NetBSD/usr.sbin/sendmail/CHANGES-R5-R8

308 lines
9.5 KiB
Plaintext

SUMMARY OF CHANGES BETWEEN SENDMAIL V5 and V8
The following is a summary of the changes between the last commonly
available version of sendmail from Berkeley (5.67) and the latest
version (8.1). I can't guarantee that it is complete.
Connection Caching
Instead of closing SMTP connections immediately, those connections
are cached for possible future use. The advent of MX records made
this effective for mailing lists; in addition, substantial performance
improvements can be expected for queue processing.
MX Piggybacking
If two hosts with different names in a single message happen to
have the same set of MX hosts, they can be sent in the same
transaction. Version 8 notices this and tries to batch the messages.
RFC 1123 Changes
A number of changes have been made to make sendmail ``conditionally
compliant'' (that is, it satisfies all of the MUST clauses and most
but not all of the SHOULD clauses in RFC 1123).
The major areas of change are (numbers are RFC 1123 section numbers):
5.2.7 Response to RCPT command is fast.
5.2.8 Numeric IP addresses are logged in Received: lines.
5.2.17 Self domain literal is properly handled.
5.3.2 Better control over individual timeouts.
5.3.3 Error messages are sent as From:<>.
5.3.3 Error messages are never sent to <>.
5.3.3 Route-addrs are pruned.
The areas in which sendmail is not ``unconditionally compliant'' are:
5.2.6 Sendmail does do header munging.
5.2.10 Sendmail doesn't always use the exact SMTP message
text from RFC 821.
5.3.1.1 Sendmail doesn't guarantee only one connect for each
host on queue runs.
5.3.1.1 Sendmail doesn't always provide an adequate limit
on concurrency.
Extended SMTP Support
Version 8 includes both sending and receiving support for Extended
SMTP support as defined by RFC 1425 (basic) and RFC 1427 (SIZE);
and limited support for RFC 1426 (BODY).
Eight-Bit Clean
Previous versions of sendmail used the 0200 bit for quoting. This
version avoids that use. However, for compatibility with RFC 822,
you can set option `7' to get seven bit stripping.
Individual mailers can still produce seven bit out put using the
`7' mailer flag.
User Database
The user database is an as-yet experimental attempt to provide
unified large-site name support. We are installing it at Berkeley;
future versions may show significant modifications.
Improved BIND Support
The BIND support, particularly for MX records, had a number of
annoying ``features'' which have been removed in this release. In
particular, these more tightly bind (pun intended) the name server
to sendmail, so that the name server resolution rules are incorporated
directly into sendmail.
Keyed Files
Generalized keyed files is an idea taken directly from IDA sendmail
(albeit with a completely different implementation). They can be
useful on large sites.
Version 8 also understands YP.
Multi-Word Classes
Classes can now be multiple words. For example,
CShofmann.CS.Berkeley.EDU
allows you to match the entire string ``hofmann.CS.Berkeley.EDU''
using the single construct ``$=S''.
Deferred Macro Expansion
The $&x construct has been adopted from IDA .
IDENT Protocol Support
The IDENT protocol as defined in RFC 1413 is supported.
Parsing Bug Fixes
A number of small bugs having to do with things like backslash-escaped
quotes inside of comments have been fixed.
Separate Envelope/Header Processing
Since the From: line is passed in separately from the envelope
sender, these have both been made visible; the $g macro is set to
the envelope sender during processing of mailer argument vectors
and the header sender during processing of headers.
It is also possible to specify separate per-mailer envelope and
header processing. The SenderRWSet and RecipientRWset arguments
for mailers can be specified as ``envelope/header'' to give different
rewritings for envelope versus header addresses.
Owner-List Propagates to Envelope
When an alias has an associated owner-list name, that alias is used
to change the envelope sender address. This will cause downstream
errors to be returned to that owner.
Dynamic Header Allocation
The fixed size limit on header lines has been eliminated.
New Command Line Flags
The -B flag has been added to pass in body type information.
The -p flag has been added to pass in protocol information.
The -X flag has been added to allow logging of all protocol in and
out of sendmail for debugging.
Enhanced Command Line Flags
The -q flag can limit limit a queue run to specific recipients,
senders, or queue ids using -qRsubstring, -qSsubstring, or
-qIsubstring respectively.
New and Old Configuration Line Types
The `T' (Trusted users) configuration line has been deleted. It
will still be accepted but will be ignored.
The `K' line has been added to declare database maps.
The `V' line has been added to declare the configuration version
level.
The `M' (mailer) line takes a D= field to specify execution
directory.
New Options
Several new options have been added, many to support new features,
others to allow tuning that was previously available only by
recompiling. Briefly:
b Insist on a minimum number of disk blocks.
C Delivery checkpoint interval.
E Default error message.
G Enable GECOS matching.
h Maximum hop count.
j Send errors in MIME-encapsulated format.
J Forward file path.
k Connection cache size
K Connection cache lifetime.
l Enable Errors-To: header. These headers violate RFC 1123;
this option is included to provide back compatibility with
old versions of sendmail.
O Incoming daemon options (e.g., use alternate SMTP port).
p Privacy options.
R Don't prune route-addrs.
U User database spec.
V Fallback ``MX'' host.
7 Do not run eight bit clean.
Extended Options
The `r' (read timeout), `I' (use BIND), and `T' (queue timeout)
options have been extended to pass in more information.
The `A' (alias file) option has been extended to allow multiple
alias files of different types.
New Mailer Flags
a Try to use ESMTP. It will fall back to SMTP if the initial
EHLO packet is rejected.
b Ensure a blank line at the end of messages.
c Strip all comments from addresses; this should only be used as
a last resort when dealing with cranky mailers.
g Never use the null sender as the envelope sender, even when
running SMTP. This violates RFC 1123.
7 Strip all output to this mailer to 7 bits.
New Pre-Defined Macros
$k UUCP node name from uname(2).
$m Domain part of our full hostname.
$_ RFC 1413-provided sender address.
New LHS Token
Version 8 allows `$@' on the Left Hand Side of an `R' line to match
zero tokens. This is intended to be used to match the null input.
Bigger Defaults
Version 8 allows up to 100 rulesets instead of 30. It is recommended
that rulesets 0-9 be reserved for sendmail's dedicated use in future
releases.
The total number of MX records that can be used has been raised to
20.
The number of queued messages that can be handled at one time has
been raised from 600 to 1000.
Different Default Tuning Parameters
Version 8 has changed the default parameters for tuning queue costs
to make the number of recipients more important than the size of
the message (for small messages). This is reasonable if you are
connected with reasonably fast links.
Auto-Quoting in Addresses
Previously, the ``Full Name <email address>'' syntax would generate
incorrect protocol output if ``Full Name'' had special characters
such as dot. This version puts quotes around such names.
Symbolic Names On Error Mailer
Several names have been built in to the $@ portion of the $#error
mailer.
SMTP VRFY Doesn't Expand
Previous versions of sendmail treated VRFY and EXPN the same. In
this version, VRFY doesn't expand aliases or follow .forward files.
As an optimization, if you run with your default delivery mode
being queue-only, the RCPT command will also not chase aliases and
.forward files. It will chase them when it processes the queue.
[IPC] Mailers Allow Multiple Hosts
When an address resolves to a mailer that has ``[IPC]'' as its
``Path'', the $@ part (host name) can be a colon-separated list of
hosts instead of a single hostname. This asks sendmail to search
the list for the first entry that is available exactly as though
it were an MX record. The intent is to route internal traffic
through internal networks without publishing an MX record to the
net. MX expansion is still done on the individual items.
Aliases Extended
The implementation has been merged with maps. Among other things,
this supports NIS-based aliases.
Portability and Security Enhancements
A number of internal changes have been made to enhance portability.
Several fixes have been made to increase the paranoia factor.
Miscellaneous Enhancements
Sendmail writes a /etc/sendmail.pid file with the current process id.
Two people using the same program (e.g., submit) are considered
"different" so that duplicate elimination doesn't delete one of
them.
The mailstats program prints mailer names and gets the location of
the sendmail.st file from /etc/sendmail.cf.
Many minor bugs have been fixed, such as handling of backslashes
inside of quotes.
A hook has been added to allow rewriting of local addresses after
aliasing.