1 $Cambridge: exim/doc/doc-txt/NewStuff,v 1.157 2007/08/23 11:01:49 ph10 Exp $
6 This file contains descriptions of new features that have been added to Exim.
7 Before a formal release, there may be quite a lot of detail so that people can
8 test from the snapshots or the CVS before the documentation is updated. Once
9 the documentation is updated, this file is reduced to a short list.
14 1. The body_linecount and body_zerocount C variables are now exported in the
17 2. When a dnslists lookup succeeds, the key that was looked up is now placed
18 in $dnslist_matched. When the key is an IP address, it is not reversed in
19 this variable (though it is, of course, in the actual lookup). In simple
22 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example
24 the key is also available in another variable (in this case,
25 $sender_host_address). In more complicated cases, however, this is not
26 true. For example, using a data lookup might generate a dnslists lookup
29 deny dnslists = spamhaus.example/<|192.168.1.2|192.168.6.7|...
31 If this condition succeeds, the value in $dnslist_matched might be
32 192.168.6.7 (for example).
34 3. Authenticators now have a client_condition option. When Exim is running as
35 a client, it skips an authenticator whose client_condition expansion yields
36 "0", "no", or "false". This can be used, for example, to skip plain text
37 authenticators when the connection is not encrypted by a setting such as:
39 client_condition = ${if !eq{$tls_cipher}{}}
41 Note that the 4.67 documentation states that $tls_cipher contains the
42 cipher used for incoming messages. In fact, during SMTP delivery, it
43 contains the cipher used for the delivery. The same is true for
46 4. There is now a -Mvc <message-id> option, which outputs a copy of the
47 message to the standard output, in RFC 2822 format. The option can be used
48 only by an admin user.
50 5. There is now a /noupdate option for the ratelimit ACL condition. It
51 computes the rate and checks the limit as normal, but it does not update
52 the saved data. This means that, in relevant ACLs, it is possible to lookup
53 the existence of a specified (or auto-generated) ratelimit key without
54 incrementing the ratelimit counter for that key.
56 In order for this to be useful, another ACL entry must set the rate
57 for the same key somewhere (otherwise it will always be zero).
62 # Read the rate; if it doesn't exist or is below the maximum
64 deny ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / noupdate
65 log_message = RATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
66 (max $sender_rate_limit)
68 [... some other logic and tests...]
70 warn ratelimit = 100 / 5m / strict / per_cmd
71 log_message = RATE UPDATE: $sender_rate / $sender_rate_period \
72 (max $sender_rate_limit)
73 condition = ${if le{$sender_rate}{$sender_rate_limit}}
77 6. The variable $max_received_linelength contains the number of bytes in the
78 longest line that was received as part of the message, not counting the
79 line termination character(s).
81 7. Host lists can now include +ignore_defer and +include_defer, analagous to
82 +ignore_unknown and +include_unknown. These options should be used with
83 care, probably only in non-critical host lists such as whitelists.
85 8. There's a new option called queue_only_load_latch, which defaults true.
86 If set false when queue_only_load is greater than zero, Exim re-evaluates
87 the load for each incoming message in an SMTP session. Otherwise, once one
88 message is queued, the remainder are also.
90 9. There is a new ACL, specified by smtp_notquit_acl, which is run in most
91 cases when an SMTP session ends without sending QUIT. However, when Exim
92 itself is is bad trouble, such as being unable to write to its log files,
93 this ACL is not run, because it might try to do things (such as write to
94 log files) that make the situation even worse.
96 Like the QUIT ACL, this new ACL is provided to make it possible to gather
97 statistics. Whatever it returns (accept or deny) is immaterial. The "delay"
98 modifier is forbidden in this ACL.
100 When the NOTQUIT ACL is running, the variable $smtp_notquit_reason is set
101 to a string that indicates the reason for the termination of the SMTP
102 connection. The possible values are:
104 acl-drop Another ACL issued a "drop" command
105 bad-commands Too many unknown or non-mail commands
106 command-timeout Timeout while reading SMTP commands
107 connection-lost The SMTP connection has been lost
108 data-timeout Timeout while reading message data
109 local-scan-error The local_scan() function crashed
110 local-scan-timeout The local_scan() function timed out
111 signal-exit SIGTERM or SIGINT
112 synchronization-error SMTP synchronization error
113 tls-failed TLS failed to start
115 In most cases when an SMTP connection is closed without having received
116 QUIT, Exim sends an SMTP response message before actually closing the
117 connection. With the exception of acl-drop, the default message can be
118 overridden by the "message" modifier in the NOTQUIT ACL. In the case of a
119 "drop" verb in another ACL, it is the message from the other ACL that is
122 10. For MySQL and PostgreSQL lookups, it is now possible to specify a list of
123 servers with individual queries. This is done by starting the query with
124 "servers=x:y:z;", where each item in the list may take one of two forms:
126 (1) If it is just a host name, the appropriate global option (mysql_servers
127 or pgsql_servers) is searched for a host of the same name, and the
128 remaining parameters (database, user, password) are taken from there.
130 (2) If it contains any slashes, it is taken as a complete parameter set.
132 The list of servers is used in exactly the same was as the global list.
133 Once a connection to a server has happened and a query has been
134 successfully executed, processing of the lookup ceases.
136 This feature is intended for use in master/slave situations where updates
137 are occurring, and one wants to update a master rather than a slave. If the
138 masters are in the list for reading, you might have:
140 mysql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw:master/db/name/pw
142 In an updating lookup, you could then write
144 ${lookup mysql{servers=master; UPDATE ...}
146 If, on the other hand, the master is not to be used for reading lookups:
148 pgsql_servers = slave1/db/name/pw:slave2/db/name/pw
150 you can still update the master by
152 ${lookup pgsql{servers=master/db/name/pw; UPDATE ...}
154 11. The message_body_newlines option (default FALSE, for backwards
155 compatibility) can be used to control whether newlines are present in
156 $message_body and $message_body_end. If it is FALSE, they are replaced by
163 1. There is a new log selector called smtp_no_mail, which is not included in
164 the default setting. When it is set, a line is written to the main log
165 whenever an accepted SMTP connection terminates without having issued a
168 2. When an item in a dnslists list is followed by = and & and a list of IP
169 addresses, the behaviour was not clear when the lookup returned more than
170 one IP address. This has been solved by the addition of == and =& for "all"
171 rather than the default "any" matching.
173 3. Up till now, the only control over which cipher suites GnuTLS uses has been
174 for the cipher algorithms. New options have been added to allow some of the
175 other parameters to be varied.
177 4. There is a new compile-time option called ENABLE_DISABLE_FSYNC. When it is
178 set, Exim compiles a runtime option called disable_fsync.
180 5. There is a new variable called $smtp_count_at_connection_start.
182 6. There's a new control called no_pipelining.
184 7. There are two new variables called $sending_ip_address and $sending_port.
185 These are set whenever an SMTP connection to another host has been set up.
187 8. The expansion of the helo_data option in the smtp transport now happens
188 after the connection to the server has been made.
190 9. There is a new expansion operator ${rfc2047d: that decodes strings that
191 are encoded as per RFC 2047.
193 10. There is a new log selector called "pid", which causes the current process
194 id to be added to every log line, in square brackets, immediately after the
197 11. Exim has been modified so that it flushes SMTP output before implementing
198 a delay in an ACL. It also flushes the output before performing a callout,
199 as this can take a substantial time. These behaviours can be disabled by
200 obeying control = no_delay_flush or control = no_callout_flush,
201 respectively, at some earlier stage of the connection.
203 12. There are two new expansion conditions that iterate over a list. They are
204 called forany and forall.
206 13. There's a new global option called dsn_from that can be used to vary the
207 contents of From: lines in bounces and other automatically generated
208 messages ("delivery status notifications" - hence the name of the option).
210 14. The smtp transport has a new option called hosts_avoid_pipelining.
212 15. By default, exigrep does case-insensitive matches. There is now a -I option
213 that makes it case-sensitive.
215 16. A number of new features ("addresses", "map", "filter", and "reduce") have
216 been added to string expansions to make it easier to process lists of
217 items, typically addresses.
219 17. There's a new ACL modifier called "continue". It does nothing of itself,
220 and processing of the ACL always continues with the next condition or
221 modifier. It is provided so that the side effects of expanding its argument
224 18. It is now possible to use newline and other control characters (those with
225 values less than 32, plus DEL) as separators in lists.
227 19. The exigrep utility now has a -v option, which inverts the matching
230 20. The host_find_failed option in the manualroute router can now be set to
237 No new features were added to 4.66.
243 No new features were added to 4.65.
249 1. ACL variables can now be given arbitrary names, as long as they start with
250 "acl_c" or "acl_m" (for connection variables and message variables), are at
251 least six characters long, with the sixth character being either a digit or
254 2. There is a new ACL modifier called log_reject_target. It makes it possible
255 to specify which logs are used for messages about ACL rejections.
257 3. There is a new authenticator called "dovecot". This is an interface to the
258 authentication facility of the Dovecot POP/IMAP server, which can support a
259 number of authentication methods.
261 4. The variable $message_headers_raw provides a concatenation of all the
262 messages's headers without any decoding. This is in contrast to
263 $message_headers, which does RFC2047 decoding on the header contents.
265 5. In a DNS black list, if two domain names, comma-separated, are given, the
266 second is used first to do an initial check, making use of any IP value
267 restrictions that are set. If there is a match, the first domain is used,
268 without any IP value restrictions, to get the TXT record.
270 6. All authenticators now have a server_condition option.
272 7. There is a new command-line option called -Mset. It is useful only in
273 conjunction with -be (that is, when testing string expansions). It must be
274 followed by a message id; Exim loads the given message from its spool
275 before doing the expansions.
277 8. Another similar new command-line option is called -bem. It operates like
278 -be except that it must be followed by the name of a file that contains a
281 9. When an address is delayed because of a 4xx response to a RCPT command, it
282 is now the combination of sender and recipient that is delayed in
283 subsequent queue runs until its retry time is reached.
285 10. Unary negation and the bitwise logical operators and, or, xor, not, and
286 shift, have been added to the eval: and eval10: expansion items.
288 11. The variables $interface_address and $interface_port have been renamed
289 as $received_ip_address and $received_port, to make it clear that they
290 relate to message reception rather than delivery. (The old names remain
291 available for compatibility.)
293 12. The "message" modifier can now be used on "accept" and "discard" acl verbs
294 to vary the message that is sent when an SMTP command is accepted.
300 1. There is a new Boolean option called filter_prepend_home for the redirect
303 2. There is a new acl, set by acl_not_smtp_start, which is run right at the
304 start of receiving a non-SMTP message, before any of the message has been
307 3. When an SMTP error message is specified in a "message" modifier in an ACL,
308 or in a :fail: or :defer: message in a redirect router, Exim now checks the
309 start of the message for an SMTP error code.
311 4. There is a new parameter for LDAP lookups called "referrals", which takes
312 one of the settings "follow" (the default) or "nofollow".
314 5. Version 20070721.2 of exipick now included, offering these new options:
316 After all other sorting options have bee processed, reverse order
317 before displaying messages (-R is synonym).
319 Randomize order of matching messages before displaying.
321 Instead of displaying the matching messages, display the sum
323 --sort <variable>[,<variable>...]
324 Before displaying matching messages, sort the messages according to
325 each messages value for each variable.
327 Negate the value for every test (returns inverse output from the
328 same criteria without --not).
334 1. The ${readsocket expansion item now supports Internet domain sockets as well
335 as Unix domain sockets. If the first argument begins "inet:", it must be of
336 the form "inet:host:port". The port is mandatory; it may be a number or the
337 name of a TCP port in /etc/services. The host may be a name, or it may be an
338 IP address. An ip address may optionally be enclosed in square brackets.
339 This is best for IPv6 addresses. For example:
341 ${readsocket{inet:[::1]:1234}{<request data>}...
343 Only a single host name may be given, but if looking it up yield more than
344 one IP address, they are each tried in turn until a connection is made. Once
345 a connection has been made, the behaviour is as for ${readsocket with a Unix
348 2. If a redirect router sets up file or pipe deliveries for more than one
349 incoming address, and the relevant transport has batch_max set greater than
350 one, a batch delivery now occurs.
352 3. The appendfile transport has a new option called maildirfolder_create_regex.
353 Its value is a regular expression. For a maildir delivery, this is matched
354 against the maildir directory; if it matches, Exim ensures that a
355 maildirfolder file is created alongside the new, cur, and tmp directories.
361 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.61 release. Major new features since
362 the 4.60 release are:
364 . An option called disable_ipv6, to disable the use of IPv6 completely.
366 . An increase in the number of ACL variables to 20 of each type.
368 . A change to use $auth1, $auth2, and $auth3 in authenticators instead of $1,
369 $2, $3, (though those are still set) because the numeric variables get used
370 for other things in complicated expansions.
372 . The default for rfc1413_query_timeout has been changed from 30s to 5s.
374 . It is possible to use setclassresources() on some BSD OS to control the
375 resources used in pipe deliveries.
377 . A new ACL modifier called add_header, which can be used with any verb.
379 . More errors are detectable in retry rules.
381 There are a number of other additions too.
387 The documentation is up-to-date for the 4.60 release. Major new features since
388 the 4.50 release are:
390 . Support for SQLite.
392 . Support for IGNOREQUOTA in LMTP.
394 . Extensions to the "submission mode" features.
396 . Support for Client SMTP Authorization (CSA).
398 . Support for ratelimiting hosts and users.
400 . New expansion items to help with the BATV "prvs" scheme.
402 . A "match_ip" condition, that matches an IP address against a list.
404 There are many more minor changes.