. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
.set previousversion "4.75"
-.set version "4.77"
+.set version "4.80"
.set ACL "access control lists (ACLs)"
.set I " "
<bookinfo>
<title>Specification of the Exim Mail Transfer Agent</title>
<titleabbrev>The Exim MTA</titleabbrev>
-<date>06 May 2011</date>
+<date>17 May 2012</date>
<author><firstname>Exim</firstname><surname>Maintainers</surname></author>
<authorinitials>EM</authorinitials>
<revhistory><revision>
- <revnumber>4.77</revnumber>
- <date>10 Oct 2011</date>
+ <revnumber>4.80</revnumber>
+ <date>17 May 2012</date>
<authorinitials>EM</authorinitials>
</revision></revhistory>
-<copyright><year>2011</year><holder>University of Cambridge</holder></copyright>
+<copyright><year>2012</year><holder>University of Cambridge</holder></copyright>
</bookinfo>
.literal off
on how Exim was built; the values are not suitable for keying material.
If Exim is linked against OpenSSL then RAND_pseudo_bytes() is used.
.new
-if Exim is linked against GnuTLS then gnutls_rnd(GNUTLS_RND_NONCE) is used.
+If Exim is linked against GnuTLS then gnutls_rnd(GNUTLS_RND_NONCE) is used,
+for versions of GnuTLS with that function.
.wen
Otherwise, the implementation may be arc4random(), random() seeded by
srandomdev() or srandom(), or a custom implementation even weaker than
invoking Exim with the &%-bV%& flag.
.new
-Historical note: prior to release 4.78, Exim defaulted this value to
+Historical note: prior to release 4.80, Exim defaulted this value to
"+dont_insert_empty_fragments", which may still be needed for compatibility
with some clients, but which lowers security by increasing exposure to
some now infamous attacks.
.cindex "authentication" "CRAM-MD5"
.cindex "authentication" "SCRAM-SHA-1"
The &(gsasl)& authenticator provides server integration for the GNU SASL
-library and the mechanisms it provides. This is new as of the 4.78 release
+library and the mechanisms it provides. This is new as of the 4.80 release
and there are a few areas where the library does not let Exim smoothly
scale to handle future authentication mechanisms, so no guarantee can be
made that any particular new authentication mechanism will be supported
GnuTLS uses D-H parameters that may 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-normal_&.
+&_gnutls-params-NNNN_& for some value of NNNN, corresponding to the number
+of bits requested.
The file is owned by the Exim user and is readable only by
its owner. Every Exim process that start up GnuTLS reads the D-H
parameters from this file. If the file does not exist, the first Exim process
a substantial amount of time, causing timeouts on incoming connections.
The solution is to generate the parameters externally to Exim. They are stored
-in &_gnutls-params-normal_& in PEM format, which means that they can be
+in &_gnutls-params-N_& in PEM format, which means that they can be
generated externally using the &(certtool)& command that is part of GnuTLS.
To replace the parameters with new ones, instead of deleting the file
&(certtool)& and, when this has been done, replace Exim's cache file by
renaming. The relevant commands are something like this:
.code
+# ls
+[ look for file; assume gnutls-params-1024 is the most recent ]
# rm -f new-params
# touch new-params
# chown exim:exim new-params
# chmod 0600 new-params
-# certtool --generate-dh-params >>new-params
+# certtool --generate-dh-params --bits 1024 >>new-params
# chmod 0400 new-params
-# mv new-params gnutls-params-normal
+# mv new-params gnutls-params-1024
.endd
If Exim never has to generate the parameters itself, the possibility of
stalling is removed.
-The filename changed in Exim 4.78, to gain the -normal suffix, corresponding
-to the GnuTLS constant &`GNUTLS_SEC_PARAM_NORMAL`&, defining the number of
-bits to include. At time of writing, NORMAL corresponds to 2432 bits for D-H.
+The filename changed in Exim 4.80, to gain the -bits suffix. The value which
+Exim will choose depends upon the version of GnuTLS in use. For older GnuTLS,
+the value remains hard-coded in Exim as 1024. As of GnuTLS 2.12.x, there is
+a way for Exim to ask for the "normal" number of bits for D-H public-key usage,
+and Exim does so. Exim thus removes itself from the policy decision, and the
+filename and bits used change as the GnuTLS maintainers change the value for
+their parameter &`GNUTLS_SEC_PARAM_NORMAL`&. At the time of writing, this
+gives 2432 bits.
.wen
"Priority strings". This is online as
&url(http://www.gnu.org/software/gnutls/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html).
-Prior to Exim 4.78, an older API of GnuTLS was used, and Exim supported three
+Prior to Exim 4.80, an older API of GnuTLS was used, and Exim supported three
additional options, "&%gnutls_require_kx%&", "&%gnutls_require_mac%&" and
"&%gnutls_require_protocols%&". &%tls_require_ciphers%& was an Exim list.
.wen
git://git.exim.org / exim.git / blobdiff