exim - Mail Transfer Agent
exim [options] arguments ...
mailq [options] arguments ...
rmail [options] arguments ...
rsmtp [options] arguments ...
runq [options] arguments ...
sendmail [options] arguments ...
Exim is a mail transport agent (MTA) developed at the University of
Cambridge for use on Unix systems connected to the Internet. It is
freely available under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence. In
style it is similar to Smail 3, but its facilities are more extensive,
and in particular it has some defences against mail bombs and unsolicited
junk mail, in the form of options for refusing messages from
particular hosts, networks, or senders.
Exim's command line takes the standard Unix form of a sequence of
options, each starting with a hyphen character, followed by a number of
arguments. The options are compatible with the main options of Sendmail,
and there are also some additional options, some of which are
compatible with Smail 3. Certain combinations of options do not make
sense, and provoke an error if used. The form of the arguments depends
on which options are set.
If Exim is called under the name mailq, it behaves as if the option -bp
were present before any other options. This is for compatibility with
some systems that contain a command of that name in one of the standard
libraries, symbolically linked to /usr/lib/sendmail.
If Exim is called under the name rsmtp it behaves as if the option -bS
were present before any other options, for compatibility with smail.
The -bS option is used for reading in a number of messages in batched
SMTP format.
If Exim is called under the name rmail it behaves as if the option -i
were present before any other options, for compatibility with smail.
The -i option is used for reading a message that should not be terminated
by a dot on a line by itself. The name rmail is used as an interface
by some UUCP systems.
If Exim is called under the name runq it behaves as if the option -q
were present before any other options, for compatibility with smail.
The -q option causes a single queue-runner process to be started.
For the benefit of those reading this overview to see whether Exim is
of interest to them, its limitations are listed first.
ANSI-C Exim is written in ANSI C. This should not be much of a limitation
these days. However, to help with systems that lack a true
ANSI C library, Exim avoids making any use of the value returned
by the sprintf() function, which is one of the main incompatibilities.
It has its own version of strerror() for use with
SunOS4 and any other system that lacks this function, and a
macro can be defined to turn memmove() into bcopy() if necessary.
Filenames [Toc] [Back]
Exim uses file names that are longer than 14 characters.
Bangpaths [Toc] [Back]
Exim is intended for use as an Internet mailer, and therefore
handles addresses in RFC 822 domain format only. It cannot handle
'bang paths', though simple two-component bang paths can be
converted by a straightforward rewriting configuration.
Domains required [Toc] [Back]
Exim insists that every address it handles has a domain
attached. For incoming local messages, domainless addresses are
automatically qualified with a configured domain value. Configuration
options specify from which remote systems unqualified
addresses are acceptable.
Transports [Toc] [Back]
The only external transport currently implemented is an SMTP
transport over a TCP/IP network (using sockets), suitable for
machines on the Internet. However, a pipe transport is available,
and there are facilities for writing messages to files in
'batched SMTP' format; this can be used to send messages to some
other transport mechanism. Batched SMTP input is also catered
for.
Exim follows the same general approach of decentralized control that
Smail 3 does. There is no central process doing overall management of
mail delivery. However, unlike Smail, the independent delivery processes
share data in the form of 'hints', which makes delivery more
efficient in some cases. The hints are kept in a number of DBM files.
If any of these files are lost, the only effect is to change the pattern
of delivery attempts and retries.
Many configuration options can be given as expansion strings, and as
these can include file lookups, much of Exim's operation can be made
table-driven if desired. For example, it is possible to do local delivery
on a machine on which the users do not have accounts.
Regular expressions are available in a number of configuration parameters.
Domain lists can include file lookups, making it possible to support a
large number of local domains.
Exim has flexible retry algorithms, applicable to mail routing as well
as to delivery.
Exim contains header and envelope rewriting facilities.
Unqualified addresses are accepted only from specified hosts or networks.
Exim can perform multiple deliveries down the same SMTP channel after
deliveries to a host have been delayed.
Exim can be configured to do local deliveries immediately but to leave
remote deliveries until the message is picked up by a queue-runner
process. This increases the likelihood of multiple messages being sent
down a single SMTP connection.
When copies of a message have to be delivered to more than one remote
host, up to a configured maximum number of remote deliveries can be
done in parallel.
Exim supports optional checking of incoming return path (sender) and
receiver addresses as they are received by SMTP.
SMTP calls from specific machines, optionally from specific idents, can
be locked out, and incoming SMTP messages from specific senders can
also be locked out.
It is possible to control which hosts may use the Exim host as a relay
for onward transmission of mail; the control can be made to depend on
the address domain.
Messages on the queue can be 'frozen' and 'thawed' by the administrator.
The maximum size of message can be specified. Exim can handle a number
of independent local domains on the same machine; each domain can have
its own alias files, etc. These are commonly called "virtual domains".
Exim stats a user's home directory before looking for a .forward file,
in order to detect the case of a missing NFS mount.
Exim contains an optional built-in mail filtering facility. This
enables users to set up their own mail filtering in a straightfoward
manner without the need to run an external program. There can also be a
system filter file that applies to all messages.
There is support for multiple user mailboxes controlled by prefixes or
suffixes on the user name, either via the filter mechanism or through
multiple .forward files.
Periodic warnings are automatically sent to messages' senders when
delivery is delayed - the time between warnings is configurable.
A queue run can be manually started to deliver just a particular portion
of the queue, or those messages with a recipient whose address
contains a given string.
Exim can be configured to run as root all the time, except when performing
local deliveries, which it always does in a separate process
under an appropriate uid and gid. Alternatively, it can be configured
to run as root only when needed; in particular, it need not run as root
when receiving incoming messages or when sending out messages over
SMTP.
I have tried to make the wording of delivery failure messages clearer
and simpler, for the benefit of those less-experienced people who are
now using email.
The Exim Monitor is an optional extra; it displays information about
Exim's processing in an X window, and an administrator can perform a
number of control actions from the window interface.
When Exim receives a message, it writes two files in its spool directory.
The first contains the envelope information, the current status
of the message, and the headers, while the second contains the body of
the message. The status of the message includes a complete list of
recipients and a list of those that have already received the message.
The header file gets updated during the course of delivery if necessary.
A message remains in the spool directory until it is completely delivered
to its recipients or to an error address, or until it is deleted
by an administrator or by the user who originally created it. In cases
when delivery cannot proceed - for example, when a message can neither
be delivered to its recipients nor returned to its sender, the message
is marked 'frozen' on the spool, and no more deliveries are attempted.
The administrator can thaw such messages when the problem has been corrected,
and can also freeze individual messages by hand if necessary.
As delivery proceeds, Exim writes timestamped information about each
address to a per-message log file; this includes any delivery error
messages. This log is solely for the benefit of the administrator. All
the information Exim itself needs for delivery is kept in the header
spool file. The message log file is deleted with the spool files. If a
message is delayed for more than a configured time, a warning message
is sent to the sender. This is repeated whenever the same time elapses
again without delivery being complete.
The main delivery processing elements of Exim are called directors,
routers, and transports. Code for a number of these is provided, and
compile-time options specify which ones are actually included in the
binary. Directors handle addresses that include one of the local
domains, routers handle remote addresses, and transports do actual
deliveries.
TRUSTED AND ADMIN USERS [Toc] [Back] Some Exim options are available only to "trusted users" and others are
available only to "admin users".
A trusted user is root or the Exim user (if defined) or any user listed
in the trusted_users configuration option, or any user, if the currently
set group is one of those listed in the trusted_groups configuration
option. Trusted users are permitted to use the -f option to
specify the senders of messages that are passed to Exim through the
local interface, and also to specify host names, host addresses, protocol
names, and ident values. Thus they are able to insert messages into
Exim's queue locally that have the characteristics of messages received
from a remote host.
An admin user is root or the Exim user (if defined) or any user that is
a member of the Exim group (if defined). The current group does not
have to be the Exim group. Admin users are permitted to operate on messages
in the queue, for example, to force delivery failures. It is also
necessary to be an admin user in order to see the full information provided
by the Exim monitor.
Exim's command options are as follows:
-bd Run Exim as a daemon, awaiting incoming SMTP connections. This
option can be used only by an admin user. If either of the -d or
-dm options are set, the daemon does not disconnect from the
controlling terminal. By default, Exim listens for incoming connections
on all the host's interfaces, but it can be restricted
to specific interfaces by setting the local_interfaces option in
the configuration file. The standard SMTP port is used, but this
can be varied by means of the -oX option. Most commonly, the -bd
option is combined with the -q<time> option, to cause periodic
queue runs to happen as well.
The process id of a daemon that is both listening and starting
queue runners is written to a file called exim-daemon.pid in
Exim's spool directory, unless the -oX option is used, in which
case the file name is exim-daemon.<port-number>.pid. If a daemon
is run with only one of -bd and -q<time>, then that option is
added on to the end of the file name, allowing sites that run
two separate daemons to distinguish them.
It is possible to change the directory in which these pid files
are written by changing the setting of PID_FILE_PATH in
Local/Makefile. The files are written while Exim is still running
as root. Further details are given in the comments in
src/EDITME.
The SIGHUP signal can be used to cause the daemon to re-exec
itself. This should be done whenever Exim's configuration file
is changed, or a new version of Exim is installed. It is not
necessary to do this when other files (e.g. alias files) are
changed.
This option is the same as -bf except that it assumes that the filter
being tested is a system filter. The additional commands that
are available only in system filters are recognized.
-bf <filename>
Run Exim in filter testing mode; the file is the filter file to
be tested, and a test message must be supplied on the standard
input. If there are no message-dependent tests in the filter,
an empty file can be supplied. If a system filter file is being
tested, -bF should be used instead of -bf. If the test file does
not begin with the special line
# Exim filter
then it is taken to be a normal .forward file, and is tested for
validity under that interpretation. The result of this command,
provided no errors are detected, is a list of the actions that
Exim would try to take if presented with the message for real.
More details of filter testing are given in the separate document
entitled "Exim's User interface to mail filtering".
When testing a filter file, the envelope sender can be set by
the -f option, or by a 'From ' line at the start of the test
message. Various parameters that would normally be taken from
the envelope recipient address of a message can be set by means
of additional command line options. These are:
-bfd <domain> default is the qualify domain
-bfl <local_part>default is the logged in user
-bfp <local_part_prefix> default is null
-bfs <local_part_suffix> default is null
The local part should always be set to the incoming address with
any prefix or suffix stripped, because that is how it appears
when a message is actually being delivered.
-bh <IP address>
This option runs a fake SMTP session as if from the given IP
address, using the standard input and output. Comments as to
what is going on are written to the standard error file. These
include lines beginning with 'LOG' for anything that would have
been logged. This facility is for testing configuration options
for blocking hosts and/or senders and for checking on relaying
control. Messages supplied during the testing session are discarded,
and nothing is written to any of the real log files.
There may be pauses when DNS (and other) lookups are taking
place, and of course these may time out. The -oMi option can be
used to specify a specific IP interface if this is important.
-bi Sendmail interprets the -bi option as a request to rebuild its
alias file. Exim does not have the concept of a single alias
file, and so it cannot mimic this behaviour. However, calls to
/usr/lib/sendmail -bi tend to appear in various scripts such as
NIS make files, so the option must be recognized.
If -bi is encountered, the command specified by the bi_command
configuration option is run, under the uid and gid of the caller
of Exim. If the -oA option is used, its value is passed to the
command as an argument. The command set by bi_command may not
contain arguments. The command can use the exim_dbmbuild utility,
or some other means, to rebuild alias files if this is
required. If the bi_command option is not set, then calling Exim
with -bi is a no-op.
-bm Accept an incoming, locally-generated message on the current
input, and deliver it to the addresses given as the command
arguments (except when -t is also given - see below). Each argument
can be a comma-separated list of RFC 822 addresses. This is
the default option, and is assumed if no other conflicting
option is present.
The format of the message must be as defined in RFC 822, except
that, for compatibility with sendmail and smail, a line in one
of the forms
From sender Fri Jan 5 12:55 GMT 1999
From sender Fri, 5 Jan 97 12:55:01
(with the weekday optional, and possibly with additional text
after the date) is permitted to appear at the start of the message.
There appears to be no authoritative specification of the
format of this line. Exim recognizes it by matching against the
regular expression defined by the uucp_from_pattern option,
which can be changed if necessary. The specified sender is
treated as if it were given as the argument to the -f option,
but if a -f option is also present, its argument is used in
preference to the address taken from the message. The caller of
Exim must be a trusted user for the sender of a message to be
set in this way.
-bp List the contents of the mail queue on the current output. If
the -bp option is followed by a list of message ids, then just
those messages are listed. By default this option may only be
used by an admin user. The queue_list_requires_admin option can
be set false to allow any user to see the queue.
Each message on the queue is displayed as in the following example:
25m 2.9K 0t5C6f-0000c8-00 <[email protected]k>
[email protected]k
<other addresses>
The first line contains the amount of time the message has been
on the queue (in this case 25 minutes), the size of the message
(2.9K), the unique identifier for the message, and the message
sender, as contained in the envelope. If the message is a delivery
error message, the sender address is empty, and appears as
<>. If the message is frozen (attempts to deliver it are suspended)
then the text '*** frozen ***' is displayed at the end
of this line.
The recipients of the message (taken from the envelope, not the
headers) are displayed on subsequent lines. Those addresses to
which the message has already been delivered are marked with the
letter D. If an original address gets expanded into several
addresses via an alias or forward file, the original is displayed
with a 'D' only when deliveries for all of its child
addresses are completed.
-bpa This option operates like -bp, but in addition it shows delivered
addresses that were generated from the original top level
address(es) in each message by alias or forwarding operations.
These addresses are flagged with '+D' instead of just 'D'.
-bpr This option operates like -bp, but the output is not sorted into
chronological order of message arrival. This can speed it up
when there are lots of messages on the queue, and is particularly
useful if the output is going to be post-processed in a
way that doesn't need the sorting.
-bpra This option is a combination of -bpr and -bpa.
-bpru This option is a combination of -bpr and -bpu.
-bpu This option operates like -bp but shows only undelivered toplevel
addresses for each message displayed. Addresses generated
by aliasing or forwarding are not shown, unless the message was
deferred after processing by a director with the one_time option
set.
-bP If this option is given with no arguments, it causes the values
of all Exim's main configuration options to be written to the
standard output. The values of one or more specific options can
be requested by giving their names as arguments, for example:
exim -bP qualify_domain local_domains
If configure_file is given, the name of the runtime configuration
file is output. If log_file_path or pid_file_path are
given, the names of the directories where log files and daemon
pid files are written are output, respectively. If these values
are unset, log files are written in a subdirectory of the spool
directory called log, and pid files are written directly into
the spool directory.
If one of the words director, router, or transport is given,
followed by the name of an appropriate driver instance, the
option settings for that driver are output. For example:
exim -bP transport local_delivery
The generic driver options are output first, followed by the
driver's private options. A list of the names of drivers of a
particular type can be obtained by using one of the words director_list,
router_list, or transport_list, and a complete list of
all drivers with their option settings can be obtained by using
directors, routers, or transports.
-brt This option is for testing retry rules, and it must be followed
by up to three arguments. It causes Exim to look for a retry
rule that matches the values and to output it on the standard
output. For example:
exim -brt bach.comp.mus
Retry rule: *.comp.mus F,2h,15m; FG,4d,30m;
See chapter 31 for a description of Exim's retry rules. The
first argument, which is required, can be a complete address in
the form local_part@domain, or it can be just a domain name. The
second argument is an optional second domain name; if no retry
rule is found for the first argument, the second is tried. This
ties in with Exim's behaviour when looking for retry rules for
remote hosts - if no rule is found that matches the host, one
that matches the mail domain is sought. The final argument is
the name of a specific delivery error, as used in setting up
retry rules, for example 'quota_3d'.
-brw This option is for testing address rewriting rules, and it must
be followed by a single argument, consisting of either a local
part without a domain, or a complete address with a fully-qualified
domain. Exim outputs how this address would be rewritten
for each possible place it might appear.
-bS This option is used for batched SMTP input, where messages have
been received from some external source by an alternative transport
mechanism. It causes Exim to accept one or more messages by
reading SMTP on the standard input, but to generate no
responses. If any error is encountered reports are written to
the standard output and error streams, and Exim gives up immediately.
If the caller is trusted, then the senders in the MAIL commands
are believed; otherwise the sender is always the caller of Exim.
Unqualified senders and receivers are not rejected (there seems
little point) but instead just get qualified. Sender addresses
are verified if sender_verify is set, unless sender_verify_batch
is unset (which is the default). Receiver verification and
administrative rejection is not done, even if configured. HELO
and EHLO act as RSET; VRFY, EXPN, ETRN, HELP, and DEBUG act as
NOOP; QUIT quits. The return code is 0 if no error was detected;
it is 1 if one or more messages were accepted before the error
was detected; otherwise it is 2. More details of input using
batched SMTP are given in section 42.8.
-bs This option causes Exim to accept one or more messages by reading
SMTP commands on the standard input, and producing SMTP
replies on the standard output. Some user agents use this interface
as a way of passing locally-generated messages to the MTA.
The option can also be used to run Exim from inetd, as an alternative
to using a listening daemon, in which case the standard
input is the connected socket. Exim distinguishes between the
two cases by attempting to read the IP address of the peer connected
to the standard input. If it is not a socket, the call to
getpeername() fails, and Exim assumes it is dealing with a local
message.
If the caller of Exim is trusted, then the senders of messages
are taken from the SMTP MAIL FROM commands. Otherwise the content
of these commands is ignored and the sender is set up as
the calling user.
-bt Run in address testing mode, in which each argument is taken as
an address to be tested. The results are written to the standard
output. If no arguments are given, Exim runs in an interactive
manner, prompting with a right angle bracket for addresses to be
tested. Each address is handled as if it were the recipient
address on a message and passed to the appropriate directors or
routers (compare the -bv option); the result is written to the
standard output. The return code is 2 if any address failed outright;
it is 1 if no address failed outright but at least one
could not be resolved for some reason. Return code 0 is given
only when all addresses succeed.
If any of the directors or routers in the configuration makes
any tests on the sender address of a message, then you should
use the -f option to set an appropriate sender when running -bt
tests. Without it, the sender is assumed to be the calling user
at the default qualifying domain.
-bV Write the current version number, compilation number, and compilation
date of the exim binary to the standard output.
-bv Verify the addresses that are given as the arguments to the command,
and write the results to the standard output. Verification
differs from address testing (the -bt option) in that directors
and routers that have no_verify set are skipped, and if the
address is accepted by a director or router that has fail_verify
set, verification fails. This is the same logic that is used
when verifying addresses on incoming messages (see the
sender_verify and receiver_verify options). The address is verified
as a recipient if -bv is used; to verify as for a sender
address, -bvs should be used.
If the -v (or -d) option is not set, the output consists of a
single line for each address, stating whether it was verified or
not, and giving a reason in the latter case. Otherwise, more
details are given of how the address has been handled, and in
the case of aliases or forwarding, the generated addresses are
also considered.
The return code is 2 if any address failed outright; it is 1 if
no address failed outright but at least one could not be
resolved for some reason. Return code 0 is given only when all
addresses succeed.
If any of the directors or routers in the configuration makes
any tests on the sender address of a message, then you should
use the -f option to set an appropriate sender when running -bv
tests. Without it, the sender is assumed to be the calling user
at the default qualifying domain.
-bvs This option acts like -bv, but verifies the address as a sender
rather than a recipient address. This affects any rewriting and
qualification that might happen.
-C <filename>
Read the runtime configuration from the given file instead of
from the default file specified by the CONFIGURE_FILE compiletime
setting. When this option is used by an unprivileged
caller, Exim gives up its root privilege immediately, and runs
with the real and effective uid and gid set to those of the
caller, to avoid any security exposure. It does not do this if
the caller is root or the exim user. The facility is useful for
ensuring that configuration files are syntactically correct, but
cannot be used for test deliveries, unless the caller is privileged,
or unless it's an exotic configuration that does not
require privilege. No check is made on the owner or group of the
file specified by this option.
-D<macro>=<value>
This option can be used to override macro definitions in the
configuration file (see section 7.2). However, like -C, if it is
used by an unprivileged caller, it causes Exim to give up its
root privilege. This option may be repeated up to 10 times on a
command line.
-d<number>
Sets a debug level, causing debugging information to be written
to the standard error file. Whitespace between -d and the number
is optional. If no number is given, 1 is assumed, and the higher
the number, the more output is produced. A value of zero turns
debugging output off. A value of 9 gives the maximum amount of
general information, 10 gives in addition details of the interpretation
of filter files, and 11 or higher also turns on the
debugging option for DNS lookups.
-df If this option is set and STDERR_FILE was defined when Exim was
built, debugging information is written to the file defined by
that variable instead of to the standard error file. This option
provides a way of obtaining debugging information when Exim is
run from inetd.
-dm This option causes information about memory allocation and freeing
operations to be written to the standard error file.
-dropcr
At least one MUA (dtmail) that calls an MTA via the command line
is broken in that it terminates each line with CRLF, instead of
just LF, which is the usual Unix convention, and although this
bug has been admitted, it apparently won't get fixed. There is
also some UUCP software which leaves CR at the ends of lines in
messages. As a slight pander to these programs, the -dropcr
option causes Exim to drop all CR characters in an incoming nonSMTP
message.
-ex There are a number of sendmail options starting with -oe which
seem to be called by various programs without the leading o in
the option. For example, the vacation program uses -eq. Exim
treats all options of the form -ex as synonymous with the corresponding
-oex options.
-F <string>
Set the sender's full name for use when a locally-generated message
is being accepted. In the absence of this option, the
user's "gecos" entry from the password file is used. As users
are generally permitted to alter their "gecos" entries, no security
considerations are involved. White space between -F and the
<string> is optional.
-f <address>
Set the address of the sender of a locally-generated message.
This option can normally be used only by root or the Exim user
or by one of the configured trusted users. However, anyone may
use it when testing a filter file with -bf or when testing or
verifying addresses using the -bt or -bv options. In other
cases, the sender of a local message is always set up as the
user who ran the exim command, and -f is ignored, with one
exception. If the special setting -f <> is used by an untrusted
user, it does not affect the sender for the purposes of managing
the Sender: and From: headers, but it does have the effect of
causing any SMTP transmissions to be sent out with
MAIL FROM: <>
and local deliveries to contain
Return-path: <>
when configured to contain Return-path: headers. The filtering
code treats such a message as an error message, and won't generate
messages as a result of reading it.
White space between -f and the <string> is optional. The sender
of a locally-generated message can also be set by an initial
'From' line in the message - see the description of -bm above,
but if -f is also present, it overrides 'From '.
-h <number>
This option is accepted for compatibility with sendmail, but at
present has no effect. (In sendmail it overrides the 'hop count'
obtained by counting Received headers.)
-i This option, which has the same effect as -oi, specifies that a
dot on a line by itself should not terminate an incoming, nonSMTP
message. I can find no documentation for this option in
Solaris 2.4 sendmail, but the mailx command in Solaris 2.4 uses
it.
-M The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and Exim
runs a delivery attempt on each message in turn. If any of the
messages are frozen, they are automatically thawed before the
delivery attempt. Retry hints for any of the addresses are
overridden - this option forces Exim to try to deliver even if
the normal retry time has not yet been reached. This option
requires the caller to be an admin user. However, there is an
option called prod_requires_admin which can be set false to
relax this restriction (and also the same requirement for the -q
and -R options).
-Mar <message-id> <address> <address> ...
The first argument must be a message id, and the remaining ones
must be email addresses. Exim adds the addresses to the list of
recipients of the message. However, if the message is active (in
the middle of a delivery attempt), its status is not altered.
This option can be used only by an admin user.
-Mc The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and Exim
runs a delivery attempt on each message in turn, but unlike the
-M option, it does check for retry hints, and respects any that
are found. This option is not very useful to external callers
(except for testing). It is provided for internal use by Exim
when it needs to re-invoke itself in order to regain root privilege
for a delivery (see chapter 49).
-Meb <message-id>
This runs, under /bin/sh, the command defined in the shell variable
VISUAL or, if that is not defined, EDITOR or, if that is
not defined, the command vi, on a copy of the spool file containing
the body of message (eb = Edit Body). If the editor
exits normally, then the result of editing replaces the spool
file. The message is locked during this process, so no delivery
attempts can occur. Note that the first line of the spool file
is its own name; care should be taken not to disturb this. The
thinking behind providing this feature is that an administrator
who has had to mess around with the addresses to get a message
delivered might want to add some (grumbly) comment at the start
of the message text. This option can be used only by an admin
user.
-Mes <message-id> <address>
There must be exactly two arguments. The first argument must be
a message id, and the second one an email address. Exim changes
the sender address in the message to the given address, which
must be a fully qualified address, or '<>'. However, if the message
is active (in the middle of a delivery attempt), its status
is not altered. This option can be used only by an admin user.
-Mf The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and each
message is marked 'frozen'. This prevents any delivery attempts
taking place until the message is 'thawed', either manually or
as a result of the auto_thaw configuration option. However, if
any of the messages are active (in the middle of a delivery
attempt), their status is not altered. This option can be used
only by an admin user.
-Mg The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and Exim
gives up trying to deliver those messages. A delivery error message
is sent, containing the text 'cancelled by administrator'.
However, if any of the messages are active, their status is not
altered. This option can be used only by an admin user.
-Mmad <message-id>
Exim marks the all recipient addresses in the message as already
delivered. However, if the message is active (in the middle of a
delivery attempt), its status is not altered. This option can be
used only by an admin user.
-Mmd <message-id> <address> <address> ...
The first argument must be a message id, and the remaining ones
must be email addresses. Exim marks the given addresses as
already delivered. However, if the message is active (in the
middle of a delivery attempt), its status is not altered. This
option can be used only by an admin user.
-Mrm The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and each
message is completely removed from Exim's queue, and forgotten.
However, if any of the messages is active, its status is not
altered. This option can be used only by an admin user or by the
user who originally caused the message to be placed on the
queue.
-Mt The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and each
message that was 'frozen' is now 'thawed', so that delivery
attempts can resume. However, if any of the messages is active,
its status is not altered. This option can be used only by an
admin user.
-Mvb <message id>
The contents of the message body (-D) spool file are written to
the standard output. This option can be used only by an admin
user.
-Mvh <message id>
The contents of the message headers (-H) spool file are written
to the standard output. This option can be used only by an admin
user.
-Mvl <message id>
The contents of the message log spool file are written to the
standard output. This option can be used only by an admin user.
-m This is apparently a synonym for -om that is accepted by sendmail,
so Exim treats it that way too.
-N This is a debugging option that inhibits delivery of a message
at the transport level. It implies at least -d1. Exim goes
through many of the motions of delivery - it just doesn't actually
transport the message, but instead behaves as if it had
successfully done so. However, it does not make any updates to
the retry database, and the log entries for deliveries are
flagged with '*>' rather than -q, -R or -M. In other words, an
ordinary user can use it only when supplying an incoming message
to which it will apply.
-oA <file name>
This option is used by Sendmail in conjunction with -bi to specify
an alternative alias file name. Exim handles -bi differently;
see the description above.
-oB <n>
This is a debugging option which limits the maximum number of
SMTP deliveries down one channel to <n>, overriding the value
set in the smtp transport. If <n> is omitted, the limit is set
to 1 (no batching).
-odb This option applies to all modes in which Exim accepts incoming
messages, including the listening daemon. It requests 'background'
delivery of such messages, which means that the accepting
process automatically starts another delivery process for
each message received. Exim does not wait for such processes to
complete (it can take some time to perform SMTP deliveries).
This is the default action if none of the -od options are
present.
-odf This option (compatible with smail) requests 'foreground' (synchronous)
delivery when Exim has accepted a locally-generated
message. For the daemon it is exactly the same as -odb. For a
single message received on the standard input, if the protection
regime permits it (see chapter 44), Exim converts the reception
process into a delivery process. In other cases, it creates a
new delivery process, and then waits for it to complete before
proceeding.
-odi This option is synonymous with -odf. It is provided for compatibility
with sendmail.
-odq This option applies to all modes in which Exim accepts incoming
messages, including the listening daemon. It specifies that the
accepting process should not automatically start a delivery
attempt for each message received. Messages are placed on the
queue, and remain there until a subsequent queue-running process
encounters them. The queue_only configuration option has the
same effect.
-odqr This option applies to all modes in which Exim accepts incoming
messages, including the listening daemon. It causes Exim to
process local addresses when a message is received, but not even
to try routing remote addresses. Contrast with -odqs below,
which does the routing, but not the delivery. The remote
addresses will be picked up by the next queue runner. The
queue_remote configuration option has the same effect for specific
domains.
-odqs This option is a hybrid between -odb and -odq. A delivery
process is started for each incoming message, the addresses are
all processed, and local deliveries are done in the normal way.
However, if any SMTP deliveries are required, they are not done
at this time. Such messages remain on the queue until a subsequent
queue-running process encounters them. Because routing was
done, Exim knows which messages are waiting for which hosts, and
so a number of messages for the same host will get sent in a
single SMTP connection. The queue_smtp configuration option has
the same effect for specific domains. See also the -qq option.
-oee If an error is detected while a non-SMTP message is being
received (for example, a malformed address), the error is
reported to the sender in a mail message. Provided the message
is successfully sent, Exim exits with a return code of zero. If
not, the return code is 2 if the error was that the message had
no recipients, and 1 otherwise. This option is the default if
Exim is called as rmail.
-oem This is the same as -oee, except that Exim always exits with a
non-zero return code, whether or not the error message was successfully
sent. This is the default option, unless Exim is
called as rmail.
-oep If an error is detected while a non-SMTP message is being
received, the error is reported by writing a message to the
standard error file (stderr).
-oeq This option is supported for compatibility with sendmail, but
has the same effect as -oep.
-oew This option is supported for compatibility with sendmail, but
has the same effect as -oem.
-oi This option, which has the same effect as -i, specifies that a
dot on a line by itself should not terminate an incoming, nonSMTP
message. This is the default if Exim is called as rmail.
-oMa <host address>
This option sets the sender host address value, and can be used
only by a trusted caller, except in conjunction with the -bh
option. A real incoming connection overrides the address set by
-oMa.. The value is used in log entries and can appear in
Received: headers. The option is intended for use when handing
to Exim messages received by other means, either via the command
line or by using the -bs option. If -oMt is set then -oMa should
normally be set as well.
-oMi <interface address>
This option sets the IP interface address value, and can be used
only by a trusted caller, except in conjunction with the -bh
option. A real incoming connection overrides the address set by
-oMi. The option is intended for use when handing to Exim messages
received by other means, either via the command line or by
using the -bs option.
-oMr <protocol name>
This option sets the received protocol value, and can be used
only by a trusted caller, except in conjunction with the -bh
option. The value is used in log entries and can appear in
Received: headers. The option is intended for use when handing
to Exim messages received by other means. It applies only to
non-SMTP and batched SMTP input.
-oMs <host name>
This option sets the sender host name value, and can be used
only by a trusted caller, except in conjunction with the -bh
option. The value is used in log entries and can appear in
Received headers. The option is intended for use when handing to
Exim messages received by other means.
-oMt <ident string>
This option sets the sender ident value, and can be used only by
a trusted caller, except in conjunction with the -bh option. The
value is used in log entries and can appear in Received headers.
The default setting for local callers is the login id of the
calling process. This can be overridden by supplying an empty
argument. The option is intended for use when handing to Exim
messages received by other means.
-om In sendmail, this option means 'me too', indicating that the
sender of a message should receive a copy of the message if the
sender appears in an alias expansion. Exim always does this, so
the option does nothing.
-or <time>
This option sets a timeout value for incoming non-SMTP messages.
If it is not set, Exim will wait forever for the standard input.
The value can also be set using the accept_timeout configuration
vari- able. The format used for specifying times is described in
section 7.7.
This option has exactly the same effect as -v.
-oX <number>
This option is relevant only when the -bd option is also given.
It overrides any setting of the daemon_smtp_port option, and
specifies an alternative TCP/IP port number for the listening
daemon. When used, the process number of the daemon is written
to a file whose name is exim-daemon.<number>.pid in Exim's spool
directory or the directory specified by PID_FILE_PATH in
Local/Makefile.
-pd This option applies when an embedded Perl interpreter is linked
with Exim (see chapter 10). It therefore does not apply to the
debian package.
It overrides the setting of the perl_at_start option, forcing
the starting of the interpreter to be delayed until it is
needed.
-ps This option applies when an embedded Perl interpreter is linked
with Exim (see chapter 10). It therefore does not apply to the
debian package.
It overrides the setting of the perl_at_start option, forcing
the starting of the interpreter to occur as soon as Exim is
started.
-q If the -q option is not followed by a time value, it requests a
single queue run operation. This option can be used only by an
admin user. However, there is an option called
prod_requires_admin which can be set false to relax this
restriction (and also the same requirement for the -M and R
options).
Exim starts up a delivery process for each (inactive) message on
the queue in turn, and waits for it to finish before starting
the next one. If the delivery process spawns other processes to
deliver other messages down passed SMTP connections, the queue
runner waits for these to finish before proceeding. When all the
queued messages have been considered, the original process terminates.
In other words, a single pass is made over the waiting
mail. Use -q with a time (see below) if you want this to be
repeated periodically.
Exim processes the waiting messages in an unpredictable order.
It isn't very random, but it is likely to be different each
time, which is all that matters. If one particular message
screws up a remote MTA, other messages to the same MTA have a
chance of getting through if they get tried first.
However, it is possible to cause the messages to be processed in
lexical id order, which is essentially the order in which they
arrived, and to start this operation at a particular point by
following the -q option with a starting message id. For example:
exim -q 0t5C6f-0000c8-00
This causes Exim to skip any messages whose ids are lexically
less than the given id. A second id can also be given to stop
the queue run before the end. See also the -R option and the
queue_run_in_order option.
-q <time>
This version of the -q option (which again can be run only by an
admin user) causes Exim to run as a daemon, starting a queuerunning
process at intervals specified by the given time value
(whose format is described in section 7.6). This form of the -q
option is commonly combined with the -bd option, in which case a
single daemon process handles both functions. A common way of
starting up a combined daemon at system boot time is to use a
command such as
/opt/exim/bin/exim -bd -q30m
Such a daemon listens for incoming SMTP calls, and also fires up
a queue-runner process every 30 minutes. The process id of such
a daemon is written to a file called exim-daemon.pid in Exim's
spool directory, unless the -oX option has been used, in which
case the file is called exim-daemon.<port-number>.pid. The location
of the pid file can be changed by defining PID_FILE_PATH in
Local/Makefile. If a daemon is started without -bd then the -q
option used to start it is added to the pid file name.
-qf This option operates like -q, and may appear with or without a
following time. The difference is that a delivery attempt is
forced for each message, whereas with -q only those addresses
that have passed their retry times are tried.
-qff This option operates like -qf and may appear with or without a
following time. The difference is that any frozen messages are
automatically thawed, and delivery is attempted for them.
-qfl This option operates like -ql, and may appear with or without a
following time. The difference is that a delivery attempt is
forced for each message, whereas with -ql only those local
addresses that have passed their retry times are tried.
-qffl This option operates like -qfl and may appear with or without a
following time. The difference is that any frozen messages are
auto-matically thawed, and delivery is attempted for any local
addresses in them.
-ql This option operates like -q, and may appear with or without a
following time. The difference is that only local addresses are
considered for delivery. Note that -ql cannot detect apparently
remote addresses that actually turn out to be local when their
domains get fully qualified.
-qq... If any command line option starting with -q is specified with an
additional q (for example, -qqf) then all the resulting queue
runs are done in two stages. In the first stage, the queue is
scanned as if the queue_smtp_domains option matched every
domain. This causes remote addresses to be routed, but no transportation
to be done. The database that remembers which messages
are waiting for specific hosts is updated, as if delivery to
those hosts had been deferred. After this is complete, a second,
normal queue scan happens, and normal directing, routing, and
delivery takes place. Messages which are routed to the same host
should mostly be delivered down a single SMTP connection because
of the hints that were set up during the first queue scan. This
option may be useful for hosts that are connected to the Internet
intermittently.
-qR <string>
This option is synonymous with -R. It is provided for sendmail
compatibility.
-qRf <string>
This option is synonymous with -Rf.
-R <string>
The white space between -R and the string is optional. This
option is similar to -q with no time value, except that, when
scanning the messages on the queue, Exim processes only those
that have at least one undelivered address containing the given
string, which is checked in a case-independent way. However,
once a message is selected, all its addresses are processed. For
the first message containing a matching address, Exim overrides
any retry information and forces a delivery attempt. This makes
it straightforward to initiate delivery for all messages to a
given domain after a host has been down for some time. When the
SMTP command ETRN is permitted (see the smtp_etrn options), its
effect is to run Exim with the -R option.
-Rf <string>
This option acts like -R, but forces a delivery for every matching
non-frozen message, not just the first one. White space is
required between -Rf and the string.
-Rff <string>
This option acts like -Rf, but also thaws any frozen messages it
encounters.
-r This is a documented (for sendmail) obsolete alternative name
for -f.
-t When Exim is receiving a locally-generated, non-SMTP message on
the current input, the -t option causes the recipients of the
message to be obtained from the To:, Cc:, and Bcc: headers in
the message instead of from the command arguments. The addresses
are extracted before any rewriting takes places.
If there are in fact any arguments, they specify addresses to
which the message is not to be delivered. That is, the argument
addresses are removed from the recipients list obtained from the
headers. This is compatible with Smail 3 and in accordance with
the documented behaviour of Sendmail. However, it has been
reported that in some versions at least, Sendmail adds argument
addresses to those obtained from the headers. Exim can be made
to behave in this way by setting the option
extract_addresses_remove_arguments false.
If a Bcc: header is present, it is removed from the message
unless there is no To: or Cc: header, in which case a Bcc:
header with no data is created, in accordance with RFC 822.
-v This option has exactly the same effect as -d1; it causes Exim
to be standard error file. In particular, if an SMTP connection
is made, the SMTP dialogue is shown.
-x AIX uses -x for a private purpose ('mail from a local mail program
has National Language Support extended characters in the
body of the mail item'). It sets -x when calling the MTA from
its mail command. Exim ignores this option.
There is extensive documentation available in /usr/share/doc/exim and
in the info system regarding exim. Debian users please be sure to have
the exim-doc package installed.
This manual page was stitched together by Christoph Lameter, <clame[email protected]>, from the original documentation coming with the sourcepackage
for the Debian GNU/Linux system, cleaned up a little by Tim
Cutts <[email protected]>, and updated by Mark Baker
<[email protected]>. (It's quite likely got out of date again by the time
you read it though; the definitive documentation is in
/usr/share/doc/exim.)
exim(8)
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