1 This document contains detailed information about incompatibilities that might
2 be encountered when upgrading from one release of Exim to another. The
3 information is in reverse order of release numbers. Mostly these are relatively
4 small points, and the configuration file is normally upwards compatible, but
5 there have been two big upheavals...
8 **************************************************************************
9 * There was a big reworking of the way mail routing works for release *
10 * 4.00. Previously used "directors" were abolished, and all routing is *
11 * now done by routers. Policy controls for incoming mail are now done by *
12 * Access Control Lists instead of separate options. All this means that *
13 * pre-4.00 configuration files have to be massively converted. If you *
14 * are coming from a 3.xx release, please read the document in the file *
15 * doc/Exim4.upgrade, and allow some time to complete the upgrade. *
17 * There was a big reworking of the way domain/host/net/address lists are *
18 * handled at release 3.00. If you are coming from a pre-3.00 release, it *
19 * might be easier to start again from a default configuration. Otherwise *
20 * you need to read doc/Exim3.upgrade and do a double conversion of your *
21 * configuration file. *
22 **************************************************************************
25 The rest of this document contains information about changes in 4.xx releases
26 that might affect a running system.
32 Various length limits have been applied to Exim's parsing of its command-line.
33 These are all set to be at least as long as any valid input, so we do not believe
34 that any real use-cases have been affected by this.
36 The names of various drivers (authenticators, routers, transports, ...) have
37 always been limited to 64 characters, but before this release the names were
38 silently truncated, inviting problems. Now the length limit should be enforced.
39 If this affects you, then please rename to use shorter names.
41 The default maximum number of recipients of a single email has changed from
42 "unlimited" (ie: as much as CPU and memory will allow, until something breaks
43 badly) to 50,000. You can raise or lower this as you see fit, but we strongly
44 caution against using zero/unlimited.
50 Some Transports now refuse to use tainted data in constructing their delivery
51 location; this WILL BREAK configurations which are not updated accordingly.
52 In particular: any Transport use of $local_part which has been relying upon
53 check_local_user far away in the Router to make it safe, should be updated to
54 replace $local_part with $local_part_data.
56 Attempting to remove, in router or transport, a header name that ends with
57 an asterisk (which is a standards-legal name) will now result in all headers
58 named starting with the string before the asterisk being removed. We recommend
59 staying away from such names, if they are private ones (and in case of future
60 enhancements, alao header names that look like REs).
66 For a detailed list of changes that might affect Exim's operation with
67 an unchanged configuration, please see the doc/ChangeLog file.
71 * SUPPORT_DMARC replaces EXPERIMENTAL_DMARC
73 * DISABLE_TLS replaces SUPPORT_TLS
75 * Bump the version for the local_scan API.
79 * smtp transport option hosts_try_fastopen defaults to "*".
81 * DNSSec is requested (not required) for all queries. (This seemes to
82 ask for trouble if your resolver is a systemd-resolved.)
84 * Generic router option retry_use_local_part defaults to "true" under specific
87 * Introduce a tainting mechanism for values read from untrusted sources.
89 * Use longer file names for temporary spool files (this avoids
90 name conflicts with spool on a shared file system).
92 * Use dsn_from main config option (was ignored previously).
98 * Exim used to manually follow CNAME chains, to a limited depth. In this
99 day-and-age we expect the resolver to be doing this for us, so the loop
100 is limited to one retry unless the (new) config option dns_cname_loops
106 * DANE and SPF have been promoted from Experimental to Supported status, thus
107 the options to enable them in Local/Makefile have been renamed.
108 See current src/EDITME for full details, including changes in dependencies,
109 but loosely: replace EXPERIMENTAL_SPF with SUPPORT_SPF and replace
110 EXPERIMENTAL_DANE with SUPPORT_DANE.
112 * Ancient ClamAV stream support, long deprecated by ClamAV, has been removed;
113 if you were building with WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM enabled then your problems
114 have marginally increased.
116 * A number of logging changes; if relying upon the previous DKIM additional
117 log-line, explicit log_selector configuration is needed to keep it.
119 * Other incompatible changes in EXPERIMENTAL_* features, read NewStuff and
120 ChangeLog carefully if relying upon an experimental feature such as DMARC.
121 Note that this includes changes to SPF as it was promoted into Supported.
127 * SMTP CHUNKING in Exim 4.88 did not ensure that received mails had a final
128 newline; attempts to deliver such messages onwards to non-chunking hosts
129 would probably hang, as Exim does not insert the newline before a ".".
130 In 4.89, the newline is added upon receipt. For already-received messages
131 in your queue, try util/chunking_fixqueue_finalnewlines.pl
132 to walk the queue, fixing any affected messages. Note that because a
133 delivery attempt will be hanging, attempts to lock the messages for fixing
134 them will stall; stopping all queue-runners temporarily is recommended.
136 * OpenSSL: oldest supported release series is now 1.0.2, which is the oldest
137 supported by the OpenSSL project. If you can build Exim with an older
138 release series, congratulations. If you can't, then upgrade.
139 The file doc/openssl.txt contains instructions for installing a current
140 OpenSSL outside the system library paths and building Exim to use it.
142 * FreeBSD: we now always use the system iconv in libc, as all versions of
143 FreeBSD supported by the FreeBSD project provide this functionality.
149 * The "demime" ACL condition, deprecated for the past 10 years, has
152 * Old GnuTLS configuration options "gnutls_require_kx", "gnutls_require_mac",
153 and "gnutls_require_protocols" have now been removed. (Inoperative from
154 4.80, per below; logging warnings since 4.83, again per below).
160 * SPF condition results renamed "permerror" and "temperror". The old
161 names are still accepted for back-compatibility, for this release.
163 * TLS details are now logged on rejects, subject to log selectors.
165 * Items in headers_remove lists must now have any embedded list-separators
168 * Attempted use of the deprecated options "gnutls_require_kx" et. al.
169 now result in logged warning.
175 * New option gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11 defaults false; if you have GnuTLS 2.12.0
176 or later and do want PKCS11 modules to be autoloaded, then set this option.
178 * A per-transport wait-<name> database is no longer updated if the transport
179 sets "connection_max_messages" to 1, as it can not be used and causes
180 unnecessary serialisation and load. External tools tracking the state of
181 Exim by the hints databases may need modification to take this into account.
183 * The av_scanner option can now accept multiple clamd TCP targets, all other
184 setting limitations remain.
190 * BEWARE backwards-incompatible changes in SSL libraries, thus the version
191 bump. See points below for details.
192 Also an LDAP data returned format change.
194 * The value of $tls_peerdn is now print-escaped when written to the spool file
195 in a -tls_peerdn line, and unescaped when read back in. We received reports
196 of values with embedded newlines, which caused spool file corruption.
198 If you have a corrupt spool file and you wish to recover the contents after
199 upgrading, then lock the message, replace the new-lines that should be part
200 of the -tls_peerdn line with the two-character sequence \n and then unlock
201 the message. No tool has been provided as we believe this is a rare
204 * For OpenSSL, SSLv2 is now disabled by default. (GnuTLS does not support
205 SSLv2). RFC 6176 prohibits SSLv2 and some informal surveys suggest no
206 actual usage. You can re-enable with the "openssl_options" Exim option,
207 in the main configuration section. Note that supporting SSLv2 exposes
208 you to ciphersuite downgrade attacks.
210 * With OpenSSL 1.0.1+, Exim now supports TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2. If built
211 against 1.0.1a then you will get a warning message and the
212 "openssl_options" value will not parse "no_tlsv1_1": the value changes
213 incompatibly between 1.0.1a and 1.0.1b, because the value chosen for 1.0.1a
214 is infelicitous. We advise avoiding 1.0.1a.
216 "openssl_options" gains "no_tlsv1_1", "no_tlsv1_2" and "no_compression".
218 COMPATIBILITY WARNING: The default value of "openssl_options" is no longer
219 "+dont_insert_empty_fragments". We default to "+no_sslv2".
220 That old default was grandfathered in from before openssl_options became a
221 configuration option.
222 Empty fragments are inserted by default through TLS1.0, to partially defend
223 against certain attacks; TLS1.1+ change the protocol so that this is not
224 needed. The DIEF SSL option was required for some old releases of mail
225 clients which did not gracefully handle the empty fragments, and was
226 initially set in Exim release 4.31 (see ChangeLog, item 37).
228 If you still have affected mail-clients, and you see SSL protocol failures
229 with this release of Exim, set:
230 openssl_options = +dont_insert_empty_fragments
231 in the main section of your Exim configuration file. You're trading off
232 security for compatibility. Exim is now defaulting to higher security and
233 rewarding more modern clients.
235 If the option tls_dhparams is set and the parameters loaded from the file
236 have a bit-count greater than the new option tls_dh_max_bits, then the file
237 will now be ignored. If this affects you, raise the tls_dh_max_bits limit.
238 We suspect that most folks are using dated defaults and will not be affected.
240 * Ldap lookups returning multi-valued attributes now separate the attributes
241 with only a comma, not a comma-space sequence. Also, an actual comma within
242 a returned attribute is doubled. This makes it possible to parse the
243 attribute as a comma-separated list. Note the distinction from multiple
244 attributes being returned, where each one is a name=value pair.
246 If you are currently splitting the results from LDAP upon a comma, then you
247 should check carefully to see if adjustments are needed.
249 This change lets cautious folks distinguish "comma used as separator for
250 joining values" from "comma inside the data".
252 * accept_8bitmime now defaults on, which is not RFC compliant but is better
253 suited to today's Internet. See http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html for a
254 sane rationale. Those who wish to be strictly RFC compliant, or know that
255 they need to talk to servers that are not 8-bit-clean, now need to take
256 explicit configuration action to default this option off. This is not a
257 new option, you can safely force it off before upgrading, to decouple
258 configuration changes from the binary upgrade while remaining RFC compliant.
260 * The GnuTLS support has been mostly rewritten, to use APIs which don't cause
261 deprecation warnings in GnuTLS 2.12.x. As part of this, these three options
262 are no longer supported:
266 gnutls_require_protocols
268 Their functionality is entirely subsumed into tls_require_ciphers. In turn,
269 tls_require_ciphers is no longer an Exim list and is not parsed by Exim, but
270 is instead given to gnutls_priority_init(3), which expects a priority string;
271 this behaviour is much closer to the OpenSSL behaviour. See:
273 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
275 for fuller documentation of the strings parsed. The three gnutls_require_*
276 options are still parsed by Exim and, for this release, silently ignored.
277 A future release will add warnings, before a later still release removes
278 parsing entirely and the presence of the options will be a configuration
281 Note that by default, GnuTLS will not accept RSA-MD5 signatures in chains.
282 A tls_require_ciphers value of NORMAL:%VERIFY_ALLOW_SIGN_RSA_MD5 may
283 re-enable support, but this is not supported by the Exim maintainers.
284 Our test suite no longer includes MD5-based certificates.
286 This rewrite means that Exim will continue to build against GnuTLS in the
287 future, brings Exim closer to other GnuTLS applications and lets us add
288 support for SNI and other features more readily. We regret that it wasn't
289 feasible to retain the three dropped options.
291 * If built with TLS support, then Exim will now validate the value of
292 the main section tls_require_ciphers option at start-up. Before, this
293 would cause a STARTTLS 4xx failure, now it causes a failure to start.
294 Running with a broken configuration which causes failures that may only
295 be left in the logs has been traded off for something more visible. This
296 change makes an existing problem more prominent, but we do not believe
297 anyone would deliberately be running with an invalid tls_require_ciphers
300 This also means that library linkage issues caused by conflicts of some
301 kind might take out the main daemon, not just the delivery or receiving
302 process. Conceivably some folks might prefer to continue delivering
303 mail plaintext when their binary is broken in this way, if there is a
304 server that is a candidate to receive such mails that does not advertise
305 STARTTLS. Note that Exim is typically a setuid root binary and given
306 broken linkage problems that cause segfaults, we feel it is safer to
307 fail completely. (The check is not done as root, to ensure that problems
308 here are not made worse by the check).
310 * The "tls_dhparam" option has been updated, so that it can now specify a
311 path or an identifier for a standard DH prime from one of a few RFCs.
312 The default for OpenSSL is no longer to not use DH but instead to use
313 one of these standard primes. The default for GnuTLS is no longer to use
314 a file in the spool directory, but to use that same standard prime.
315 The option is now used by GnuTLS too. If it points to a path, then
316 GnuTLS will use that path, instead of a file in the spool directory;
317 GnuTLS will attempt to create it if it does not exist.
319 To preserve the previous behaviour of generating files in the spool
320 directory, set "tls_dhparam = historic". Since prior releases of Exim
321 ignored tls_dhparam when using GnuTLS, this can safely be done before
329 * GnuTLS will now attempt to use TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.1 before TLS 1.0 and SSL3,
330 if supported by your GnuTLS library. Use the existing
331 "gnutls_require_protocols" option to downgrade this if that will be a
332 problem. Prior to this release, supported values were "TLS1" and "SSL3",
333 so you should be able to update configuration prior to update.
335 [nb: gnutls_require_protocols removed in Exim 4.80, instead use
336 tls_require_ciphers to provide a priority string; see notes above]
338 * The match_<type>{string1}{string2} expansion conditions no longer subject
339 string2 to string expansion, unless Exim was built with the new
340 "EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS" option. Too many people have inadvertently created
341 insecure configurations that way. If you need the functionality and turn on
342 that build option, please let the developers know, and know why, so we can
343 try to provide a safer mechanism for you.
345 The match{}{} expansion condition (for regular expressions) is NOT affected.
346 For match_<type>{s1}{s2}, all list functionality is unchanged. The only
347 change is that a '$' appearing in s2 will not trigger expansion, but instead
348 will be treated as a literal $ sign; the effect is very similar to having
349 wrapped s2 with \N...\N. If s2 contains a named list and the list definition
350 uses $expansions then those _will_ be processed as normal. It is only the
351 point at which s2 is read where expansion is inhibited.
353 If you are trying to test if two email addresses are equal, use eqi{s1}{s2}.
354 If you are testing if the address in s1 occurs in the list of items given
355 in s2, either use the new inlisti{s1}{s2} condition (added in 4.77) or use
356 the pre-existing forany{s2}{eqi{$item}{s1}} condition.
362 * The integrated support for dynamically loadable lookup modules has an ABI
363 change from the modules supported by some OS vendors through an unofficial
364 patch. Don't try to mix & match.
366 * Some parts of the build system are now beginning to assume that the host
367 environment is POSIX. If you're building on a system where POSIX tools are
368 not the default, you might have an easier time if you switch to the POSIX
369 tools. Feel free to report non-POSIX issues as a request for a feature
370 enhancement, but if the POSIX variants are available then the fix will
371 probably just involve some coercion. See the README instructions for
372 building on such hosts.
378 * The Exim run-time user can no longer be root; this was always
379 strongly discouraged, but is now prohibited both at build and
380 run-time. If you need Exim to run routinely as root, you'll need to
381 patch the source and accept the risk. Here be dragons.
383 * Exim will no longer accept a configuration file owned by the Exim
384 run-time user, unless that account is explicitly the value in
385 CONFIGURE_OWNER, which we discourage. Exim now checks to ensure that
386 files are not writeable by other accounts.
388 * The ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY build option is no longer optional and is forced
389 on; the Exim user can, by default, no longer use -C/-D and retain privilege.
390 Two new build options mitigate this.
392 * TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST defines a file containing a whitelist of config
393 files that are trusted to be selected by the Exim user; one per line.
394 This is the recommended approach going forward.
396 * WHITELIST_D_MACROS defines a colon-separated list of macro names which
397 the Exim run-time user may safely pass without dropping privileges.
398 Because changes to this involve a recompile, this is not the recommended
399 approach but may ease transition. The values of the macros, when
400 overridden, are constrained to match this regex: ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$
402 * The system_filter_user option now defaults to the Exim run-time user,
403 rather than root. You can still set it explicitly to root and this
404 can be done with prior versions too, letting you roll versions
405 without needing to change this configuration option.
407 * ClamAV must be at least version 0.95 unless WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM is
408 defined at build time.
414 1. Experimental Yahoo! Domainkeys support has been dropped in this release.
415 It has been superseded by a native implementation of its successor DKIM.
417 2. Up to version 4.69, Exim came with an embedded version of the PCRE library.
418 As of 4.70, this is no longer the case. To compile Exim, you will need PCRE
419 installed. Most OS distributions have ready-made library and development
426 1. The internal implementation of the database keys that are used for ACL
427 ratelimiting has been tidied up. This means that an update to 4.68 might cause
428 Exim to "forget" previous rates that it had calculated, and reset them to zero.
434 1. Callouts were setting the name used for EHLO/HELO from $smtp_active_
435 hostname. This is wrong, because it relates to the incoming message (and
436 probably the interface on which it is arriving) and not to the outgoing
437 callout (which could be using a different interface). This has been
438 changed to use the value of the helo_data option from the smtp transport
439 instead - this is what is used when a message is actually being sent. If
440 there is no remote transport (possible with a router that sets up host
441 addresses), $smtp_active_hostname is used. This change is mentioned here in
442 case somebody is relying on the use of $smtp_active_hostname.
444 2. A bug has been fixed that might just possibly be something that is relied on
445 in some configurations. In expansion items such as ${if >{xxx}{yyy}...} an
446 empty string (that is {}) was being interpreted as if it was {0} and therefore
447 treated as the number zero. From release 4.64, such strings cause an error
448 because a decimal number, possibly followed by K or M, is required (as has
449 always been documented).
451 3. There has been a change to the GnuTLS support (ChangeLog/PH/20) to improve
452 Exim's performance. Unfortunately, this has the side effect of being slightly
453 non-upwards compatible for versions 4.50 and earlier. If you are upgrading from
454 one of these earlier versions and you use GnuTLS, you must remove the file
455 called gnutls-params in Exim's spool directory. If you don't do this, you will
458 TLS error on connection from ... (DH params import): Base64 decoding error.
460 Removing the file causes Exim to recompute the relevant encryption parameters
461 and cache them in the new format that was introduced for release 4.51 (May
462 2005). If you are upgrading from release 4.51 or later, there should be no
469 When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL, or
470 in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the start
471 of the message for an SMTP error code. This consists of three digits followed
472 by a space, optionally followed by an extended code of the form n.n.n, also
473 followed by a space. If this is the case and the very first digit is the same
474 as the default error code, the code from the message is used instead. If the
475 very first digit is incorrect, a panic error is logged, and the default code is
476 used. This is an incompatible change, but it is not expected to affect many (if
477 any) configurations. It is possible to suppress the use of the supplied code in
478 a redirect router by setting the smtp_error_code option false. In this case,
479 any SMTP code is quietly ignored.
485 1. The default number of ACL variables of each type has been increased to 20,
486 and it's possible to compile Exim with more. You can safely upgrade to this
487 release if you already have messages on the queue with saved ACL variable
488 values. However, if you downgrade from this release with messages on the queue,
489 any saved ACL values they may have will be lost.
491 2. The default value for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
497 There was a problem with 4.52/TF/02 in that a "name=" option on control=
498 submission terminated at the next slash, thereby not allowing for slashes in
499 the name. This has been changed so that "name=" takes the rest of the string as
500 its data. It must therefore be the last option.
506 If you are using the experimental Domain Keys support, you must upgrade to
507 at least libdomainkeys 0.67 in order to run this release of Exim.
513 1. The format in which GnuTLS parameters are cached (in the file gnutls-params
514 in the spool directory) has been changed. The new format can also be generated
515 externally, so it is now possible to update the values from outside Exim. This
516 has been implemented in an upwards, BUT NOT downwards, compatible manner.
517 Upgrading should be seamless: when Exim finds that it cannot understand an
518 existing cache file, it generates new parameters and writes them to the cache
519 in the new format. If, however, you downgrade from 4.51 to a previous release,
520 you MUST delete the gnutls-params file in the spool directory, because the
521 older Exim will not recognize the new format.
523 2. When doing a callout as part of verifying an address, Exim was not paying
524 attention to any local part prefix or suffix that was matched by the router
525 that accepted the address. It now behaves in the same way as it does for
526 delivery: the affixes are removed from the local part unless
527 rcpt_include_affixes is set on the transport. If you have a configuration that
528 uses prefixes or suffixes on addresses that could be used for callouts, and you
529 want the affixes to be retained, you must make sure that rcpt_include_affixes
530 is set on the transport.
532 3. Bounce and delay warning messages no longer contain details of delivery
533 errors, except for explicit messages (e.g. generated by :fail:) and SMTP
534 responses from remote hosts.
540 The exicyclog script has been updated to use three-digit numbers in rotated log
541 files if the maximum number to keep is greater than 99. If you are already
542 keeping more than 99, there will be an incompatible change when you upgrade.
543 You will probably want to rename your old log files to the new form before
544 running the new exicyclog.
550 RFC 3848 specifies standard names for the "with" phrase in Received: header
551 lines when AUTH and/or TLS are in use. This is the "received protocol"
552 field. Exim used to use "asmtp" for authenticated SMTP, without any
553 indication (in the protocol name) for TLS use. Now it follows the RFC and
554 uses "esmtpa" if the connection is authenticated, "esmtps" if it is
555 encrypted, and "esmtpsa" if it is both encrypted and authenticated. These names
556 appear in log lines as well as in Received: header lines.
562 Change 4.31/2 gave problems to data ACLs and local_scan() functions that
563 expected to see a Received: header. I have changed to yet another scheme. The
564 Received: header is now generated after the body is received, but before the
565 ACL or local_scan() is called. After they have run, the timestamp in the
566 Received: header is updated.
568 Thus, change (a) of 4.31/2 has been reversed, but change (b) is still true,
569 which is lucky, since I decided it was a bug fix.
575 If an expansion in a condition on a "warn" statement fails because a lookup
576 defers, the "warn" statement is abandoned, and the next ACL statement is
577 processed. Previously this caused the whole ACL to be aborted.
583 Change 4.31/2 has been reversed, as it proved contentious. Recipient callout
584 verification now uses <> in the MAIL command by default, as it did before. A
585 new callout option, "use_sender", has been added to request the other
592 1. If you compile Exim to use GnuTLS, it now requires the use of release 1.0.0
593 or greater. The interface to the obsolete 0.8.x releases is no longer
594 supported. There is one externally visible change: the format for the
595 display of Distinguished Names now uses commas as a separator rather than a
596 slash. This is to comply with RFC 2253.
598 2. When a message is received, the Received: header line is now generated when
599 reception is complete, instead of at the start of reception. For messages
600 that take a long time to come in, this changes the meaning of the timestamp.
601 There are several side-effects of this change:
603 (a) If a message is rejected by a DATA or non-SMTP ACL, or by local_scan(),
604 the logged header lines no longer include the local Received: line,
605 because it has not yet been created. If the message is a non-SMTP one,
606 and the error is processed by sending a message to the sender, the copy
607 of the original message that is returned does not have an added
610 (b) When a filter file is tested using -bf, no additional Received: header
611 is added to the test message. After some thought, I decided that this
614 The contents of $received_for are not affected by this change. This
615 variable still contains the single recipient of a message, copied after
616 addresses have been rewritten, but before local_scan() is run.
618 2. Recipient callout verification, like sender verification, was using <> in
619 the MAIL FROM command. This isn't really the right thing, since the actual
620 sender may affect whether the remote host accepts the recipient or not. I
621 have changed it to use the actual sender in the callout; this means that
622 the cache record is now keyed on a recipient/sender pair, not just the
623 recipient address. There doesn't seem to be a real danger of callout loops,
624 since a callout by the remote host to check the sender would use <>.
630 1. I have abolished timeout_DNS as an error that can be detected in retry
631 rules, because it has never worked. Despite the fact that it has been
632 documented since at least release 1.62, there was no code to support it.
633 If you have used it in your retry rules, you will now get a warning message
634 to the log and panic log. It is now treated as plain "timeout".
636 2. After discussion on the mailing list, Exim no longer adds From:, Date:, or
637 Message-Id: header lines to messages that do not originate locally, that is,
638 messages that have an associated sending host address.
640 3. When looking up a host name from an IP address, Exim now tries the DNS
641 first, and only if that fails does it use gethostbyaddr() (or equivalent).
642 This change was made because on some OS, not all the names are given for
643 addresses with multiple PTR records via the gethostbyaddr() interface. The
644 order of lookup can be changed by setting host_lookup_order.
650 1. The new FIXED_NEVER_USERS build-time option creates a list of "never users"
651 that cannot be overridden. The default in the distributed EDITME is "root".
652 If for some reason you were (against advice) running deliveries as root, you
653 will have to ensure that FIXED_NEVER_USERS is not set in your
656 2. The ${quote: operator now quotes an empty string, which it did not before.
658 3. Version 4.23 saves the contents of the ACL variables with the message, so
659 that they can be used later. If one of these variables contains a newline,
660 there will be a newline character in the spool that will not be interpreted
661 correctly by a previous version of Exim. (Exim ignores keyed spool file
662 items that it doesn't understand - precisely for this kind of problem - but
663 it expects them all to be on one line.)
665 So the bottom line is: if you have newlines in your ACL variables, you
666 cannot retreat from 4.23.
672 1. The idea of the "warn" ACL verb is that it adds a header or writes to the
673 log only when "message" or "log_message" are set. However, if one of the
674 conditions was an address verification, or a call to a nested ACL, the
675 messages generated by the underlying test were being passed through. This
676 no longer happens. The underlying message is available in $acl_verify_
677 message for both "message" and "log_message" expansions, so it can be
678 passed through if needed.
680 2. The way that the $h_ (and $header_) expansions work has been changed by the
681 addition of RFC 2047 decoding. See the main documentation (the NewStuff file
682 until release 4.30, then the manual) for full details. Briefly, there are
685 $rh_xxx: and $rheader_xxx: give the original content of the header
686 line(s), with no processing at all.
688 $bh_xxx: and $bheader_xxx: remove leading and trailing white space, and
689 then decode base64 or quoted-printable "words" within the header text,
690 but do not do charset translation.
692 $h_xxx: and $header_xxx: attempt to translate the $bh_ string to a
693 standard character set.
695 If you have previously been using $h_ expansions to access the raw
696 characters, you should change to $rh_ instead.
698 3. When Exim creates an RFC 2047 encoded word in a header line, it labels it
699 with the default character set from the headers_charset option instead of
700 always using iso-8859-1.
702 4. If TMPDIR is defined in Local/Makefile (default in src/EDITME is
703 TMPDIR="/tmp"), Exim checks for the presence of an environment variable
704 called TMPDIR, and if it finds it is different, it changes its value.
706 5. Following a discussion on the list, the rules by which Exim recognises line
707 endings on incoming messages have been changed. The -dropcr and drop_cr
708 options are now no-ops, retained only for backwards compatibility. The
709 following line terminators are recognized: LF CRLF CR. However, special
710 processing applies to CR:
712 (i) The sequence CR . CR does *not* terminate an incoming SMTP message,
713 nor a local message in the state where . is a terminator.
715 (ii) If a bare CR is encountered in a header line, an extra space is added
716 after the line terminator so as not to end the header. The reasoning
717 behind this is that bare CRs in header lines are most likely either
718 to be mistakes, or people trying to play silly games.
720 6. The code for using daemon_smtp_port, local_interfaces, and the -oX options
721 has been reorganized. It is supposed to be backwards compatible, but it is
722 mentioned here just in case I've screwed up.
729 1. I have tidied and re-organized the code that uses alarm() for imposing time
730 limits on various things. It shouldn't affect anything, but if you notice
731 processes getting stuck, it may be that I've broken something.
733 2. The "arguments" log selector now also logs the current working directory
736 3. An incompatible change has been made to the appendfile transport. This
737 affects the case when it is used for file deliveries that are set up by
738 .forward and filter files. Previously, any settings of the "file" or
739 "directory" options were ignored. It is hoped that, like the address_file
740 transport in the default configuration, these options were never in fact set
741 on such transports, because they were of no use.
743 Now, if either of these options is set, it is used. The path that is passed
744 by the router is in $address_file (this is not new), so it can be used as
745 part of a longer path, or modified in any other way that expansion permits.
747 If neither "file" nor "directory" is set, the behaviour is unchanged.
749 4. Related to the above: in a filter, if a "save" command specifies a non-
750 absolute path, the value of $home/ is pre-pended. This no longer happens if
751 $home is unset or is set to an empty string.
753 5. Multiple file deliveries from a filter or .forward file can never be
754 batched; the value of batch_max on the transport is ignored for file
755 deliveries. I'm assuming that nobody ever actually set batch_max on the
756 address_file transport - it would have had odd effects previously.
758 6. DESTDIR is the more common variable that ROOT for use when installing
759 software under a different root filing system. The Exim install script now
760 recognizes DESTDIR first; if it is not set, ROOT is used.
762 7. If DESTDIR is set when installing Exim, it no longer prepends its value to
763 the path of the system aliases file that appears in the default
764 configuration (when a default configuration is installed). If an aliases
765 file is actually created, its name *does* use the prefix.
771 1. The default for the maximum number of unknown SMTP commands that Exim will
772 accept before dropping a connection has been reduced from 5 to 3. However, you
773 can now change the value by setting smtp_max_unknown_commands.
775 2. The ${quote: operator has been changed so that it turns newline and carriage
776 return characters into \n and \r, respectively.
778 3. The file names used for maildir messages now include the microsecond time
779 fraction as well as the time in seconds, to cope with systems where the process
780 id can be re-used within the same second. The format is now
782 <time>.H<microsec>P<pid>.<host>
784 This should be a compatible change, but is noted here just in case.
786 4. The rules for creating message ids have changed, to cope with systems where
787 the process id can be re-used within the same second. The format, however, is
788 unchanged, so this should not cause any problems, except as noted in the next
791 5. The maximum value for localhost_number has been reduced from 255 to 16, in
792 order to implement the new message id rules. For operating systems that have
793 case-insensitive file systems (Cygwin and Darwin), the limit is 10.
795 6. verify = header_syntax was allowing unqualified addresses in all cases. Now
796 it allows them only for locally generated messages and from hosts that match
797 sender_unqualified_hosts or recipient_unqualified_hosts, respectively.
799 7. For reasons lost in the mists of time, when a pipe transport was run, the
800 environment variable MESSAGE_ID was set to the message ID preceded by 'E' (the
801 form used in Message-ID: header lines). The 'E' has been removed.
807 1. The handling of lines in the configuration file has changed. Previously,
808 macro expansion was applied to logical lines, after continuations had been
809 joined on. This meant that it could not be used in .include lines, which are
810 handled as physical rather than logical lines. Macro expansion is now done on
811 physical lines rather than logical lines. This means there are two
814 (a) A macro that expands to # to turn a line into a comment now applies only
815 to the physical line where it appears. Previously, it would have caused
816 any following continuations also to be ignored.
818 (b) A macro name can no longer be split over the boundary between a line and
819 its continuation. Actually, this is more of a bug fix. :-)
821 2. The -D command line option must now all be within one command line item.
822 This makes it possible to use -D to set a macro to the empty string by commands
828 Previously, these items would have moved on to the next item on the command
829 line. To include spaces in a macro definition item, quotes must be used, in
830 which case you can also have spaces after -D and surrounding the equals. For
833 exim '-D ABC = something' ...
835 3. The way that addresses that redirect to themselves are handled has been
836 changed, in order to fix an obscure bug. This should not cause any problems
837 except in the case of wanting to go back from a 4.11 (or later) release to an
838 earlier release. If there are undelivered messages on the spool that contain
839 addresses which redirect to themselves, and the redirected addresses have
840 already been delivered, you might get a duplicate delivery if you revert to an
843 4. The default way of looking up IP addresses for hosts in the manualroute and
844 queryprogram routers has been changed. If "byname" or "bydns" is explicitly
845 specified, there is no change, but if no method is specified, Exim now behaves
848 First, a DNS lookup is done. If this yields anything other than
849 HOST_NOT_FOUND, that result is used. Otherwise, Exim goes on to try a call to
850 getipnodebyname() (or gethostbyname() on older systems) and the result of the
851 lookup is the result of that call.
853 This change has been made because it has been discovered that on some systems,
854 if a DNS lookup called via getipnodebyname() times out, HOST_NOT_FOUND is
855 returned instead of TRY_AGAIN. Thus, it is safest to try a DNS lookup directly
856 first, and only if that gives a definite "no such host" to try the local
859 5. In fixing the minor security problem with pid_file_path, I have removed some
860 backwards-compatible (undocumented) code which was present to ease conversion
861 from Exim 3. In Exim 4, pid_file_path is a literal; in Exim 3 it was allowed to
862 contain "%s", which was replaced by the port number for daemons listening on
863 non-standard ports. In Exim 4, such daemons do not write a pid file. The
864 backwards compatibility feature was to replace "%s" by nothing if it occurred
865 in an Exim 4 setting of pid_file_path. The bug was in this code. I have solved
866 the problem by removing the backwards compatibility feature. Thus, if you still
867 have "%s" somewhere in a setting of pid_file_path, you should remove it.
869 6. There has been an extension to lsearch files. The keys in these files may
870 now be quoted in order to allow for whitespace and colons in them. This means
871 that if you were previously using keys that began with a doublequote, you will
872 now have to wrap them with extra quotes and escape the internal quotes. The
873 possibility that anybody is actually doing this seems extremely remote, but it
874 is documented just in case.
880 The build-time parameter EXIWHAT_KILL_ARG has been renamed EXIWHAT_KILL_SIGNAL
881 to better reflect its function. The OS-specific files have been updated. Only
882 if you have explicitly set this in your Makefile (highly unlikely) do you need
git://git.exim.org / exim.git / blob