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. The ACL conditions regex and mime_regex now capture substrings
13 into numeric variables $regex1 to 9, like the "match" expansion condition.
15 2. New $callout_address variable records the address used for a spam=,
16 malware= or verify= callout.
18 3. Transports now take a "max_parallel" option, to limit concurrency.
24 1. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
26 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
27 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
29 3. New "malware=" support for Avast.
31 4. New "spam=" variant option for Rspamd.
33 5. Assorted options on malware= and spam= scanners.
35 6. A commandline option to write a comment into the logfile.
37 7. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_SOCKS feature enabled, the smtp transport can
38 be configured to make connections via socks5 proxies.
40 8. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, support is included for
41 the transmission of UTF-8 envelope addresses.
43 9. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_INTERNATIONAL, an expansion item for a commonly
44 used encoding of Maildir folder names.
46 10. A logging option for slow DNS lookups.
48 11. New ${env {<variable>}} expansion.
50 12. A non-SMTP authenticator using information from TLS client certificates.
52 13. Main option "tls_eccurve" for selecting an Elliptic Curve for TLS.
53 Patch originally by Wolfgang Breyha.
55 14. Main option "dns_trust_aa" for trusting your local nameserver at the
62 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
63 DANE smtp draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
64 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
67 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
68 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
69 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
70 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
71 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
72 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
74 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
75 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
76 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
86 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
87 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
88 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
89 proxy that is connecting to it.
91 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
92 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
93 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
94 detect and reject if those characters are present.
96 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
97 codepoints with valid ones.
99 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
100 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
101 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
102 be included in the command line.
104 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
105 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
106 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
107 verification cancels the encryption.
109 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
110 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
113 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
114 file when searching the queue.
116 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
118 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
120 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
121 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
122 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
125 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
127 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
129 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
130 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negociate
131 DSN features per RFC 3461.
137 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
138 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
139 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
140 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
141 SIEVE capability line.
143 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
144 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
145 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
146 followed by a newline, and no other text.
148 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
149 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
150 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
151 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
152 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
153 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
154 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
155 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
157 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
159 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
160 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
161 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
162 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
163 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
164 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
166 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
168 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
169 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
170 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
172 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
173 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
175 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
176 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
178 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
179 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
180 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
181 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
184 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
185 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are recieved on and
186 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
187 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
188 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
189 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
190 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
191 is negociated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
192 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
193 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
194 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
195 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
198 The Recieved-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
199 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
200 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
201 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
203 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
204 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
205 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
207 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
208 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
209 are present for now but deprecated.
211 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
213 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
214 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
216 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
217 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
218 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
219 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
220 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
221 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
222 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
223 unless this new option is set.
225 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
226 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
227 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
230 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
232 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
233 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
234 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
235 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
236 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
237 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
238 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
239 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
240 return results in a forced fail.
242 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
243 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
245 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
246 handled by routers/transports.
248 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
249 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
251 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
252 modifier (but not yet added to messsage).
254 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
256 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
258 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
259 particularly for debug_print as -bt commandline option does not
260 require privilege whereas -d does.
262 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
263 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
265 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
266 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
267 wrappers, for instance.
269 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
272 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
273 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
274 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
275 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
276 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
277 dmarc_enable_forensic.
279 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
280 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
281 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
283 23. New ACL modifer "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
286 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
287 characters in the string to \xNN form.
289 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
290 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
292 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
298 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
299 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
300 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
301 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
302 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
304 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
305 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
306 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
307 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
309 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
310 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
311 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
312 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
313 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
315 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
316 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
318 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
320 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
321 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
322 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
325 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
327 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
328 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
329 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
330 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
331 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
332 compatibility at the cost of session security.
334 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
335 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
336 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
337 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
338 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
340 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
341 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
343 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
344 for Exim as a server.
346 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
347 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
348 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
349 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
350 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
352 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
353 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
354 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
355 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
356 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
358 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
359 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
361 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
362 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
363 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
364 string, documentation for which is at:
365 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
367 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
369 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
370 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
372 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
373 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
374 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
375 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
376 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
378 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
380 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
381 identically to TXT record lookups.
383 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
385 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
386 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
387 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
389 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
390 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
391 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
392 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
395 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
396 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
397 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
403 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
404 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
406 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
407 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
409 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
410 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
412 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
413 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
414 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
416 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
417 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
418 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
419 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
425 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
426 or off in the resolver library.
432 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
433 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
434 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
435 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
436 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
438 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
439 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
440 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
442 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
443 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
445 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
446 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
447 including any header additions or removals from transport.
449 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
450 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
456 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
457 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
458 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
459 on content supplied by the attacker.
461 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
462 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
463 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
464 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
465 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
471 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
472 items below carefully
474 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
475 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
476 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
477 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
478 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
479 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
482 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
483 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
484 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
485 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
486 be able to take effect.
488 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
489 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
490 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
491 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
493 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
494 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
495 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
496 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
498 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
500 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
502 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
503 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
504 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
505 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
506 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
507 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
509 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
510 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
512 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
514 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
515 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
517 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
518 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
519 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
520 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
521 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
522 don't all make sense in all contexts:
525 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
526 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
527 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
529 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
530 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
531 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
532 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
533 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
534 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
535 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
536 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
537 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
538 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
541 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
542 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
543 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
545 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
547 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
549 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
550 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
551 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
552 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
553 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
556 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
557 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
559 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
560 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
561 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
562 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
563 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
564 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
566 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
567 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
568 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
569 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
570 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
571 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
572 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
573 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
579 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
580 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
582 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
584 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
585 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
588 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
589 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
590 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
591 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
592 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
593 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
594 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
595 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
596 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
597 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
599 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
600 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
602 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
603 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
604 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
610 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
611 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
612 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
613 for details on conditionally disabling)
615 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
617 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
618 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
619 and{} expansion operator).
621 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
624 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
625 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
627 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
628 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
629 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
631 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
632 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
633 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
634 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
636 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
639 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
645 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
651 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
654 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
655 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
656 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
659 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
661 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
662 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
663 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
666 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
668 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
669 192.168.6.7 (for example).
671 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
672 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
673 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
674 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
676 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
678 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
679 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
680 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
683 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
684 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
685 only by an admin user.
687 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
688 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
689 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
690 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
691 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
693 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
694 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
699 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
701 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
702 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
703 (max $sender_rate_limit)
705 [... some other logic and tests...]
707 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
708 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
709 (max $sender_rate_limit)
710 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
714 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
715 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
716 line termination character(s).
718 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
719 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
720 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
722 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
723 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
724 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
725 message is queued, the remainder are also.
727 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
728 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
729 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
730 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
731 log files) that make the situation even worse.
733 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
734 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
735 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
737 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
738 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
739 connection. The possible values are:
741 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
742 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
743 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
744 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
745 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
746 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
747 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
748 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
749 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
750 tls-failed TLS failed to start
752 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
753 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
754 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
755 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
756 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
759 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
760 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
761 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
763 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
764 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
765 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
767 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
769 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
770 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
771 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
773 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
774 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
775 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
777 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
779 In an updating lookup, you could then write
781 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
783 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
785 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
787 you can still update the master by
789 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
791 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
792 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
793 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
800 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
801 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
802 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
805 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
806 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
807 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
808 rather than the default "any" matching.
810 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
811 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
812 other parameters to be varied.
814 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
815 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
817 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
819 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
821 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
822 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
824 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
825 after the connection to the server has been made.
827 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
828 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
830 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
831 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
834 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
835 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
836 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
837 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
838 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
840 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
841 called forany and forall.
843 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
844 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
845 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
847 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
849 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
850 that makes it case-sensitive.
852 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
853 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
854 items, typically addresses.
856 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
857 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
858 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
861 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
862 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
864 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
867 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
874 No new features were added to 4.66.
880 No new features were added to 4.65.
886 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
887 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
888 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
891 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
892 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
894 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
895 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
896 number of authentication methods.
898 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
899 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
900 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
902 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
903 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
904 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
905 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
907 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
909 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
910 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
911 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
912 before doing the expansions.
914 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
915 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
918 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
919 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
920 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
922 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
923 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
925 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
926 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
927 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
928 available for compatibility.)
930 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
931 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
937 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
940 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
941 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
944 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
945 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
946 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
948 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
949 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
951 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
953 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
954 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
956 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
958 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
960 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
961 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
962 each messages value for each variable.
964 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
965 same criteria without --not).
971 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
972 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
973 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
974 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
975 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
976 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
978 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
980 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
981 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
982 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
985 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
986 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
987 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
989 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
990 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
991 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
992 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
998 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
999 the 4.60 release are:
1001 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
1003 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
1005 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
1006 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
1007 for other things in complicated expansions.
1009 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
1011 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
1012 resources used in pipe deliveries.
1014 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
1016 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
1018 There are a number of other additions too.
1024 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
1025 the 4.50 release are:
1027 . Support for SQLite.
1029 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
1031 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
1033 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
1035 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
1037 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
1039 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
1041 There are many more minor changes.