3 exim \- Mail Transfer Agent
6 .I "[options] arguments ..."
9 .I "[options] arguments ..."
12 .I "[options] arguments ..."
15 .I "[options] arguments ..."
18 .I "[options] arguments ..."
21 .I "[options] arguments ..."
24 is a mail transport agent (MTA) developed at the University of
25 Cambridge for use on Unix systems connected to the Internet. It is
26 freely available under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence. In
27 style it is similar to Smail 3, but its facilities are more extensive,
28 and in particular it has some defences against mail bombs and
29 unsolicited junk mail, in the form of options for refusing messages
30 from particular hosts, networks, or senders.
32 Exim's command line takes the standard Unix form of a sequence of
33 options, each starting with a hyphen character, followed by a number
34 of arguments. The options are compatible with the main options of
35 Sendmail, and there are also some additional options, some of which
36 are compatible with Smail 3. Certain combinations of options do not
37 make sense, and provoke an error if used. The form of the arguments
38 depends on which options are set.
40 If Exim is called under the name mailq, it behaves as if the option
41 -bp were present before any other options. This is for compatibility
42 with some systems that contain a command of that name in one of the
43 standard libraries, symbolically linked to /usr/lib/sendmail.
45 If Exim is called under the name rsmtp it behaves as if the option -bS
46 were present before any other options, for compatibility with
47 smail. The -bS option is used for reading in a number of messages in
50 If Exim is called under the name rmail it behaves as if the option -i
51 were present before any other options, for compatibility with
52 smail. The -i option is used for reading a message that should not be
53 terminated by a dot on a line by itself. The name rmail is used as an
54 interface by some UUCP systems.
56 If Exim is called under the name runq it behaves as if the option -q
57 were present before any other options, for compatibility with
58 smail. The -q option causes a single queue-runner process to be
61 For the benefit of those reading this overview to see whether Exim is
62 of interest to them, its limitations are listed first.
65 Exim is written in ANSI C. This should not be much of a limitation
66 these days. However, to help with systems that lack a true ANSI C
67 library, Exim avoids making any use of the value returned by the
68 sprintf() function, which is one of the main incompatibilities. It has
69 its own version of strerror() for use with SunOS4 and any other system
70 that lacks this function, and a macro can be defined to turn memmove()
71 into bcopy() if necessary.
74 Exim uses file names that are longer than 14 characters.
77 Exim is intended for use as an Internet mailer, and therefore handles
78 addresses in RFC 822 domain format only. It cannot handle 'bang
79 paths', though simple two-component bang paths can be converted by a
80 straightforward rewriting configuration.
83 Exim insists that every address it handles has a domain attached. For
84 incoming local messages, domainless addresses are automatically
85 qualified with a configured domain value. Configuration options
86 specify from which remote systems unqualified addresses are
90 The only external transport currently implemented is an SMTP transport
91 over a TCP/IP network (using sockets), suitable for machines on the
92 Internet. However, a pipe transport is available, and there are
93 facilities for writing messages to files in 'batched SMTP' format;
94 this can be used to send messages to some other transport
95 mechanism. Batched SMTP input is also catered for.
97 Exim follows the same general approach of decentralized control that
98 Smail 3 does. There is no central process doing overall management of
99 mail delivery. However, unlike Smail, the independent delivery
100 processes share data in the form of 'hints', which makes delivery more
101 efficient in some cases. The hints are kept in a number of DBM
102 files. If any of these files are lost, the only effect is to change
103 the pattern of delivery attempts and retries.
105 Many configuration options can be given as expansion strings, and as
106 these can include file lookups, much of Exim's operation can be made
107 table-driven if desired. For example, it is possible to do local
108 delivery on a machine on which the users do not have accounts.
110 Regular expressions are available in a number of configuration
113 Domain lists can include file lookups, making it possible to support a
114 large number of local domains.
116 Exim has flexible retry algorithms, applicable to mail routing as well as
119 Exim contains header and envelope rewriting facilities.
121 Unqualified addresses are accepted only from specified hosts or networks.
123 Exim can perform multiple deliveries down the same SMTP channel after
124 deliveries to a host have been delayed.
126 Exim can be configured to do local deliveries immediately but to leave
127 remote deliveries until the message is picked up by a queue-runner
128 process. This increases the likelihood of multiple messages being sent
129 down a single SMTP connection.
131 When copies of a message have to be delivered to more than one remote
132 host, up to a configured maximum number of remote deliveries can be
135 Exim supports optional checking of incoming return path (sender) and
136 receiver addresses as they are received by SMTP.
138 SMTP calls from specific machines, optionally from specific idents,
139 can be locked out, and incoming SMTP messages from specific senders
140 can also be locked out.
142 It is possible to control which hosts may use the Exim host as a relay
143 for onward transmission of mail; the control can be made to depend on
146 Messages on the queue can be 'frozen' and 'thawed' by the
149 The maximum size of message can be specified. Exim can handle a
150 number of independent local domains on the same machine; each domain
151 can have its own alias files, etc. These are commonly called "virtual
154 Exim stats a user's home directory before looking for a .forward file,
155 in order to detect the case of a missing NFS mount.
157 Exim contains an optional built-in mail filtering facility. This
158 enables users to set up their own mail filtering in a straightfoward
159 manner without the need to run an external program. There can also be
160 a system filter file that applies to all messages.
162 There is support for multiple user mailboxes controlled by prefixes or
163 suffixes on the user name, either via the filter mechanism or through
164 multiple .forward files.
166 Periodic warnings are automatically sent to messages' senders when
167 delivery is delayed - the time between warnings is configurable.
169 A queue run can be manually started to deliver just a particular
170 portion of the queue, or those messages with a recipient whose address
171 contains a given string.
173 Exim can be configured to run as root all the time, except when
174 performing local deliveries, which it always does in a separate
175 process under an appropriate uid and gid. Alternatively, it can be
176 configured to run as root only when needed; in particular, it need not
177 run as root when receiving incoming messages or when sending out
180 I have tried to make the wording of delivery failure messages clearer
181 and simpler, for the benefit of those less-experienced people who are
184 The Exim Monitor is an optional extra; it displays information about
185 Exim's processing in an X window, and an administrator can perform a
186 number of control actions from the window interface.
187 .SH METHOD OF OPERATION
188 When Exim receives a message, it writes two files in its spool
189 directory. The first contains the envelope information, the current
190 status of the message, and the headers, while the second contains the
191 body of the message. The status of the message includes a complete
192 list of recipients and a list of those that have already received the
193 message. The header file gets updated during the course of delivery if
196 A message remains in the spool directory until it is completely
197 delivered to its recipients or to an error address, or until it is
198 deleted by an administrator or by the user who originally created
199 it. In cases when delivery cannot proceed - for example, when a
200 message can neither be delivered to its recipients nor returned to its
201 sender, the message is marked 'frozen' on the spool, and no more
202 deliveries are attempted. The administrator can thaw such messages
203 when the problem has been corrected, and can also freeze individual
204 messages by hand if necessary.
206 As delivery proceeds, Exim writes timestamped information about each
207 address to a per-message log file; this includes any delivery error
208 messages. This log is solely for the benefit of the administrator. All
209 the information Exim itself needs for delivery is kept in the header
210 spool file. The message log file is deleted with the spool files. If a
211 message is delayed for more than a configured time, a warning message
212 is sent to the sender. This is repeated whenever the same time elapses
213 again without delivery being complete.
215 The main delivery processing elements of Exim are called directors,
216 routers, and transports. Code for a number of these is provided, and
217 compile-time options specify which ones are actually included in the
218 binary. Directors handle addresses that include one of the local
219 domains, routers handle remote addresses, and transports do actual
221 .SH TRUSTED AND ADMIN USERS
222 Some Exim options are available only to "trusted users" and others are
223 available only to "admin users".
225 A trusted user is root or the Exim user (if defined) or any user
226 listed in the trusted_users configuration option, or any user, if the
227 currently set group is one of those listed in the trusted_groups
228 configuration option. Trusted users are permitted to use the -f option
229 to specify the senders of messages that are passed to Exim through the
230 local interface, and also to specify host names, host addresses,
231 protocol names, and ident values. Thus they are able to insert
232 messages into Exim's queue locally that have the characteristics of
233 messages received from a remote host.
235 An admin user is root or the Exim user (if defined) or any user that
236 is a member of the Exim group (if defined). The current group does not
237 have to be the Exim group. Admin users are permitted to operate on
238 messages in the queue, for example, to force delivery failures. It is
239 also necessary to be an admin user in order to see the full
240 information provided by the Exim monitor.
242 Exim's command options are as follows:
245 Run Exim as a daemon, awaiting incoming SMTP connections. This option
246 can be used only by an admin user. If either of the -d or -dm options
247 are set, the daemon does not disconnect from the controlling
248 terminal. By default, Exim listens for incoming connections on all the
249 host's interfaces, but it can be restricted to specific interfaces by
250 setting the local_interfaces option in the configuration file. The
251 standard SMTP port is used, but this can be varied by means of the -oX
252 option. Most commonly, the -bd option is combined with the -q<time>
253 option, to cause periodic queue runs to happen as well.
255 The process id of a daemon that is both listening and starting queue
256 runners is written to a file called exim-daemon.pid in Exim's spool
257 directory, unless the -oX option is used, in which case the file
258 name is exim-daemon.<port-number>.pid. If a daemon is run with only
259 one of -bd and -q<time>, then that option is added on to the end of
260 the file name, allowing sites that run two separate daemons to
263 It is possible to change the directory in which these pid files are
264 written by changing the setting of PID_FILE_PATH in Local/Makefile.
265 Further details are given in the comments in src/EDITME.
267 The SIGHUP signal can be used to cause the daemon to re-exec itself.
268 This should be done whenever Exim's configuration file is changed,
269 or a new version of Exim is installed. It is not necessary to do
270 this when other files (e.g. alias files) are changed.
273 Run Exim in filter testing mode; the file is the filter file to be
274 tested, and a test message must be supplied on the standard input.
275 If there are no message-dependent tests in the filter, an empty file
276 can be supplied. If the test file does not begin with the special
281 then it is taken to be a normal .forward file, and is tested for
282 validity under that interpretation. The result of this command,
283 provided no errors are detected, is a list of the actions that Exim
284 would try to take if presented with the message for real. More
285 details of filter testing are given in the separate document
286 entitled "Exim's User interface to mail filtering".
288 When testing a filter file, various parameters that would normally
289 be taken from the envelope recipient address of a message can be set
290 by means of additional command line options. These are:
292 -bfd <domain> default is the qualify domain
293 -bfl <local_part>default is the logged in user
294 -bfp <local_part_prefix> default is null
295 -bfs <local_part_suffix> default is null
297 The local part should always be set to the incoming address with any
298 prefix or suffix stripped, because that is how it appears when a
299 message is actually being delivered.
302 Sendmail interprets the -bi option as a request to rebuild its alias
303 file. Exim does not have the concept of a single alias file, and so
304 it cannot mimic this behaviour. However, calls to /usr/lib/sendmail
305 -bi tend to appear in various scripts such as NIS make files, so the
306 option must be recognized.
308 If -bi is encountered, the command specified by the bi_command
309 configuration option is run, under the uid and gid of the caller of
310 Exim. If the -oA option is used, its value is passed to the command
311 as an argument. The command set by bi_command may not contain
312 arguments. The command can use the exim_dbmbuild utility, or some
313 other means, to rebuild alias files if this is required. If the
314 bi_command option is not set, then calling Exim with -bi is a no-op.
317 Accept an incoming, locally-generated message on the current input,
318 and deliver it to the addresses given as the command arguments
319 (except when -t is also given - see below). Each argument can be a
320 comma-separated list of RFC 822 addresses. This is the default
321 option, and is assumed if no other conflicting option is present.
322 The message may or may not be delivered immediately, depending on
323 the setting of the -od option and the queue_only and queue_smtp
324 configuration options.
326 The format of the message must be as defined in RFC 822, except
327 that, for compatibility with sendmail and smail, a line of the form
329 From sender Fri Jan 5 12:55 GMT 1996
331 is permitted to appear at the start of the message. The Solaris 2
332 version of the "mail" command inserts such a line, though there is
333 no mention of it in the sendmail man page. The sender specified in
334 this line is treated as if it were given as the argument to the -f
338 List the contents of the mail queue on the current output. Each
339 message on the queue is displayed as in the following example:
341 25m 2.9K 0t5C6f-0000c8-00 <alice@wonderland.fict.book>
342 red.king@looking-glass.fict.book
345 The first line contains the amount of time the message has been on
346 the queue (in this case 25 minutes), the size of the message (2.9K),
347 the unique identifier for the message, and the message sender, as
348 contained in the envelope. If the message is a delivery error
349 message, the sender address is empty, and appears as <>. If the
350 message is frozen (attempts to deliver it are suspended) then the
351 text '*** frozen ***' is displayed at the end of this line.
353 The recipients of the message (taken from the envelope, not the
354 headers) are displayed on subsequent lines. Those addresses to which
355 the message has already been delivered are marked with the letter D.
356 If an original address gets expanded into several addresses via an
357 alias or forward file, the original is displayed with a 'D' when
358 deliveries for all of its child addresses are completed.
361 If this option is given with no arguments, it causes the values of
362 all Exim's main configuration options to be written to the standard
363 output. The values of one or more specific options can be requested
364 by giving their names as arguments, for example:
366 exim -bP qualify_domain local_domains
368 If configure_file is given, the name of the runtime configuration
369 file is output. If log_file_path or pid_file_path are given, the
370 names of the directories where log files and daemon pid files are
371 written are output, respectively. If these values are unset, log
372 files are written in a subdirectory of the spool directory called
373 log, and pid files are written directly into the spool directory.
375 If one of the words director, router, or transport is given,
376 followed by the name of an appropriate driver instance, the option
377 settings for that driver are output. For example:
379 exim -bP transport local_delivery
381 The generic driver options are output first, followed by the
382 driver's private options. A list of the names of drivers of a
383 particular type can be obtained by using one of the words
384 director_list, router_list, or transport_list, and a complete list
385 of all drivers with their option settings can be obtained by using
386 directors, routers, or drivers.
389 This option is for testing retry rules, and it must be followed by
390 up to three arguments. It causes Exim to look for a retry rule that
391 matches the values and to output it on the standard output. For
394 exim -brt bach.comp.mus
395 Retry rule: *.comp.mus F,2h,15m; FG,4d,30m;
397 See chapter 30 for a description of Exim's retry rules. The first
398 argument, which is required, can be a complete address in the form
399 local_part@domain, or it can be just a domain name. The second
400 argument is an optional second domain name; if no retry rule is
401 found for the first argument, the second is tried. This ties in with
402 Exim's behaviour when looking for retry rules for remote hosts - if
403 no rule is found that matches the host, one that matches the mail
404 domain is sought. The final argument is the name of a specific
405 delivery error, as used in setting up retry rules, for example
409 This option is for testing address rewriting rules, and it must be
410 followed by a single argument, consisting of either a local part
411 without a domain, or a complete address with a fully-qualified
412 domain. Exim outputs how this address would be rewritten for each
413 possible place it might appear.
416 This option is used for batched SMTP input, where messages have been
417 received from some external source by an alternative transport
418 mechanism. It causes Exim to accept one or more messages by reading
419 SMTP on the standard input, but to generate no responses. All errors
420 are reported by sending mail. If the caller is trusted, then the
421 senders in the MAIL FROM commands are believed; otherwise the sender
422 is always the caller of Exim. Unqualified senders and receivers are
423 not rejected (there seems little point) but instead just get
424 qualified. Receiver verification and administrative rejection is not
425 done, even if configured. HELO and EHLO act as RSET; VRFY, EXPN, ETRN,
426 HELP, and DEBUG act as NOOP; QUIT quits.
429 This option causes Exim to accept one or more messages by reading SMTP
430 commands on the standard input, and producing SMTP replies on the
431 standard output. Some user agents use this interface as a way of
432 passing locally-generated messages to the MTA. The option can also be
433 used to run Exim from inetd, as an alternative to using a listening
434 daemon, in which case the standard input is the connected socket. Exim
435 distinguishes between the two cases by attempting to read the IP
436 address of the peer connected to the standard input. If it is not a
437 socket, the call to getpeername() fails, and Exim assumes it is
438 dealing with a local message.
440 If the caller of Exim is trusted, then the senders of messages are
441 taken from the SMTP MAIL FROM commands. Otherwise the content of these
442 commands is ignored and the sender is set up as the calling user.
445 Run in address testing mode, in which each argument is taken as an
446 address to be tested. The results are written to the standard
447 output. If no arguments are given, Exim runs in an interactive manner,
448 prompting with > for addresses to be tested. Each address is handled
449 as if it were the recipient address on a message and passed to the
450 appropriate directors or routers.
453 Write the current version number, compilation number, and compi-
454 lation date of the exim binary to the standard output.
457 Verify the addresses that are given as the arguments to the command,
458 and write the results to the standard output. Verification differs
459 from address testing (the -bt option) in that directors and routers
460 that have no_verify set are skipped, and if the address is accepted by
461 a director or router that has fail_verify set, verification
462 fails. This is the same logic that is used when verifying addresses on
463 incoming messages (see the sender_verify and receiver_verify options).
465 If the -v (or -d) option is not set, the output consists of a single
466 line for each address, stating whether it was verified or not, and
467 giving a reason in the latter case. Otherwise, more details are given
468 of how the address has been handled, and in the case of aliases or
469 forwarding, the generated addresses are also considered.
472 Read the runtime configuration from the given file instead of from
473 the default file specified by the CONFIGURE_FILE compile-time set-
474 ting. When this option is used by an unprivileged caller, Exim gives
475 up its root privilege immediately, and runs with the real and
476 effective uid and gid set to those of the caller, to avoid any
477 security exposure. It does not do this if the caller is root or the
478 exim user. The facility is useful for ensuring that configuration
479 files are syntactically correct, but cannot be used for test
480 deliveries, unless the caller is privileged, or unless it's an
481 exotic configuration that does not require privilege. No check is
482 made on the owner or group of the file specified by this option.
485 Sets a debug level, causing debugging information to be written to the
486 standard error file. Whitespace between -d and the number is
487 optional. If no number is given, 1 is assumed, and the higher the
488 number, the more output is produced. A value of zero turns debugging
489 output off. A value of 9 gives the maximum amount of general
490 information, 10 gives in addition details of the interpretation of
491 filter files, and 11 or higher also turns on the debugging option for
495 If this option is set and STDERR_FILE was defined when Exim was built,
496 debugging information is written to the file defined by that variable
497 instead of to the standard error file. This option provides a way of
498 obtaining debugging information when Exim is run from inetd.
501 This option causes information about memory allocation and freeing
502 operations to be written to the standard error file.
505 This option specifies that an incoming message is a locally-generated
506 delivery failure message. It is used internally by Exim when handling
507 delivery failures and is not intended for external use. Its only
508 effect is to stop Exim generating certain messages to the mailmaster,
509 as otherwise message cascades could occur in some situations. As part
510 of the same option, a message id may follow the characters -E. If it
511 does, the log entry for the receipt of the new message contains the
512 id, following 'R=', as a cross reference.
515 There are a number of sendmail options starting with -oe which seem to
516 be called by various programs without the leading o in the option. For
517 example, the vacation program uses -eq. Exim treats all options of the
518 form -ex as synonymous with the corresponding -oex options.
521 Set the sender's full name for use when a locally-generated message
522 is being accepted. In the absence of this option, the user's "gecos"
523 entry from the password file is used. As users are generally
524 permitted to alter their "gecos" entries, no security considerations
525 are involved. White space between -F and the <string> is optional.
528 Set the address of the sender of a locally-generated message. This
529 option can normally be used only by root or the Exim user or by one
530 of the configured trusted users. In other cases, the sender of a
531 local message is always set up as the user who ran the exim command,
532 and -f is ignored, with one exception. If the special setting -f <>
533 is used by an untrusted user, it does not affect the sender for the
534 purposes of managing the Sender: and From: headers, but it does have
535 the effect of causing any SMTP transmissions to be sent out with
539 and local deliveries to contain
543 when configured to contain Return-path: headers. The filtering code
544 treats such a message as an error message, and won't generate
545 messages as a result of reading it.
547 White space between -f and the <string> is optional. The sender of a
548 locally-generated message can also be set by an initial 'From' line
549 in the message - see the description of -bm above.
552 This option is accepted for compatibility with sendmail, but at
553 present has no effect. (In sendmail it overrides the 'hop count'
554 obtained by counting Received headers.)
557 This option, which has the same effect as -oi, specifies that a dot
558 on a line by itself should not terminate an incoming, non-SMTP
559 message. I can find no documentation for this option in Solaris 2.4
560 sendmail, but the mailx command in Solaris 2.4 uses it.
563 The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and Exim runs
564 a delivery attempt on each message in turn. Retry hints for any of the
565 addresses are overridden - this option forces Exim to try to deliver
566 even if the normal retry time has not yet been reached. If any of the
567 messages is frozen, it is automatically thawed before the delivery
568 attempt, provided that the caller is an admin user.
570 .B -Mar <message-id> <address> <address> ...
571 The first argument must be a message id, and the remaining ones must
572 be email addresses. Exim adds the addresses to the list of recipi-
573 ents of the message. However, if the message is active (in the middle
574 of a delivery attempt), its status is not altered. This option can be
575 used only by an admin user.
578 This runs, under /bin/sh, the command defined in the shell variable
579 VISUAL or, if that is not defined, EDITOR or, if that is not defined,
580 the command vi, on a copy of the spool file containing the body of
581 message (eb = Edit Body). If the editor exits normally, then the
582 result of editing replaces the spool file. The message is locked
583 during this process, so no delivery attempts can occur. Note that the
584 first line of the spool file is its own name; care should be taken not
585 to disturb this. The thinking behind providing this feature is that an
586 administrator who has had to mess around with the addresses to get a
587 message delivered might want to add some (grumbly) comment at the
588 start of the message text. This option can be used only by an admin
591 .B -Mes <message-id> <address>
592 There must be exactly two arguments. The first argument must be a
593 message id, and the second one an email address. Exim changes the
594 sender address in the message to the given address, which must be a
595 fully qualified address, or '<>'. However, if the message is active
596 (in the middle of a delivery attempt), its status is not altered.
597 This option can be used only by an admin user.
599 .B -Mmad <message-id>
600 Exim marks the all recipient addresses in the message as already
601 delivered. However, if the message is active (in the middle of a
602 delivery attempt), its status is not altered. This option can be used
603 only by an admin user.
605 .B -Mmd <message-id> <address> <address> ...
606 The first argument must be a message id, and the remaining ones must
607 be email addresses. Exim marks the given addresses as already
608 delivered. However, if the message is active (in the middle of a
609 delivery attempt), its status is not altered. This option can be used
610 only by an admin user.
612 .B -MC <transport> <hostname> <sequence number> <message id>
613 This option is not intended for use by outside callers. It is used
614 internally by Exim to invoke another instance of itself to deliver a
615 waiting message using an existing SMTP channel, which is passed as the
616 standard input and output. Details are given in chapter 43. This must
617 be the final option, and the caller must be root or the Exim user in
621 The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and Exim runs
622 a delivery attempt on each message in turn, but unlike the -M option,
623 it does check for retry hints, and respects any that are found. This
624 option is not very useful to external callers (except for testing). It
625 is provided for internal use by Exim when it needs to re-invoke itself
626 in order to regain root privilege for a delivery (see chapter 44).
629 The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and each
630 message is marked 'frozen'. This prevents any delivery attempts taking
631 place until the message is 'thawed', either manually or as a result of
632 the auto_thaw configuration option. However, if any of the messages is
633 active (in the middle of a delivery attempt), its status is not
634 altered. This option can be used only by an admin user.
637 The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and Exim gives
638 up trying to deliver those messages. A delivery error message is sent,
639 containing the text 'cancelled by administrator'. However, if any of
640 the messages is active, its status is not altered. This option can be
641 used only by an admin user.
644 The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and each
645 message that was 'frozen' is now 'thawed', so that delivery attempts
646 can resume. However, if any of the messages is active, its status is
647 not altered. This option can be used only by an admin user.
650 The arguments are interpreted as a list of message ids, and each
651 message is completely removed from Exim's queue, and forgotten.
652 However, if any of the messages is active, its status is not
653 altered. This option can be used only by an admin user or by the user
654 who originally caused the message to be placed on the queue.
657 This is apparently a synonym for -om that is accepted by sendmail, so
658 Exim treats it that way too.
661 This is a debugging option that inhibits delivery of a message at the
662 transport level. It implies at least -d1. Exim goes through many of
663 the motions of delivery - it just doesn't actually transport the
664 message, but instead behaves as if it had successfully done so. The
665 log, for example, will contain entries as if the message had been
666 delivered. Only root or the exim user are allowed to use -N with -bd,
667 -q, or -M. In other words, an ordinary user can use it only when
668 supplying an incoming message.
671 This option is used by Sendmail in conjunction with -bi to specify an
672 alternative alias file name. Exim handles -bi differently; see the
676 This is a debugging option which limits the maximum number of SMTP
677 deliveries down one channel to <n>, overriding the value set in the
678 smtp transport. If <n> is omitted, the limit is set to 1 (no
682 This option applies to all modes in which Exim accepts incoming
683 messages, including the listening daemon. It requests 'background'
684 delivery of such messages, which means that the accepting process
685 automatically starts another delivery process for each message
686 received. Exim does not wait for such processes to complete (it can
687 take some time to perform SMTP deliveries). This is the default action
688 if none of the -od options are present.
691 This option (compatible with smail) requests 'foreground' (syn-
692 chronous) delivery when Exim has accepted a locally-generated mess-
693 age. For the daemon it is exactly the same as -odb. For a single
694 message received on the standard input, if the protection regime
695 permits it (see chapter 44), Exim converts the reception process into
696 a delivery process. In other cases, it creates a new delivery process,
697 and then waits for it to complete before proceeding.
700 This option is synonymous with -odf. It is provided for compati-
701 bility with sendmail.
704 This option applies to all modes in which Exim accepts incoming
705 messages, including the listening daemon. It specifies that the
706 accepting process should not automatically start a delivery attempt
707 for each message received. Messages are placed on the queue, and
708 remain there until a subsequent queue-running process encounters
709 them. The queue_only configuration option has the same effect.
712 This option applies to all modes in which Exim accepts incoming
713 messages, including the listening daemon. It causes Exim to process
714 local addresses when a message is received, but not even to try
715 routing remote addresses. Contrast with -odqs below, which does the
716 routing, but not the delivery. The remote addresses will be picked up
717 by the next queue runner. The queue_remote configuration option has
721 This option is a hybrid between -odb and -odq. A delivery process is
722 started for each incoming message, the addresses are all processed,
723 and local deliveries are done in the normal way. However, if any SMTP
724 deliveries are required, they are not done at this time. Such messages
725 remain on the queue until a subsequent queue-running process
726 encounters them. Because routing was done, Exim knows which messages
727 are waiting for which hosts, and so a number of messages for the same
728 host will get sent in a single SMTP connection. The queue_smtp
729 configuration option has the same effect.
732 If an error is detected while a non-SMTP message is being received
733 (e.g. a malformed address), the error is reported to the sender in a
734 mail message. This is the default option. After a message has been
735 successfully received, any subsequent delivery errors are always
736 reported in this way.
739 If an error is detected while a non-SMTP message is being received,
740 the error is reported by writing a message to the standard error file
744 This option is supported for compatibility with sendmail, but has the
748 This option is supported for compatibility with sendmail, but has the
752 This option, which has the same effect as -i, specifies that a dot on
753 a line by itself should not terminate an incoming, non-SMTP message.
755 .B -oMa <host address>
756 This option sets the sender host address value, and can be used only
757 by a trusted caller. The value is used in log entries and can appear
758 in Received headers. The option is intended for use when handing to
759 Exim messages received by other means.
761 .B -oMr <protocol name>
762 This option sets the received protocol value, and can be used only by
763 a trusted caller. The value is used in log entries and can appear in
764 Received headers. The option is intended for use when handing to Exim
765 messages received by other means.
768 This option sets the sender host name value, and can be used only by a
769 trusted caller. The value is used in log entries and can appear in
770 Received headers. The option is intended for use when handing to Exim
771 messages received by other means.
773 .B -oMt <ident string>
774 This option sets the sender ident value, and can be used only by a
775 trusted caller. The value is used in log entries and can appear in
776 Received headers. The option is intended for use when handing to Exim
777 messages received by other means.
780 In sendmail, this option means 'me too', indicating that the sender of
781 a message should receive a copy of the message if the sender appears
782 in an alias expansion. Exim always does this, so the option does
786 This option sets a timeout value for incoming non-SMTP messages. If it
787 is not set, Exim will wait forever for the standard input. The value
788 can also be set using the accept_timeout configuration vari- able. The
789 format used for specifying times is described in section 7.6.
791 This option has exactly the same effect as -v.
794 This option is relevant only when the -bd option is also given. It
795 specifies an alternative TCP/IP port number for the listening daemon,
796 and is useful for testing. When used, the process number of the daemon
797 is written to a file whose name is exim- daemon.<number>.pid in Exim's
801 If the -q option is not followed by a time value, it requests a single
802 queue run operation. This option can be used only by an admin
803 user. Exim starts up a delivery process for each (inactive) message on
804 the queue in turn, and waits for it to finish before starting the next
805 one. When all the queued messages have been considered, the original
806 process terminates. In other words, a single pass is made over the
807 waiting mail. Use -q with a time (see below) if you want this to be
808 repeated periodically.
810 Exim processes the waiting messages in an unpredictable order. It
811 isn't very random, but it is likely to be different each time, which
812 is all that matters. If one particular message screws up a remote MTA,
813 other messages to the same MTA have a chance of getting through if
814 they get tried first.
816 However, it is possible to cause the messages to be processed in
817 lexical id order, which is essentially the order in which they
818 arrived, and to start this operation at a particular point by
819 following the -q option with a starting message id. For example:
821 exim -q 0t5C6f-0000c8-00
823 This causes Exim to skip any messages whose ids are lexically less
824 than the given id. A second id can also be given to stop the queue run
825 before the end. See also the -R option.
828 This version of the -q option (which again can be run only by an admin
829 user) causes Exim to run as a daemon, starting a queue-running process
830 at intervals specified by the given time value (whose format is
831 described in section 7.6). This form of the -q option is commonly
832 combined with the -bd option, in which case a single daemon process
833 handles both functions. A common way of starting up a combined daemon
834 at system boot time is to use a command such as
836 /opt/exim/bin/exim -bd -q30m
838 Such a daemon listens for incoming SMTP calls, and also fires up a
839 queue-runner process every 30 minutes. The process id of such a daemon
840 is written to a file called exim-daemon.pid in Exim's spool directory,
841 unless the -oX option has been used, in which case the file is called
842 exim-daemon.<port-number>.pid. The location of the pid file can be
843 changed by defining PID_FILE_PATH in Local/Makefile. If a daemon is
844 started without -bd then the -q option used to start it is added to
848 This option operates like -q, and may appear with or without a
849 following time. The difference is that a delivery attempt is forced
850 for each message, whereas with -q only those addresses that have
851 passed their retry times are tried.
854 This option operates like -ql, and may appear with or without a
855 following time. The difference is that a delivery attempt is forced
856 for each message, whereas with -ql only those local addresses that
857 have passed their retry times are tried.
860 This option operates like -q, and may appear with or without a
861 following time. The difference is that only local addresses are
862 considered for delivery. Note that -ql cannot detect apparently remote
863 addresses that actually turn out to be local when their domains get
866 This option is similar to -q with no time value, except that, when
867 scanning the messages on the queue, Exim processes only those that
868 have at least one undelivered address containing the given string,
869 which is checked in a case-independent way. However, once a message is
870 selected, all its addresses are processed. For the first message
871 containing a matching address, Exim overrides any retry information
872 and forces a delivery attempt. This makes it straightforward to
873 initiate delivery for all messages to a given domain after a host has
874 been down for some time. When the SMTP command ETRN is permitted (see
875 the smtp_etrn options), its effect is to run Exim with the -R option.
878 This is a documented (for sendmail) obsolete alternative name for -f.
881 When Exim is receiving a locally-generated, non-SMTP message on the
882 current input, the -t option causes the recipients of the message to
883 be obtained from the To, Cc, and Bcc headers in the message instead of
884 from the command arguments. If there are any arguments, they specify
885 addresses to which the message is not to be delivered. That is, the
886 argument addresses are removed from the recipients list obtained from
887 the headers. If a Bcc header is present, it is removed from the
888 message unless there is no To or Cc header, in which case a Bcc header
889 with no data is created, in accordance with RFC 822.
892 This option has exactly the same effect as -d1; it causes Exim to be
893 'verbose' and produce some output describing what it is doing on the
894 standard error file. In particular, if an SMTP connection is made, the
895 SMTP dialogue is shown.
898 AIX uses -x for a private purpose ('mail from a local mail program has
899 National Language Support extended characters in the body of the mail
900 item'). It sets -x when calling the MTA from its mail command. Exim
903 There is extensive documentation available in
905 and in the info system regarding exim.
906 Debian users please be sure to have the
910 This manual page was stitched together by Christoph Lameter,
911 <clameter@debian.org>, from the original documentation coming with the
912 sourcepackage for the Debian GNU/Linux system, and cleaned up a little
913 by Tim Cutts <tjrc1@scalopus.bio.cam.ac.uk>.
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