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. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
13 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
14 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
15 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
16 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim. Note that
17 this can not yet be used as a drop-in replacement for Cyrus SASL, as
18 Exim is currently unable to construct strings with embedded NULs for
19 use as keys in lookups against sasldb2.
21 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
22 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
23 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
24 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
26 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
27 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
28 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
29 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly.
35 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
36 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
38 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
39 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
41 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
42 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
44 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
45 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
46 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
48 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
49 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
50 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
51 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
57 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
58 or off in the resolver library.
64 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
65 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
66 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
67 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
68 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
70 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
71 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
72 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
74 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
75 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
77 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
78 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
79 including any header additions or removals from transport.
81 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
82 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
88 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
89 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
90 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
91 on content supplied by the attacker.
93 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
94 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
95 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
96 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
97 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
103 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
104 items below carefully
106 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
107 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
108 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
109 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
110 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
111 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
114 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
115 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
116 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
117 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
118 be able to take effect.
120 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
121 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
122 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
123 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
125 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
126 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
127 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
128 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
130 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
132 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
134 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
135 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
136 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
137 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
138 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
139 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
141 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
142 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
144 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
146 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
147 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
149 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
150 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
151 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
152 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
153 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
154 don't all make sense in all contexts:
157 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
158 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
159 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
161 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
162 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
163 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
164 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
165 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
166 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
167 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
168 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
169 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
170 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
173 8. There is a new expansion operator, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
174 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
175 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
177 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
179 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests,
181 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
182 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
183 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
184 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
185 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
188 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
189 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
191 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
192 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
193 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
194 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
195 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
196 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
198 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
199 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
200 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
201 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
202 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
203 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
204 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
205 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
211 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
212 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
214 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
216 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
217 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
220 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
221 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
222 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
223 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
224 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
225 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
226 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
227 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
228 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
229 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
231 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
232 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
234 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
235 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
236 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
242 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
243 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
244 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
245 for details on conditionally disabling)
247 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
249 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
250 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
251 and{} expansion operator).
253 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
256 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
257 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
259 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
260 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
261 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
263 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
264 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
265 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
266 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
268 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
271 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
277 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
283 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
286 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
287 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
288 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
291 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
293 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
294 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
295 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
298 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
300 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
301 192.168.6.7 (for example).
303 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
304 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
305 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
306 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
308 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
310 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
311 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
312 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
315 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
316 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
317 only by an admin user.
319 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
320 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
321 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
322 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
323 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
325 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
326 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
331 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
333 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
334 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
335 (max $sender_rate_limit)
337 [... some other logic and tests...]
339 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
340 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
341 (max $sender_rate_limit)
342 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
346 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
347 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
348 line termination character(s).
350 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
351 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
352 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
354 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
355 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
356 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
357 message is queued, the remainder are also.
359 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
360 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
361 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
362 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
363 log files) that make the situation even worse.
365 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
366 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
367 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
369 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
370 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
371 connection. The possible values are:
373 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
374 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
375 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
376 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
377 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
378 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
379 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
380 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
381 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
382 tls-failed TLS failed to start
384 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
385 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
386 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
387 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
388 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
391 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
392 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
393 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
395 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
396 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
397 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
399 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
401 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
402 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
403 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
405 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
406 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
407 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
409 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
411 In an updating lookup, you could then write
413 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
415 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
417 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
419 you can still update the master by
421 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
423 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
424 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
425 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
432 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
433 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
434 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
437 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
438 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
439 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
440 rather than the default "any" matching.
442 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
443 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
444 other parameters to be varied.
446 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
447 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
449 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
451 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
453 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
454 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
456 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
457 after the connection to the server has been made.
459 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
460 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
462 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
463 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
466 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
467 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
468 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
469 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
470 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
472 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
473 called forany and forall.
475 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
476 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
477 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
479 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
481 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
482 that makes it case-sensitive.
484 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
485 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
486 items, typically addresses.
488 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
489 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
490 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
493 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
494 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
496 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
499 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
506 No new features were added to 4.66.
512 No new features were added to 4.65.
518 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
519 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
520 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
523 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
524 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
526 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
527 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
528 number of authentication methods.
530 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
531 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
532 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
534 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
535 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
536 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
537 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
539 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
541 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
542 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
543 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
544 before doing the expansions.
546 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
547 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
550 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
551 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
552 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
554 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
555 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
557 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
558 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
559 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
560 available for compatibility.)
562 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
563 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
569 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
572 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
573 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
576 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
577 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
578 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
580 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
581 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
583 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
585 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
586 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
588 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
590 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
592 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
593 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
594 each messages value for each variable.
596 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
597 same criteria without --not).
603 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
604 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
605 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
606 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
607 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
608 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
610 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
612 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
613 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
614 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
617 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
618 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
619 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
621 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
622 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
623 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
624 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
630 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
631 the 4.60 release are:
633 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
635 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
637 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
638 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
639 for other things in complicated expansions.
641 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
643 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
644 resources used in pipe deliveries.
646 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
648 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
650 There are a number of other additions too.
656 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
657 the 4.50 release are:
659 . Support for SQLite.
661 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
663 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
665 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
667 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
669 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
671 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
673 There are many more minor changes.