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Revision as of 11:56, 8 January 2007

Spam Assassin for CSEE Mail Services

Spam Assassin 3.1.4 is now available for the CSEE Mail Services. Spam Assassin is used to identify e-mails which have spam characteristics. Even though Spam Assassin is one of the best tools available, it is also known to filter out valid e-mails too. It is to be used at your own risk.

Setting Up Spam Assassin

Spam Assassin is not enabled by default. You will need to do the following to enable spam protection on your account:

1. Log into your CSEE UNIX shell account.

2. Edit/create a ~/.forward file in your home directory (this sample .forward can be downloaded.)

  • You want a single line which pipes all mail to procmail as shown here (replace your_username with your actual username):

"|IFS=' ' && exec /usr/local/bin/procmail -f- || exit 75 #your_username"

example:

"|IFS=' ' && exec /usr/local/bin/procmail -f- || exit 75 #brianb"

3. Edit/create a ~/.procmailrc file (this sample .procmailrc can be downloaded).

  • If you do not have a .procmailrc file, this is needed:

MAILDIR=$HOME/mail

:0fw
| /cs/bin/spamassassin

:0:
* ^X-Spam-Status: Yes
caughtspam

  • If you have a working .procmailrc file, copy all of the lines above except for the line beginning with MAILDIR and place them near or at the top of your rules.

3. Let a few emails arrive. Spam Assassin will automatically create a .spamassassin directory and files within that directory.

4. Frequently review your "caughtspam" mail folder. Messages older than 60 days will automatically get purged.

5. Options are available in the ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs file to better catch spam messages (and better prevent false positives). See the User Preferences section in the Spam Assassin Configuration Page for details.