain containing a list of
valid local parts, and use it in a router like this:

  my_domains:
    driver = accept
    domains = dsearch;/etc/mail/domains
    local_parts = lsearch;/etc/mail/domains/$domain
    transport = my_mailboxes

The address is accepted if there is a file for the domain, and the local part
can be found in the file. The %domains% option is used to check for the file's
existence because %domains% is tested before the %local_parts% option (see
section <<SECTrouprecon>>). You can't use %require_files%, because that option
is tested after %local_parts%. The transport is as follows:

  my_mailboxes:
    driver = appendfile
    file = /var/mail/$domain/$local_part
    user = mail

This uses a directory of mailboxes for each domain. The %user% setting is
required, to specify which uid is to be used for writing to the mailboxes.

The configuration shown here is just one example of how you might support this
requirement. There are many other ways this kind of configuration can be set
up, for example, by using a database instead of separate files to hold all the
information about the domains.



[[SECTmulbox]]
Multiple user mailboxes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[multiple mailboxes]
cindex:[mailbox,multiple]
cindex:[local part,prefix]
cindex:[local part,suffix]
Heavy email users often want to operate with multiple mailboxes, into which
incoming mail is automatically sorted. A popular way of handling this is to
allow users to use multiple sender addresses, so that replies can easily be
identified. Users are permitted to add prefixes or suffixes to their local
parts for this purpose. The wildcard facility of the generic router options
%local_part_prefix% and %local_part_suffix% can be used for this. For
example, consider this router:

  userforward:
    driver = redirect
    check_local_user
    file = $home/.forward
    local_part_suffix = -*
    local_part_suffix_optional
    allow_filter

It runs a user's _.forward_ file for all local parts of the form
'username-\*'. Within the filter file the user can distinguish different
cases by testing the variable $local_part_suffix$. For example:

  if $local_part_suffix contains -special then
    save /home/$local_part/Mail/special
  endif

If the filter file does not exist, or does not deal with such addresses, they
fall through to subsequent routers, and, assuming no subsequent use of the
%local_part_suffix% option is made, they presumably fail. Thus, users have
control over which suffixes are valid.

Alternatively, a suffix can be used to trigger the use of a different
_.forward_ file -- which is the way a similar facility is implemented in
another MTA:

  userforward:
    driver = redirect
    check_local_user
    file = $home/.forward$local_part_suffix
    local_part_suffix = -*
    local_part_suffix_optional
    allow_filter

If there is no suffix, _.forward_ is used; if the suffix is '-special', for
example, _.forward-special_ is used. Once again, if the appropriate file
does not exist, or does not deal with the address, it is passed on to
subsequent routers, which could, if required, look for an unqualified
_.forward_ file to use as a default.



Simplified vacation processing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[vacation processing]
The traditional way of running the 'vacation' program is for a user to set up
a pipe command in a _.forward_ file
(see section <<SECTspecitredli>> for syntax details).
This is prone to error by inexperienced users. There are two features of Exim
that can be used to make this process simpler for users:

- A local part prefix such as ``vacation-'' can be specified on a router which
can cause the message to be delivered directly to the 'vacation' program, or
alternatively can use Exim's ^autoreply^ transport. The contents of a user's
_.forward_ file are then much simpler. For example:

  spqr, vacation-spqr

- The %require_files% generic router option can be used to trigger a
vacation delivery by checking for the existence of a certain file in the
user's home directory. The %unseen% generic option should also be used, to
ensure that the original delivery also proceeds. In this case, all the user has
to do is to create a file called, say, _.vacation_, containing a vacation
message.

Another advantage of both these methods is that they both work even when the
use of arbitrary pipes by users is locked out.



Taking copies of mail
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[message,copying every]
Some installations have policies that require archive copies of all messages to
be made. A single copy of each message can easily be taken by an appropriate
command in a system filter, which could, for example, use a different file for
each day's messages.

There is also a shadow transport mechanism that can be used to take copies of
messages that are successfully delivered by local transports, one copy per
delivery. This could be used, 'inter alia', to implement automatic
notification of delivery by sites that insist on doing such things.



Intermittently connected hosts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[intermittently connected hosts]
It has become quite common (because it is cheaper) for hosts to connect to the
Internet periodically rather than remain connected all the time. The normal
arrangement is that mail for such hosts accumulates on a system that is
permanently connected.

Exim was designed for use on permanently connected hosts, and so it is not
particularly well-suited to use in an intermittently connected environment.
Nevertheless there are some features that can be used.


Exim on the upstream server host
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is tempting to arrange for incoming mail for the intermittently connected
host to remain on Exim's queue until the client connects. However, this
approach does not scale very well. Two different kinds of waiting message are
being mixed up in the same queue -- those that cannot be delivered because of
some temporary problem, and those that are waiting for their destination host
to connect. This makes it hard to manage the queue, as well as wasting
resources, because each queue runner scans the entire queue.

A better approach is to separate off those messages that are waiting for an
intermittently connected host. This can be done by delivering these messages
into local files in batch SMTP, ``mailstore'', or other envelope-preserving
format, from where they are transmitted by other software when their
destination connects. This makes it easy to collect all the mail for one host
in a single directory, and to apply local timeout rules on a per-message basis
if required.

On a very small scale, leaving the mail on Exim's queue can be made to work. If
you are doing this, you should configure Exim with a long retry period for the
intermittent host. For example:

  cheshire.wonderland.fict.example    *   F,5d,24h

This stops a lot of failed delivery attempts from occurring, but Exim remembers
which messages it has queued up for that host. Once the intermittent host comes
online, forcing delivery of one message (either by using the %-M% or %-R%
options, or by using the ETRN SMTP command (see section <<SECTETRN>>)
causes all the queued up messages to be delivered, often down a single SMTP
connection. While the host remains connected, any new messages get delivered
immediately.

If the connecting hosts do not have fixed IP addresses, that is, if a host is
issued with a different IP address each time it connects, Exim's retry
mechanisms on the holding host get confused, because the IP address is normally
used as part of the key string for holding retry information. This can be
avoided by unsetting %retry_include_ip_address% on the ^smtp^ transport.
Since this has disadvantages for permanently connected hosts, it is best to
arrange a separate transport for the intermittently connected ones.



Exim on the intermittently connected client host
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The value of %smtp_accept_queue_per_connection% should probably be
increased, or even set to zero (that is, disabled) on the intermittently
connected host, so that all incoming messages down a single connection get
delivered immediately.

cindex:[SMTP,passed connection]
cindex:[SMTP,multiple deliveries]
cindex:[multiple SMTP deliveries]
Mail waiting to be sent from an intermittently connected host will probably
not have been routed, because without a connection DNS lookups are not
possible. This means that if a normal queue run is done at connection time,
each message is likely to be sent in a separate SMTP session. This can be
avoided by starting the queue run with a command line option beginning with
%-qq% instead of %-q%. In this case, the queue is scanned twice. In the first
pass, routing is done but no deliveries take place. The second pass is a normal
queue run; since all the messages have been previously routed, those destined
for the same host are likely to get sent as multiple deliveries in a single
SMTP connection.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPnonqueueing]]
[titleabbrev="Exim as a non-queueing client"]
Using Exim as a non-queueing client
-----------------------------------
cindex:[client, non-queueing]
cindex:[smart host,queueing; suppressing]
On a personal computer, it is a common requirement for all
email to be sent to a ``smart host''. There are plenty of MUAs that can be
configured to operate that way, for all the popular operating systems.
However, there are some MUAs for Unix-like systems that cannot be so
configured: they submit messages using the command line interface of
_/usr/sbin/sendmail_. Furthermore, utility programs such as 'cron' submit
messages this way.

If the personal computer runs continuously, there is no problem, because it can
run a conventional MTA that handles delivery to the smart host, and deal with
any delays via its queueing mechanism. However, if the computer does not run
continuously or runs different operating systems at different times, queueing
email is not desirable.

There is therefore a requirement for something that can provide the
_/usr/sbin/sendmail_ interface but deliver messages to a smart host without
any queueing or retrying facilities. Furthermore, the delivery to the smart
host should be synchronous, so that if it fails, the sending MUA is immediately
informed. In other words, we want something that extends an MUA that submits
to a local MTA via the command line so that it behaves like one that submits
to a remote smart host using TCP/SMTP.

There are a number of applications (for example, there is one called 'ssmtp')
that do this job. However, people have found them to be lacking in various
ways. For instance, you might want to allow aliasing and forwarding to be done
before sending a message to the smart host.

Exim already had the necessary infrastructure for doing this job. Just a few
tweaks were needed to make it behave as required, though it is somewhat of an
overkill to use a fully-featured MTA for this purpose.

cindex:[%mua_wrapper%]
There is a Boolean global option called %mua_wrapper%, defaulting false.
Setting %mua_wrapper% true causes Exim to run in a special mode where it
assumes that it is being used to ``wrap'' a command-line MUA in the manner
just described. As well as setting %mua_wrapper%, you also need to provide a
compatible router and transport configuration. Typically there will be just one
router and one transport, sending everything to a smart host.

When run in MUA wrapping mode, the behaviour of Exim changes in the
following ways:

- A daemon cannot be run, nor will Exim accept incoming messages from 'inetd'.
In other words, the only way to submit messages is via the command line.

- Each message is synchonously delivered as soon as it is received (%-odi% is
assumed). All queueing options (%queue_only%, %queue_smtp_domains%,
%control% in an ACL, etc.) are quietly ignored. The Exim reception process does
not finish until the delivery attempt is complete. If the delivery is
successful, a zero return code is given.

- Address redirection is permitted, but the final routing for all addresses must
be to the same remote transport, and to the same list of hosts. Furthermore,
the return address (envelope sender) must be the same for all recipients, as
must any added or deleted header lines. In other words, it must be possible to
deliver the message in a single SMTP transaction, however many recipients there
are.

- If these conditions are not met, or if routing any address results in a
failure or defer status, or if Exim is unable to deliver all the recipients
successfully to one of the smart hosts, delivery of the entire message fails.

- Because no queueing is allowed, all failures are treated as permanent; there
is no distinction between 4##'xx' and 5##'xx' SMTP response codes from the
smart host. Furthermore, because only a single yes/no response can be given to
the caller, it is not possible to deliver to some recipients and not others. If
there is an error (temporary or permanent) for any recipient, all are failed.

- If more than one smart host is listed, Exim will try another host after a
connection failure or a timeout, in the normal way. However, if this kind of
failure happens for all the hosts, the delivery fails.

- When delivery fails, an error message is written to the standard error stream
(as well as to Exim's log), and Exim exits to the caller with a return code
value 1. The message is expunged from Exim's spool files. No bounce messages
are ever generated.

- No retry data is maintained, and any retry rules are ignored.

- A number of Exim options are overridden: %deliver_drop_privilege% is forced
true, %max_rcpt% in the smtp transport is forced to ``unlimited'',
%remote_max_parallel% is forced to one, and fallback hosts are ignored.

The overall effect is that Exim makes a single synchronous attempt to deliver
the message, failing if there is any kind of problem. Because no local
deliveries are done and no daemon can be run, Exim does not need root
privilege. It should be possible to run it setuid to 'exim' instead of setuid
to 'root'. See section <<SECTrunexiwitpri>> for a general discussion about the
advantages and disadvantages of running without root privilege.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPlog]]
Log files
---------
cindex:[log,types of]
cindex:[log,general description]
Exim writes three different logs, referred to as the main log, the reject log,
and the panic log:

- cindex:[main log]
The main log records the arrival of each message and each delivery in a single
line in each case. The format is as compact as possible, in an attempt to keep
down the size of log files. Two-character flag sequences make it easy to pick
out these lines. A number of other events are recorded in the main log. Some of
them are optional, in which case the %log_selector% option controls whether
they are included or not. A Perl script called 'eximstats', which does simple
analysis of main log files, is provided in the Exim distribution (see section
<<SECTmailstat>>).

- cindex:[reject log]
The reject log records information from messages that are rejected as a result
of a configuration option (that is, for policy reasons).
The first line of each rejection is a copy of the line that is also written to
the main log. Then, if the message's header has been read at the time the log
is written, its contents are written to this log. Only the original header
lines are available; header lines added by ACLs are not logged. You can use the
reject log to check that your policy controls are working correctly; on a busy
host this may be easier than scanning the main log for rejection messages. You
can suppress the writing of the reject log by setting %write_rejectlog% false.

- cindex:[panic log]
cindex:[system log]
When certain serious errors occur, Exim writes entries to its panic log. If the
error is sufficiently disastrous, Exim bombs out afterwards. Panic log entries
are usually written to the main log as well, but can get lost amid the mass of
other entries. The panic log should be empty under normal circumstances. It is
therefore a good idea to check it (or to have a 'cron' script check it)
regularly, in order to become aware of any problems. When Exim cannot open its
panic log, it tries as a last resort to write to the system log (syslog). This
is opened with LOG_PID+LOG_CONS and the facility code of LOG_MAIL. The
message itself is written at priority LOG_CRIT.

Every log line starts with a timestamp, in the format shown in this example:

  2001-09-16 16:09:47 SMTP connection from [127.0.0.1] closed by QUIT

By default, the timestamps are in the local timezone. There are two
ways of changing this:

- You can set the %timezone% option to a different time zone; in particular, if
you set
+
  timezone = UTC
+
the timestamps will be in UTC (aka GMT).

- If you set %log_timezone% true, the time zone is added to the timestamp, for
example:
+
  2003-04-25 11:17:07 +0100 Start queue run: pid=12762





[[SECTwhelogwri]]
Where the logs are written
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,destination]
cindex:[log,to file]
cindex:[log,to syslog]
cindex:[syslog]
The logs may be written to local files, or to syslog, or both. However, it
should be noted that many syslog implementations use UDP as a transport, and
are therefore unreliable in the sense that messages are not guaranteed to
arrive at the loghost, nor is the ordering of messages necessarily maintained.
It has also been reported that on large log files (tens of megabytes) you may
need to tweak syslog to prevent it syncing the file with each write -- on Linux
this has been seen to make syslog take 90% plus of CPU time.

The destination for Exim's logs is configured by setting LOG_FILE_PATH in
_Local/Makefile_ or by setting %log_file_path% in the run time
configuration. This latter string is expanded, so it can contain, for example,
references to the host name:

  log_file_path = /var/log/$primary_hostname/exim_%slog

It is generally advisable, however, to set the string in _Local/Makefile_
rather than at run time, because then the setting is available right from the
start of Exim's execution. Otherwise, if there's something it wants to log
before it has read the configuration file (for example, an error in the
configuration file) it will not use the path you want, and may not be able to
log at all.

The value of LOG_FILE_PATH or %log_file_path% is a colon-separated
list, currently limited to at most two items. This is one option where the
facility for changing a list separator may not be used. The list must always be
colon-separated. If an item in the list is ``syslog'' then syslog is used;
otherwise the item must either be an absolute path, containing `%s` at the
point where ``main'', ``reject'', or ``panic'' is to be inserted, or be empty,
implying the use of a default path.

When Exim encounters an empty item in the list, it searches the list defined by
LOG_FILE_PATH, and uses the first item it finds that is neither empty nor
``syslog''. This means that an empty item in %log_file_path% can be used to
mean ``use the path specified at build time''. It no such item exists, log files
are written in the _log_ subdirectory of the spool directory. This is
equivalent to the setting:

  log_file_path = $spool_directory/log/%slog

If you do not specify anything at build time or run time, that is where the
logs are written.

A log file path may also contain `%D` if datestamped log file names are in
use -- see section <<SECTdatlogfil>> below.

Here are some examples of possible settings:

&&&
`LOG_FILE_PATH=syslog                    ` syslog only
`LOG_FILE_PATH=:syslog                   ` syslog and default path
`LOG_FILE_PATH=syslog : /usr/log/exim_%s ` syslog and specified path
`LOG_FILE_PATH=/usr/log/exim_%s          ` specified path only
&&&

If there are more than two paths in the list, the first is used and a panic
error is logged.



Logging to local files that are periodically ``cycled''
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,cycling local files]
cindex:[cycling logs]
cindex:['exicyclog']
cindex:[log,local files; writing to]
Some operating systems provide centralized and standardised methods for cycling
log files. For those that do not, a utility script called 'exicyclog' is
provided (see section <<SECTcyclogfil>>). This renames and compresses the main
and reject logs each time it is called. The maximum number of old logs to keep
can be set. It is suggested this script is run as a daily 'cron' job.

An Exim delivery process opens the main log when it first needs to write to it,
and it keeps the file open in case subsequent entries are required -- for
example, if a number of different deliveries are being done for the same
message. However, remote SMTP deliveries can take a long time, and this means
that the file may be kept open long after it is renamed if 'exicyclog' or
something similar is being used to rename log files on a regular basis. To
ensure that a switch of log files is noticed as soon as possible, Exim calls
'stat()' on the main log's name before reusing an open file, and if the file
does not exist, or its inode has changed, the old file is closed and Exim
tries to open the main log from scratch. Thus, an old log file may remain open
for quite some time, but no Exim processes should write to it once it has been
renamed.



[[SECTdatlogfil]]
Datestamped log files
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,datestamped files]
Instead of cycling the main and reject log files by renaming them
periodically, some sites like to use files whose names contain a datestamp,
for example, _mainlog-20031225_. The datestamp is in the form _yyyymmdd_.
Exim has support for this way of working. It is enabled by setting the
%log_file_path% option to a path that includes `%D` at the point where the
datestamp is required. For example:

  log_file_path = /var/spool/exim/log/%slog-%D
  log_file_path = /var/log/exim-%s-%D.log
  log_file_path = /var/spool/exim/log/%D-%slog

As before, `%s` is replaced by ``main'' or ``reject''; the following are examples
of names generated by the above examples:

  /var/spool/exim/log/mainlog-20021225
  /var/log/exim-reject-20021225.log
  /var/spool/exim/log/20021225-mainlog

When this form of log file is specified, Exim automatically switches to new
files at midnight. It does not make any attempt to compress old logs; you
will need to write your own script if you require this. You should not
run 'exicyclog' with this form of logging.

The location of the panic log is also determined by %log_file_path%, but it
is not datestamped, because rotation of the panic log does not make sense.
When generating the name of the panic log, `%D` is removed from the string.
In addition, if it immediately follows a slash, a following non-alphanumeric
character is removed; otherwise a preceding non-alphanumeric character is
removed. Thus, the three examples above would give these panic log names:

  /var/spool/exim/log/paniclog
  /var/log/exim-panic.log
  /var/spool/exim/log/paniclog




Logging to syslog
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,syslog; writing to]
The use of syslog does not change what Exim logs or the format of its messages,
except in one respect. If %syslog_timestamp% is set false, the timestamps on
Exim's log lines are omitted when these lines are sent to syslog. Apart from
that, the same strings are written to syslog as to log files. The syslog
``facility'' is set to LOG_MAIL, and the program name to ``exim''
by default, but you can change these by setting the %syslog_facility% and
%syslog_processname% options, respectively. If Exim was compiled with
SYSLOG_LOG_PID set in _Local/Makefile_ (this is the default in
_src/EDITME_), then, on systems that permit it (all except ULTRIX), the
LOG_PID flag is set so that the 'syslog()' call adds the pid as well as
the time and host name to each line.
The three log streams are mapped onto syslog priorities as follows:

- 'mainlog' is mapped to LOG_INFO

- 'rejectlog' is mapped to LOG_NOTICE

- 'paniclog' is mapped to LOG_ALERT

Many log lines are written to both 'mainlog' and 'rejectlog', and some are
written to both 'mainlog' and 'paniclog', so there will be duplicates if
these are routed by syslog to the same place. You can suppress this duplication
by setting %syslog_duplication% false.

Exim's log lines can sometimes be very long, and some of its 'rejectlog'
entries contain multiple lines when headers are included. To cope with both
these cases, entries written to syslog are split into separate 'syslog()'
calls at each internal newline, and also after a maximum of
870 data characters. (This allows for a total syslog line length of 1024, when
additions such as timestamps are added.) If you are running a syslog
replacement that can handle lines longer than the 1024 characters allowed by
RFC 3164, you should set

  SYSLOG_LONG_LINES=yes

in _Local/Makefile_ before building Exim. That stops Exim from splitting long
lines, but it still splits at internal newlines in 'reject' log entries.

To make it easy to re-assemble split lines later, each component of a split
entry starts with a string of the form ``[<''n'>/<'m'>]' or ``[<''n'>\<'m'>]'
where <'n'> is the component number and <'m'> is the total number of components
in the entry. The / delimiter is used when the line was split because it was
too long; if it was split because of an internal newline, the \ delimiter is
used. For example, supposing the length limit to be 70 instead of 1000, the
following would be the result of a typical rejection message to 'mainlog'
(LOG_INFO), each line in addition being preceded by the time, host name, and
pid as added by syslog:

  $smc\{[1/3] 2002-09-16 16:09:43 16RdAL-0006pc-00 rejected from [127.0.0.1] (ph10):
  [2/3]  syntax error in 'From' header when scanning for sender: missing or ma
  [3/3] lformed local part in "<>" (envelope sender is <ph10@cam.example>)\}

The same error might cause the following lines to be written to ``rejectlog''
(LOG_NOTICE):

  $smc\{[1/14] 2002-09-16 16:09:43 16RdAL-0006pc-00 rejected from [127.0.0.1] (ph10):
  [2/14]  syntax error in 'From' header when scanning for sender: missing or ma
  [3\14] lformed local part in "<>" (envelope sender is <ph10@cam.example>)
  [4\14] Recipients: ph10@some.domain.cam.example
  [5\14] P Received: from [127.0.0.1] (ident=ph10)
  [6\14]        by xxxxx.cam.example with smtp (Exim 4.00)
  [7\14]        id 16RdAL-0006pc-00
  [8\14]        for ph10@cam.example; Mon, 16 Sep 2002 16:09:43 +0100
  [9\14] F From: <>
  [10\14]   Subject: this is a test header
  [11\14]   X-something: this is another header
  [12\14] I Message-Id: <E16RdAL-0006pc-00@xxxxx.cam.example>
  [13\14] B Bcc:
  [14/14]   Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 16:09:43 +0100\}

Log lines that are neither too long nor contain newlines are written to syslog
without modification.

If only syslog is being used, the Exim monitor is unable to provide a log tail
display, unless syslog is routing 'mainlog' to a file on the local host and
the environment variable EXIMON_LOG_FILE_PATH is set to tell the monitor
where it is.



Log line flags
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One line is written to the main log for each message received, and for each
successful, unsuccessful, and delayed delivery. These lines can readily be
picked out by the distinctive two-character flags that immediately follow the
timestamp. The flags are:

&&&
`<=`     message arrival
`=>`     normal message delivery
`->`     additional address in same delivery
`\*>`     delivery suppressed by %-N%
`\*\*`     delivery failed; address bounced
`==`     delivery deferred; temporary problem
&&&



Logging message reception
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,reception line]
The format of the single-line entry in the main log that is written for every
message received is shown in the basic example below, which is split over
several lines in order to fit it on the page:

  2002-10-31 08:57:53 16ZCW1-0005MB-00 <= kryten@dwarf.fict.example
    H=mailer.fict.example [192.168.123.123] U=exim
    P=smtp S=5678 id=<incoming message id>

The address immediately following ``<='' is the envelope sender address. A bounce
message is shown with the sender address ``<>'', and if it is locally generated,
this is followed by an item of the form

  R=<message id>

which is a reference to the message that caused the bounce to be sent.

cindex:[HELO]
cindex:[EHLO]
For messages from other hosts, the H and U fields identify the remote host and
record the RFC 1413 identity of the user that sent the message, if one was
received. The number given in square brackets is the IP address of the sending
host. If there is a single, unparenthesized  host name in the H field, as
above, it has been verified to correspond to the IP address (see the
%host_lookup% option). If the name is in parentheses, it was the name quoted
by the remote host in the SMTP HELO or EHLO command, and has not been
verified. If verification yields a different name to that given for HELO or
EHLO, the verified name appears first, followed by the HELO or EHLO
name in parentheses.

Misconfigured hosts (and mail forgers) sometimes put an IP address, with or
without brackets, in the HELO or EHLO command, leading to entries in
the log containing text like these examples:

  H=(10.21.32.43) [192.168.8.34]
  H=([10.21.32.43]) [192.168.8.34]

This can be confusing. Only the final address in square brackets can be relied
on.

For locally generated messages (that is, messages not received over TCP/IP),
the H field is omitted, and the U field contains the login name of the caller
of Exim.

cindex:[authentication,logging]
cindex:[AUTH,logging]
For all messages, the P field specifies the protocol used to receive the
message. This is set to ``esmtpa'' for messages received from hosts that have
authenticated themselves using the SMTP AUTH command. In this case there is an
additional item A= followed by the name of the authenticator that was used. If
an authenticated identification was set up by the authenticator's
%server_set_id% option, this is logged too, separated by a colon from the
authenticator name.

The id field records the existing message id, if present.
cindex:[size,of message]
The size of the received message is given by the S field. When the message is
delivered, headers may get removed or added, so that the size of delivered
copies of the message may not correspond with this value (and indeed may be
different to each other).

The %log_selector% option can be used to request the logging of additional
data when a message is received. See section <<SECTlogselector>> below.



Logging deliveries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,delivery line]
The format of the single-line entry in the main log that is written for every
delivery is shown in one of the examples below, for local and remote deliveries,
respectively. Each example has been split into two lines in order to fit
it on the page:

  2002-10-31 08:59:13 16ZCW1-0005MB-00 => marv <marv@hitch.fict.example>
    R=localuser T=local_delivery
  2002-10-31 09:00:10 16ZCW1-0005MB-00 => monk@holistic.fict.example
    R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp H=holistic.fict.example [192.168.234.234]

For ordinary local deliveries, the original address is given in angle brackets
after the final delivery address, which might be a pipe or a file. If
intermediate address(es) exist between the original and the final address, the
last of these is given in parentheses after the final address. The R and T
fields record the router and transport that were used to process the address.

If a shadow transport was run after a successful local delivery, the log line
for the successful delivery has an item added on the end, of the form

  ST=<shadow transport name>

If the shadow transport did not succeed, the error message is put in
parentheses afterwards.

When more than one address is included in a single delivery (for example, two
SMTP RCPT commands in one transaction) the second and subsequent
addresses are flagged with `->` instead of `=>`. When two or more
messages are delivered down a single SMTP connection, an asterisk follows the
IP address in the log lines for the second and subsequent messages.

The generation of a reply message by a filter file gets logged as a ``delivery''
to the addressee, preceded by ``>''.

The %log_selector% option can be used to request the logging of additional
data when a message is delivered. See section <<SECTlogselector>> below.



Discarded deliveries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[discarded messages]
cindex:[message,discarded]
cindex:[delivery,discarded; logging]
When a message is discarded as a result of the command ``seen finish'' being
obeyed in a filter file which generates no deliveries, a log entry of the form

  2002-12-10 00:50:49 16auJc-0001UB-00 => discarded
    <low.club@bridge.example> R=userforward

is written, to record why no deliveries are logged. When a message is discarded
because it is aliased to ``:blackhole:'' the log line is like this:

  1999-03-02 09:44:33 10HmaX-0005vi-00 => :blackhole:
    <hole@nowhere.example> R=blackhole_router




Deferred deliveries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When a delivery is deferred, a line of the following form is logged:

  2002-12-19 16:20:23 16aiQz-0002Q5-00 == marvin@endrest.example
    R=dnslookup T=smtp defer (146): Connection refused

In the case of remote deliveries, the error is the one that was given for the
last IP address that was tried. Details of individual SMTP failures are also
written to the log, so the above line would be preceded by something like

  2002-12-19 16:20:23 16aiQz-0002Q5-00 Failed to connect to
    mail1.endrest.example [192.168.239.239]: Connection refused

When a deferred address is skipped because its retry time has not been reached,
a message is written to the log, but this can be suppressed by setting an
appropriate value in %log_selector%.



Delivery failures
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[delivery,failure; logging]
If a delivery fails because an address cannot be routed, a line of the
following form is logged:

  1995-12-19 16:20:23 0tRiQz-0002Q5-00 ** jim@trek99.example
    <jim@trek99.example>: unknown mail domain

If a delivery fails at transport time, the router and transport are shown, and
the response from the remote host is included, as in this example:

  2002-07-11 07:14:17 17SXDU-000189-00 ** ace400@pb.example R=dnslookup
    T=remote_smtp: SMTP error from remote mailer after pipelined
    RCPT TO:<ace400@pb.example>: host pbmail3.py.example
    [192.168.63.111]: 553 5.3.0 <ace400@pb.example>...
    Addressee unknown

The word ``pipelined'' indicates that the SMTP PIPELINING extension was being
used. See %hosts_avoid_esmtp% in the ^smtp^ transport for a way of
disabling PIPELINING.

The log lines for all forms of delivery failure are flagged with `\*\*`.



Fake deliveries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[delivery,fake; logging]
If a delivery does not actually take place because the %-N% option has been
used to suppress it, a normal delivery line is written to the log, except that
``=>'' is replaced by ``\*>''.



Completion
~~~~~~~~~~
A line of the form

  2002-10-31 09:00:11 16ZCW1-0005MB-00 Completed

is written to the main log when a message is about to be removed from the spool
at the end of its processing.




Summary of Fields in Log Lines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,summary of fields]
A summary of the field identifiers that are used in log lines is shown in
the following table:

&&&
`A   `        authenticator name (and optional id)
`C   `        SMTP confirmation on delivery
`CV  `        certificate verification status
`DN  `        distinguished name from peer certificate
`DT  `        on `=>` lines: time taken for a delivery
`F   `        sender address (on delivery lines)
`H   `        host name and IP address
`I   `        local interface used
`id  `        message id for incoming message
`P   `        on `<=` lines: protocol used
`    `        on `=>` and `\*\*` lines: return path
`QT  `        on `=>` lines: time spent on queue so far
`    `        on ``Completed'' lines: time spent on queue
`R   `        on `<=` lines: reference for local bounce
`    `        on `=>`  `\*\*` and `==` lines: router name
`S   `        size of message
`ST  `        shadow transport name
`T   `        on `<=` lines: message subject (topic)
`    `        on `=>` `\*\*` and `==` lines: transport name
`U   `        local user or RFC 1413 identity
`X   `        TLS cipher suite
&&&



Other log entries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Various other types of log entry are written from time to time. Most should be
self-explanatory. Among the more common are:

- cindex:[retry,time not reached]
'retry time not reached'~~An address previously suffered a temporary error
during routing or local delivery, and the time to retry has not yet arrived.
This message is not written to an individual message log file unless it happens
during the first delivery attempt.

- 'retry time not reached for any host'~~An address previously suffered
temporary errors during remote delivery, and the retry time has not yet arrived
for any of the hosts to which it is routed.

- cindex:[spool directory,file locked]
'spool file locked'~~An attempt to deliver a message cannot proceed because
some other Exim process is already working on the message. This can be quite
common if queue running processes are started at frequent intervals. The
'exiwhat' utility script can be used to find out what Exim processes are
doing.

- cindex:[error,ignored]
'error ignored'~~There are several circumstances that give rise to this
message:

. Exim failed to deliver a bounce message whose age was greater than
%ignore_bounce_errors_after%. The bounce was discarded.

. A filter file set up a delivery using the ``noerror'' option, and the delivery
failed. The delivery was discarded.

. A delivery set up by a router configured with
+
    errors_to = <>
+
failed. The delivery was discarded.





[[SECTlogselector]]
Reducing or increasing what is logged
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,selectors]
By setting the %log_selector% global option, you can disable some of Exim's
default logging, or you can request additional logging. The value of
%log_selector% is made up of names preceded by plus or minus characters. For
example:

  log_selector = +arguments -retry_defer

The list of optional log items is in the following table, with the default
selection marked by asterisks:

&&&
` address_rewrite            `  address rewriting
` all_parents                `  all parents in => lines
` arguments                  `  command line arguments
`\*connection_reject          `  connection rejections
`\*delay_delivery             `  immediate delivery delayed
` deliver_time               `  time taken to perform delivery
` delivery_size              `  add S=nnn to => lines
`\*dnslist_defer              `  defers of DNS list (aka RBL) lookups
`\*etrn                       `  ETRN commands
`\*host_lookup_failed         `  as it says
` ident_timeout              `  timeout for ident connection
` incoming_interface         `  incoming interface on <= lines
` incoming_port              `  incoming port on <= lines
`\*lost_incoming_connection   `  as it says (includes timeouts)
` outgoing_port              `  add remote port to => lines
`\*queue_run                  `  start and end queue runs
` queue_time                 `  time on queue for one recipient
` queue_time_overall         `  time on queue for whole message
` received_recipients        `  recipients on <= lines
` received_sender            `  sender on <= lines
`\*rejected_header            `  header contents on reject log
`\*retry_defer                `  ``retry time not reached''
` return_path_on_delivery    `  put return path on => and \*\ lines
` sender_on_delivery         `  add sender to => lines
`\*size_reject                `  rejection because too big
`\*skip_delivery              `  delivery skipped in a queue run
` smtp_confirmation          `  SMTP confirmation on => lines
` smtp_connection            `  SMTP connections
` smtp_incomplete_transaction`  incomplete SMTP transactions
` smtp_protocol_error        `  SMTP protocol errors
` smtp_syntax_error          `  SMTP syntax errors
` subject                    `  contents of 'Subject:' on <= lines
` tls_certificate_verified   `  certificate verification status
`\*tls_cipher                 `  TLS cipher suite on <= and => lines
` tls_peerdn                 `  TLS peer DN on <= and => lines

` all                        `  all of the above
&&&

More details on each of these items follows:

- cindex:[log,rewriting]
cindex:[rewriting,logging]
%address_rewrite%: This applies both to global rewrites and per-transport
rewrites,
but not to rewrites in filters run as an unprivileged user (because such users
cannot access the log).

- cindex:[log,full parentage]
%all_parents%: Normally only the original and final addresses are logged on
delivery lines; with this selector, intermediate parents are given in
parentheses between them.

- cindex:[log,Exim arguments]
cindex:[Exim arguments, logging]
%arguments%: This causes Exim to write the arguments with which it was called
to the main log, preceded by the current working directory. This is a debugging
feature, added to make it easier to find out how certain MUAs call
_/usr/sbin/sendmail_. The logging does not happen if Exim has given up root
privilege because it was called with the %-C% or %-D% options. Arguments that
are empty or that contain whitespace are quoted. Non-printing characters are
shown as escape sequences. This facility cannot log unrecognized arguments,
because the arguments are checked before the configuration file is read. The
only way to log such cases is to interpose a script such as _util/logargs.sh_
between the caller and Exim.

- cindex:[log,connection rejections]
%connection_reject%: A log entry is written whenever an incoming SMTP
connection is rejected, for whatever reason.

- cindex:[log,delayed delivery]
cindex:[delayed delivery, logging]
%delay_delivery%: A log entry is written whenever a delivery process is not
started for an incoming message because the load is too high or too many
messages were received on one connection. Logging does not occur if no delivery
process is started because %queue_only% is set or %-odq% was used.

- cindex:[log,delivery duration]
%deliver_time%: For each delivery, the amount of real time it has taken to
perform the actual delivery is logged as DT=<'time'>, for example, `DT=1s`.

- cindex:[log,message size on delivery]
cindex:[size,of message]
%delivery_size%: For each delivery, the size of message delivered is added to
the ``=>'' line, tagged with S=.

- cindex:[log,dnslist defer]
cindex:[DNS list,logging defer]
cindex:[black list (DNS)]
%dnslist_defer%: A log entry is written if an attempt to look up a host in a
DNS black list suffers a temporary error.

- cindex:[log,ETRN commands]
cindex:[ETRN,logging]
%etrn%: Every legal ETRN command that is received is logged, before the ACL is
run to determine whether or not it is actually accepted. An invalid ETRN
command, or one received within a message transaction is not logged by this
selector (see %smtp_syntax_error% and %smtp_protocol_error%).

- cindex:[log,host lookup failure]
%host_lookup_failed%: When a lookup of a host's IP addresses fails to find
any addresses, or when a lookup of an IP address fails to find a host name, a
log line is written. This logging does not apply to direct DNS lookups when
routing email addresses, but it does apply to ``byname'' lookups.

- cindex:[log,ident timeout]
cindex:[RFC 1413,logging timeout]
%ident_timeout%: A log line is written whenever an attempt to connect to a
client's ident port times out.

- cindex:[log,incoming interface]
cindex:[interface,logging]
%incoming_interface%: The interface on which a message was received is added to
the ``<='' line as an IP address in square brackets, tagged by I= and followed
by a colon and the port number. The local interface and port are also added to
other SMTP log lines, for example ``SMTP connection from'', and to rejection
lines.

- cindex:[log,incoming remote port]
cindex:[port,logging remote]
cindex:[TCP/IP,logging incoming remote port]
%incoming_port%: The remote port number from which a message was received is
added to log entries and 'Received:' header lines, following the IP address in
square brackets, and separated from it by a colon. This is implemented by
changing the value that is put in the $sender_fullhost$ and
$sender_rcvhost$ variables. Recording the remote port number has become more
important with the widening use of NAT (see RFC 2505).

- cindex:[log,dropped connection]
%lost_incoming_connection%: A log line is written when an incoming SMTP
connection is unexpectedly dropped.

- cindex:[log,outgoing remote port]
cindex:[port,logging outgoint remote]
cindex:[TCP/IP,logging ougtoing remote port]
%outgoing_port%: The remote port number is added to delivery log lines (those
containing => tags) following the IP address. This option is not included in
the default setting, because for most ordinary configurations, the remote port
number is always 25 (the SMTP port).

- cindex:[log,queue run]
cindex:[queue runner,logging]
%queue_run%: The start and end of every queue run are logged.

- cindex:[log,queue time]
%queue_time%: The amount of time the message has been in the queue on the local
host is logged as QT=<'time'> on delivery (`=>`) lines, for example,
`QT=3m45s`. The clock starts when Exim starts to receive the message, so it
includes reception time as well as the delivery time for the current address.
This means that it may be longer than the difference between the arrival and
delivery log line times, because the arrival log line is not written until the
message has been successfully received.

- %queue_time_overall%: The amount of time the message has been in the queue on
the local host is logged as QT=<'time'> on ``Completed'' lines, for
example, `QT=3m45s`. The clock starts when Exim starts to receive the
message, so it includes reception time as well as the total delivery time.

- cindex:[log,recipients]
%received_recipients%: The recipients of a message are listed in the main log
as soon as the message is received. The list appears at the end of the log line
that is written when a message is received, preceded by the word ``for''. The
addresses are listed after they have been qualified, but before any rewriting
has taken place.
Recipients that were discarded by an ACL for MAIL or RCPT do not appear
in the list.

- cindex:[log,sender reception]
%received_sender%: The unrewritten original sender of a message is added to
the end of the log line that records the message's arrival, after the word
``from'' (before the recipients if %received_recipients% is also set).

- cindex:[log,header lines for rejection]
%rejected_header%: If a message's header has been received at the time a
rejection is written to the reject log, the complete header is added to the
log. Header logging can be turned off individually for messages that are
rejected by the 'local_scan()' function (see section <<SECTapiforloc>>).

- cindex:[log,retry defer]
%retry_defer%: A log line is written if a delivery is deferred because a retry
time has not yet been reached. However, this ``retry time not reached'' message
is always omitted from individual message logs after the first delivery
attempt.

- cindex:[log,return path]
%return_path_on_delivery%: The return path that is being transmitted with
the message is included in delivery and bounce lines, using the tag P=.
This is omitted if no delivery actually happens, for example, if routing fails,
or if delivery is to _/dev/null_ or to `:blackhole:`.

- cindex:[log,sender on delivery]
%sender_on_delivery%: The message's sender address is added to every delivery
and bounce line, tagged by F= (for ``from'').
This is the original sender that was received with the message; it is not
necessarily the same as the outgoing return path.

- cindex:[log,size rejection]
%size_reject%: A log line is written whenever a message is rejected because it
is too big.

- cindex:[log,frozen messages; skipped]
cindex:[frozen messages,logging skipping]
%skip_delivery%: A log line is written whenever a message is skipped during a
queue run because it is frozen or because another process is already delivering
it.
cindex:[``spool file is locked'']
The message that is written is ``spool file is locked''.

- cindex:[log,smtp confirmation]
cindex:[SMTP,logging confirmation]
%smtp_confirmation%: The response to the final ``.'' in the SMTP dialogue for
outgoing messages is added to delivery log lines in the form ``C="<''text'>"'. A
number of MTAs (including Exim) return an identifying string in this response.

- cindex:[log,SMTP connections]
cindex:[SMTP,logging connections]
%smtp_connection%: A log line is written whenever an SMTP connection is
established or closed, unless the connection is from a host that matches
%hosts_connection_nolog%. (In contrast, %lost_incoming_connection% applies only
when the closure is unexpected.) This applies to connections from local
processes that use %-bs% as well as to TCP/IP connections. If a connection is
dropped in the middle of a message, a log line is always written, whether or
not this selector is set, but otherwise nothing is written at the start and end
of connections unless this selector is enabled.
+
For TCP/IP connections to an Exim daemon, the current number of connections is
included in the log message for each new connection, but note that the count is
reset if the daemon is restarted.
Also, because connections are closed (and the closure is logged) in
subprocesses, the count may not include connections that have been closed but
whose termination the daemon has not yet noticed. Thus, while it is possible to
match up the opening and closing of connections in the log, the value of the
logged counts may not be entirely accurate.

- cindex:[log,SMTP transaction; incomplete]
cindex:[SMTP,logging incomplete transactions]
%smtp_incomplete_transaction%: When a mail transaction is aborted by
RSET, QUIT, loss of connection, or otherwise, the incident is logged,
and the message sender plus any accepted recipients are included in the log
line. This can provide evidence of dictionary attacks.

- cindex:[log,SMTP protocol error]
cindex:[SMTP,logging protocol error]
%smtp_protocol_error%: A log line is written for every SMTP protocol error
encountered. Exim does not have perfect detection of all protocol errors
because of transmission delays and the use of pipelining. If PIPELINING has
been advertised to a client, an Exim server assumes that the client will use
it, and therefore it does not count ``expected'' errors (for example, RCPT
received after rejecting MAIL) as protocol errors.

- cindex:[SMTP,logging syntax errors]
cindex:[SMTP,syntax errors; logging]
cindex:[SMTP,unknown command; logging]
cindex:[log,unknown SMTP command]
cindex:[log,SMTP syntax error]
%smtp_syntax_error%: A log line is written for every SMTP syntax error
encountered. An unrecognized command is treated as a syntax error. For an
external connection, the host identity is given; for an internal connection
using %-bs% the sender identification (normally the calling user) is given.

- cindex:[log,subject]
cindex:[subject, logging]
%subject%: The subject of the message is added to the arrival log line,
preceded by ``T='' (T for ``topic'', since S is already used for ``size'').
Any MIME ``words'' in the subject are decoded. The %print_topbitchars% option
specifies whether characters with values greater than 127 should be logged
unchanged, or whether they should be rendered as escape sequences.

- cindex:[log,certificate verification]
%tls_certificate_verified%: An extra item is added to <= and => log lines
when TLS is in use. The item is `CV=yes` if the peer's certificate was
verified, and `CV=no` if not.

- cindex:[log,TLS cipher]
cindex:[TLS,logging cipher]
%tls_cipher%: When a message is sent or received over an encrypted connection,
the cipher suite used is added to the log line, preceded by X=.

- cindex:[log,TLS peer DN]
cindex:[TLS,logging peer DN]
%tls_peerdn%: When a message is sent or received over an encrypted connection,
and a certificate is supplied by the remote host, the peer DN is added to the
log line, preceded by DN=.



Message log
~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[message,log file for]
cindex:[log,message log; description of]
In addition to the general log files, Exim writes a log file for each message
that it handles. The names of these per-message logs are the message ids, and

cindex:[_msglog_ directory]
they are kept in the _msglog_ sub-directory of the spool directory. Each
message log contains copies of the log lines that apply to the message. This
makes it easier to inspect the status of an individual message without having
to search the main log. A message log is deleted when processing of the message
is complete,

cindex:[%preserve_message_logs%]
unless %preserve_message_logs% is set, but this should be used only with
great care because they can fill up your disk very quickly.

On a heavily loaded system, it may be desirable to disable the use of
per-message logs, in order to reduce disk I/O. This can be done by setting the
%message_logs% option false.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPutils]]
Exim utilities
--------------
cindex:[utilities]
A number of utility scripts and programs are supplied with Exim and are
described in this chapter. There is also the Exim Monitor, which is covered in
the next chapter. The utilities described here are:

[frame="none"]
`2`8`30`40~
,<<SECTfinoutwha>>   ,  'exiwhat'         ,  list what Exim processes are doing
,<<SECTgreptheque>>  ,  'exiqgrep'        ,  grep the queue
,<<SECTsumtheque>>   ,  'exiqsumm'        ,  summarize the queue
,<<SECTextspeinf>>   ,  'exigrep'         ,  search the main log
,<<SECTexipick>>     ,  'exipick'         ,  select messages on various criteria
,<<SECTcyclogfil>>   ,  'exicyclog'       ,  cycle (rotate) log files
,<<SECTmailstat>>    ,  'eximstats'       ,  extract statistics from the log
,<<SECTcheckaccess>> ,  'exim_checkaccess',  check address acceptance from given IP
,<<SECTdbmbuild>>    ,  'exim_dbmbuild'   ,  build a DBM file
,<<SECTfinindret>>   ,  'exinext'         ,  extract retry information
,<<SECThindatmai>>   ,  'exim_dumpdb'     ,  dump a hints database
,<<SECThindatmai>>   ,  'exim_tidydb'     ,  clean up a hints database
,<<SECThindatmai>>   ,  'exim_fixdb'      ,  patch a hints database
,<<SECTmailboxmaint>>,  'exim_lock'       ,  lock a mailbox file
~~~~~


[[SECTfinoutwha]]
Finding out what Exim processes are doing (exiwhat)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['exiwhat']
cindex:[process, querying]
cindex:[SIGUSR1]
On operating systems that can restart a system call after receiving a signal
(most modern OS), an Exim process responds to the SIGUSR1 signal by writing
a line describing what it is doing to the file _exim-process.info_ in the
Exim spool directory. The 'exiwhat' script sends the signal to all Exim
processes it can find, having first emptied the file. It then waits for one
second to allow the Exim processes to react before displaying the results. In
order to run 'exiwhat' successfully you have to have sufficient privilege to
send the signal to the Exim processes, so it is normally run as root.

*Warning*: This is not an efficient process. It is intended for occasional
use by system administrators. It is not sensible, for example, to set up a
script that sends SIGUSR1 signals to Exim processes at short intervals.


Unfortunately, the 'ps' command that 'exiwhat' uses to find Exim processes
varies in different operating systems. Not only are different options used,
but the format of the output is different. For this reason, there are some
system configuration options that configure exactly how 'exiwhat' works. If it
doesn't seem to be working for you, check the following compile-time options:

&&&
`EXIWHAT_PS_CMD    ` the command for running 'ps'
`EXIWHAT_PS_ARG    ` the argument for 'ps'
`EXIWHAT_EGREP_ARG ` the argument for 'egrep' to select from 'ps' output
`EXIWHAT_KILL_ARG  ` the argument for the 'kill' command
&&&

An example of typical output from 'exiwhat' is

    164 daemon: -q1h, listening on port 25
  10483 running queue: waiting for 0tAycK-0002ij-00 (10492)
  10492 delivering 0tAycK-0002ij-00 to mail.ref.example [10.19.42.42]
    (editor@ref.example)
  10592 handling incoming call from [192.168.243.242]
  10628 accepting a local non-SMTP message

The first number in the output line is the process number. The third line has
been split here, in order to fit it on the page.



[[SECTgreptheque]]
Selective queue listing (exiqgrep)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['exiqgrep']
cindex:[queue,grepping]
This utility is a Perl script contributed by Matt Hubbard. It runs

  exim -bpu

to obtain a queue listing with undelivered recipients only, and then greps the
output to select messages that match given criteria. The following selection
options are available:

*-f*~<'regex'>::
Match the sender address. The field that is tested is enclosed in angle
brackets, so you can test for bounce messages with

  exiqgrep -f '^<>$'

*-r*~<'regex'>::
Match a recipient address. The field that is tested is not enclosed in angle
brackets.

*-s*~<'regex'>::
Match against the size field.

*-y*~<'seconds'>::
Match messages that are younger than the given time.

*-o*~<'seconds'>::
Match messages that are older than the given time.

*-z*::
Match only frozen messages.

*-x*::
Match only non-frozen messages.

///
End of list
///

The following options control the format of the output:

*-c*::
Display only the count of matching messages.

*-l*::
Long format -- display the full message information as output by Exim. This is
the default.

*-i*::
Display message ids only.

*-b*::
Brief format -- one line per message.

*-R*::
Display messages in reverse order.

///
End of list
///

There is one more option, %-h%, which outputs a list of options.



[[SECTsumtheque]]
Summarising the queue (exiqsumm)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['exiqsumm']
cindex:[queue,summary]
The 'exiqsumm' utility is a Perl script which reads the output of 'exim
-bp' and produces a summary of the messages on the queue. Thus, you use it by
running a command such as

  exim -bp | exiqsumm

The output consists of one line for each domain that has messages waiting for
it, as in the following example:

    3   2322   74m   66m  msn.com.example

Each line lists the number of
pending deliveries for a domain, their total volume, and the length of time
that the oldest and the newest messages have been waiting. Note that the number
of pending deliveries is greater than the number of messages when messages
have more than one recipient.

A summary line is output at the end. By default the output is sorted on the
domain name, but 'exiqsumm' has the options %-a% and %-c%, which cause the
output to be sorted by oldest message and by count of messages, respectively.

The output of 'exim -bp' contains the original addresses in the message, so
this also applies to the output from 'exiqsumm'. No domains from addresses
generated by aliasing or forwarding are included (unless the %one_time% option
of the ^redirect^ router has been used to convert them into ``top level''
addresses).




[[SECTextspeinf]]
Extracting specific information from the log (exigrep)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['exigrep']
cindex:[log,extracts; grepping for]
The 'exigrep' utility is a Perl script that searches one or more main log
files for entries that match a given pattern. When it finds a match, it
extracts all the log entries for the relevant message, not just those that
match the pattern. Thus, 'exigrep' can extract complete log entries for a
given message, or all mail for a given user, or for a given host, for example.

If a matching log line is not associated with a specific message, it is always
included in 'exigrep''s output.
The usage is:

  exigrep [-l] [-t<n>] <pattern> [<log file>] ...

The %-t% argument specifies a number of seconds. It adds an additional
condition for message selection. Messages that are complete are shown only if
they spent more than <'n'> seconds on the queue.

The %-l% flag means ``literal'', that is, treat all characters in the
pattern as standing for themselves. Otherwise the pattern must be a Perl
regular expression. The pattern match is case-insensitive. If no file names are
given on the command line, the standard input is read.

If the location of a 'zcat' command is known from the definition of
ZCAT_COMMAND in _Local/Makefile_, 'exigrep' automatically passes any
file whose name ends in COMPRESS_SUFFIX through 'zcat' as it searches
it.


[[SECTexipick]]
Selecting messages by various criteria (exipick)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['exipick']
John Jetmore's 'exipick' utility is included in the Exim distribution. It
lists messages from the queue according to a variety of criteria. For details,
run:

  exipick --help




[[SECTcyclogfil]]
Cycling log files (exicyclog)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,cycling local files]
cindex:[cycling logs]
cindex:['exicyclog']
The 'exicyclog' script can be used to cycle (rotate) 'mainlog' and
'rejectlog' files. This is not necessary if only syslog is being used, or if
you are using log files with datestamps in their names (see section
<<SECTdatlogfil>>). Some operating systems have their own standard mechanisms for
log cycling, and these can be used instead of 'exicyclog' if preferred.

Each time 'exicyclog' is run the file names get ``shuffled down'' by one. If
the main log file name is _mainlog_ (the default) then when 'exicyclog' is
run _mainlog_ becomes _mainlog.01_, the previous _mainlog.01_ becomes
_mainlog.02_ and so on, up to a limit which is set in the script, and which
defaults to 10. Log files whose numbers exceed the limit are discarded. Reject
logs are handled similarly.

If the limit is greater than 99, the script uses 3-digit numbers such as
_mainlog.001_, _mainlog.002_, etc. If you change from a number less than 99
to one that is greater, or 'vice versa', you will have to fix the names of
any existing log files.


If no _mainlog_ file exists, the script does nothing. Files that ``drop off''
the end are deleted. All files with numbers greater than 01 are compressed,
using a compression command which is configured by the COMPRESS_COMMAND
setting in _Local/Makefile_. It is usual to run 'exicyclog' daily from a
root %crontab% entry of the form

  1 0 * * * su exim -c /usr/exim/bin/exicyclog

assuming you have used the name ``exim'' for the Exim user. You can run
'exicyclog' as root if you wish, but there is no need.



[[SECTmailstat]]
Mail statistics (eximstats)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[statistics]
cindex:['eximstats']
A Perl script called 'eximstats' is provided for extracting statistical
information from log files. The output is either plain text, or HTML.
Exim log files are also suported by the 'Lire' system produced by the
LogReport Foundation (*http://www.logreport.org[]*).

The 'eximstats' script has been hacked about quite a bit over time. The
latest version is the result of some extensive revision by Steve Campbell. A
lot of information is given by default, but there are options for suppressing
various parts of it. Following any options, the arguments to the script are a
list of files, which should be main log files. For example:

  eximstats -nr /var/spool/exim/log/mainlog.01

By default, 'eximstats' extracts information about the number and volume of
messages received from or delivered to various hosts. The information is sorted
both by message count and by volume, and the top fifty hosts in each category
are listed on the standard output. Similar information, based on email
addresses or domains instead of hosts can be requested by means of various
options. For messages delivered and received locally, similar statistics are
also produced per user.

The output also includes total counts and statistics about delivery errors, and
histograms showing the number of messages received and deliveries made in each
hour of the day. A delivery with more than one address in its envelope (for
example, an SMTP transaction with more than one RCPT command) is counted
as a single delivery by 'eximstats'.

Though normally more deliveries than receipts are reported (as messages may
have multiple recipients), it is possible for 'eximstats' to report more
messages received than delivered, even though the queue is empty at the start
and end of the period in question. If an incoming message contains no valid
recipients, no deliveries are recorded for it. A bounce message is handled as
an entirely separate message.

'eximstats' always outputs a grand total summary giving the volume and number
of messages received and deliveries made, and the number of hosts involved in
each case. It also outputs the number of messages that were delayed (that is,
not completely delivered at the first attempt), and the number that had at
least one address that failed.

The remainder of the output is in sections that can be independently disabled
or modified by various options. It consists of a summary of deliveries by
transport, histograms of messages received and delivered per time interval
(default per hour), information about the time messages spent on the queue,
a list of relayed messages, lists of the top fifty sending hosts, local
senders, destination hosts, and destination local users by count and by volume,
and a list of delivery errors that occurred.

The relay information lists messages that were actually relayed, that is, they
came from a remote host and were directly delivered to some other remote host,
without being processed (for example, for aliasing or forwarding) locally.

There are quite a few options for 'eximstats' to control exactly what it
outputs. These are documented in the Perl script itself, and can be extracted
by running the command ^perldoc^ on the script. For example:

  perldoc /usr/exim/bin/eximstats



[[SECTcheckaccess]]
Checking access policy (exim_checkaccess)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['exim_checkaccess']
cindex:[policy control,checking access]
cindex:[checking access]
The %-bh% command line argument allows you to run a fake SMTP session with
debugging output, in order to check what Exim is doing when it is applying
policy controls to incoming SMTP mail. However, not everybody is sufficiently
familiar with the SMTP protocol to be able to make full use of %-bh%, and
sometimes you just want to answer the question 'Does this address have
access?' without bothering with any further details.

The 'exim_checkaccess' utility is a ``packaged'' version of %-bh%. It takes
two arguments, an IP address and an email address:

  exim_checkaccess 10.9.8.7 A.User@a.domain.example

The utility runs a call to Exim with the %-bh% option, to test whether the
given email address would be accepted in a RCPT command in a TCP/IP
connection from the host with the given IP address. The output of the utility
is either the word ``accepted'', or the SMTP error response, for example:

  Rejected:
    550 Relay not permitted

When running this test, the utility uses `<>` as the envelope sender address
for the MAIL command, but you can change this by providing additional
options. These are passed directly to the Exim command. For example, to specify
that the test is to be run with the sender address 'himself@there.example'
you can use:

....
exim_checkaccess 10.9.8.7 A.User@a.domain.example \
                 -f himself@there.example
....

Note that these additional Exim command line items must be given after the two
mandatory arguments.

Because the %exim_checkaccess% uses %-bh%, it does not perform callouts while
running its checks. You can run checks that include callouts by using %-bhc%,
but this is not yet available in a ``packaged'' form.



[[SECTdbmbuild]]
Making DBM files (exim_dbmbuild)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[DBM,building dbm files]
cindex:[building DBM files]
cindex:['exim_dbmbuild']
cindex:[lower casing]
cindex:[binary zero,in lookup key]
The 'exim_dbmbuild' program reads an input file containing keys and data in
the format used by the ^lsearch^ lookup (see section <<SECTsinglekeylookups>>).
It writes a DBM file using the lower-cased alias names as keys and the
remainder of the information as data. The lower-casing can be prevented by
calling the program with the %-nolc% option.

A terminating zero is included as part of the key string. This is expected by
the ^dbm^ lookup type. However, if the option %-nozero% is given,
'exim_dbmbuild' creates files without terminating zeroes in either the key
strings or the data strings. The ^dbmnz^ lookup type can be used with such
files.

The program requires two arguments: the name of the input file (which can be a
single hyphen to indicate the standard input), and the name of the output file.
It creates the output under a temporary name, and then renames it if all went
well.

cindex:[USE_DB]
If the native DB interface is in use (USE_DB is set in a compile-time
configuration file -- this is common in free versions of Unix) the two file
names must be different, because in this mode the Berkeley DB functions create
a single output file using exactly the name given. For example,

  exim_dbmbuild /etc/aliases /etc/aliases.db

reads the system alias file and creates a DBM version of it in
_/etc/aliases.db_.

In systems that use the 'ndbm' routines (mostly proprietary versions of Unix),
two files are used, with the suffixes _.dir_ and _.pag_. In this
environment, the suffixes are added to the second argument of
'exim_dbmbuild', so it can be the same as the first. This is also the case
when the Berkeley functions are used in compatibility mode (though this is not
recommended), because in that case it adds a _.db_ suffix to the file name.

If a duplicate key is encountered, the program outputs a warning, and when it
finishes, its return code is 1 rather than zero, unless the %-noduperr% option
is used. By default, only the first of a set of duplicates is used -- this
makes it compatible with ^lsearch^ lookups. There is an option %-lastdup%
which causes it to use the data for the last duplicate instead. There is also
an option %-nowarn%, which stops it listing duplicate keys to %stderr%. For
other errors, where it doesn't actually make a new file, the return code is 2.




[[SECTfinindret]]
Finding individual retry times (exinext)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[retry,times]
cindex:['exinext']
A utility called 'exinext' (mostly a Perl script) provides the ability to fish
specific information out of the retry database. Given a mail domain (or a
complete address), it looks up the hosts for that domain, and outputs any retry
information for the hosts or for the domain. At present, the retry information
is obtained by running 'exim_dumpdb' (see below) and post-processing the
output. For example:

  $ exinext piglet@milne.fict.example
  kanga.milne.fict.example:192.168.8.1 error 146: Connection refused
    first failed: 21-Feb-1996 14:57:34
    last tried:   21-Feb-1996 14:57:34
    next try at:  21-Feb-1996 15:02:34
  roo.milne.fict.example:192.168.8.3 error 146: Connection refused
    first failed: 20-Jan-1996 13:12:08
    last tried:   21-Feb-1996 11:42:03
    next try at:  21-Feb-1996 19:42:03
    past final cutoff time

You can also give 'exinext' a local part, without a domain, and it
will give any retry information for that local part in your default domain.
A message id can be used to obtain retry information pertaining to a specific
message. This exists only when an attempt to deliver a message to a remote host
suffers a message-specific error (see section <<SECToutSMTPerr>>). 'exinext' is
not particularly efficient, but then it isn't expected to be run very often.

The 'exinext' utility calls Exim to find out information such as the location
of the spool directory. The utility has %-C% and %-D% options, which are
passed on to the 'exim' commands. The first specifies an alternate Exim
configuration file, and the second sets macros for use within the configuration
file. These features are mainly to help in testing, but might also be useful in
environments where more than one configuration file is in use.




[[SECThindatmai]]
Hints database maintenance (exim_dumpdb, exim_fixdb, exim_tidydb)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[hints database,maintenance]
cindex:[maintaining Exim's hints database]
Three utility programs are provided for maintaining the DBM files that Exim
uses to contain its delivery hint information. Each program requires two
arguments. The first specifies the name of Exim's spool directory, and the
second is the name of the database it is to operate on. These are as
follows:

- 'retry': the database of retry information

- 'wait-'<'transport name'>: databases of information about messages waiting
for remote hosts

- 'callout': the callout cache

- 'misc': other hints data

The 'misc' database is used for

- Serializing ETRN runs (when %smtp_etrn_serialize% is set)

- Serializing delivery to a specific host (when %serialize_hosts% is set in an
^smtp^ transport)



exim_dumpdb
~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['exim_dumpdb']
The entire contents of a database are written to the standard output by the
'exim_dumpdb' program, which has no options or arguments other than the
spool and database names. For example, to dump the retry database:

  exim_dumpdb /var/spool/exim retry

Two lines of output are produced for each entry:

    T:mail.ref.example:192.168.242.242 146 77 Connection refused
  31-Oct-1995 12:00:12  02-Nov-1995 12:21:39  02-Nov-1995 20:21:39 *

The first item on the first line is the key of the record. It starts with one
of the letters R, or T, depending on whether it refers to a routing or
transport retry. For a local delivery, the next part is the local address; for
a remote delivery it is the name of the remote host, followed by its failing IP
address (unless %no_retry_include_ip_address% is set on the ^smtp^
transport). If the remote port is not the standard one (port 25), it is added
to the IP address. Then there follows an error code, an additional error code,
and a textual description of the error.

The three times on the second line are the time of first failure, the time of
the last delivery attempt, and the computed time for the next attempt. The line
ends with an asterisk if the cutoff time for the last retry rule has been
exceeded.

Each output line from 'exim_dumpdb' for the 'wait-''xxx' databases
consists of a host name followed by a list of ids for messages that are or were
waiting to be delivered to that host. If there are a very large number for any
one host, continuation records, with a sequence number added to the host name,
may be seen. The data in these records is often out of date, because a message
may be routed to several alternative hosts, and Exim makes no effort to keep
cross-references.



exim_tidydb
~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['exim_tidydb']
The 'exim_tidydb' utility program is used to tidy up the contents of the
hints databases. If run with no options, it removes all records from a database
that are more than 30 days old. The cutoff date can be altered by means of the
%-t% option, which must be followed by a time. For example, to remove all
records older than a week from the retry database:

  exim_tidydb -t 7d /var/spool/exim retry

Both the 'wait-''xxx' and 'retry' databases contain items that involve
message ids. In the former these appear as data in records keyed by host --
they were messages that were waiting for that host -- and in the latter they
are the keys for retry information for messages that have suffered certain
types of error. When 'exim_tidydb' is run, a check is made to ensure that
message ids in database records are those of messages that are still on the
queue. Message ids for messages that no longer exist are removed from
'wait-''xxx' records, and if this leaves any records empty, they are
deleted. For the 'retry' database, records whose keys are non-existent
message ids are removed. The 'exim_tidydb' utility outputs comments on the
standard output whenever it removes information from the database.

Certain records are automatically removed by Exim when they are no longer
needed, but others are not. For example, if all the MX hosts for a domain are
down, a retry record is created for each one. If the primary MX host comes back
first, its record is removed when Exim successfully delivers to it, but the
records for the others remain because Exim has not tried to use those hosts.

It is important, therefore, to run 'exim_tidydb' periodically on all the
hints databases. You should do this at a quiet time of day, because it requires
a database to be locked (and therefore inaccessible to Exim) while it does its
work. Removing records from a DBM file does not normally make the file smaller,
but all the common DBM libraries are able to re-use the space that is released.
After an initial phase of increasing in size, the databases normally reach a
point at which they no longer get any bigger, as long as they are regularly
tidied.

*Warning*: If you never run 'exim_tidydb', the space used by the hints
databases is likely to keep on increasing.




exim_fixdb
~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['exim_fixdb']
The 'exim_fixdb' program is a utility for interactively modifying databases.
Its main use is for testing Exim, but it might also be occasionally useful for
getting round problems in a live system. It has no options, and its interface
is somewhat crude. On entry, it prompts for input with a right angle-bracket. A
key of a database record can then be entered, and the data for that record is
displayed.

If ``d'' is typed at the next prompt, the entire record is deleted. For all
except the 'retry' database, that is the only operation that can be carried
out. For the 'retry' database, each field is output preceded by a number, and
data for individual fields can be changed by typing the field number followed
by new data, for example:

  > 4 951102:1000

resets the time of the next delivery attempt. Time values are given as a
sequence of digit pairs for year, month, day, hour, and minute. Colons can be
used as optional separators.




[[SECTmailboxmaint]]
Mailbox maintenance (exim_lock)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[mailbox,maintenance]
cindex:['exim_lock']
cindex:[locking mailboxes]
The 'exim_lock' utility locks a mailbox file using the same algorithm as
Exim. For a discussion of locking issues, see section <<SECTopappend>>.
'Exim_lock' can be used to prevent any modification of a mailbox by Exim or
a user agent while investigating a problem. The utility requires the name of
the file as its first argument. If the locking is successful, the second
argument is run as a command (using C's 'system()' function); if there is no
second argument, the value of the SHELL environment variable is used; if this
is unset or empty, _/bin/sh_ is run. When the command finishes, the mailbox
is unlocked and the utility ends. The following options are available:

*-fcntl*:: Use 'fcntl()' locking on the open mailbox.

*-flock*:: Use 'flock()' locking on the open mailbox, provided the operating
system supports it.

*-interval*:: This must be followed by a number, which is a number of seconds;
it sets the interval to sleep between retries (default 3).

*-lockfile*:: Create a lock file before opening the mailbox.

*-mbx*:: Lock the mailbox using MBX rules.

*-q*:: Suppress verification output.

*-retries*:: This must be followed by a number; it sets the number of times to
try to get the lock (default 10).

*-restore_time*:: This option causes %exim_lock% to restore the modified and
read times to the locked file before exiting. This allows you to access a
locked mailbox (for example, to take a backup copy) without disturbing the
times that the user subsequently sees.

*-timeout*:: This must be followed by a number, which is a number of seconds;
it sets a timeout to be used with a blocking 'fcntl()' lock. If it is not set
(the default), a non-blocking call is used.

*-v*:: Generate verbose output.

If none of %-fcntl%, %-flock%, %-lockfile% or %-mbx% are given, the default is
to create a lock file and also to use 'fcntl()' locking on the mailbox, which
is the same as Exim's default. The use of %-flock% or %-fcntl% requires that
the file be writeable; the use of %-lockfile% requires that the directory
containing the file be writeable. Locking by lock file does not last for ever;
Exim assumes that a lock file is expired if it is more than 30 minutes old.

The %-mbx% option can be used with either or both of %-fcntl% or %-flock%.
It assumes %-fcntl% by default.
MBX locking causes a shared lock to be taken out on the open mailbox, and an
exclusive lock on the file _/tmp/._'n'.'m' where 'n' and 'm' are
the device number and inode number of the mailbox file. When the locking is
released, if an exclusive lock can be obtained for the mailbox, the file in
_/tmp_ is deleted.

The default output contains verification of the locking that takes place. The
%-v% option causes some additional information to be given. The %-q% option
suppresses all output except error messages.

A command such as

  exim_lock /var/spool/mail/spqr

runs an interactive shell while the file is locked, whereas

  exim_lock -q /var/spool/mail/spqr <<End
  <some commands>
  End

runs a specific non-interactive sequence of commands while the file is locked,
suppressing all verification output. A single command can be run by a command
such as

....
exim_lock -q /var/spool/mail/spqr \
  "cp /var/spool/mail/spqr /some/where"
....

Note that if a command is supplied, it must be entirely contained within the
second argument -- hence the quotes.



////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPeximon]]
The Exim monitor
----------------
cindex:[monitor]
cindex:[Exim monitor]
cindex:[X-windows]
cindex:['eximon']
cindex:[Local/eximon.conf]
cindex:[_exim_monitor/EDITME_]
The Exim monitor is an application which displays in an X window information
about the state of Exim's queue and what Exim is doing. An admin user can
perform certain operations on messages from this GUI interface; however all
such facilities are also available from the command line, and indeed, the
monitor itself makes use of the command line to perform any actions requested.



Running the monitor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The monitor is started by running the script called 'eximon'. This is a shell
script that sets up a number of environment variables, and then runs the
binary called _eximon.bin_. The default appearance of the monitor window can
be changed by editing the _Local/eximon.conf_ file created by editing
_exim_monitor/EDITME_. Comments in that file describe what the various
parameters are for.

The parameters that get built into the 'eximon' script can be overridden for a
particular invocation by setting up environment variables of the same names,
preceded by `EXIMON_`. For example, a shell command such as

  EXIMON_LOG_DEPTH=400 eximon

(in a Bourne-compatible shell) runs 'eximon' with an overriding setting of the
LOG_DEPTH parameter. If EXIMON_LOG_FILE_PATH is set in the
environment, it overrides the Exim log file configuration. This makes it
possible to have 'eximon' tailing log data that is written to syslog, provided
that MAIL.INFO syslog messages are routed to a file on the local host.

X resources can be used to change the appearance of the window in the normal
way. For example, a resource setting of the form

  Eximon*background: gray94

changes the colour of the background to light grey rather than white. The
stripcharts are drawn with both the data lines and the reference lines in
black. This means that the reference lines are not visible when on top of the
data. However, their colour can be changed by setting a resource called
``highlight'' (an odd name, but that's what the Athena stripchart widget uses).
For example, if your X server is running Unix, you could set up lighter
reference lines in the stripcharts by obeying

  xrdb -merge <<End
  Eximon*highlight: gray
  End


cindex:[admin user]
In order to see the contents of messages on the queue, and to operate on them,
'eximon' must either be run as root or by an admin user.

The monitor's window is divided into three parts. The first contains one or
more stripcharts and two action buttons, the second contains a ``tail'' of the
main log file, and the third is a display of the queue of messages awaiting
delivery, with two more action buttons. The following sections describe these
different parts of the display.




The stripcharts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[stripchart]
The first stripchart is always a count of messages on the queue. Its name can
be configured by setting QUEUE_STRIPCHART_NAME in the
_Local/eximon.conf_ file. The remaining stripcharts are defined in the
configuration script by regular expression matches on log file entries, making
it possible to display, for example, counts of messages delivered to certain
hosts or using certain transports. The supplied defaults display counts of
received and delivered messages, and of local and SMTP deliveries. The default
period between stripchart updates is one minute; this can be adjusted by a
parameter in the _Local/eximon.conf_ file.

The stripchart displays rescale themselves automatically as the value they are
displaying changes. There are always 10 horizontal lines in each chart; the
title string indicates the value of each division when it is greater than one.
For example, ``x2'' means that each division represents a value of 2.

It is also possible to have a stripchart which shows the percentage fullness of
a particular disk partition, which is useful when local deliveries are confined
to a single partition.

cindex:[%statvfs% function]
This relies on the availability of the 'statvfs()' function or equivalent in
the operating system. Most, but not all versions of Unix that support Exim have
this. For this particular stripchart, the top of the chart always represents
100%, and the scale is given as ``x10%''. This chart is configured by setting
SIZE_STRIPCHART and (optionally) SIZE_STRIPCHART_NAME in the
_Local/eximon.conf_ file.




Main action buttons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[size,of monitor window]
cindex:[monitor window size]
cindex:[window size]
Below the stripcharts there is an action button for quitting the monitor. Next
to this is another button marked ``Size''. They are placed here so that shrinking
the window to its default minimum size leaves just the queue count stripchart
and these two buttons visible. Pressing the ``Size'' button causes the window to
expand to its maximum size, unless it is already at the maximum, in which case
it is reduced to its minimum.

When expanding to the maximum, if the window cannot be fully seen where it
currently is, it is moved back to where it was the last time it was at full
size. When it is expanding from its minimum size, the old position is
remembered, and next time it is reduced to the minimum it is moved back there.

The idea is that you can keep a reduced window just showing one or two
stripcharts at a convenient place on your screen, easily expand it to show
the full window when required, and just as easily put it back to what it was.
The idea is copied from what the 'twm' window manager does for its
'f.fullzoom' action. The minimum size of the window can be changed by setting
the MIN_HEIGHT and MIN_WIDTH values in _Local/eximon.conf_.

Normally, the monitor starts up with the window at its full size, but it can be
built so that it starts up with the window at its smallest size, by setting
START_SMALL=yes in _Local/eximon.conf_.



The log display
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[log,tail of; in monitor]
The second section of the window is an area in which a display of the tail of
the main log is maintained.
To save space on the screen, the timestamp on each log line is shortened by
removing the date and, if %log_timezone% is set, the timezone.
The log tail is not available when the only destination for logging data is
syslog, unless the syslog lines are routed to a local file whose name is passed
to 'eximon' via the EXIMON_LOG_FILE_PATH environment variable.

The log sub-window has a scroll bar at its lefthand side which can be used to
move back to look at earlier text, and the up and down arrow keys also have a
scrolling effect. The amount of log that is kept depends on the setting of
LOG_BUFFER in _Local/eximon.conf_, which specifies the amount of memory
to use. When this is full, the earlier 50% of data is discarded -- this is much
more efficient than throwing it away line by line. The sub-window also has a
horizontal scroll bar for accessing the ends of long log lines. This is the
only means of horizontal scrolling; the right and left arrow keys are not
available. Text can be cut from this part of the window using the mouse in the
normal way. The size of this subwindow is controlled by parameters in the
configuration file _Local/eximon.conf_.

Searches of the text in the log window can be carried out by means of the ^R
and ^S keystrokes, which default to a reverse and a forward search,
respectively. The search covers only the text that is displayed in the window.
It cannot go further back up the log.

The point from which the search starts is indicated by a caret marker. This is
normally at the end of the text in the window, but can be positioned explicitly
by pointing and clicking with the left mouse button, and is moved automatically
by a successful search. If new text arrives in the window when it is scrolled
back, the caret remains where it is, but if the window is not scrolled back,
the caret is moved to the end of the new text.

Pressing ^R or ^S pops up a window into which the search text can be typed.
There are buttons for selecting forward or reverse searching, for carrying out
the search, and for cancelling. If the ``Search'' button is pressed, the search
happens and the window remains so that further searches can be done. If the
``Return'' key is pressed, a single search is done and the window is closed. If
^C is typed the search is cancelled.

The searching facility is implemented using the facilities of the Athena text
widget. By default this pops up a window containing both ``search'' and ``replace''
options. In order to suppress the unwanted ``replace'' portion for eximon, a
modified version of the %TextPop% widget is distributed with Exim. However, the
linkers in BSDI and HP-UX seem unable to handle an externally provided version
of %TextPop% when the remaining parts of the text widget come from the standard
libraries. The compile-time option EXIMON_TEXTPOP can be unset to cut out
the modified %TextPop%, making it possible to build Eximon on these systems, at
the expense of having unwanted items in the search popup window.



The queue display
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[queue,display in monitor]
The bottom section of the monitor window contains a list of all messages that
are on the queue, which includes those currently being received or delivered,
as well as those awaiting delivery. The size of this subwindow is controlled by
parameters in the configuration file _Local/eximon.conf_, and the frequency
at which it is updated is controlled by another parameter in the same file --
the default is 5 minutes, since queue scans can be quite expensive. However,
there is an ``Update'' action button just above the display which can be used to
force an update of the queue display at any time.

When a host is down for some time, a lot of pending mail can build up for it,
and this can make it hard to deal with other messages on the queue. To help
with this situation there is a button next to ``Update'' called ``Hide''. If
pressed, a dialogue box called ``Hide addresses ending with'' is put up. If you
type anything in here and press ``Return'', the text is added to a chain of such
texts, and if every undelivered address in a message matches at least one
of the texts, the message is not displayed.

If there is an address that does not match any of the texts, all the addresses
are displayed as normal. The matching happens on the ends of addresses so, for
example, 'cam.ac.uk' specifies all addresses in Cambridge, while
'xxx@foo.com.example' specifies just one specific address. When any hiding
has been set up, a button called ``Unhide'' is displayed. If pressed, it cancels
all hiding. Also, to ensure that hidden messages do not get forgotten, a hide
request is automatically cancelled after one hour.

While the dialogue box is displayed, you can't press any buttons or do anything
else to the monitor window. For this reason, if you want to cut text from the
queue display to use in the dialogue box, you have to do the cutting before
pressing the ``Hide'' button.

The queue display contains, for each unhidden queued message, the length of
time it has been on the queue, the size of the message, the message id, the
message sender, and the first undelivered recipient, all on one line. If it is
a bounce message, the sender is shown as ``<>''. If there is more than one
recipient to which the message has not yet been delivered, subsequent ones are
listed on additional lines, up to a maximum configured number, following which
an ellipsis is displayed. Recipients that have already received the message are
not shown.

cindex:[frozen messages,display]
If a message is frozen, an asterisk is displayed at the left-hand side.

The queue display has a vertical scroll bar, and can also be scrolled by means
of the arrow keys. Text can be cut from it using the mouse in the normal way.
The text searching facilities, as described above for the log window, are also
available, but the caret is always moved to the end of the text when the queue
display is updated.



The queue menu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[queue,menu in monitor]
If the %shift% key is held down and the left button is clicked when the mouse
pointer is over the text for any message, an action menu pops up, and the first
line of the queue display for the message is highlighted. This does not affect
any selected text.

If you want to use some other event for popping up the menu, you can set the
MENU_EVENT parameter in _Local/eximon.conf_ to change the default, or
set EXIMON_MENU_EVENT in the environment before starting the monitor. The
value set in this parameter is a standard X event description. For example, to
run eximon using %ctrl% rather than %shift% you could use

  EXIMON_MENU_EVENT='Ctrl<Btn1Down>' eximon

The title of the menu is the message id, and it contains entries which act as
follows:

- 'message log': The contents of the message log for the message are displayed in
a new text window.

- 'headers': Information from the spool file that contains the envelope
information and headers is displayed in a new text window. See chapter
<<CHAPspool>> for a description of the format of spool files.

- 'body': The contents of the spool file containing the body of the message are
displayed in a new text window. There is a default limit of 20,000 bytes to the
amount of data displayed. This can be changed by setting the BODY_MAX
option at compile time, or the EXIMON_BODY_MAX option at run time.

- 'deliver message': A call to Exim is made using the %-M% option to request
delivery of the message. This causes an automatic thaw if the message is
frozen. The %-v% option is also set, and the output from Exim is displayed in
a new text window. The delivery is run in a separate process, to avoid holding
up the monitor while the delivery proceeds.

- 'freeze message': A call to Exim is made using the %-Mf% option to request
that the message be frozen.

- cindex:[thawing messages]
cindex:[unfreezing messages]
cindex:[frozen messages,thawing]
'thaw message': A call to Exim is made using the %-Mt% option to request that
the message be thawed.

- cindex:[delivery,forcing failure]
'give up on msg': A call to Exim is made using the %-Mg% option to request
that Exim gives up trying to deliver the message. A bounce message is generated
for any remaining undelivered addresses.

- 'remove message': A call to Exim is made using the %-Mrm% option to request
that the message be deleted from the system without generating a bounce
message.

- 'add recipient': A dialog box is displayed into which a recipient address can
be typed. If the address is not qualified and the QUALIFY_DOMAIN parameter
is set in _Local/eximon.conf_, the address is qualified with that domain.
Otherwise it must be entered as a fully qualified address. Pressing RETURN
causes a call to Exim to be made using the %-Mar% option to request that an
additional recipient be added to the message, unless the entry box is empty, in
which case no action is taken.

- 'mark delivered': A dialog box is displayed into which a recipient address can
be typed. If the address is not qualified and the QUALIFY_DOMAIN parameter
is set in _Local/eximon.conf_, the address is qualified with that domain.
Otherwise it must be entered as a fully qualified address. Pressing RETURN
causes a call to Exim to be made using the %-Mmd% option to mark the given
recipient address as already delivered, unless the entry box is empty, in which
case no action is taken.

- 'mark all delivered': A call to Exim is made using the %-Mmad% option to mark
all recipient addresses as already delivered.

- 'edit sender': A dialog box is displayed initialized with the current sender's
address. Pressing RETURN causes a call to Exim to be made using the %-Mes%
option to replace the sender address, unless the entry box is empty, in which
case no action is taken. If you want to set an empty sender (as in bounce
messages), you must specify it as ``<>''. Otherwise, if the address is not
qualified and the QUALIFY_DOMAIN parameter is set in
_Local/eximon.conf_, the address is qualified with that domain.

When a delivery is forced, a window showing the %-v% output is displayed. In
other cases when a call to Exim is made, if there is any output from Exim (in
particular, if the command fails) a window containing the command and the
output is displayed. Otherwise, the results of the action are normally apparent
from the log and queue displays. However, if you set ACTION_OUTPUT=yes in
_Local/eximon.conf_, a window showing the Exim command is always opened, even
if no output is generated.

The queue display is automatically updated for actions such as freezing and
thawing, unless ACTION_QUEUE_UPDATE=no has been set in
_Local/eximon.conf_. In this case the ``Update'' button has to be used to force
an update of the display after one of these actions.

In any text window that is displayed as result of a menu action, the normal
cut-and-paste facility is available, and searching can be carried out using ^R
and ^S, as described above for the log tail window.






////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPsecurity]]
Security considerations
-----------------------
cindex:[security]
This chapter discusses a number of issues concerned with security, some of
which are also covered in other parts of this manual.

For reasons that this author does not understand, some people have promoted
Exim as a ``particularly secure'' mailer. Perhaps it is because of the existence
of this chapter in the documentation. However, the intent of the chapter is
simply to describe the way Exim works in relation to certain security concerns,
not to make any specific claims about the effectiveness of its security as
compared with other MTAs.

What follows is a description of the way Exim is supposed to be. Best efforts
have been made to try to ensure that the code agrees with the theory, but an
absence of bugs can never be guaranteed. Any that are reported will get fixed
as soon as possible.


Building a more ``hardened'' Exim
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[security,build-time features]
There are a number of build-time options that can be set in _Local/Makefile_
to create Exim binaries that are ``harder'' to attack, in particular by a rogue
Exim administrator who does not have the root password, or by someone who has
penetrated the Exim (but not the root) account. These options are as follows:

- ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX can be set to a string that is required to match the
start of any file names used with the %-C% option. When it is set, these file
names are also not allowed to contain the sequence ``/../''. (However, if the
value of the %-C% option is identical to the value of CONFIGURE_FILE in
_Local/Makefile_, Exim ignores %-C% and proceeds as usual.) There is no
default setting for %ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX%.
+
If the permitted configuration files are confined to a directory to
which only root has access, this guards against someone who has broken
into the Exim account from running a privileged Exim with an arbitrary
configuration file, and using it to break into other accounts.

- If ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is defined, root privilege is retained for %-C%
and %-D% only if the caller of Exim is root. Without it, the Exim user may
also use %-C% and %-D% and retain privilege. Setting this option locks out
the possibility of testing a configuration using %-C% right through message
reception and delivery, even if the caller is root. The reception works, but by
that time, Exim is running as the Exim user, so when it re-execs to regain
privilege for the delivery, the use of %-C% causes privilege to be lost.
However, root can test reception and delivery using two separate commands.
ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is not set by default.

- If DISABLE_D_OPTION is defined, the use of the %-D% command line option
is disabled.

- FIXED_NEVER_USERS can be set to a colon-separated list of users that are
never to be used for any deliveries. This is like the %never_users% runtime
option, but it cannot be overridden; the runtime option adds additional users
to the list. The default setting is ``root''; this prevents a non-root user who
is permitted to modify the runtime file from using Exim as a way to get root.




Root privilege
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[setuid]
cindex:[root privilege]
The Exim binary is normally setuid to root, which means that it gains root
privilege (runs as root) when it starts execution. In some special cases (for
example, when the daemon is not in use and there are no local deliveries), it
may be possible to run Exim setuid to some user other than root. This is
discussed in the next section. However, in most installations, root privilege
is required for two things:

- To set up a socket connected to the standard SMTP port (25) when initialising
the listening daemon. If Exim is run from 'inetd', this privileged action is
not required.

- To be able to change uid and gid in order to read users' _.forward_ files and
perform local deliveries as the receiving user or as specified in the
configuration.

It is not necessary to be root to do any of the other things Exim does, such as
receiving messages and delivering them externally over SMTP, and it is
obviously more secure if Exim does not run as root except when necessary.
For this reason, a user and group for Exim to use must be defined in
_Local/Makefile_. These are known as ``the Exim user'' and ``the Exim group''.
Their values can be changed by the run time configuration, though this is not
recommended. Often a user called 'exim' is used, but some sites use 'mail'
or another user name altogether.

Exim uses 'setuid()' whenever it gives up root privilege. This is a permanent
abdication; the process cannot regain root afterwards. Prior to release 4.00,
'seteuid()' was used in some circumstances, but this is no longer the case.

After a new Exim process has interpreted its command line options, it changes
uid and gid in the following cases:

- cindex:[%-C% option]
cindex:[%-D% option]
If the %-C% option is used to specify an alternate configuration file, or if
the %-D% option is used to define macro values for the configuration, and the
calling process is not running as root or the Exim user, the uid and gid are
changed to those of the calling process.
However, if ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is defined in _Local/Makefile_, only
root callers may use %-C% and %-D% without losing privilege, and if
DISABLE_D_OPTION is set, the %-D% option may not be used at all.

- cindex:[%-be% option]
cindex:[%-bf% option]
cindex:[%-bF% option]
If the expansion test option (%-be%) or one of the filter testing options
(%-bf% or %-bF%) are used, the uid and gid are changed to those of the
calling process.

- If the process is not a daemon process or a queue runner process or a delivery
process or a process for testing address routing (started with %-bt%), the uid
and gid are changed to the Exim user and group. This means that Exim always
runs under its own uid and gid when receiving messages. This also applies when
testing address verification
cindex:[%-bv% option]
cindex:[%-bh% option]
(the %-bv% option) and testing incoming message policy controls (the %-bh%
option).

- For a daemon, queue runner, delivery, or address testing process, the uid
remains as root at this stage, but the gid is changed to the Exim group.

///
End of list
///

The processes that initially retain root privilege behave as follows:

- A daemon process changes the gid to the Exim group and the uid to the Exim
user after setting up one or more listening sockets. The 'initgroups()'
function is called, so that if the Exim user is in any additional groups, they
will be used during message reception.

- A queue runner process retains root privilege throughout its execution. Its
job is to fork a controlled sequence of delivery processes.

- A delivery process retains root privilege throughout most of its execution,
but any actual deliveries (that is, the transports themselves) are run in
subprocesses which always change to a non-root uid and gid. For local
deliveries this is typically the uid and gid of the owner of the mailbox; for
remote deliveries, the Exim uid and gid are used. Once all the delivery
subprocesses have been run, a delivery process changes to the Exim uid and gid
while doing post-delivery tidying up such as updating the retry database and
generating bounce and warning messages.
+
While the recipient addresses in a message are being routed, the delivery
process runs as root. However, if a user's filter file has to be processed,
this is done in a subprocess that runs under the individual user's uid and
gid. A system filter is run as root unless %system_filter_user% is set.

- A process that is testing addresses (the %-bt% option) runs as root so that
the routing is done in the same environment as a message delivery.




[[SECTrunexiwitpri]]
Running Exim without privilege
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[privilege, running without]
cindex:[unprivileged running]
cindex:[root privilege,running without]
Some installations like to run Exim in an unprivileged state for more of its
operation, for added security. Support for this mode of operation is provided
by the global option %deliver_drop_privilege%. When this is set, the uid and
gid are changed to the Exim user and group at the start of a delivery process
(and also queue runner and address testing processes). This means that address
routing is no longer run as root, and the deliveries themselves cannot change
to any other uid.

Leaving the binary setuid to root, but setting %deliver_drop_privilege% means
that the daemon can still be started in the usual way, and it can respond
correctly to SIGHUP because the re-invocation regains root privilege.

An alternative approach is to make Exim setuid to the Exim user and also setgid
to the Exim group.
If you do this, the daemon must be started from a root process. (Calling
Exim from a root process makes it behave in the way it does when it is setuid
root.) However, the daemon cannot restart itself after a SIGHUP signal because
it cannot regain privilege.

It is still useful to set %deliver_drop_privilege% in this case, because it
stops Exim from trying to re-invoke itself to do a delivery after a message has
been received. Such a re-invocation is a waste of resources because it has no
effect.

If restarting the daemon is not an issue (for example, if %mua_wrapper% is set,
or 'inetd' is being used instead of a daemon), having the binary setuid to the
Exim user seems a clean approach, but there is one complication:

In this style of operation, Exim is running with the real uid and gid set to
those of the calling process, and the effective uid/gid set to Exim's values.
Ideally, any association with the calling process' uid/gid should be dropped,
that is, the real uid/gid should be reset to the effective values so as to
discard any privileges that the caller may have. While some operating systems
have a function that permits this action for a non-root effective uid, quite a
number of them do not. Because of this lack of standardization, Exim does not
address this problem at this time.

For this reason, the recommended approach for ``mostly unprivileged'' running is
to keep the Exim binary setuid to root, and to set %deliver_drop_privilege%.
This also has the advantage of allowing a daemon to be used in the most
straightforward way.

If you configure Exim not to run delivery processes as root, there are a
number of restrictions on what you can do:

- You can deliver only as the Exim user/group. You should  explicitly use the
%user% and %group% options to override routers or local transports that
normally deliver as the recipient. This makes sure that configurations that
work in this mode function the same way in normal mode. Any implicit or
explicit specification of another user causes an error.

- Use of _.forward_ files is severely restricted, such that it is usually
not worthwhile to include them in the configuration.

- Users who wish to use _.forward_ would have to make their home directory and
the file itself accessible to the Exim user. Pipe and append-to-file entries,
and their equivalents in Exim filters, cannot be used. While they could be
enabled in the Exim user's name, that would be insecure and not very useful.

- Unless the local user mailboxes are all owned by the Exim user (possible in
some POP3 or IMAP-only environments):

* They must be owned by the Exim group and be writable by that group. This
implies you must set %mode% in the appendfile configuration, as well as the
mode of the mailbox files themselves.

* You must set %no_check_owner%, since most or all of the files will not be
owned by the Exim user.

* You must set %file_must_exist%, because Exim cannot set the owner correctly
on a newly created mailbox when unprivileged. This also implies that new
mailboxes need to be created manually.

These restrictions severely restrict what can be done in local deliveries.
However, there are no restrictions on remote deliveries. If you are running a
gateway host that does no local deliveries, setting %deliver_drop_privilege%
gives more security at essentially no cost.

If you are using the %mua_wrapper% facility (see chapter <<CHAPnonqueueing>>),
%deliver_drop_privilege% is forced to be true.




Delivering to local files
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Full details of the checks applied by ^appendfile^ before it writes to a file
are given in chapter <<CHAPappendfile>>.



IPv4 source routing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[source routing,in IP packets]
cindex:[IP source routing]
Many operating systems suppress IP source-routed packets in the kernel, but
some cannot be made to do this, so Exim does its own check. It logs incoming
IPv4 source-routed TCP calls, and then drops them. Things are all different in
IPv6. No special checking is currently done.



The VRFY, EXPN, and ETRN commands in SMTP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Support for these SMTP commands is disabled by default. If required, they can
be enabled by defining suitable ACLs.




Privileged users
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[trusted user]
cindex:[admin user]
cindex:[privileged user]
cindex:[user,trusted]
cindex:[user,admin]
Exim recognises two sets of users with special privileges. Trusted users are
able to submit new messages to Exim locally, but supply their own sender
addresses and information about a sending host. For other users submitting
local messages, Exim sets up the sender address from the uid, and doesn't
permit a remote host to be specified.

cindex:[%-f% option]
However, an untrusted user is permitted to use the %-f% command line option in
the special form %-f <>% to indicate that a delivery failure for the message
should not cause an error report. This affects the message's envelope, but it
does not affect the 'Sender:' header. Untrusted users may also be permitted to
use specific forms of address with the %-f% option by setting the
%untrusted_set_sender% option.

Trusted users are used to run processes that receive mail messages from some
other mail domain and pass them on to Exim for delivery either locally, or over
the Internet. Exim trusts a caller that is running as root, as the Exim user,
as any user listed in the %trusted_users% configuration option, or under any
group listed in the %trusted_groups% option.

Admin users are permitted to do things to the messages on Exim's queue. They
can freeze or thaw messages, cause them to be returned to their senders, remove
them entirely, or modify them in various ways. In addition, admin users can run
the Exim monitor and see all the information it is capable of providing, which
includes the contents of files on the spool.

cindex:[%-M% option]
cindex:[%-q% option]
By default, the use of the %-M% and %-q% options to cause Exim to attempt
delivery of messages on its queue is restricted to admin users. This
restriction can be relaxed by setting the %no_prod_requires_admin% option.
Similarly, the use of %-bp% (and its variants) to list the contents of the
queue is also restricted to admin users. This restriction can be relaxed by
setting %no_queue_list_requires_admin%.

Exim recognises an admin user if the calling process is running as root or as
the Exim user or if any of the groups associated with the calling process is
the Exim group. It is not necessary actually to be running under the Exim
group. However, if admin users who are not root or the Exim user are to access
the contents of files on the spool via the Exim monitor (which runs
unprivileged), Exim must be built to allow group read access to its spool
files.



Spool files
~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[spool directory,files]
Exim's spool directory and everything it contains is owned by the Exim user and
set to the Exim group. The mode for spool files is defined in the
_Local/Makefile_ configuration file, and defaults to 0640. This means that
any user who is a member of the Exim group can access these files.



Use of argv[0]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Exim examines the last component of %argv[0]%, and if it matches one of a set
of specific strings, Exim assumes certain options. For example, calling Exim
with the last component of %argv[0]% set to ``rsmtp'' is exactly equivalent to
calling it with the option %-bS%. There are no security implications in this.



Use of %f formatting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The only use made of ``%f'' by Exim is in formatting load average values. These
are actually stored in integer variables as 1000 times the load average.
Consequently, their range is limited and so therefore is the length of the
converted output.



Embedded Exim path
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Exim uses its own path name, which is embedded in the code, only when it needs
to re-exec in order to regain root privilege. Therefore, it is not root when it
does so. If some bug allowed the path to get overwritten, it would lead to an
arbitrary program's being run as exim, not as root.



Use of sprintf()
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:['sprintf()']
A large number of occurrences of ``sprintf'' in the code are actually calls to
'string_sprintf()', a function that returns the result in malloc'd store.
The intermediate formatting is done into a large fixed buffer by a function
that runs through the format string itself, and checks the length of each
conversion before performing it, thus preventing buffer overruns.

The remaining uses of 'sprintf()' happen in controlled circumstances where
the output buffer is known to be sufficiently long to contain the converted
string.



Use of debug_printf() and log_write()
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Arbitrary strings are passed to both these functions, but they do their
formatting by calling the function 'string_vformat()', which runs through
the format string itself, and checks the length of each conversion.



Use of strcat() and strcpy()
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are used only in cases where the output buffer is known to be large
enough to hold the result.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[CHAPspool]]
Format of spool files
---------------------
cindex:[format,spool files]
cindex:[spool directory,format of files]
cindex:[spool files, format of]
cindex:[spool files, editing]
A message on Exim's queue consists of two files, whose names are the message id
followed by -D and -H, respectively. The data portion of the message is kept in
the -D file on its own. The message's envelope, status, and headers are all
kept in the -H file, whose format is described in this chapter. Each of these
two files contains the final component of its own name as its first line. This
is insurance against disk crashes where the directory is lost but the files
themselves are recoverable.

Some people are tempted into editing -D files in order to modify messages. You
need to be extremely careful if you do this; it is not recommended and you are
on your own if you do it. Here are some of the pitfalls:

- You must use the 'exim_lock' utility to ensure that Exim does not try to
deliver the message while you are fiddling with it. The lock is implemented
by opening the -D file and taking out a write lock on it. If you update the
file in place, the lock will be retained. If you write a new file and rename
it, the lock will be lost at the instant of rename.

- If you change the number of lines in the file, the value of
$body_linecount$, which is stored in the -H file, will be incorrect.

- If the message is in MIME format, you must take care not to break it.

- If the message is cryptographically signed, any change will invalidate the
signature.


Files whose names end with -J may also be seen in the _input_ directory (or
its subdirectories when %split_spool_directory% is set). These are journal
files, used to record addresses to which the message has been delivered during
the course of a delivery run. At the end of the run, the -H file is updated,
and the -J file is deleted.


Format of the -H file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cindex:[uid (user id),in spool file]
cindex:[gid (group id),in spool file]
The second line of the -H file contains the login name for the uid of the
process that called Exim to read the message, followed by the numerical uid and
gid. For a locally generated message, this is normally the user who sent the
message. For a message received over TCP/IP, it is normally the Exim user.

The third line of the file contains the address of the message's sender as
transmitted in the envelope, contained in angle brackets. The sender address is
empty for bounce messages. For incoming SMTP mail, the sender address is given
in the MAIL command. For locally generated mail, the sender address is
created by Exim from the login name of the current user and the configured
%qualify_domain%. However, this can be overridden by the %-f% option or a
leading ``From'' line if the caller is trusted, or if the supplied address is
``<>'' or an address that matches %untrusted_set_senders%.

The fourth line contains two numbers. The first is the time that the message
was received, in the conventional Unix form -- the number of seconds since the
start of the epoch. The second number is a count of the number of messages
warning of delayed delivery that have been sent to the sender.

There follow a number of lines starting with a hyphen. These can appear in any
order, and are omitted when not relevant:

%-acl% <'number'> <'length'>::
A line of this form is present for every ACL variable that is not empty. The
number identifies the variable; the %acl_c%*x* variables are numbered 0--9 and
the %acl_m%*x* variables are numbered 10--19. The length is the length of the
data string for the variable. The string itself starts at the beginning of the
next line, and is followed by a newline character. It may contain internal
newlines.

%-active_hostname% <'hostname'>::
This is present if, when the message was received over SMTP, the value of
$smtp_active_hostname$ was different to the value of $primary_hostname$.

%-allow_unqualified_recipient%::
This is present if unqualified recipient addresses are permitted in header
lines (to stop such addresses from being qualified if rewriting occurs at
transport time). Local messages that were input using %-bnq% and remote
messages from hosts that match %recipient_unqualified_hosts% set this flag.

%-allow_unqualified_sender%::
This is present if unqualified sender addresses are permitted in header lines
(to stop such addresses from being qualified if rewriting occurs at transport
time). Local messages that were input using %-bnq% and remote messages from
hosts that match %sender_unqualified_hosts% set this flag.

%-auth_id% <'text'>::
The id information for a message received on an authenticated SMTP connection
-- the value of the $authenticated_id$ variable.

%-auth_sender% <'address'>::
The address of an authenticated sender -- the value of the
$authenticated_sender$ variable.

%-body_linecount% <'number'>::
This records the number of lines in the body of the message, and is always
present.

%-body_zerocount% <'number'>::
This records the number of binary zero bytes in the body of the message, and is
present if the number is greater than zero.

%-deliver_firsttime%::
This is written when a new message is first added to the spool. When the spool
file is updated after a deferral, it is omitted.

%-frozen% <'time'>::
cindex:[frozen messages,spool data]
The message is frozen, and the freezing happened at <'time'>.

%-helo_name% <'text'>::
This records the host name as specified by a remote host in a HELO or EHLO
command.

%-host_address% <'address'>.<'port'>::
This records the IP address of the host from which the message was received and
the remote port number that was used. It is omitted for locally generated
messages.

%-host_auth% <'text'>::
If the message was received on an authenticated SMTP connection, this records
the name of the authenticator -- the value of the $sender_host_authenticated$
variable.

%-host_lookup_failed%::
This is present if an attempt to look up the sending host's name from its IP
address failed. It corresponds to the $host_lookup_failed$ variable.

%-host_name% <'text'>::
cindex:[reverse DNS lookup]
cindex:[DNS,reverse lookup]
This records the name of the remote host from which the message was received,
if the host name was looked up from the IP address when the message was being
received. It is not present if no reverse lookup was done.

%-ident% <'text'>::
For locally submitted messages, this records the login of the originating user,
unless it was a trusted user and the %-oMt% option was used to specify an ident
value. For messages received over TCP/IP, this records the ident string
supplied by the remote host, if any.

%-interface_address% <'address'>.<'port'>::
This records the IP address of the local interface and the port number through
which a message was received from a remote host. It is omitted for locally
generated messages.

%-local%::
The message is from a local sender.

%-localerror%::
The message is a locally-generated bounce message.

%-local_scan% <'string'>::
This records the data string that was returned by the 'local_scan()' function
when the message was received -- the value of the $local_scan_data$ variable.
It is omitted if no data was returned.

%-manual_thaw%::
The message was frozen but has been thawed manually, that is, by an explicit
Exim command rather than via the auto-thaw process.

%-N%::
A testing delivery process was started using the %-N% option to suppress any
actual deliveries, but delivery was deferred. At any further delivery attempts,
%-N% is assumed.

%-received_protocol%::
This records the value of the $received_protocol$ variable, which contains the
name of the protocol by which the message was received.

%-sender_set_untrusted%::
The envelope sender of this message was set by an untrusted local caller (used
to ensure that the caller is displayed in queue listings).

%-spam_score_int% <'number'>::
If a message was scanned by SpamAssassin, this is present. It records the value
of $spam_score_int$.

%-tls_certificate_verified%::
A TLS certificate was received from the client that sent this message, and the
certificate was verified by the server.

%-tls_cipher% <'cipher name'>::
When the message was received over an encrypted connection, this records the
name of the cipher suite that was used.

%-tls_peerdn% <'peer DN'>::
When the message was received over an encrypted connection, and a certificate
was received from the client, this records the Distinguished Name from that
certificate.

///
End of list
///

Following the options there is a list of those addresses to which the message
is not to be delivered. This set of addresses is initialized from the command
line when the %-t% option is used and %extract_addresses_remove_arguments%
is set; otherwise it starts out empty. Whenever a successful delivery is made,
the address is added to this set. The addresses are kept internally as a
balanced binary tree, and it is a representation of that tree which is written
to the spool file. If an address is expanded via an alias or forward file, the
original address is added to the tree when deliveries to all its child
addresses are complete.

If the tree is empty, there is a single line in the spool file containing just
the text ``XX''. Otherwise, each line consists of two letters, which are either
Y or N, followed by an address. The address is the value for the node of the
tree, and the letters indicate whether the node has a left branch and/or a
right branch attached to it, respectively. If branches exist, they immediately
follow. Here is an example of a three-node tree:

  YY darcy@austen.fict.example
  NN alice@wonderland.fict.example
  NN editor@thesaurus.ref.example

After the non-recipients tree, there is a list of the message's recipients.
This is a simple list, preceded by a count. It includes all the original
recipients of the message, including those to whom the message has already been
delivered. In the simplest case, the list contains one address per line. For
example:

  4
  editor@thesaurus.ref.example
  darcy@austen.fict.example
  rdo@foundation
  alice@wonderland.fict.example

However, when a child address has been added to the top-level addresses as a
result of the use of the %one_time% option on a ^redirect^ router, each line
is of the following form:

&&&
<'top-level address'> <'errors_to address'> <'length'>,<'parent number'>#<'flag bits'>
&&&

The 01 flag bit indicates the presence of the three other fields that follow
the top-level address. Other bits may be used in future to support additional
fields. The <'parent number'> is the offset in the recipients list of the
original parent of the ``one time'' address. The first two fields are the
envelope sender that is associated with this address and its length. If the
length is zero, there is no special envelope sender (there are then two space
characters in the line). A non-empty field can arise from a ^redirect^ router
that has an %errors_to% setting.


A blank line separates the envelope and status information from the headers
which follow. A header may occupy several lines of the file, and to save effort
when reading it in, each header is preceded by a number and an identifying
character. The number is the number of characters in the header, including any
embedded newlines and the terminating newline. The character is one of the
following:

[frame="none"]
`-`--------`----------------------------------------------
  <'blank'>header in which Exim has no special interest
  `B`      'Bcc:' header
  `C`      'Cc:' header
  `F`      'From:' header
  `I`      'Message-id:' header
  `P`      'Received:' header -- P for ``postmark''
  `R`      'Reply-To:' header
  `S`      'Sender:' header
  `T`      'To:' header
  `*`      replaced or deleted header
----------------------------------------------------------

Deleted or replaced (rewritten) headers remain in the spool file for debugging
purposes. They are not transmitted when the message is delivered. Here is a
typical set of headers:

  111P Received: by hobbit.fict.example with local (Exim 4.00)
          id 14y9EI-00026G-00; Fri, 11 May 2001 10:28:59 +0100
  049  Message-Id: <E14y9EI-00026G-00@hobbit.fict.example>
  038* X-rewrote-sender: bb@hobbit.fict.example
  042* From: Bilbo Baggins <bb@hobbit.fict.example>
  049F From: Bilbo Baggins <B.Baggins@hobbit.fict.example>
  099* To: alice@wonderland.fict.example, rdo@foundation,
   darcy@austen.fict.example, editor@thesaurus.ref.example
  109T To: alice@wonderland.fict.example, rdo@foundation.fict.example,
   darcy@austen.fict.example, editor@thesaurus.ref.example
  038  Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 10:28:59 +0100

The asterisked headers indicate that the envelope sender, 'From:' header, and
'To:' header have been rewritten, the last one because routing expanded the
unqualified domain 'foundation'.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[titleabbrev="Adding drivers or lookups"]
Adding new drivers or lookup types
----------------------------------
cindex:[adding drivers]
cindex:[new drivers, adding]
cindex:[drivers,adding new]
The following actions have to be taken in order to add a new router, transport,
authenticator, or lookup type to Exim:

. Choose a name for the driver or lookup type that does not conflict with any
existing name; I will use ``newdriver'' in what follows.

. Add to _src/EDITME_ the line
+
  <type>_NEWDRIVER=yes
+
where <'type'> is ROUTER, TRANSPORT, AUTH, or LOOKUP. If the
code is not to be included in the binary by default, comment this line out. You
should also add any relevant comments about the driver or lookup type.

. Add to _src/config.h.defaults_ the line
+
  #define <type>_NEWDRIVER

. Edit _src/drtables.c_, adding conditional code to pull in the private header
and create a table entry as is done for all the other drivers and lookup types.

. Edit _Makefile_ in the appropriate sub-directory (_src/routers_,
_src/transports_, _src/auths_, or _src/lookups_); add a line for the new
driver or lookup type and add it to the definition of OBJ.

. Create _newdriver.h_ and _newdriver.c_ in the appropriate sub-directory of
_src_.

. Edit _scripts/MakeLinks_ and add commands to link the _.h_ and _.c_ files
as for other drivers and lookups.

Then all you need to do is write the code! A good way to start is to make a
proforma by copying an existing module of the same type, globally changing all
occurrences of the name, and cutting out most of the code. Note that any
options you create must be listed in alphabetical order, because the tables are
searched using a binary chop procedure.

There is a _README_ file in each of the sub-directories of _src_ describing
the interface that is expected.




////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[title="Option index",role="option"]
Index
-----

[title="Concept index",role="concept"]
Index
-----

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Nothing needs to be included here except "Index" as pseudo chapter headings.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////