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 Git before the documentation is updated. Once
7 the documentation is updated, this file is reduced to a short list.
12 1. PKG_CONFIG_PATH can now be set in Local/Makefile;
13 wildcards will be expanded, values are collapsed.
15 2. The ${readsocket } expansion now takes an option to not shutdown the
16 connection after sending the query string. The default remains to do so.
18 3. An smtp transport option "hosts_noproxy_tls" to control whether multiple
19 deliveries on a single TCP connection can maintain a TLS connection
20 open. By default disabled for all hosts, doing so saves the cost of
21 making new TLS sessions, at the cost of having to proxy the data via
22 another process. Logging is also affected.
24 4. A malware connection type for the FPSCAND protocol.
26 5. An option for recipient verify callouts to hold the connection open for
27 further recipients and for delivery.
29 6. The reproducible build $SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH environment variable is now
36 1. Allow relative config file names for ".include"
38 2. A main-section config option "debug_store" to control the checks on
39 variable locations during store-reset. Normally false but can be enabled
40 when a memory corrution issue is suspected on a production system.
46 1. The new perl_taintmode option allows to run the embedded perl
47 interpreter in taint mode.
49 2. New log_selector: dnssec, adds a "DS" tag to acceptance and delivery lines.
51 3. Speculative debugging, via a "kill" option to the "control=debug" ACL
54 4. New expansion item ${sha3:<string>} / ${sha3_<N>:<string>}.
55 N can be 224, 256 (default), 384, 512.
56 With GnuTLS 3.5.0 or later, only.
58 5. Facility for named queues: A command-line argument can specify
59 the queue name for a queue operation, and an ACL modifier can set
60 the queue to be used for a message. A $queue_name variable gives
63 6. New expansion operators base32/base32d.
65 7. The CHUNKING ESMTP extension from RFC 3030. May give some slight
66 performance increase and network load decrease. Main config option
67 chunking_advertise_hosts, and smtp transport option hosts_try_chunking
70 8. LMDB lookup support, as Experimental. Patch supplied by Andrew Colin Kissa.
72 9. Expansion operator escape8bit, like escape but not touching newline etc..
74 10. Feature macros, generated from compile options. All start with "_HAVE_"
75 and go on with some roughly recognisable name. Driver macros, for
76 router, transport and authentication drivers; names starting with "_DRIVER_".
77 Option macros, for each configuration-file option; all start with "_OPT_".
78 Use the "-bP macros" command-line option to see what is present.
80 11. Integer values for options can take a "G" multiplier.
82 12. defer=pass option for the ACL control cutthrough_delivery, to reflect 4xx
83 returns from the target back to the initiator, rather than spooling the
86 13. New built-in constants available for tls_dhparam and default changed.
88 14. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_QUEUEFILE, a queuefile transport, for writing
89 out copies of the message spool files for use by 3rd-party scanners.
91 15. A new option on the smtp transport, hosts_try_fastopen. If the system
92 supports it (on Linux it must be enabled in the kernel by the sysadmin)
93 try to use RFC 7413 "TCP Fast Open". No data is sent on the SYN segment
94 but it permits a peer that also supports the facility to send its SMTP
95 banner immediately after the SYN,ACK segment rather then waiting for
96 another ACK - so saving up to one roundtrip time. Because it requires
97 previous communication with the peer (we save a cookie from it) this
98 will only become active on frequently-contacted destinations.
100 16. A new syslog_pid option to suppress PID duplication in syslog lines.
106 1. The ACL conditions regex and mime_regex now capture substrings
107 into numeric variables $regex1 to 9, like the "match" expansion condition.
109 2. New $callout_address variable records the address used for a spam=,
110 malware= or verify= callout.
112 3. Transports now take a "max_parallel" option, to limit concurrency.
114 4. Expansion operators ${ipv6norm:<string>} and ${ipv6denorm:<string>}.
115 The latter expands to a 8-element colon-sep set of hex digits including
116 leading zeroes. A trailing ipv4-style dotted-decimal set is converted
117 to hex. Pure ipv4 addresses are converted to IPv4-mapped IPv6.
118 The former operator strips leading zeroes and collapses the longest
119 set of 0-groups to a double-colon.
121 5. New "-bP config" support, to dump the effective configuration.
123 6. New $dkim_key_length variable.
125 7. New base64d and base64 expansion items (the existing str2b64 being a
126 synonym of the latter). Add support in base64 for certificates.
128 8. New main configuration option "bounce_return_linesize_limit" to
129 avoid oversize bodies in bounces. The default value matches RFC
132 9. New $initial_cwd expansion variable.
138 1. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
140 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
141 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
143 3. New "malware=" support for Avast.
145 4. New "spam=" variant option for Rspamd.
147 5. Assorted options on malware= and spam= scanners.
149 6. A command-line option to write a comment into the logfile.
151 7. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_SOCKS feature enabled, the smtp transport can
152 be configured to make connections via socks5 proxies.
154 8. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, support is included for
155 the transmission of UTF-8 envelope addresses.
157 9. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, an expansion item for a commonly
158 used encoding of Maildir folder names.
160 10. A logging option for slow DNS lookups.
162 11. New ${env {<variable>}} expansion.
164 12. A non-SMTP authenticator using information from TLS client certificates.
166 13. Main option "tls_eccurve" for selecting an Elliptic Curve for TLS.
167 Patch originally by Wolfgang Breyha.
169 14. Main option "dns_trust_aa" for trusting your local nameserver at the
170 same level as DNSSEC.
176 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
177 DANE SMTP draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
178 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
179 domain of the sender.
181 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
182 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
183 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
184 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
185 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
186 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
188 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
189 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
190 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
200 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
201 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
202 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
203 proxy that is connecting to it.
205 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
206 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
207 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
208 detect and reject if those characters are present.
210 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
211 codepoints with valid ones.
213 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
214 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
215 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
216 be included in the command line.
218 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
219 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
220 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
221 verification cancels the encryption.
223 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
224 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
227 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
228 file when searching the queue.
230 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
232 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
234 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
235 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
236 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
239 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
241 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
243 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
244 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negotiate
245 DSN features per RFC 3461.
251 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
252 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
253 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
254 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
255 SIEVE capability line.
257 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
258 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
259 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
260 followed by a newline, and no other text.
262 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
263 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
264 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
265 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
266 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
267 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
268 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
269 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
271 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
273 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
274 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
275 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
276 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
277 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
278 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
280 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
282 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
283 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
284 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
286 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
287 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
289 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
290 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
292 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
293 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
294 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
295 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
298 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
299 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are received on and
300 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
301 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
302 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
303 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
304 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
305 is negotiated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
306 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
307 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
308 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
309 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
312 The Received-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
313 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
314 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
315 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
317 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
318 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
319 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
321 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
322 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
323 are present for now but deprecated.
325 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
327 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
328 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
330 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
331 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
332 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
333 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
334 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
335 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
336 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
337 unless this new option is set.
339 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
340 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
341 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
344 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
346 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
347 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
348 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
349 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
350 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
351 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
352 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
353 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
354 return results in a forced fail.
356 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
357 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
359 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
360 handled by routers/transports.
362 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
363 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
365 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
366 modifier (but not yet added to message).
368 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
370 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
372 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
373 particularly for debug_print as -bt command-line option does not
374 require privilege whereas -d does.
376 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
377 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
379 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
380 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
381 wrappers, for instance.
383 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
386 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
387 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
388 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
389 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
390 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
391 dmarc_enable_forensic.
393 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
394 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
395 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
397 23. New ACL modifier "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
400 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
401 characters in the string to \xNN form.
403 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
404 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
406 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
412 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
413 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
414 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
415 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
416 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
418 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
419 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
420 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
421 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
423 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
424 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
425 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
426 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
427 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
429 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
430 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
432 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
434 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
435 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
436 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
439 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
441 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
442 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
443 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
444 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
445 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
446 compatibility at the cost of session security.
448 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
449 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
450 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
451 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
452 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
454 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
455 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
457 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
458 for Exim as a server.
460 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
461 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
462 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
463 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
464 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
466 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
467 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
468 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
469 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
470 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
472 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
473 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
475 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
476 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
477 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
478 string, documentation for which is at:
479 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
481 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
483 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
484 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
486 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
487 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
488 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
489 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
490 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
492 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
494 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
495 identically to TXT record lookups.
497 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
499 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
500 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
501 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
503 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
504 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
505 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
506 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
509 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
510 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
511 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
517 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
518 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
520 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
521 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
523 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
524 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
526 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
527 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
528 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
530 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
531 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
532 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
533 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
539 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
540 or off in the resolver library.
546 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
547 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
548 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
549 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
550 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
552 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
553 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
554 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
556 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
557 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
559 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
560 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
561 including any header additions or removals from transport.
563 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
564 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
570 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
571 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
572 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
573 on content supplied by the attacker.
575 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
576 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
577 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
578 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
579 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
585 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
586 items below carefully
588 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
589 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
590 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
591 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
592 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
593 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
596 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
597 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
598 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
599 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
600 be able to take effect.
602 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
603 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
604 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
605 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
607 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
608 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
609 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
610 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
612 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
614 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
616 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
617 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
618 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
619 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
620 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
621 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
623 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
624 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
626 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
628 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
629 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
631 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
632 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
633 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
634 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
635 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
636 don't all make sense in all contexts:
639 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
640 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
641 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
643 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
644 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
645 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
646 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
647 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
648 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
649 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
650 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
651 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
652 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
655 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
656 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
657 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
659 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
661 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
663 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
664 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
665 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
666 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
667 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
670 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
671 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
673 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
674 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
675 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
676 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
677 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
678 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
680 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
681 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
682 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
683 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
684 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
685 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
686 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
687 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
693 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
694 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
696 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
698 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
699 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
702 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
703 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
704 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
705 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
706 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
707 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
708 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
709 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
710 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
711 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
713 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
714 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
716 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
717 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
718 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
724 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
725 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
726 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
727 for details on conditionally disabling)
729 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
731 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
732 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
733 and{} expansion operator).
735 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
738 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
739 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
741 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
742 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
743 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
745 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
746 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
747 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
748 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
750 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
753 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
759 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
765 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
768 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
769 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
770 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
773 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
775 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
776 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
777 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
780 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
782 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
783 192.168.6.7 (for example).
785 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
786 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
787 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
788 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
790 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
792 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
793 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
794 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
797 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
798 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
799 only by an admin user.
801 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
802 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
803 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
804 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
805 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
807 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
808 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
813 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
815 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
816 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
817 (max $sender_rate_limit)
819 [... some other logic and tests...]
821 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
822 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
823 (max $sender_rate_limit)
824 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
828 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
829 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
830 line termination character(s).
832 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
833 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
834 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
836 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
837 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
838 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
839 message is queued, the remainder are also.
841 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
842 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
843 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
844 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
845 log files) that make the situation even worse.
847 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
848 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
849 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
851 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
852 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
853 connection. The possible values are:
855 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
856 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
857 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
858 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
859 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
860 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
861 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
862 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
863 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
864 tls-failed TLS failed to start
866 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
867 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
868 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
869 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
870 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
873 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
874 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
875 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
877 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
878 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
879 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
881 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
883 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
884 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
885 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
887 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
888 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
889 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
891 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
893 In an updating lookup, you could then write
895 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
897 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
899 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
901 you can still update the master by
903 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
905 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
906 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
907 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
914 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
915 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
916 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
919 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
920 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
921 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
922 rather than the default "any" matching.
924 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
925 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
926 other parameters to be varied.
928 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
929 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
931 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
933 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
935 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
936 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
938 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
939 after the connection to the server has been made.
941 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
942 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
944 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
945 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
948 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
949 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
950 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
951 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
952 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
954 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
955 called forany and forall.
957 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
958 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
959 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
961 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
963 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
964 that makes it case-sensitive.
966 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
967 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
968 items, typically addresses.
970 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
971 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
972 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
975 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
976 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
978 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
981 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
988 No new features were added to 4.66.
994 No new features were added to 4.65.
1000 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
1001 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
1002 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
1005 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
1006 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
1008 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
1009 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
1010 number of authentication methods.
1012 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
1013 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
1014 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
1016 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
1017 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
1018 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
1019 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
1021 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
1023 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
1024 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
1025 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
1026 before doing the expansions.
1028 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
1029 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
1032 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
1033 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
1034 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
1036 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
1037 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
1039 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
1040 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
1041 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
1042 available for compatibility.)
1044 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
1045 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
1051 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
1054 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
1055 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
1058 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
1059 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
1060 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
1062 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
1063 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
1065 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
1067 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
1068 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
1070 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
1072 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
1074 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
1075 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
1076 each messages value for each variable.
1078 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
1079 same criteria without --not).
1085 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
1086 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
1087 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
1088 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
1089 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
1090 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
1092 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
1094 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
1095 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
1096 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
1099 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
1100 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
1101 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
1103 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
1104 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
1105 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
1106 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
1112 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
1113 the 4.60 release are:
1115 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
1117 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
1119 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
1120 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
1121 for other things in complicated expansions.
1123 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
1125 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
1126 resources used in pipe deliveries.
1128 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
1130 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
1132 There are a number of other additions too.
1138 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
1139 the 4.50 release are:
1141 . Support for SQLite.
1143 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
1145 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
1147 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
1149 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
1151 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
1153 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
1155 There are many more minor changes.