How do I block in-coming SPAM Email?

You can stop spammers using various different spam filtering systems which are located within your control panel.

Spam Assassin

Spam Assassin is a mail filter installed on a mail server used to identify spam. It checks for spam using a large number of pre-set rules that check the header, body, and sender of all e-mail messages sent to your domain mailbox. For more information about Spam Assassin, refer to the following links:

• Spam Assassin - Spam Assassin web site.

• Spam Assassin rules - A list of all the rules that Spam Assassin currently uses.

To enable Spam Assassin:

1. Click on the Spam Assassin link in the Mail area.
   

2. Click on the Enable Spam Assassin button.

Configuring Spam Assassin

You can change how Spam Assassin deals with spam. The following options are available:

• required_hits - The number of e-mails received before a certain e-mail is considered spam.

• rewrite_subject - Alter the subject line of spam e-mail. Enter 1 to enable or 0 to disable.

• subject_tag - Text added to the subject line of spam e-mails. rewrite_subject must be enabled for this to work.

• blacklist_from - Enter an e-mail address that you always want to be classified as spam. The Asterix symbol (*) can be used as a wildcard.

• whitelist_from - Enter an e-mail address that you never want to be classified as spam. The asterix symbol (*) can be used as a wildcard.

To configure Spam Assassin

1. Click on the Spam Assassin link in the Mail area.

2. Click on the Configure Spam Assassin button.

3. Change the settings as required.

4. Click on the Save button.

   
   

Enabling or disabling the Spam Box

(We recommend leaving this off unless using IMAP or Horde Webmail)

The Spam Assassin Spam Box is a separate mail folder called "spam". If enabled, all e-mail that Spam Assassin flags as spam is automatically delivered to the "spam" folder.

To enable or disable the Spam Box:

1. Click on the Spam Assassin link in the Mail area.

2. Click on the Enable Spam Box or Disable Spam Box as required.

   
   

E-mail Filtering

You can block an e-mail using spam filters. There are many definitions of spam, but one particularly useful one is the following:

Spam is the electronic version of junk mail and has been around since the Internet was created. E-mail filters are a way of filtering your e-mail to remove unwanted mail based on a variety of criteria. You can block any sort of e-mail, not just mail of a commercial nature. Blocked mail can be deleted automatically or sent to another e-mail address or script. These filters are quite flexible - some examples are provided after the instruction on how to add a spam filter below. All filters are cumulative.

Useful spam links:

• Six simple things you can do to prevent spam

• Alternate definition of spam

• Usenet definition of spam

To add an e-mail filter:

1. Click on the E-mail Filtering link in the Mail area.

2. Click on the Add Filter link.

3. Click on the required header field in the first drop-down list. These are the various fields in an e-mail message.

4. Click on the required filter action in the second drop-down list. This action will act on the text entered in the third field.

   • equals - match the text exactly (whole words only). "Credit" will block "Credit".

   • matches regex - matches the text based on regular expression (regex) rules. Regular expressions are a powerful but complex area. You do not need to use regular expression filters for most circumstances. Refer to these two good introductory tutorials - Using Regular Expressions and Learning to Use Regular Expressions - for more information.

   • contains - match the specified text in any circumstance. "porn" will block "porn" and "pornography".

   • begins with - match the specified text when it is the beginning of a word. "porn" will block "porn" and "pornography" but not "teenporn".

5. Enter the filter text in the third field. This text is case sensitive.

6. Enter the destination for the filtered e-mail in the Destination field. There are three separate types of destination:

   • Destroy the e-mail - Enter Discard in the field.

   • Redirect to another address - Enter the e-mail address to which to redirect the e-mail.

   • Redirect to a script - Enter the full script path on the machine that hosts your web site.

7. Click on the Activate button.

Example:

• To redirect all e-mail from "john@paradise.net", enter: From, equals, someone@paradise.net, abcd@corse.org.nz

• To delete all e-mail from paradise.net, enter: From, contains, paradise.net, Discard

• To delete all references to pornography, enter: Any Header, contains, porn, Discard

• To discard all e-mail that Spam Assassin has marked as spam, enter: SpamAssassin Spam Header, begins with, yes, Discard