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5 .TH UPDATE-EXIM4.CONF 8 "Jun 25, 2005" EXIM4
6 .\" Please adjust this date whenever revising the manpage.
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21 update\-exim4.conf \- Generate exim4 configuration files.
24 .B update\-exim4.conf [\-v|\-\-verbose] [\-h|\-\-help] [\-\-keepcomments] [\-\-removecomments] [\-o|\-\-output file]
32 Show short help message and exit
35 Do not remove comment lines from the output file.
38 Remove comment lines from the output file. [Default]
40 .I \-o|\-\-output file
41 Write output to file instead of /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.
43 .I \-d|\-\-confdir directory
44 Read input from directory instead of /etc/exim4.
49 generates the main configuration files
50 .I /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated
53 by merging the data in the template file
54 .I /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template
57 directory tree respectively and
58 .I /etc/exim4/update\-exim4.conf.conf
60 .I /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.
62 If dc_use_split_config in /etc/exim4/update\-exim4.conf.conf specifies a split
65 processes the /etc/exim4/conf.d subdirectories in the order main, acl,
66 router, transport, retry, rewrite and auth. Within each directory it takes
67 files in lexical sort order by file name. It concatenates all these files
68 and makes the debconf replacement described below.
70 If you are not using split configuration
73 /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.localmacros
74 (if this file exists) and /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template (in this order) and
75 makes the debconf replacement described below.
77 In either case, before outputting the result
78 to /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated,
80 generates a number of exim configuration macros from the contents of
81 dc_something from /etc/exim4/update\-exim4.conf.conf and inserts them
82 into the configuration right after the definition of the exim
83 configuration macro UPEX4CmacrosUPEX4C (which is only used as
84 placeholder for this case). The macro definitions are bracketed
85 with .ifdef clauses to allow the local admin to override the values with
88 makes no other changes to the configuration.
89 This makes it very simple to make small changes to the configuration and
90 still have the benefits of debconf.
92 On the other hand if you don't want to manage exim4.conf with debconf
93 install your own handcrafted version as /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.
94 Exim will use this file if it exists and ignore the autogenerated one.
95 Additionally you might want to set
96 .I dc_eximconfig_configtype=none
97 in /etc/exim4/update\-exim4.conf.conf to stop debconf from asking you questions about exim4.
100 exits silently and does nothing if /etc/exim4/exim4.conf exists and \-o
101 was not used to direct the output to a different file than
102 /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.
104 .B update\-exim4.conf
105 will only use files in the conf.d directory that have a filename which
106 consists only of letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens
107 ([:alnum:]_\-), similar to
110 .B update\-exim4.conf
111 will use /etc/exim4/conf.d/foo/bar.rul instead of
112 /etc/exim4/conf.d/foo/bar if the .rul file exists. This is meant to be
113 helpful for easy interaction with packages extending Exim.
115 If the new configuration will be written to
116 /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated,
117 .B update\-exim4.conf
118 will check the validity of the freshly generated configuration. If
119 the new file is detected as invalid, update-exim4.conf leaves the old
120 /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated untouched and exits with an error.
122 However, there are still possible invalidities that can only be
123 detected at run time. This most notably applies to errors in
124 expressions that are expanded at run time.
126 If the new configuration will be written to some other file, no
127 validity checking occurs and that file will always be overwritten.
130 You want to be able to check exim's queue as normal user: Generate a new
131 file, e.g. /etc/exim4/conf.d/main/40_local_mailq, containing only the line
132 .I queue_list_requires_admin = false
135 .B update\-exim4.conf
136 changes the file permissions of the output file to the value of the environment
137 variable CFILEMODE. If CFILEMODE is neither set in
138 /etc/exim4/update\-exim4.conf.conf nor in the environment it defaults to 0644.
139 Change this to 0640 if you are keeping sensitive information (LDAP credentials
142 .SH CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
143 All lists given in configuration variables are semicolon-separated. In
144 the past, they used to be colon separated. This was changed to
145 semicolon separation to make specification of IPv6 addresses easier.
146 Backwards compatibility is preserved, so that old configurations using
147 colons as separators do still work. Colons are deprecated and might
148 stop working in a later release. If you need to specifiy a single IPv6
149 address in a field that is defined as a list of host names or IP
150 addresses, please prefix "<;" to explicitly specify the list separator
151 as a semicolon. Otherwise, the code cannot tell an IP address from a
152 colon-separated list of strange host names.
154 Using lookups like "dsearch;something" in update-exim4.conf.conf has
155 never been supported and does no longer work! If you need this, please
156 convert to directly setting the appropriate macros.
158 .B update\-exim4.conf
159 evaluates these patterns in
160 .B /etc/exim4/update\-exim4.conf.conf:
163 The octal file mode of the generated file.
165 .I dc_eximconfig_configtype
166 The main configuration type. Sets macro DC_eximconfig_configtype. The macro
167 usually contains a shorthand for one of the choices for the
168 \(lqGeneral type of mail configuration\(rq debconf question (See
172 .B dc_eximconfig_configtype <-> debconf configtype mapping:
176 internet site; mail is sent and received directly using SMTP
179 mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail
182 mail sent by smarthost; no local mail
185 local delivery only; not on a network
188 no configuration at this time
194 Boolean option that controls whether the local mailname in the headers of
195 outgoing mail should be hidden. (Only effective for \(lqsmarthost\(rq and
196 \(lqsatellite\(rq. Sets macro HIDE_MAILNAME.
199 Internal use only Boolean option that is set by the maintainer scripts
200 after adding the contents of /etc/mailname to the dc_other_hostnames
201 list. This is a transition helper since it wouldn't otherwise be
202 possible to see whether that domain name has been removed from
203 dc_other_hostnames on purpose. This is not used by update-exim4.conf,
207 Boolean option that controls whether
208 .B update\-exim4.conf
209 strips the comments from the target configuration file (default) or
210 leaves them in. This can be overridden by the command line options
211 \-\-keepcomments and \-\-removecomments. The value is not written to an
215 name of the default transport for local mail delivery. Defaults to mail_spool
216 if unset, use maildir_home for delivery to ~/Maildir/. Sets macro
219 .I dc_local_interfaces
220 List of IP addresses the Exim daemon should listen on. If this is left
221 empty, Exim listens on all interfaces. Sets macro
222 MAIN_LOCAL_INTERFACES only if there is a non-empty value.
225 Boolean option to activate some option to minimize DNS lookups, if set to
226 \(lqtrue\(rq a macro DC_minimaldns is defined. If true, the macro
227 DC_minimaldns is set to 1, and the macro
228 MAIN_HARDCODE_PRIMARY_HOSTNAME is set to the appropriately
229 post-processes output of hostname \-\-fqdn.
231 .I dc_other_hostnames
232 is used to build the local_domains list, together with \(lqlocalhost\(rq.
233 This is the list of domains for which this machine should
234 consider itself the final destination. The local_domains list ends up
235 in the macro MAIN_LOCAL_DOMAINS.
238 For \(lqsmarthost\(rq and \(lqsatellite\(rq it is possible to hide the local
239 mailname in the headers of outgoing mail and replace it with this value
240 instead, using rewriting. For \(lqsatellite\(rq only, this value is
241 also the host to send local mail to. Sets macro DCreadhost.
244 is a list of domains for which we accept mail from anywhere on the
245 Internet but which are not delivered locally, e.g. because this machine
246 serves as secondary MX for these domains. Sets MAIN_RELAY_TO_DOMAINS.
249 A list of machines for which we serve as smarthost. Please note that
250 127.0.0.1 and ::1 are always permitted to relay since /usr/lib/sendmail
251 is available anyway and relay control doesn't make sense here. Sets
252 macro MAIN_RELAY_NETS.
255 List of hosts to which all outgoing mail is passed to and that takes care
256 of delivering it. Each of the hosts is tried, in the order specified
257 (See exim specification, chapter 20.5). All deliveries go out to TCP
258 port 25 unless a different port is specified after the host name,
259 separated from the host name by two colons. Colons in IPv6 addresses need
260 to be doubled. If a port number follows, IP addresses may be enclosed in
261 brackets, which might be the only possibility to specify delivery to an
262 IPv6 address and a different port. Examples:
264 .BR host.domain.example
265 deliver to host looked up on DNS, tcp/25
267 .BR host.domain.example::587
268 deliver to host looked up on DNS, tcp/587
271 deliver to IPv4 host, tcp/25
274 deliver to IPv4 host, tcp/587
276 .BR [192.168.2.4]::587
277 deliver to IPv4 host, tcp/587
279 .BR 2001::0db8::f::4::::2
280 deliver to IPv6 host, tcp/25
282 .BR [2001::0db8::f::4::::2]::587
283 deliver to IPv6 host, tcp/587
285 This is used as value of the DCsmarthost macro.
287 .I dc_use_split_config
288 Boolean option that controls whether
289 .B update\-exim4.conf
290 uses /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template (\(lqfalse\(rq) or the multiple files
291 below /etc/exim4/conf.d (\(lqtrue\(rq) as input. This does not set any
294 .I The macro MAIN_PACKAGE_VERSION is set to Debian's Version number of
295 the package being installed for convenient inclusion in the
298 .SH RECOMMENDED USAGE
299 If you are running exim as daemon (as it is in the default setup of the
300 Debian packages) you should not invoke
301 .B update\-exim4.conf
302 directly when exim is running. For SMTP receiving or queue running,
303 exim forks, and the new processes would use the new configuration file,
304 while the original main exim daemon would still use the old configuration
306 .I invoke\-rc.d exim4 restart
310 This manual page needs a major re-work. If somebody knows better groff
311 than us and has more experience in writing manual pages, any patches
312 would be greatly appreciated.
317 .B /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated
318 Exim's main configuration file
321 .B /etc/exim4/exim4.conf
322 Optional manually managed Exim main configuration file. Takes precedence over
323 debconf managed one if it exists.
326 .B /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
327 Configuration file being written by exim4-config maintainer scripts,
328 which may be hand-edited, and is read as input by update-exim4.conf.
332 .BR exim4-config_files(5),
333 /usr/share/doc/exim4\-base/ and for general notes and details about interaction
335 /usr/share/doc/exim4\-base/README.Debian.gz
338 Andreas Metzler <ametzler at downhill.at.eu.org>
340 Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>