Spam Filter Usage and Settings

When a message is identified as SPAM, The SPAM filter adds the word SPAM to the subject line (as well as adding information for you regarding why the message was considered spam).

Most users simply create a new message folder in the email program they're using (Outlook Express, Eudora, etc.) and create a new message rule or message filter to put all mail with the word SPAM in the subject line to go to this new folder. That way you can quickly view the collected SPAM, making sure none of it is legitimate email, and delete it.

You don't need to make any changes to your email account on the mail server for the spam filter to work. However, you do have the ability to change the spam filter settings, or even turn it off if you desire. here's how:

Changing the SPAM filter settings
You can log into the server and change the SPAM filter settings at:

      http://www.your-site/personal
(you'll need to replace "www.your-site" in the line above with your domain name)

Once you've logged in with your user name and password, click on the "Spam-Filter" button on the left. You'll see a page similar to this:

Click to enlarge
(Click to enlarge)

The settings are as follows:

Required Hits:

Specifies how many positive hits in regards to SPAM-typical phrases an email must have before it is reported as SPAM.

The higher this value is, the less sensitive the filter reacts and the more SPAM will pass through it undetected.

Recommended value:      6.00
Filter disabled: 900

Whitelist From:

Here you can specify which people are allowed to send you email that should never ever be tagged as SPAM. Valid inputs are complete or partial email addresses and domain names.

Multiple addresses have to be separated by a colon as shown above. A wildcard (*) can be used like in the example above.

As the example above indicates, email from user@yahoo.com will never be tagged as SPAM. Likewise any email which comes from the mailserver mydomain.com will never be tagged as SPAM. In that case it doesn't matter if the sender address is user_a@mydomain.com or user_b@mydomain.com.

Blacklist From:

All email from the complete or partial email addresses and domains listed here will always be tagged as SPAM. Wildcards (*) are allowed, multiple addresses have to be separated by a colon.

In the example above we block all mails from yahoo.com. With the exception of user@yahoo.com, which is allowed to mail us because we have him listed in our Whitelist From.

Defang MIME:

As the explanation above mentions: Defanging of MIME will make sure that SPAM which contains HTML code (and possible Active-X or JavaScript) will be shown as a plain text email. That makes sure that no pop-ups or more malicious attachments are executed while you look at the email.

Terse Reports:

Checking this box shortens the explanation added to the email by the spam filter.

Filter Disabled:

If a user decides he doesn't want any filtering of his inbound emails and no tagging of SPAM, then he can check this box.

That will automatically increase the Required Hits for his mailbox to 900, which effectively means that no tagging of SPAM as such takes place.

Automatic deletion of SPAM:

The function of this checkbox is pretty obvious and by default this checkbox is always unchecked.

It is recommended to leave this box unchecked for a while and to examine how well you do with the standard Required Hits value of 6.

You might have to add a few addresses to your Whitelist or might need to increase the value a little to suit your own needs before you decide to have your SPAM automatically deleted on the server.

 
 
Instructions for Site Administrators
How the Spam Filter Works