4 This file contains descriptions of new features that have been added to Exim.
5 Before a formal release, there may be quite a lot of detail so that people can
6 test from the snapshots or the CVS before the documentation is updated. Once
7 the documentation is updated, this file is reduced to a short list.
12 1. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
14 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
15 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
17 3. New "malware=" support for Avast.
19 4. New "spam=" variant option for Rspamd.
21 5. Assorted options on malware= and spam= scanners.
23 6. A commandline option to write a comment into the logfile.
25 7. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_SOCKS feature enabled, the smtp transport can
26 be configured to make connections via socks5 proxies.
28 8. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, support is included for
29 the transmission of UTF-8 envelope addresses.
31 9. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, an expansion item for a commonly
32 used encoding of Maildir folder names.
34 10. A logging option for slow DNS lookups.
36 11. New ${env {<variable>}} expansion.
38 12. A non-SMTP authenticator using information from TLS client certificates.
40 13. Main option "tls_eccurve" for selecting an Elliptic Curve for TLS.
46 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
47 DANE smtp draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
48 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
51 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
52 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
53 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
54 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
55 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
56 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
58 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
59 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
60 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
70 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
71 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
72 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
73 proxy that is connecting to it.
75 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
76 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
77 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
78 detect and reject if those characters are present.
80 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
81 codepoints with valid ones.
83 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
84 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
85 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
86 be included in the command line.
88 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
89 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
90 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
91 verification cancels the encryption.
93 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
94 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
97 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
98 file when searching the queue.
100 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
102 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
104 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
105 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
106 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
109 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
111 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
113 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
114 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negociate
115 DSN features per RFC 3461.
121 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
122 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
123 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
124 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
125 SIEVE capability line.
127 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
128 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
129 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
130 followed by a newline, and no other text.
132 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
133 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
134 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
135 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
136 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
137 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
138 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
139 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
141 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
143 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
144 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
145 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
146 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
147 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
148 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
150 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
152 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
153 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
154 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
156 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
157 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
159 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
160 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
162 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
163 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
164 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
165 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
168 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
169 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are recieved on and
170 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
171 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
172 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
173 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
174 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
175 is negociated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
176 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
177 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
178 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
179 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
182 The Recieved-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
183 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
184 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
185 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
187 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
188 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
189 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
191 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
192 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
193 are present for now but deprecated.
195 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
197 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
198 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
200 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
201 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
202 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
203 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
204 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
205 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
206 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
207 unless this new option is set.
209 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
210 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
211 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
214 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
216 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
217 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
218 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
219 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
220 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
221 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
222 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
223 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
224 return results in a forced fail.
226 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
227 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
229 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
230 handled by routers/transports.
232 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
233 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
235 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
236 modifier (but not yet added to messsage).
238 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
240 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
242 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
243 particularly for debug_print as -bt commandline option does not
244 require privilege whereas -d does.
246 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
247 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
249 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
250 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
251 wrappers, for instance.
253 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
256 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
257 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
258 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
259 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
260 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
261 dmarc_enable_forensic.
263 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
264 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
265 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
267 23. New ACL modifer "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
270 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
271 characters in the string to \xNN form.
273 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
274 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
276 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
282 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
283 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
284 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
285 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
286 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
288 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
289 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
290 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
291 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
293 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
294 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
295 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
296 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
297 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
299 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
300 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
302 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
304 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
305 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
306 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
309 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
311 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
312 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
313 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
314 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
315 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
316 compatibility at the cost of session security.
318 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
319 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
320 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
321 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
322 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
324 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
325 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
327 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
328 for Exim as a server.
330 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
331 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
332 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
333 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
334 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
336 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
337 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
338 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
339 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
340 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
342 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
343 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
345 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
346 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
347 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
348 string, documentation for which is at:
349 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
351 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
353 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
354 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
356 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
357 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
358 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
359 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
360 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
362 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
364 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
365 identically to TXT record lookups.
367 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
369 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
370 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
371 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
373 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
374 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
375 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
376 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
379 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
380 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
381 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
387 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
388 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
390 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
391 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
393 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
394 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
396 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
397 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
398 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
400 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
401 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
402 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
403 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
409 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
410 or off in the resolver library.
416 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
417 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
418 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
419 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
420 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
422 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
423 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
424 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
426 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
427 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
429 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
430 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
431 including any header additions or removals from transport.
433 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
434 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
440 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
441 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
442 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
443 on content supplied by the attacker.
445 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
446 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
447 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
448 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
449 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
455 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
456 items below carefully
458 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
459 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
460 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
461 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
462 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
463 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
466 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
467 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
468 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
469 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
470 be able to take effect.
472 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
473 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
474 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
475 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
477 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
478 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
479 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
480 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
482 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
484 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
486 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
487 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
488 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
489 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
490 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
491 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
493 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
494 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
496 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
498 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
499 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
501 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
502 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
503 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
504 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
505 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
506 don't all make sense in all contexts:
509 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
510 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
511 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
513 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
514 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
515 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
516 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
517 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
518 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
519 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
520 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
521 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
522 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
525 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
526 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
527 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
529 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
531 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
533 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
534 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
535 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
536 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
537 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
540 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
541 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
543 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
544 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
545 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
546 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
547 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
548 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
550 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
551 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
552 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
553 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
554 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
555 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
556 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
557 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
563 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
564 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
566 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
568 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
569 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
572 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
573 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
574 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
575 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
576 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
577 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
578 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
579 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
580 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
581 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
583 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
584 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
586 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
587 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
588 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
594 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
595 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
596 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
597 for details on conditionally disabling)
599 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
601 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
602 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
603 and{} expansion operator).
605 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
608 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
609 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
611 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
612 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
613 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
615 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
616 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
617 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
618 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
620 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
623 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
629 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
635 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
638 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
639 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
640 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
643 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
645 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
646 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
647 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
650 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
652 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
653 192.168.6.7 (for example).
655 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
656 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
657 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
658 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
660 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
662 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
663 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
664 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
667 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
668 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
669 only by an admin user.
671 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
672 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
673 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
674 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
675 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
677 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
678 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
683 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
685 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
686 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
687 (max $sender_rate_limit)
689 [... some other logic and tests...]
691 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
692 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
693 (max $sender_rate_limit)
694 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
698 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
699 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
700 line termination character(s).
702 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
703 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
704 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
706 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
707 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
708 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
709 message is queued, the remainder are also.
711 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
712 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
713 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
714 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
715 log files) that make the situation even worse.
717 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
718 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
719 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
721 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
722 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
723 connection. The possible values are:
725 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
726 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
727 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
728 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
729 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
730 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
731 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
732 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
733 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
734 tls-failed TLS failed to start
736 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
737 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
738 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
739 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
740 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
743 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
744 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
745 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
747 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
748 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
749 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
751 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
753 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
754 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
755 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
757 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
758 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
759 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
761 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
763 In an updating lookup, you could then write
765 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
767 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
769 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
771 you can still update the master by
773 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
775 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
776 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
777 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
784 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
785 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
786 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
789 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
790 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
791 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
792 rather than the default "any" matching.
794 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
795 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
796 other parameters to be varied.
798 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
799 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
801 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
803 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
805 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
806 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
808 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
809 after the connection to the server has been made.
811 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
812 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
814 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
815 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
818 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
819 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
820 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
821 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
822 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
824 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
825 called forany and forall.
827 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
828 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
829 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
831 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
833 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
834 that makes it case-sensitive.
836 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
837 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
838 items, typically addresses.
840 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
841 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
842 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
845 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
846 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
848 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
851 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
858 No new features were added to 4.66.
864 No new features were added to 4.65.
870 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
871 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
872 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
875 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
876 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
878 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
879 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
880 number of authentication methods.
882 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
883 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
884 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
886 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
887 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
888 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
889 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
891 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
893 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
894 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
895 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
896 before doing the expansions.
898 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
899 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
902 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
903 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
904 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
906 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
907 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
909 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
910 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
911 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
912 available for compatibility.)
914 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
915 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
921 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
924 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
925 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
928 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
929 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
930 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
932 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
933 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
935 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
937 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
938 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
940 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
942 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
944 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
945 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
946 each messages value for each variable.
948 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
949 same criteria without --not).
955 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
956 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
957 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
958 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
959 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
960 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
962 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
964 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
965 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
966 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
969 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
970 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
971 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
973 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
974 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
975 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
976 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
982 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
983 the 4.60 release are:
985 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
987 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
989 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
990 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
991 for other things in complicated expansions.
993 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
995 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
996 resources used in pipe deliveries.
998 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
1000 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
1002 There are a number of other additions too.
1008 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
1009 the 4.50 release are:
1011 . Support for SQLite.
1013 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
1015 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
1017 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
1019 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
1021 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
1023 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
1025 There are many more minor changes.