1 $Cambridge: exim/doc/doc-txt/NewStuff,v 1.173 2010/06/07 07:09:10 pdp Exp $
6 This file contains descriptions of new features that have been added to Exim.
7 Before a formal release, there may be quite a lot of detail so that people can
8 test from the snapshots or the CVS before the documentation is updated. Once
9 the documentation is updated, this file is reduced to a short list.
15 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
16 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
17 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
18 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
19 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
20 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
23 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
24 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
25 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
26 so that safety mechanism would have to be overriden for this option to
27 be able to take effect.
29 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
30 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
31 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
32 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
34 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
35 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
36 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
37 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
39 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
41 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
42 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
43 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
44 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
46 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
47 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
49 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
51 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
52 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
54 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
55 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
56 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
57 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
58 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
59 don't all make sense in all contexts:
62 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
63 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
64 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
66 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
67 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
68 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
69 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
70 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
71 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
72 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
73 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
74 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
75 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
78 8. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests, IF each router yields
79 a string which the bool{} operator recognises. Note that this is a departure
80 from normal Router "condition" truth, requiring the stricter standard of
81 "true" that ACLS use. This might be relaxed in a future release if there
83 When debugging, bear in mind that these are internally wrapped up into
84 a longer, more complicated, string. There's a reason that the bool{}
85 logic is a dependency.
91 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
92 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
94 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
96 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
97 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
100 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
101 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
102 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
103 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
104 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
105 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
106 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
107 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
108 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
109 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
111 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
112 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
114 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
115 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
116 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
122 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
123 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
124 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
125 for details on conditionally disabling)
127 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
129 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
130 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
131 and{} expansion operator).
133 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
136 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
137 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
139 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
140 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
141 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
143 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
144 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
145 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
146 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
148 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
151 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
157 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
163 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
166 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
167 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
168 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
171 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
173 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
174 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
175 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
178 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
180 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
181 192.168.6.7 (for example).
183 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
184 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
185 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
186 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
188 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
190 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
191 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
192 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
195 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
196 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
197 only by an admin user.
199 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
200 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
201 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
202 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
203 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
205 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
206 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
211 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
213 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
214 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
215 (max $sender_rate_limit)
217 [... some other logic and tests...]
219 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
220 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
221 (max $sender_rate_limit)
222 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
226 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
227 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
228 line termination character(s).
230 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
231 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
232 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
234 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
235 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
236 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
237 message is queued, the remainder are also.
239 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
240 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
241 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
242 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
243 log files) that make the situation even worse.
245 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
246 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
247 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
249 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
250 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
251 connection. The possible values are:
253 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
254 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
255 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
256 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
257 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
258 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
259 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
260 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
261 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
262 tls-failed TLS failed to start
264 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
265 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
266 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
267 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
268 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
271 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
272 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
273 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
275 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
276 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
277 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
279 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
281 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
282 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
283 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
285 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
286 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
287 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
289 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
291 In an updating lookup, you could then write
293 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
295 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
297 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
299 you can still update the master by
301 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
303 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
304 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
305 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
312 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
313 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
314 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
317 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
318 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
319 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
320 rather than the default "any" matching.
322 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
323 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
324 other parameters to be varied.
326 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
327 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
329 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
331 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
333 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
334 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
336 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
337 after the connection to the server has been made.
339 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
340 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
342 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
343 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
346 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
347 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
348 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
349 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
350 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
352 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
353 called forany and forall.
355 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
356 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
357 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
359 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
361 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
362 that makes it case-sensitive.
364 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
365 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
366 items, typically addresses.
368 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
369 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
370 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
373 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
374 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
376 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
379 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
386 No new features were added to 4.66.
392 No new features were added to 4.65.
398 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
399 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
400 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
403 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
404 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
406 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
407 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
408 number of authentication methods.
410 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
411 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
412 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
414 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
415 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
416 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
417 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
419 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
421 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
422 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
423 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
424 before doing the expansions.
426 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
427 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
430 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
431 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
432 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
434 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
435 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
437 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
438 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
439 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
440 available for compatibility.)
442 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
443 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
449 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
452 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
453 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
456 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
457 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
458 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
460 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
461 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
463 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
465 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
466 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
468 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
470 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
472 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
473 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
474 each messages value for each variable.
476 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
477 same criteria without --not).
483 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
484 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
485 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
486 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
487 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
488 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
490 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
492 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
493 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
494 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
497 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
498 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
499 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
501 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
502 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
503 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
504 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
510 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
511 the 4.60 release are:
513 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
515 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
517 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
518 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
519 for other things in complicated expansions.
521 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
523 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
524 resources used in pipe deliveries.
526 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
528 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
530 There are a number of other additions too.
536 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
537 the 4.50 release are:
539 . Support for SQLite.
541 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
543 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
545 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
547 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
549 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
551 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
553 There are many more minor changes.