- 1. There is a new Boolean global option called mua_wrapper, defaulting false.
- This causes Exim to run an a restricted mode, in order to provide a very
- specific service.
-
- Background: On a personal computer, it is a common requirement for all
- email to be sent to a smarthost. There are plenty of MUAs that can be
- configured to operate that way, for all the popular operating systems.
- However, there are MUAs for Unix-like systems that cannot be so configured:
- they submit messages using the command line interface of
- /usr/sbin/sendmail. In addition, utility programs such as cron submit
- messages this way.
-
- Requirement: The requirement is for something that can provide the
- /usr/sbin/sendmail interface and deliver messages to a smarthost, but not
- provide any queueing or retrying facilities. Furthermore, the delivery to
- the smarthost should be synchronous, so that if it fails, the sending MUA
- is immediately informed. In other words, we want something that in effect
- converts a command-line MUA into a TCP/SMTP MUA.
-
- Solutions: There are a number of applications (for example, ssmtp) that do
- this job. However, people have found them to be lacking in various ways.
- For instance, some sites want to allow aliasing and forwarding before
- sending to the smarthost.
-
- Using Exim: 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.
-
- 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.
-
- If you set mua_wrapper=true, 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 smarthost.
-
- When run in MUA wrapping mode, the behaviour of Exim changes in the
- following ways:
-
- (a) 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.
-
- (b) Each message is synchonously delivered as soon as it is received (-odi
- is assumed). All queueing options (queue_only, queue_smtp_domains,
- control=queue, control=freeze in an ACL etc.) are quietly ignored. The
- Exim reception process does not finish until the delivery attempt is
- complete. If the delivery was successful, a zero return code is given.
-
- (c) 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 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.
-
- (d) If the conditions in (c) 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 hosts immediately, delivery of
- the entire message fails.
-
- (e) Because no queueing is allowed, all failures are treated as permanent;
- there is no distinction between 4xx and 5xx SMTP response codes from
- the smarthost. 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.
-
- (f) If more than one 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.
-
- (g) 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.
-
- (h) No retry data is maintained, and any retry rules are ignored.
-
- (i) 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=exim instead of
- setuid=root. See section 48.3 in the 4.40 manual for a general discussion
- about the advantages and disadvantages of running without root privilege.
-
- 2. 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. There are
- now two new options for the dnslookup router. They are called
- srv_fail_domains and mx_fail_domains. In each case, the value is a domain
- list. If an attempt to look up an SRV or MX record results in a DNS failure
- or "try again" response, 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.
-
- 3. The following functions are now available in the local_scan() API:
-
- (a) void header_remove(int occurrence, uschar *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.
-
- (b) BOOL header_testname(header_line *hdr, uschar *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)) ...
-
- (c) void header_add_at_position(BOOL after, uschar *name, BOOL topnot,
- int type, char *format, ...)
-
- This function adds a new header line at a specified point in the header
- chain. 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 headers 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.
-
- (d) BOOL receive_remove_recipient(uschar *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.
-
- 4. When an ACL "warn" statement adds one or more header lines to a message,
- they are added at the end of the existing header lines by default. It is
- now possible to specify that any particular header line should be added
- right at the start (before all the Received: lines) or immediately after
- the first block of Received: lines in the message. This is done by
- specifying :at_start: or :after_received: (or, for completeness, :at_end:)
- before the text of the header line. (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.
-
- 5. There is now a new error code that can be used in retry rules. Its name is
- "rcpt_4xx", and there are three forms. A literal "rcpt_4xx" matches any 4xx
- error received for an outgoing SMTP RCPT command; alternatively, either the
- first or both of the x's can be given as digits, for example: "rcpt_45x" or
- "rcpt_436". If you want (say) to recognize 452 errors given to RCPT
- commands by a particular host, and have only a one-hour retry for them, you
- can set up a retry rule of this form:
-
- the.host.name rcpt_452 F,1h,10m
-
- Naturally, this rule must come before any others that would match.
-
- These new 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.
-
- 6. The "postmaster" option of the callout feature of address verification has
- been extended to make it possible to use a non-empty MAIL FROM address when
- checking a postmaster address. The new suboption is called "postmaster_
- mailfrom", and you use it like this:
-
- require verify = sender/callout=postmaster_mailfrom=abc@x.y.z
-
- Providing this suboption causes the postmaster check to be done using the
- given address. The original "postmaster" option is equivalent to
-
- require verify = sender/callout=postmaster_mailfrom=
-
- If both suboptions are present, the rightmost one overrides.
-
- Important notes:
-
- (1) If you use a non-empty sender address for postmaster checking, there is
- the likelihood that the remote host will itself initiate a callout
- check back to your host to check that address. As this is a "normal"
- callout check, the sender will most probably be empty, thus avoiding
- possible callout loops. 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 postmaster callout
- checking.
-
- (2) 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.
-
- 7. When verifying addresses in header lines using the verify=header_sender
- 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 FROM command. However, it is arguable that these addresses might
- never be used as envelope senders, and could therefore justifiably reject
- bounce messages (empty senders). There is now an additional callout option
- for verify=header_sender that allows you to specify what address to use in
- the MAIL FROM command. You use it as in this example:
-
- require verify = header_sender/callout=mailfrom=abcd@x.y.z
-
- Important notes:
-
- (1) As in the case of postmaster_mailfrom (see above), you should think
- about possible loops.
-
- (2) In this case, as in the case of recipient callouts with non-empty
- senders (the use_sender option), caching is done on the basis of a
- recipient/sender pair.
-
- 8. If you build Exim with USE_READLINE=yes in Local/Makefile, it will try to
- load libreadline dynamically whenever the -be (test expansion) option is
- used without command line arguments. If successful, it will then use
- readline() for reading the test data. A line history is supported. By the
- time Exim does this, it is running as the calling user, so this should not
- cause any security problems. Security is the reason why this is NOT
- supported for -bt or -bv, when Exim is running as root or exim,
- respectively. Note that this option adds to the size of the Exim binary,
- because the dynamic loading library is not otherwise included. On my
- desktop it adds about 2.5K. You may need to add -ldl to EXTRA_LIBS when you
- set USE_READLINE=yes.
-
- 9. Added ${str2b64:<string>} to the expansion operators. This operator
- converts an arbitrary string into one that is base64 encoded.
-
-10. A new authenticator, called cyrus_sasl, has been added. This requires
- the presence of the Cyrus SASL library; it authenticates by calling this
- library, which supports a number of authentication mechanisms, including
- PLAIN and LOGIN, but also several others that Exim does not support
- directly. The code for this authenticator was provided by Matthew
- Byng-Maddick of A L Digital Ltd (http://www.aldigital.co.uk). Here follows
- draft documentation:
-
- xx. THE CYRUS_SASL AUTHENTICATOR
-
- The cyrus_sasl authenticator provides server support for the Cyrus library
- Implementation of the RFC 2222 "Simple Authentication and Security Layer".
- It 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.
-
- xx.1 Using cyrus_sasl as a server
-
- The cyrus_sasl authenticator has four private options. It puts the username
- (on a successful authentication) into $1.
-
- server_hostname Type: string* Default: $primary_hostname
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