Exim v4 Packages for Debian

Exim4 is the MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) installed by default on new debian installations. On this web page, the Debian exim4 maintainers would like to deliver information important for users and developers.

Debian 3.1 (stable, codename sarge) has exim4 4.50-8.

There is lots of excellent documentation for exim. The first file to read under debian is README.Debian (table of contents below.) Then one ought to read the specification file; /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/spec.txt

Please note that the debian configuration is different from the default exim4 configuration found on other systems. This is why it is imperative that one read the debian documentation when setting up exim.

User Information

The file "README.Debian" distributed with exim4 has a lot of useful information.

Here is its Table of Contents:

• Introduction
  • Packaging
  • Mailing list
  • Requirements
  • Feature Sets
  • Tweaking Configuration
• Updating from exim 3
• How does the configuration work?
• Using a completely different configuration scheme
• Misc Notes
• Modifications done to the packages
• FAQ
  • Packaging
  • Configuration Issues
  • Run-Time Challenges
  • Features

• README.Debian can be found on your system in /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/README.Debian.gz. The README.Debian shipped with Debian sarge (Version 4.50-8) [http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-exim4/exim/trunk/debian/README.Debian?op=file&rev=1160&sc=0 Subversion Repository]. Currently, README.Debian is built from XML Source, which you can see [http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-exim4/exim/trunk/debian/README.Debian.xml?op=file&sc=1 here.]

• NEWS.Debian (/usr/share/doc/exim4-(base||config||daemon-(light||heavy))/NEWS.Debian.gz) is another must-read which currently contains information that should be moved to the Debconf templates in due time.

• [http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/e/exim4/ Packages for Sid, Sarge and Etch]

• [http://downhill.aus.cc/debian/dists/sarge/exim4/ Backported Packages for Sarge]

• [http://www.backports.org/package.php?search=exim4 Packages for Woody] might be available, but are not built and supported any more. Use at your own risk, and please seriously think about upgrading to sarge.

• [http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-exim4-users User-Level Discussion Mailing List]

• [wiki:?PkgExim4KnownBugsInSarge Known Bugs in the Packages for Debian Sarge]

Developer Information

• [http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-exim4/ Alioth Project Home Page]

• [http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-exim4-devel Development Mailing List]

• [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=exim4 BTS]

• [wiki:?PkgExim4BugsClassification Bugs Classification Page] - this is currently outdated and might be moved to BTS user tags soon

• [http://alioth.debian.org/tracker/?atid=411651&group_id=30055&func=browse TODO Tracker]

• [wiki:?PkgExim4PostSargeTemplateChanges Post-Sarge Change List]

• [http://packages.qa.debian.org/exim4 PTS]

• [http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-exim4/exim/trunk/debian/po/ Latest Debconf .po files]

• [http://www.exim.org/ Upstream Web Site]

Developer's Discussion

• [wiki:EtcMailName Discussion and attempt of a Definition to handle /etc/mailname]

• [wiki:?PkgExim4DocStructure Structure for future Debian exim documentation]

Current information

• At the moment, exim4-config-simple and exim4-config-medium are outdated. We appreciate patches that apply against current svn.
• We are in dire need of help from somebody who is familiar with GnuTLS. There are numerous bugs concerning TLS behavior of the Exim daemon, and upstream seems to have lost their GnuTLS knowledge when the helper who delivered the GnuTLS code vanished.

Subversion Repository

The Debian Exim 4 packages are developed in [http://packages.debian.org/subversion Subversion.]

• [http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-exim4/ Web Interface]

  • http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-exim4/

  • http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-exim4/exim/

  • http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/pkg-exim4/exim/trunk

• Cut&Paste Shortcuts for checkout

  • svn co svn://svn.debian.org/srv/svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-exim4/exim/trunk
  • svn co svn://svn.debian.org/srv/svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-exim4/eximdoc4/trunk
  • svn co svn://svn.debian.org/srv/svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-exim4/exim4-config-simple/trunk
  • svn co svn://svn.debian.org/srv/svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-exim4/exim4-config-medium/trunk

  • svn co svn+ssh://svn.debian.org/srv/svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-exim4/exim/trunk

  • svn co svn+ssh://svn.debian.org/srv/svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-exim4/eximdoc4/trunk

  • svn co svn+ssh://svn.debian.org/srv/svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-exim4/exim4-config-simple/trunk

  • svn co svn+ssh://svn.debian.org/srv/svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-exim4/exim4-config-medium/trunk

For Tags and Branches, replace trunk with tags or branches. Especially for exim4, the tags directory is huge!

The svn repository only holds the debian/ subdir of the source package. [http://packages.debian.org/svn-buildpackage svn-buildpackage] and [http://packages.debian.org/dpatch dpatch] can handle this case, allowing nearly transparent work with a much smaller repository.

You can subscribe to repository change notifications through the CVS feature in the [http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/ch-resources.en.html#s-pkg-tracking-system Debian PTS]. The svn repository for exim4 is appropriately set up.

Historic CVS Repository

The exim 4 packages were originally maintained on CVS but has migrated to Subversion these days. The CVS links are listed for reference and historic reasons only. The CVS repository has been imported to SVN, but since the SVN holds only the debian/ subdir, you need to reference the CVS if you want the full history.

• cvs -d:pserver:anonymous\@cvs.alioth.debian.org:/cvsroot/pkg-exim4 login
• cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous\@cvs.alioth.debian.org:/cvsroot/pkg-exim4 co exim
• cvs -z3 -d:ext:$ALIOTHUSER\@cvs.alioth.debian.org:/cvsroot/pkg-exim4 co exim