User Guide - Configuring Client Side Spam Filter Rules
- 26/12/2005 12:09 PM
Applicable plans: All Plans
User Guide - Configuring your Mail Client for SPAM Filtering
Your Virtual Private Server provides server side Spam filters, such as Spam Assassin or DSPAM to help you fight Spam. These filters evaluate mail messages and assign a score to the email message indicating its probability of being spam. The actual score is embedded in the message header of each message. The filter then compares that score to a threshhold value (user configurable in Spam Assassin) and for each message that has a score higher than the threshhold a text label (the default is SPAM, but this can also be configured in the server side settings) is inserted into the subject of the mail message.
Please note that spam filters such as Spam Assassin and DSPAM do not delete or block messages. They will only insert the text label into the subject of the message based on the score and threshhold. Therefore you must configure your mail client to move messages tagged with the text label SPAM into a folder where you can check them for possible false positives and also delete them (manually or automatically).
This document serves as a guide to to configuring Outlook 2003, Outlook 2000/XP/Express 6, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, Eudora, and Open Web mail (which is available in your VPS for web mail) to manage messages tagged as SPAM. eApps also provides Horde (IMP) Web mail but the current version does not support creating mail filter rules.
Contents
1. Configuring Mail Rules in Outlook 2003
The steps provided here apply to Outlook 2003.
1.1. From the Outlook Menu Bar click "Tools > Rules and Alerts".
1.2. Click on "New Rule".
1.3. Select "Move messages with specific word in the subject to a folder" and click "Next".
1.4. Select the "with specific words in the subject" condition and in the "Rule description section click "specific words"
1.5. A new dialog box will appear. Here you add the label used by your server side Spam filter and click "Add" and then "OK". In this example the default value of SPAM is used.
1.6. You are now back in the window with the Rule description. This time click "specified" to specify a folder to move spam email messages.
1.7. You are now asked to choose a folder. If there is a folder in the list you would like to use select it and click OK or you can click "New" to create a new folder.
1.8. If you clicked new in the previous step you are ask to create a new folder. Give the folder a name that identifies it as a location for SPAM. Set the "Folder contains" field to "Mail and Post Items" and select a location to place the folder and click "OK".
1.9. You will be presented with a window and the file you created will be selected. Click "OK".
1.10. You are brought back to the conditions and rule description window. Confirm the selections and click "Next".
1.11. You now asked to select what to do with the message. "Move it to the specified folder" should already be select since you selected a folder in step 1.9. Click "Next".
1.12. If you want to set any exceptions for this rule you can select it from this window. When you exceptions have been set you can click "Next".
1.13. The next window ask you to specify a name for the rule. We recommend that you give it the same name as the label used by your server side Spam filter application. Check "Turn on this rule" to activate the rule and click "Finish".
1.14. You have now created the rule. Click "Apply" to activate the rule and start filtering email. Click "OK" to close the window.
2. Configuring Mail Filters in Outlook 2000/XP
The steps provided here were done in Outlook XP but you can use these same steps in Outlook 2000.
2.1. From the Outlook Menu Bar click "Tools > Rules Wizard (Message Rules in Outlook Express)"
2.2. Click on "New"
2.3. Click on "Move messages based on content" and and then Next.
2.4. Select the "with specific words in the subject" condition and in the "Rule description section click "specific words"
2.5. A new dialog box will appear. Here you add the label used by your server side Spam filter and click "Add" and then "OK". In this example the default value of SPAM is used.
2.6. You are now back in the window with the Rule description. This time click "specified" to specify a folder to move spam email messages.
2.7. You are now asked to choose a folder. If there is a folder in the list you would like to use select it and click ok or you can click "New" to create a new folder.
2.8. If you clicked new in the previous step you are ask to create a new folder. Give the folder a name that identifies it as a location for SPAM. Set the "Folder contains" field to "Mail and Post Items" and select a location to place the folder and click "OK".
2.9. You will be presented with a window and the file you created will be selected. Click "OK".
2.10. You are brought back to the conditions and rule description window. Confirm the selections and click "Next".
2.11. You now asked to select what to do with the message. "Move it to the specified folder should" already be select since you selected a folder in step 2.9. Click "Next".
2.12. If you want to set any exceptions for this rule you can select it from this window. When you exceptions have been set you can click "Next".
2.13. Our next window ask us to specify a name for the rule. We recommend that you give it the same name as the label used by your server side Spam filter application. Check "Turn on this rule" to activate the rule and click "Finish".
2.14. You have now created the rule and you are give some options. Click " OK" will activate the rule and start filtering email. Clicking "Run Now" will bring up the new dialog box in section "1.15".
2.15. Select the rule, select the folder to run the rule in and Click "Run Now". All you messages in the selected folder will be scanned and checked for the criteria in your rule.
3. Configuring Mail Filters in Mozilla Thunderbird
3.1. From the Thunderbird Menu Bar click "Tools > Message Filters".
3.2. Click on the "New" button to open the filter rules windows.
3.3. Assign the filter a name in the "Filter name" field. Select "Match all of the following or Match any of the following". In the first drop down select "Subject". Select Contains from the second drop down and in the empty field type the text used by your server side spam filter (the default is SPAM). Now move down to the "Perform these actions" area and set you actions. Check the first option which is "Move to folder". After you selection click on "New Folder" to create a new folder for SPAM messages.
3.4. Give your a name like SPAM, select the "Inbox" as the parent location for you folder and click "OK"
3.5. You are brought back to the "Filter Rules" window. Confirm your settings and click "OK".
3.5. You have successfully created a new message filter in Thunderbird. You can run the filter now by clicking "Run Now" or you can close the window.
4. Mail Filtering in Open WebMail
4.1. From the main openwebmail window Click the "Mail Filter Setup" button
4.2. The next window is the "Edit Mail Filter" window. You will see a list of global filters which are created by opnewebmail. To create a new filter, Select a "Prioty", select "Subject" from the "Rules" drop down list, select "Include" from the "Inc/Exc" drop down list and enter "SPAM" (or whatever label used by your server side Spam filter application). Mover the horizantal scrole bar to the right to get to the other half of the settings.
4.3. You are still in the "Edit Mail Filter" window except on the other half of the window. From the "Actions" drop down list, select "Move" and from the "Destination" drop down list select a folder of you choice. Make sure "Enable" is checked and Click the "Add/Modify" button.
4.4. After clicking the "Add/Modify" button, you are presented with display of your filter.
Noter: Remember to check you SPAM/JunkMail folder for false positived and also to clean the folder out. Failing the clean the folder can cause a space issue with you local hard drive.