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. Support for using the system standard CA bundle.
14 2. New expansion items $config_file, $config_dir, containing the file
15 and directory name of the main configuration file. Also $exim_version.
20 1. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_DANE feature enabled, Exim will follow the
21 DANE smtp draft to assess a secure chain of trust of the certificate
22 used to establish the TLS connection based on a TLSA record in the
25 2. The EXPERIMENTAL_TPDA feature has been renamed to EXPERIMENTAL_EVENT
26 and several new events have been created. The reason is because it has
27 been expanded beyond just firing events during the transport phase. Any
28 existing TPDA transport options will have to be rewritten to use a new
29 $event_name expansion variable in a condition. Refer to the
30 experimental-spec.txt for details and examples.
32 3. The EXPERIMENTAL_CERTNAMES features is an enhancement to verify that
33 server certs used for TLS match the result of the MX lookup. It does
34 not use the same mechanism as DANE.
44 1. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_PROXY feature enabled, Exim can be
45 configured to expect an initial header from a proxy that will make the
46 actual external source IP:host be used in exim instead of the IP of the
47 proxy that is connecting to it.
49 2. New verify option header_names_ascii, which will check to make sure
50 there are no non-ASCII characters in header names. Exim itself handles
51 those non-ASCII characters, but downstream apps may not, so Exim can
52 detect and reject if those characters are present.
54 3. New expansion operator ${utf8clean:string} to replace malformed UTF8
55 codepoints with valid ones.
57 4. New malware type "sock". Talks over a Unix or TCP socket, sending one
58 command line and matching a regex against the return data for trigger
59 and a second regex to extract malware_name. The mail spoolfile name can
60 be included in the command line.
62 5. The smtp transport now supports options "tls_verify_hosts" and
63 "tls_try_verify_hosts". If either is set the certificate verification
64 is split from the encryption operation. The default remains that a failed
65 verification cancels the encryption.
67 6. New SERVERS override of default ldap server list. In the ACLs, an ldap
68 lookup can now set a list of servers to use that is different from the
71 7. New command-line option -C for exiqgrep to specify alternate exim.conf
72 file when searching the queue.
74 8. OCSP now supports GnuTLS also, if you have version 3.1.3 or later of that.
76 9. Support for DNSSEC on outbound connections.
78 10. New variables "tls_(in,out)_(our,peer)cert" and expansion item
79 "certextract" to extract fields from them. Hash operators md5 and sha1
80 work over them for generating fingerprints, and a new sha256 operator
83 11. PRDR is now supported dy default.
85 12. OCSP stapling is now supported by default.
87 13. If built with the EXPERIMENTAL_DSN feature enabled, Exim will output
88 Delivery Status Notification messages in MIME format, and negociate
89 DSN features per RFC 3461.
95 1. New command-line option -bI:sieve will list all supported sieve extensions
96 of this Exim build on standard output, one per line.
97 ManageSieve (RFC 5804) providers managing scripts for use by Exim should
98 query this to establish the correct list to include in the protocol's
99 SIEVE capability line.
101 2. If the -n option is combined with the -bP option, then the name of an
102 emitted option is not output, only the value (if visible to you).
103 For instance, "exim -n -bP pid_file_path" should just emit a pathname
104 followed by a newline, and no other text.
106 3. When built with SUPPORT_TLS and USE_GNUTLS, the SMTP transport driver now
107 has a "tls_dh_min_bits" option, to set the minimum acceptable number of
108 bits in the Diffie-Hellman prime offered by a server (in DH ciphersuites)
109 acceptable for security. (Option accepted but ignored if using OpenSSL).
110 Defaults to 1024, the old value. May be lowered only to 512, or raised as
111 far as you like. Raising this may hinder TLS interoperability with other
112 sites and is not currently recommended. Lowering this will permit you to
113 establish a TLS session which is not as secure as you might like.
115 Unless you really know what you are doing, leave it alone.
117 4. If not built with DISABLE_DNSSEC, Exim now has the main option
118 dns_dnssec_ok; if set to 1 then Exim will initialise the resolver library
119 to send the DO flag to your recursive resolver. If you have a recursive
120 resolver, which can set the Authenticated Data (AD) flag in results, Exim
121 can now detect this. Exim does not perform validation itself, instead
122 relying upon a trusted path to the resolver.
124 Current status: work-in-progress; $sender_host_dnssec variable added.
126 5. DSCP support for outbound connections: on a transport using the smtp driver,
127 set "dscp = ef", for instance, to cause the connections to have the relevant
128 DSCP (IPv4 TOS or IPv6 TCLASS) value in the header.
130 Similarly for inbound connections, there is a new control modifier, dscp,
131 so "warn control = dscp/ef" in the connect ACL, or after authentication.
133 Supported values depend upon system libraries. "exim -bI:dscp" to list the
134 ones Exim knows of. You can also set a raw number 0..0x3F.
136 6. The -G command-line flag is no longer ignored; it is now equivalent to an
137 ACL setting "control = suppress_local_fixups". The -L command-line flag
138 is now accepted and forces use of syslog, with the provided tag as the
139 process name. A few other flags used by Sendmail are now accepted and
142 7. New cutthrough routing feature. Requested by a "control = cutthrough_delivery"
143 ACL modifier; works for single-recipient mails which are recieved on and
144 deliverable via SMTP. Using the connection made for a recipient verify,
145 if requested before the verify, or a new one made for the purpose while
146 the inbound connection is still active. The bulk of the mail item is copied
147 direct from the inbound socket to the outbound (as well as the spool file).
148 When the source notifies the end of data, the data acceptance by the destination
149 is negociated before the acceptance is sent to the source. If the destination
150 does not accept the mail item, for example due to content-scanning, the item
151 is not accepted from the source and therefore there is no need to generate
152 a bounce mail. This is of benefit when providing a secondary-MX service.
153 The downside is that delays are under the control of the ultimate destination
156 The Recieved-by: header on items delivered by cutthrough is generated
157 early in reception rather than at the end; this will affect any timestamp
158 included. The log line showing delivery is recorded before that showing
159 reception; it uses a new ">>" tag instead of "=>".
161 To support the feature, verify-callout connections can now use ESMTP and TLS.
162 The usual smtp transport options are honoured, plus a (new, default everything)
163 hosts_verify_avoid_tls.
165 New variable families named tls_in_cipher, tls_out_cipher etc. are introduced
166 for specific access to the information for each connection. The old names
167 are present for now but deprecated.
169 Not yet supported: IGNOREQUOTA, SIZE, PIPELINING.
171 8. New expansion operators ${listnamed:name} to get the content of a named list
172 and ${listcount:string} to count the items in a list.
174 9. New global option "gnutls_allow_auto_pkcs11", defaults false. The GnuTLS
175 rewrite in 4.80 combines with GnuTLS 2.12.0 or later, to autoload PKCS11
176 modules. For some situations this is desirable, but we expect admin in
177 those situations to know they want the feature. More commonly, it means
178 that GUI user modules get loaded and are broken by the setuid Exim being
179 unable to access files specified in environment variables and passed
180 through, thus breakage. So we explicitly inhibit the PKCS11 initialisation
181 unless this new option is set.
183 Some older OS's with earlier versions of GnuTLS might not have pkcs11 ability,
184 so have also added a build option which can be used to build Exim with GnuTLS
185 but without trying to use any kind of PKCS11 support. Uncomment this in the
188 AVOID_GNUTLS_PKCS11=yes
190 10. The "acl = name" condition on an ACL now supports optional arguments.
191 New expansion item "${acl {name}{arg}...}" and expansion condition
192 "acl {{name}{arg}...}" are added. In all cases up to nine arguments
193 can be used, appearing in $acl_arg1 to $acl_arg9 for the called ACL.
194 Variable $acl_narg contains the number of arguments. If the ACL sets
195 a "message =" value this becomes the result of the expansion item,
196 or the value of $value for the expansion condition. If the ACL returns
197 accept the expansion condition is true; if reject, false. A defer
198 return results in a forced fail.
200 11. Routers and transports can now have multiple headers_add and headers_remove
201 option lines. The concatenated list is used.
203 12. New ACL modifier "remove_header" can remove headers before message gets
204 handled by routers/transports.
206 13. New dnsdb lookup pseudo-type "a+". A sequence of "a6" (if configured),
207 "aaaa" and "a" lookups is done and the full set of results returned.
209 14. New expansion variable $headers_added with content from ACL add_header
210 modifier (but not yet added to messsage).
212 15. New 8bitmime status logging option for received messages. Log field "M8S".
214 16. New authenticated_sender logging option, adding to log field "A".
216 17. New expansion variables $router_name and $transport_name. Useful
217 particularly for debug_print as -bt commandline option does not
218 require privilege whereas -d does.
220 18. If built with EXPERIMENTAL_PRDR, per-recipient data responses per a
221 proposed extension to SMTP from Eric Hall.
223 19. The pipe transport has gained the force_command option, to allow
224 decorating commands from user .forward pipe aliases with prefix
225 wrappers, for instance.
227 20. Callout connections can now AUTH; the same controls as normal delivery
230 21. Support for DMARC, using opendmarc libs, can be enabled. It adds new
231 options: dmarc_forensic_sender, dmarc_history_file, and dmarc_tld_file.
232 It adds new expansion variables $dmarc_ar_header, $dmarc_status,
233 $dmarc_status_text, and $dmarc_used_domain. It adds a new acl modifier
234 dmarc_status. It adds new control flags dmarc_disable_verify and
235 dmarc_enable_forensic.
237 22. Add expansion variable $authenticated_fail_id, which is the username
238 provided to the authentication method which failed. It is available
239 for use in subsequent ACL processing (typically quit or notquit ACLs).
241 23. New ACL modifer "udpsend" can construct a UDP packet to send to a given
244 24. New ${hexquote:..string..} expansion operator converts non-printable
245 characters in the string to \xNN form.
247 25. Experimental TPDA (Transport Post Delivery Action) function added.
248 Patch provided by Axel Rau.
250 26. Experimental Redis lookup added. Patch provided by Warren Baker.
256 1. New authenticator driver, "gsasl". Server-only (at present).
257 This is a SASL interface, licensed under GPL, which can be found at
258 http://www.gnu.org/software/gsasl/.
259 This system does not provide sources of data for authentication, so
260 careful use needs to be made of the conditions in Exim.
262 2. New authenticator driver, "heimdal_gssapi". Server-only.
263 A replacement for using cyrus_sasl with Heimdal, now that $KRB5_KTNAME
264 is no longer honoured for setuid programs by Heimdal. Use the
265 "server_keytab" option to point to the keytab.
267 3. The "pkg-config" system can now be used when building Exim to reference
268 cflags and library information for lookups and authenticators, rather
269 than having to update "CFLAGS", "AUTH_LIBS", "LOOKUP_INCLUDE" and
270 "LOOKUP_LIBS" directly. Similarly for handling the TLS library support
271 without adjusting "TLS_INCLUDE" and "TLS_LIBS".
273 In addition, setting PCRE_CONFIG=yes will query the pcre-config tool to
274 find the headers and libraries for PCRE.
276 4. New expansion variable $tls_bits.
278 5. New lookup type, "dbmjz". Key is an Exim list, the elements of which will
279 be joined together with ASCII NUL characters to construct the key to pass
280 into the DBM library. Can be used with gsasl to access sasldb2 files as
283 6. OpenSSL now supports TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 with OpenSSL 1.0.1.
285 Avoid release 1.0.1a if you can. Note that the default value of
286 "openssl_options" is no longer "+dont_insert_empty_fragments", as that
287 increased susceptibility to attack. This may still have interoperability
288 implications for very old clients (see version 4.31 change 37) but
289 administrators can choose to make the trade-off themselves and restore
290 compatibility at the cost of session security.
292 7. Use of the new expansion variable $tls_sni in the main configuration option
293 tls_certificate will cause Exim to re-expand the option, if the client
294 sends the TLS Server Name Indication extension, to permit choosing a
295 different certificate; tls_privatekey will also be re-expanded. You must
296 still set these options to expand to valid files when $tls_sni is not set.
298 The SMTP Transport has gained the option tls_sni, which will set a hostname
299 for outbound TLS sessions, and set $tls_sni too.
301 A new log_selector, +tls_sni, has been added, to log received SNI values
302 for Exim as a server.
304 8. The existing "accept_8bitmime" option now defaults to true. This means
305 that Exim is deliberately not strictly RFC compliant. We're following
306 Dan Bernstein's advice in http://cr.yp.to/smtp/8bitmime.html by default.
307 Those who disagree, or know that they are talking to mail servers that,
308 even today, are not 8-bit clean, need to turn off this option.
310 9. Exim can now be started with -bw (with an optional timeout, given as
311 -bw<timespec>). With this, stdin at startup is a socket that is
312 already listening for connections. This has a more modern name of
313 "socket activation", but forcing the activated socket to fd 0. We're
314 interested in adding more support for modern variants.
316 10. ${eval } now uses 64-bit values on supporting platforms. A new "G" suffix
317 for numbers indicates multiplication by 1024^3.
319 11. The GnuTLS support has been revamped; the three options gnutls_require_kx,
320 gnutls_require_mac & gnutls_require_protocols are no longer supported.
321 tls_require_ciphers is now parsed by gnutls_priority_init(3) as a priority
322 string, documentation for which is at:
323 http://www.gnutls.org/manual/html_node/Priority-Strings.html
325 SNI support has been added to Exim's GnuTLS integration too.
327 For sufficiently recent GnuTLS libraries, ${randint:..} will now use
328 gnutls_rnd(), asking for GNUTLS_RND_NONCE level randomness.
330 12. With OpenSSL, if built with EXPERIMENTAL_OCSP, a new option tls_ocsp_file
331 is now available. If the contents of the file are valid, then Exim will
332 send that back in response to a TLS status request; this is OCSP Stapling.
333 Exim will not maintain the contents of the file in any way: administrators
334 are responsible for ensuring that it is up-to-date.
336 See "experimental-spec.txt" for more details.
338 13. ${lookup dnsdb{ }} supports now SPF record types. They are handled
339 identically to TXT record lookups.
341 14. New expansion variable $tod_epoch_l for higher-precision time.
343 15. New global option tls_dh_max_bits, defaulting to current value of NSS
344 hard-coded limit of DH ephemeral bits, to fix interop problems caused by
345 GnuTLS 2.12 library recommending a bit count higher than NSS supports.
347 16. tls_dhparam now used by both OpenSSL and GnuTLS, can be path or identifier.
348 Option can now be a path or an identifier for a standard prime.
349 If unset, we use the DH prime from section 2.2 of RFC 5114, "ike23".
350 Set to "historic" to get the old GnuTLS behaviour of auto-generated DH
353 17. SSLv2 now disabled by default in OpenSSL. (Never supported by GnuTLS).
354 Use "openssl_options -no_sslv2" to re-enable support, if your OpenSSL
355 install was not built with OPENSSL_NO_SSL2 ("no-ssl2").
361 1. New options for the ratelimit ACL condition: /count= and /unique=.
362 The /noupdate option has been replaced by a /readonly option.
364 2. The SMTP transport's protocol option may now be set to "smtps", to
365 use SSL-on-connect outbound.
367 3. New variable $av_failed, set true if the AV scanner deferred; ie, when
368 there is a problem talking to the AV scanner, or the AV scanner running.
370 4. New expansion conditions, "inlist" and "inlisti", which take simple lists
371 and check if the search item is a member of the list. This does not
372 support named lists, but does subject the list part to string expansion.
374 5. Unless the new EXPAND_LISTMATCH_RHS build option is set when Exim was
375 built, Exim no longer performs string expansion on the second string of
376 the match_* expansion conditions: "match_address", "match_domain",
377 "match_ip" & "match_local_part". Named lists can still be used.
383 1. The global option "dns_use_edns0" may be set to coerce EDNS0 usage on
384 or off in the resolver library.
390 1. In addition to the existing LDAP and LDAP/SSL ("ldaps") support, there
391 is now LDAP/TLS support, given sufficiently modern OpenLDAP client
392 libraries. The following global options have been added in support of
393 this: ldap_ca_cert_dir, ldap_ca_cert_file, ldap_cert_file, ldap_cert_key,
394 ldap_cipher_suite, ldap_require_cert, ldap_start_tls.
396 2. The pipe transport now takes a boolean option, "freeze_signal", default
397 false. When true, if the external delivery command exits on a signal then
398 Exim will freeze the message in the queue, instead of generating a bounce.
400 3. Log filenames may now use %M as an escape, instead of %D (still available).
401 The %M pattern expands to yyyymm, providing month-level resolution.
403 4. The $message_linecount variable is now updated for the maildir_tag option,
404 in the same way as $message_size, to reflect the real number of lines,
405 including any header additions or removals from transport.
407 5. When contacting a pool of SpamAssassin servers configured in spamd_address,
408 Exim now selects entries randomly, to better scale in a cluster setup.
414 1. SECURITY FIX: privilege escalation flaw fixed. On Linux (and only Linux)
415 the flaw permitted the Exim run-time user to cause root to append to
416 arbitrary files of the attacker's choosing, with the content based
417 on content supplied by the attacker.
419 2. Exim now supports loading some lookup types at run-time, using your
420 platform's dlopen() functionality. This has limited platform support
421 and the intention is not to support every variant, it's limited to
422 dlopen(). This permits the main Exim binary to not be linked against
423 all the libraries needed for all the lookup types.
429 NOTE: this version is not guaranteed backwards-compatible, please read the
430 items below carefully
432 1. A new main configuration option, "openssl_options", is available if Exim
433 is built with SSL support provided by OpenSSL. The option allows
434 administrators to specify OpenSSL options to be used on connections;
435 typically this is to set bug compatibility features which the OpenSSL
436 developers have not enabled by default. There may be security
437 consequences for certain options, so these should not be changed
440 2. A new pipe transport option, "permit_coredumps", may help with problem
441 diagnosis in some scenarios. Note that Exim is typically installed as
442 a setuid binary, which on most OSes will inhibit coredumps by default,
443 so that safety mechanism would have to be overridden for this option to
444 be able to take effect.
446 3. ClamAV 0.95 is now required for ClamAV support in Exim, unless
447 Local/Makefile sets: WITH_OLD_CLAMAV_STREAM=yes
448 Note that this switches Exim to use a new API ("INSTREAM") and a future
449 release of ClamAV will remove support for the old API ("STREAM").
451 The av_scanner option, when set to "clamd", now takes an optional third
452 part, "local", which causes Exim to pass a filename to ClamAV instead of
453 the file content. This is the same behaviour as when clamd is pointed at
454 a Unix-domain socket. For example:
456 av_scanner = clamd:192.0.2.3 1234:local
458 ClamAV's ExtendedDetectionInfo response format is now handled.
460 4. There is now a -bmalware option, restricted to admin users. This option
461 takes one parameter, a filename, and scans that file with Exim's
462 malware-scanning framework. This is intended purely as a debugging aid
463 to ensure that Exim's scanning is working, not to replace other tools.
464 Note that the ACL framework is not invoked, so if av_scanner references
465 ACL variables without a fallback then this will fail.
467 5. There is a new expansion operator, "reverse_ip", which will reverse IP
468 addresses; IPv4 into dotted quad, IPv6 into dotted nibble. Examples:
470 ${reverse_ip:192.0.2.4}
472 ${reverse_ip:2001:0db8:c42:9:1:abcd:192.0.2.3}
473 -> 3.0.2.0.0.0.0.c.d.c.b.a.1.0.0.0.9.0.0.0.2.4.c.0.8.b.d.0.1.0.0.2
475 6. There is a new ACL control called "debug", to enable debug logging.
476 This allows selective logging of certain incoming transactions within
477 production environments, with some care. It takes two options, "tag"
478 and "opts"; "tag" is included in the filename of the log and "opts"
479 is used as per the -d<options> command-line option. Examples, which
480 don't all make sense in all contexts:
483 control = debug/tag=.$sender_host_address
484 control = debug/opts=+expand+acl
485 control = debug/tag=.$message_exim_id/opts=+expand
487 7. It has always been implicit in the design and the documentation that
488 "the Exim user" is not root. src/EDITME said that using root was
489 "very strongly discouraged". This is not enough to keep people from
490 shooting themselves in the foot in days when many don't configure Exim
491 themselves but via package build managers. The security consequences of
492 running various bits of network code are severe if there should be bugs in
493 them. As such, the Exim user may no longer be root. If configured
494 statically, Exim will refuse to build. If configured as ref:user then Exim
495 will exit shortly after start-up. If you must shoot yourself in the foot,
496 then henceforth you will have to maintain your own local patches to strip
499 8. There is a new expansion condition, bool_lax{}. Where bool{} uses the ACL
500 condition logic to determine truth/failure and will fail to expand many
501 strings, bool_lax{} uses the router condition logic, where most strings
503 Note: bool{00} is false, bool_lax{00} is true.
505 9. Routers now support multiple "condition" tests.
507 10. There is now a runtime configuration option "tcp_wrappers_daemon_name".
508 Setting this allows an admin to define which entry in the tcpwrappers
509 config file will be used to control access to the daemon. This option
510 is only available when Exim is built with USE_TCP_WRAPPERS. The
511 default value is set at build time using the TCP_WRAPPERS_DAEMON_NAME
514 11. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The default value for system_filter_user is now
515 the Exim run-time user, instead of root.
517 12. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] ALT_CONFIG_ROOT_ONLY is no longer optional and
518 is forced on. This is mitigated by the new build option
519 TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST which defines a list of configuration files which
520 are trusted; one per line. If a config file is owned by root and matches
521 a pathname in the list, then it may be invoked by the Exim build-time
522 user without Exim relinquishing root privileges.
524 13. [POSSIBLE CONFIG BREAKAGE] The Exim user is no longer automatically
525 trusted to supply -D<Macro[=Value]> overrides on the command-line. Going
526 forward, we recommend using TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST with shim configs that
527 include the main config. As a transition mechanism, we are temporarily
528 providing a work-around: the new build option WHITELIST_D_MACROS provides
529 a colon-separated list of macro names which may be overridden by the Exim
530 run-time user. The values of these macros are constrained to the regex
531 ^[A-Za-z0-9_/.-]*$ (which explicitly does allow for empty values).
537 1. TWO SECURITY FIXES: one relating to mail-spools which are globally
538 writable, the other to locking of MBX folders (not mbox).
540 2. MySQL stored procedures are now supported.
542 3. The dkim_domain transport option is now a list, not a single string, and
543 messages will be signed for each element in the list (discarding
546 4. The 4.70 release unexpectedly changed the behaviour of dnsdb TXT lookups
547 in the presence of multiple character strings within the RR. Prior to 4.70,
548 only the first string would be returned. The dnsdb lookup now, by default,
549 preserves the pre-4.70 semantics, but also now takes an extended output
550 separator specification. The separator can be followed by a semicolon, to
551 concatenate the individual text strings together with no join character,
552 or by a comma and a second separator character, in which case the text
553 strings within a TXT record are joined on that second character.
554 Administrators are reminded that DNS provides no ordering guarantees
555 between multiple records in an RRset. For example:
557 foo.example. IN TXT "a" "b" "c"
558 foo.example. IN TXT "d" "e" "f"
560 ${lookup dnsdb{>/ txt=foo.example}} -> "a/d"
561 ${lookup dnsdb{>/; txt=foo.example}} -> "def/abc"
562 ${lookup dnsdb{>/,+ txt=foo.example}} -> "a+b+c/d+e+f"
568 1. Native DKIM support without an external library.
569 (Note that if no action to prevent it is taken, a straight upgrade will
570 result in DKIM verification of all signed incoming emails. See spec
571 for details on conditionally disabling)
573 2. Experimental DCC support via dccifd (contributed by Wolfgang Breyha).
575 3. There is now a bool{} expansion condition which maps certain strings to
576 true/false condition values (most likely of use in conjunction with the
577 and{} expansion operator).
579 4. The $spam_score, $spam_bar and $spam_report variables are now available
582 5. exim -bP now supports "macros", "macro_list" or "macro MACRO_NAME" as
583 options, provided that Exim is invoked by an admin_user.
585 6. There is a new option gnutls_compat_mode, when linked against GnuTLS,
586 which increases compatibility with older clients at the cost of decreased
587 security. Don't set this unless you need to support such clients.
589 7. There is a new expansion operator, ${randint:...} which will produce a
590 "random" number less than the supplied integer. This randomness is
591 not guaranteed to be cryptographically strong, but depending upon how
592 Exim was built may be better than the most naive schemes.
594 8. Exim now explicitly ensures that SHA256 is available when linked against
597 9. The transport_filter_timeout option now applies to SMTP transports too.
603 1. Preliminary DKIM support in Experimental.
609 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
612 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
613 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
614 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
617 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
619 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
620 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
621 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
624 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
626 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
627 192.168.6.7 (for example).
629 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
630 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
631 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
632 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
634 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
636 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
637 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
638 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
641 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
642 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
643 only by an admin user.
645 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
646 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
647 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
648 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
649 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
651 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
652 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
657 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
659 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
660 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
661 (max $sender_rate_limit)
663 [... some other logic and tests...]
665 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
666 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
667 (max $sender_rate_limit)
668 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
672 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
673 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
674 line termination character(s).
676 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
677 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
678 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
680 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
681 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
682 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
683 message is queued, the remainder are also.
685 9. There is a new ACL, specified by acl_smtp_notquit, which is run in most
686 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
687 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
688 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
689 log files) that make the situation even worse.
691 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
692 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
693 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
695 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
696 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
697 connection. The possible values are:
699 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
700 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
701 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
702 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
703 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
704 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
705 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
706 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
707 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
708 tls-failed TLS failed to start
710 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
711 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
712 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
713 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
714 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
717 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
718 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
719 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
721 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
722 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
723 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
725 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
727 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
728 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
729 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
731 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
732 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
733 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
735 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
737 In an updating lookup, you could then write
739 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
741 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
743 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
745 you can still update the master by
747 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
749 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
750 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
751 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
758 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
759 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
760 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
763 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
764 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
765 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
766 rather than the default "any" matching.
768 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
769 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
770 other parameters to be varied.
772 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
773 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
775 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
777 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
779 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
780 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
782 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
783 after the connection to the server has been made.
785 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
786 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
788 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
789 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
792 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
793 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
794 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
795 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
796 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
798 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
799 called forany and forall.
801 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
802 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
803 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
805 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
807 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
808 that makes it case-sensitive.
810 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
811 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
812 items, typically addresses.
814 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
815 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
816 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
819 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
820 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
822 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
825 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
832 No new features were added to 4.66.
838 No new features were added to 4.65.
844 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
845 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
846 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
849 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
850 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
852 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
853 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
854 number of authentication methods.
856 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
857 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
858 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
860 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
861 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
862 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
863 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
865 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
867 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
868 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
869 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
870 before doing the expansions.
872 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
873 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
876 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
877 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
878 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
880 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
881 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
883 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
884 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
885 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
886 available for compatibility.)
888 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
889 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
895 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
898 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
899 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
902 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
903 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
904 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
906 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
907 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
909 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
911 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
912 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
914 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
916 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
918 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
919 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
920 each messages value for each variable.
922 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
923 same criteria without --not).
929 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
930 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
931 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
932 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
933 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
934 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
936 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
938 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
939 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
940 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
943 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
944 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
945 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
947 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
948 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
949 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
950 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
956 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
957 the 4.60 release are:
959 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
961 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
963 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
964 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
965 for other things in complicated expansions.
967 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
969 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
970 resources used in pipe deliveries.
972 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
974 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
976 There are a number of other additions too.
982 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
983 the 4.50 release are:
985 . Support for SQLite.
987 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
989 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
991 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
993 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
995 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
997 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
999 There are many more minor changes.