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. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
30 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
36 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
37 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
39 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
40 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
42 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
43 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
45 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
46 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
47 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
49 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
50 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
51 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
52 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
58 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
59 or off in the resolver library.
65 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
66 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
67 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
68 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
69 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
71 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
72 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
73 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
75 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
76 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
78 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
79 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
80 including any header additions or removals from transport.
82 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
83 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
89 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
90 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
91 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
92 on content supplied by the attacker.
94 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
95 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
96 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
97 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
98 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
104 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
105 items below carefully
107 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
108 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
109 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
110 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
111 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
112 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
115 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
116 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
117 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
118 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
119 be able to take effect.
121 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
122 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
123 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
124 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
126 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
127 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
128 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
129 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
131 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
133 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
135 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
136 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
137 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
138 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
139 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
140 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
142 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
143 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
145 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
147 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
148 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
150 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
151 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
152 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
153 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
154 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
155 don't all make sense in all contexts:
158 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
159 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
160 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
162 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
163 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
164 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
165 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
166 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
167 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
168 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
169 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
170 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
171 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
174 8. There is a new expansion operator, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
175 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
176 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
178 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
180 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests,
182 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
183 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
184 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
185 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
186 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
189 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
190 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
192 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
193 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
194 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
195 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
196 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
197 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
199 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
200 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
201 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
202 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
203 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
204 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
205 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
206 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
212 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
213 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
215 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
217 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
218 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
221 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
222 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
223 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
224 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
225 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
226 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
227 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
228 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
229 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
230 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
232 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
233 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
235 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
236 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
237 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
243 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
244 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
245 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
246 for details on conditionally disabling)
248 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
250 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
251 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
252 and{} expansion operator).
254 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
257 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
258 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
260 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
261 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
262 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
264 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
265 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
266 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
267 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
269 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
272 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
278 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
284 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
287 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
288 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
289 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
292 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
294 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
295 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
296 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
299 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
301 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
302 192.168.6.7 (for example).
304 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
305 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
306 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
307 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
309 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
311 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
312 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
313 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
316 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
317 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
318 only by an admin user.
320 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
321 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
322 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
323 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
324 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
326 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
327 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
332 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
334 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
335 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
336 (max $sender_rate_limit)
338 [... some other logic and tests...]
340 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
341 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
342 (max $sender_rate_limit)
343 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
347 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
348 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
349 line termination character(s).
351 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
352 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
353 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
355 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
356 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
357 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
358 message is queued, the remainder are also.
360 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
361 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
362 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
363 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
364 log files) that make the situation even worse.
366 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
367 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
368 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
370 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
371 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
372 connection. The possible values are:
374 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
375 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
376 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
377 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
378 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
379 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
380 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
381 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
382 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
383 tls-failed TLS failed to start
385 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
386 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
387 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
388 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
389 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
392 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
393 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
394 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
396 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
397 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
398 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
400 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
402 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
403 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
404 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
406 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
407 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
408 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
410 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
412 In an updating lookup, you could then write
414 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
416 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
418 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
420 you can still update the master by
422 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
424 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
425 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
426 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
433 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
434 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
435 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
438 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
439 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
440 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
441 rather than the default "any" matching.
443 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
444 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
445 other parameters to be varied.
447 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
448 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
450 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
452 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
454 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
455 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
457 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
458 after the connection to the server has been made.
460 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
461 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
463 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
464 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
467 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
468 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
469 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
470 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
471 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
473 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
474 called forany and forall.
476 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
477 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
478 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
480 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
482 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
483 that makes it case-sensitive.
485 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
486 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
487 items, typically addresses.
489 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
490 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
491 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
494 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
495 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
497 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
500 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
507 No new features were added to 4.66.
513 No new features were added to 4.65.
519 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
520 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
521 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
524 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
525 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
527 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
528 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
529 number of authentication methods.
531 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
532 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
533 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
535 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
536 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
537 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
538 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
540 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
542 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
543 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
544 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
545 before doing the expansions.
547 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
548 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
551 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
552 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
553 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
555 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
556 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
558 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
559 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
560 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
561 available for compatibility.)
563 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
564 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
570 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
573 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
574 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
577 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
578 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
579 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
581 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
582 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
584 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
586 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
587 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
589 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
591 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
593 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
594 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
595 each messages value for each variable.
597 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
598 same criteria without --not).
604 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
605 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
606 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
607 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
608 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
609 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
611 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
613 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
614 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
615 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
618 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
619 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
620 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
622 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
623 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
624 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
625 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
631 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
632 the 4.60 release are:
634 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
636 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
638 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
639 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
640 for other things in complicated expansions.
642 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
644 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
645 resources used in pipe deliveries.
647 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
649 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
651 There are a number of other additions too.
657 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
658 the 4.50 release are:
660 . Support for SQLite.
662 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
664 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
666 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
668 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
670 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
672 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
674 There are many more minor changes.