Have you discovered that email messages being scored a 4 by SpamAsassin are usually spam but due to the server's setting of 5 you continue to receive spam? Are you subscribed to a newsletter that routinely gets tagged as spam? Does a particular user bombard you with useless mail that you no longer want to see? These are all examples of personal preferences that you now can change through the use of a new plugin written by MIS for the College of Engineering webmail system.

Spam is such a problem that despite all the work we do to improve filtering and blocking on the email server that it still manages to get delivered. The more strict we make our policies the greater likelihood that legitmate email will be blocked or tagged. As a result, global server settings may be set more lenient than some would like.

The users of the Engineering email server are so varied that it is impossible to please everyone. We've heard from people who want everything blocked (don't even deliver the messages that are tagged as spam). There are an equal number of people that who us to do nothing. The global server settings are a happy middle ground. However, we know that our users would like better, more personal control of spam filtering.

Up until now there has been no convenient way for a user to override the global settings. This new plugin allows you to modify key features of the spam filtering programs installed on the mail server. Now you have one more weapon in the fight against spam.

Accessing the SpamRules Plugin Figure Zero: squirrelmail menubar showing 'Options' and 'Folders'

The SpamRules plugin is available in the Options (figure one) screen of the webmail client which you get to by clicking the "Options" icon in the menubar (#1, figure one). You can see a brief description of the SpamRules plugin in the lower righthand corner (#2, figure one) of this screen. If you need instructions on logging in and/or using the webmail client, see our Using the Webmail Client article. Turning Spam Filtering Off/On/ToJunk The first screen of the SpamRules plugin (figure two) allows you to control whether or not email is processed by SpamAssassin (learn more about SpamAssassin in our Filtering Spam article). The options available include: OFF SpamAssassin processing is turned off. ON SpamAssassin processing is turned on. TO JUNK SpamAssassin processing is turned on and spam is filtered server-side to a Junk mailbox.

Figure One Figure Two

The first two options, OFF and ON, are basically self-explanatory. If you want the mail server to attempt to categorize your email as spam based upon a complex set of tests select ON. If not, select OFF. The default behavior is ON, so you are probably already familiar with the way SpamAssassin scores and tags email.

The TO JUNK option is new. Using this option, SpamAssassin will continue to process your incoming email and if it determines a message is junk, server-side filtering will move the message automatically to a Junk mailbox. Your default email client, Eudora or Outlook, will not even see these messages. In this way, you eliminate having to even see the spam throughout the day because it will never be downloaded.

Instead of seeing the spam as it comes in, once a day you'll receive a Junk Summary email that will be a formated summary of the various spam that were moved to your server-side Junk mailbox. This email is sent to you as a means to quickly review your spam for false positives.

If you're having a hard time determining if a message is legitimately spam or discover a message in the summary that was filtered to your Junk mailbox by mistake (a false positive), you'll need to review the email message using the webmail client. Some information about using the webmail client for these messages is in the next section.

** The Junk Summary email is formatted using a fixed-width font in order to create a nicely aligned table in the BRIEF section. If your display is using a proportional spaced font the formatting of the Junk Summary email message will be messed up. If you would like assistance is configuring your email client to use a fixed-width font, contact MIS.

Now, whenever you want to view your Junk email, login to the webmail client and click on the Junk link in the folder list (#1, figure five). Doing so will display a message list of your spam (figure five).

Figure Five