welcome: please sign in

The following 319 words could not be found in the dictionary of 7 words (including 7 LocalSpellingWords) and are highlighted below:
above   account   add   adding   address   Admin   all   already   an   analysis   and   another   any   appear   appropriate   are   argument   as   As   asks   Assassin   automate   automatic   based   Bayesian   be   because   before   below   by   called   can   categorizing   Category   chance   check   classification   classify   clear   client   com   commit   Contents   contents   control   copy   correct   create   criteria   curious   custom   customize   cycle   data   decide   decisions   def   deposit   describes   details   detect   detection   determine   different   disable   do   Dom   domain   don   electronic   elsewhere   Email   email   enable   enabled   enables   Enabling   endif   equivalent   erroneously   ever   Every   examine   example   exim   Exim   extra   faithful   faulty   feature   feed   Feeding   file   filter   Filter   filtering   finish   First   first   five   Flag   flags   folder   folders   following   for   For   forward   future   gives   going   good   Ham   ham   handled   have   hcoop   header   headers   here   higher   hits   home   how   however   http   https   if   If   ignore   in   inbox   incorrect   increase   indicate   indicates   indicating   inside   interact   into   Introduction   is   it   It   its   itself   junk   keep   Kennedy   later   leads   learning   legit   Level   level   like   liking   ll   log   logfile   logs   looks   lots   mail   mailbox   Maildir   make   makes   Manual   manually   marked   Member   members   message   messages   minutes   misclassifications   misclassified   misclassifying   missed   mistakes   modify   more   move   Moving   Nathan   need   Needs   net   never   newspaper   not   note   Of   of   off   on   one   One   only   or   org   other   our   out   over   own   page   perform   permissions   place   places   Please   poorly   portal   prefer   probably   procedure   process   program   properly   properties   provider   public   range   re   reject   request   requires   rules   run   save   scheme   section   see   services   set   setsa   shared   should   signify   similarly   Site   situation   slapping   small   sniff   so   Sometimes   somewhat   sources   spam   Spam   spamassassin   spamhood   spamhound   spamminess   special   specially   spots   statistical   style   subscribe   support   sysadmins   system   Table   template   that   The   the   their   then   there   these   this   This   through   time   to   To   Tool   tool   trainer   Training   training   tree   undef   under   up   update   Use   use   used   user   using   ve   verdict   vicious   virtual   want   way   We   we   webmail   were   When   when   whether   which   wide   will   with   work   Work   would   You   you   your  

Clear message
Edit

MemberManual / Email / SpamAssassin

This page describes how to use SpamAssassin to keep junk email under control.

Introduction

You will probably want to set up SpamAssassin to detect junk e-mail for you. SpamAssassin is a program for categorizing e-mail as spam based on a wide range of criteria. It indicates its decisions by adding special headers to messages.

Please note that we will never reject any spam email before it hits your filtering rules. It is up to you to decide how to classify the email that hits your inbox.

Enabling spam detection

We use a custom tool called setsa to determine whether your email should be run through SpamAssassin. To enable SpamAssassin for mail to your UNIX account, run

setsa on

To later disable it, run

setsa off

To check whether you've enabled it or not, run

setsa

You can similarly enable or disable SpamAssassin for a virtual mailbox address by adding it as the first argument to setsa; for example, setsa user@domain.com on enables SpamAssassin for user@domain.com if you have DomTool permissions for domain.com.

Please don't enable this if you can't commit to following the training procedure below when SpamAssassin makes an incorrect classification! SpamAssassin makes small mistakes over time, and this can interact poorly with its automatic learning of which message properties signify spam. If you don't correct its small misclassifications, then these increase the chance of misclassifying future messages, which itself leads to more faulty learning, vicious cycle style.

Moving spam email to a different folder

The above procedure only asks SpamAssassin to examine your mail and add extra headers indicating its verdict, spam or legit. To use these headers to move junk mail to a folder called Spam in your IMAP mailbox, copy the following template to ~/.public/.forward. This is an Exim filter that looks for SpamAssassin headers that indicate spamhood. You need to create a Spam folder manually to use this. You can modify this template to save spam to other places, if you don't use IMAP or prefer another scheme. (If you already have a ~/.public/.forward file because you forward all of your mail to another account elsewhere, then you can ignore this section. You should use that e-mail provider's spam filtering services.)

# Exim filter

logfile $home/.logs/mail/exim.log

if
    "${if def:h_X-Spam-Flag {def}{undef}}" is "def"
then
    save $home/Maildir/.Spam/
    finish
endif

SpamAssassin flags spam with a spamminess level of 5.0 or higher. You can use the X-Spam-Level: header to customize your own filter to your own liking, however. As an example, you can see NathanKennedy's .forward file on the MemberManual/Email/EximFilter page.

Training

One way that SpamAssassin spots spam is by using statistical (Bayesian) analysis. This requires lots of training data to work properly.

Sometimes this analysis will make mistakes, and you'll want to perform the electronic equivalent of slapping it with a newspaper. The way to do that is to deposit misclassified mail in special system-wide IMAP folders, one called SiteSpam for spam that SpamAssassin missed and one called SiteHam for good messages that were erroneously marked as spam.

If you ever run into this situation, here's how you can feed our system-wide trainer:

  1. First, this is only going to work if you are using IMAP (our webmail is using IMAP, so that can be used). If you're not, or if you have other sources of spam or ham that you'd like handled specially, place a support request on the portal.

  2. Use your IMAP client's "subscribe" feature to subscribe to SiteSpam and/or SiteHam, which should appear in the SpamAssassin mailbox inside the shared tree. If you don't see the shared tree, then file a support request.

  3. When you want a message to be used as an example of spam or ham, place a copy of it in the appropriate folder.
  4. Every five minutes, our faithful spamhound will sniff these folders, update its data, and clear their contents.

If you would like to automate this process somewhat, check out FeedingSpamAssassin. For the curious and the sysadmins out there, SpamAssassinAdmin gives more details on how we set this up.


CategoryMemberManual CategoryNeedsWork

MemberManual/Email/SpamAssassin (last edited 2018-05-06 17:53:13 by ClintonEbadi)