UPDATE-EXIM4.CONF(8)                                          System Manager's Manual                                         UPDATE-EXIM4.CONF(8)

NAME

       update-exim4.conf - Generate exim4 configuration files.

SYNOPSIS

       update-exim4.conf [-v|--verbose] [-h|--help] [--keepcomments] [--removecomments] [-o|--output file]

OPTIONS

       -v|--verbose
              Enable verbose mode

       -h|--help
              Show short help message and exit

       --keepcomments
              Do not remove comment lines from the output file.

       --removecomments
              Remove comment lines from the output file. [Default]

       -o|--output file
              Write output to file instead of /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.

       -d|--confdir directory
              Read input from directory instead of /etc/exim4.

DESCRIPTION

       The  script update-exim4.conf generates the main configuration files /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated for Exim v4 by merging the data in
       the  template  file  /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template  or   the   ones   in   the   /etc/exim4/conf.d   directory   tree   respectively   and
       /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf to the output file /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.

       If   dc_use_split_config   in   /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf   specifies   a  split  configuration,  update-exim4.conf  processes  the
       /etc/exim4/conf.d subdirectories in the order main, acl, router, transport, retry, rewrite and auth. Within each directory it  takes  files
       in lexical sort order by file name. It concatenates all these files and makes the debconf replacement described below.

       If  you  are  not  using  split  configuration  update-exim4.conf  concatenates /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.localmacros (if this file exists) and
       /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template (in this order) and makes the debconf replacement described below.

       In either case, before outputting the result to /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated, update-exim4.conf generates a number of exim  configu-
       ration  macros from the contents of dc_something from /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf and inserts them into the configuration right after
       the definition of the exim configuration macro UPEX4CmacrosUPEX4C (which is only used as placeholder for this case). The macro  definitions
       are  bracketed  with  .ifdef  clauses to allow the local admin to override the values with earlier definitions.  update-exim4.conf makes no
       other changes to the configuration.  This makes it very simple to make small changes to the configuration and still have  the  benefits  of
       debconf.

       On  the other hand if you don't want to manage exim4.conf with debconf install your own handcrafted version as /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.  Exim
       will use this file if it exists and ignore the autogenerated one.  Additionally you might  want  to  set  dc_eximconfig_configtype=none  in
       /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf to stop debconf from asking you questions about exim4.

       update-exim4.conf  exits  silently and does nothing if /etc/exim4/exim4.conf exists and -o was not used to direct the output to a different
       file than /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.

       update-exim4.conf will only use files in the conf.d directory that have a filename which consists only of letters, numbers, underscores and
       hyphens  ([:alnum:]_-),  similar  to  run-parts(8).   Additionally,  update-exim4.conf  will  use  /etc/exim4/conf.d/foo/bar.rul instead of
       /etc/exim4/conf.d/foo/bar if the .rul file exists. This is meant to be helpful for easy interaction with packages extending Exim.

       If the new configuration will be written to /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated, update-exim4.conf will check the validity of  the  freshly
       generated  configuration.  If  the  new  file  is detected as invalid, update-exim4.conf leaves the old /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated
       untouched and exits with an error.

       However, there are still possible invalidities that can only be detected at run time. This most notably applies to  errors  in  expressions
       that are expanded at run time.

       If the new configuration will be written to some other file, no validity checking occurs and that file will always be overwritten.

EXAMPLES

       You  want to be able to check exim's queue as normal user: Generate a new file, e.g. /etc/exim4/conf.d/main/40_local_mailq, containing only
       the line queue_list_requires_admin = false

NOTES

       update-exim4.conf changes the file permissions of the output file to the value of the environment variable CFILEMODE. If CFILEMODE is  nei-
       ther set in /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf nor in the environment it defaults to 0644.  Change this to 0640 if you are keeping sensitive
       information (LDAP credentials et. al.) in there.

CONFIGURATION VARIABLES

       All lists given in configuration variables are semicolon-separated. In the past, they used to be colon separated. This was changed to semi-
       colon  separation  to  make specification of IPv6 addresses easier.  Backwards compatibility is preserved, so that old configurations using
       colons as separators do still work. Colons are deprecated and might stop working in a later release. If you need to specifiy a single  IPv6
       address  in a field that is defined as a list of host names or IP addresses, please prefix "<;" to explicitly specify the list separator as
       a semicolon. Otherwise, the code cannot tell an IP address from a colon-separated list of strange host names.

       Using lookups like "dsearch;something" in update-exim4.conf.conf has never been supported and does no longer work! If you need this, please
       convert to directly setting the appropriate macros.

       update-exim4.conf evaluates these patterns in /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf:

       CFILEMODE
              The octal file mode of the generated file.

       dc_eximconfig_configtype
              The  main configuration type. Sets macro DC_eximconfig_configtype. The macro usually contains a shorthand for one of the choices for
              the "General type of mail configuration" debconf question (See README.Debian).

              dc_eximconfig_configtype <-> debconf configtype mapping:
              "internet"
                     internet site; mail is sent and received directly using SMTP
              "smarthost"
                     mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail
              "satellite"
                     mail sent by smarthost; no local mail
              "local"
                     local delivery only; not on a network
              "none" no configuration at this time

       dc_hide_mailname
              Boolean option that controls whether the local mailname in the headers of outgoing  mail  should  be  hidden.  (Only  effective  for
              "smarthost" and "satellite". Sets macro HIDE_MAILNAME.

       dc_mailname_in_oh
              Internal  use  only  Boolean  option  that  is  set  by  the  maintainer  scripts  after adding the contents of /etc/mailname to the
              dc_other_hostnames list. This is a transition helper since it wouldn't otherwise be possible to see whether  that  domain  name  has
              been removed from dc_other_hostnames on purpose. This is not used by update-exim4.conf, and no macro is set.

       ue4c_keepcomments
              Boolean  option  that  controls whether update-exim4.conf strips the comments from the target configuration file (default) or leaves
              them in. This can be overridden by the command line options --keepcomments and --removecomments. The value is not written to an exim
              macro.

       dc_localdelivery
              name of the default transport for local mail delivery. Defaults to mail_spool if unset, use maildir_home for delivery to ~/Maildir/.
              Sets macro LOCAL_DELIVERY.

       dc_local_interfaces
              List of IP addresses the Exim daemon should listen on.  If  this  is  left  empty,  Exim  listens  on  all  interfaces.  Sets  macro
              MAIN_LOCAL_INTERFACES only if there is a non-empty value.

       dc_minimaldns
              Boolean  option  to  activate  some  option to minimize DNS lookups, if set to "true" a macro DC_minimaldns is defined. If true, the
              macro DC_minimaldns is set to 1, and the macro MAIN_HARDCODE_PRIMARY_HOSTNAME is set to the appropriately post-processes  output  of
              hostname --fqdn.

       dc_other_hostnames
              is  used to build the local_domains list, together with "localhost".  This is the list of domains for which this machine should con-
              sider itself the final destination. The local_domains list ends up in the macro MAIN_LOCAL_DOMAINS.

       dc_readhost
              For "smarthost" and "satellite" it is possible to hide the local mailname in the headers of outgoing mail and replace it  with  this
              value instead, using rewriting. For "satellite" only, this value is also the host to send local mail to. Sets macro DCreadhost.

       dc_relay_domains
              is  a  list of domains for which we accept mail from anywhere on the Internet but which are not delivered locally, e.g. because this
              machine serves as secondary MX for these domains. Sets MAIN_RELAY_TO_DOMAINS.

       dc_relay_nets
              A list of machines for which we serve as smarthost. Please note  that  127.0.0.1  and  ::1  are  always  permitted  to  relay  since
              /usr/lib/sendmail is available anyway and relay control doesn't make sense here. Sets macro MAIN_RELAY_NETS.

       dc_smarthost
              List of hosts to which all outgoing mail is passed to and that takes care of delivering it. Each of the hosts is tried, in the order
              specified (See exim specification, chapter 20.5). All deliveries go out to TCP port 25 unless a different port  is  specified  after
              the host name, separated from the host name by two colons. Colons in IPv6 addresses need to be doubled. If a port number follows, IP
              addresses may be enclosed in brackets, which might be the only possibility to specify delivery to an IPv6 address  and  a  different
              port. Examples:
              host.domain.example deliver to host looked up on DNS, tcp/25
              host.domain.example::587 deliver to host looked up on DNS, tcp/587
              192.168.2.4 deliver to IPv4 host, tcp/25
              192.168.2.4::587 deliver to IPv4 host, tcp/587
              [192.168.2.4]::587 deliver to IPv4 host, tcp/587
              2001::0db8::f::4::::2 deliver to IPv6 host, tcp/25
              [2001::0db8::f::4::::2]::587 deliver to IPv6 host, tcp/587
              This is used as value of the DCsmarthost macro.

       dc_use_split_config
              Boolean  option  that  controls  whether update-exim4.conf uses /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template ("false") or the multiple files below
              /etc/exim4/conf.d ("true") as input. This does not set any macros.

       The macro MAIN_PACKAGE_VERSION is set to Debian's Version number of
              the package being installed for convenient inclusion in the configuration.

RECOMMENDED USAGE

       If you are running exim as daemon (as it is in the default setup of the Debian packages) you should not invoke  update-exim4.conf  directly
       when  exim  is  running. For SMTP receiving or queue running, exim forks, and the new processes would use the new configuration file, while
       the original main exim daemon would still use the old configuration file. You should use invoke-rc.d exim4 restart instead.

BUGS

       This manual page needs a major re-work. If somebody knows better groff than us and has more experience in writing manual pages, any patches
       would be greatly appreciated.

FILES

       /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated
              Exim's main configuration file

       /etc/exim4/exim4.conf
              Optional manually managed Exim main configuration file. Takes precedence over debconf managed one if it exists.

       /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
              Configuration  file  being  written  by  exim4-config  maintainer scripts, which may be hand-edited, and is read as input by update-
              exim4.conf.

SEE ALSO

       exim(8),  exim4-config_files(5),  /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/  and  for  general  notes  and  details   about   interaction   with   debconf
       /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/README.Debian.gz

AUTHOR

       Andreas Metzler <ametzler at downhill.at.eu.org>
       Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>

EXIM4                                                              Jun 25, 2005                                               UPDATE-EXIM4.CONF(8)