NAME

Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf - SpamAssassin configuration file

SYNOPSIS

# a comment

rewrite_subject                 1

full PARA_A_2_C_OF_1618         /Paragraph .a.{0,10}2.{0,10}C. of S. 1618/i
describe PARA_A_2_C_OF_1618     Claims compliance with senate bill 1618

header FROM_HAS_MIXED_NUMS      From =~ /\d+[a-z]+\d+\S*@/i
describe FROM_HAS_MIXED_NUMS    From: contains numbers mixed in with letters

score A_HREF_TO_REMOVE          2.0

lang es describe FROM_FORGED_HOTMAIL Forzado From: simula ser de hotmail.com

DESCRIPTION

SpamAssassin is configured using some traditional UNIX-style configuration files, loaded from the /usr/share/spamassassin and /etc/mail/spamassassin directories.

The # character starts a comment, which continues until end of line.

Whitespace in the files is not significant, but please note that starting a line with whitespace is deprecated, as we reserve its use for multi-line rule definitions, at some point in the future.

Paths can use ~ to refer to the user's home directory.

Where appropriate, default values are listed in parentheses.

USER PREFERENCES

require_version n.nn

Indicates that the entire file, from this line on, requires a certain version of SpamAssassin to run. If an older or newer version of SpamAssassin tries to read configuration from this file, it will output a warning instead, and ignore it.

version_tag string

This tag is appended to the SA version in the X-Spam-Status header. You should include it when modify your ruleset, especially if you plan to distribute it. A good choice for string is your last name or your initials followed by a number which you increase with each change.

e.g.

version_tag myrules1    # version=2.41-myrules1

whitelist_from add@ress.com

Used to specify addresses which send mail that is often tagged (incorrectly) as spam; it also helps if they are addresses of big companies with lots of lawyers. This way, if spammers impersonate them, they'll get into big trouble, so it doesn't provide a shortcut around SpamAssassin.

Whitelist and blacklist addresses are now file-glob-style patterns, so friend@somewhere.com, *@isp.com, or *.domain.net will all work. Regular expressions are not used for security reasons.

Multiple addresses per line, separated by spaces, is OK. Multiple whitelist_from lines is also OK.

e.g.

whitelist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com
whitelist_from simon@example.com

whitelist_from_rcvd lists.sourceforge.net sourceforge.net

Use this to supplement the whitelist_from addresses with a check against the Received headers. The first parameter is the address to whitelist, and the second is a domain to match in the received headers.

e.g.

whitelist_from_rcvd joe@example.com  example.com
whitelist_from_rcvd axkit.org        sergeant.org

unwhitelist_from add@ress.com

Used to override a default whitelist_from entry, so for example a distribution whitelist_from can be overriden in a local.cf file, or an individual user can override a whitelist_from entry in their own user_prefs file.

e.g.

unwhitelist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com
unwhitelist_from *@amazon.com

blacklist_from add@ress.com

Used to specify addresses which send mail that is often tagged (incorrectly) as non-spam, but which the user doesn't want. Same format as whitelist_from.

unblacklist_from add@ress.com

Used to override a default blacklist_from entry, so for example a distribution blacklist_from can be overriden in a local.cf file, or an individual user can override a blacklist_from entry in their own user_prefs file.

e.g.

unblacklist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com
unblacklist_from *@spammer.com

whitelist_to add@ress.com

If the given address appears in the To: or Cc: headers, mail will be whitelisted. Useful if you're deploying SpamAssassin system-wide, and don't want some users to have their mail filtered. Same format as whitelist_from.

There are three levels of To-whitelisting, whitelist_to, more_spam_to and all_spam_to. Users in the first level may still get some spammish mails blocked, but users in all_spam_to should never get mail blocked.

more_spam_to add@ress.com

See above.

all_spam_to add@ress.com

See above.

required_hits n.nn (default: 5)

Set the number of hits required before a mail is considered spam. n.nn can be an integer or a real number. 5.0 is the default setting, and is quite aggressive; it would be suitable for a single-user setup, but if you're an ISP installing SpamAssassin, you should probably set the default to be something much more conservative, like 8.0 or 10.0. Experience has shown that you will get plenty of user complaints otherwise!

score SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME n.nn

Assign a score to a given test. Scores can be positive or negative real numbers or integers. SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME is the symbolic name used by SpamAssassin as a handle for that test; for example, 'FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS'.

Note that test names which begin with '__' are reserved for meta-match sub-rules, and are not scored or listed in the 'tests hit' reports.

detailed_phrase_score { 0 | 1 } (default: 0)

This option displays all matches for "contains phrases frequently found in spam" Note that this is disabled by default because it can output huge headers (800 words and more than 8KB in some cases)

rewrite_subject { 0 | 1 } (default: 1)

By default, the subject lines of suspected spam will be tagged. This can be disabled here.

fold_headers { 0 | 1 } (default: 1)

By default, the X-Spam-Status header will be whitespace folded, in other words, it will be broken up into multiple lines instead of one very long one. This can be disabled here.

spam_level_stars { 0 | 1 } (default: 1)

By default, a header field called "X-Spam-Level" will be added to the message, with its value set to a number of asterisks equal to the score of the message. In other words, for a message scoring 7.2 points:

X-Spam-Level: *******

This can be useful for MUA rule creation.

spam_level_char { x (some character, unquoted) } (default: *)

By default, the "X-Spam-Level" header will use a '*' character with its length equal to the score of the message. Some people don't like escaping *s though, so you can set the character to anything with this option.

In other words, for a message scoring 7.2 points with this option set to .

X-Spam-Level: .......

subject_tag STRING ... (default: *****SPAM*****)

Text added to the Subject: line of mails that are considered spam, if rewrite_subject is 1. _HITS_ in the tag will be replace with the calculated score for this message. _REQD_ will be replaced with the threshold.

report_header { 0 | 1 } (default: 0)

By default, SpamAssassin will include its report in the body of suspected spam. Enabling this causes the report to go in the headers instead. Using 'use_terse_report' with this is recommended.

use_terse_report { 0 | 1 } (default: 0)

By default, SpamAssassin uses a fairly long report format. Enabling this uses a shorter format which includes all the information in the normal one, but without the superfluous explanations.

defang_mime { 0 | 1 } (default: 1)

By default, SpamAssassin will change the Content-type: header of suspected spam to "text/plain". This is a safety feature. If you prefer to leave the Content-type header alone, set this to 0.

dns_available { yes | test[: name1 name2...] | no } (default: test)

By default, SpamAssassin will query some default hosts on the internet to attempt to check if DNS is working on not. The problem is that it can introduce some delay if your network connection is down, and in some cases it can wrongly guess that DNS is unavailable because the test connections failed. SpamAssassin includes a default set of 13 servers, among which 3 are picked randomly.

You can however specify your own list by specifying

dns_available test: server1.tld server2.tld server3.tld

skip_rbl_checks { 0 | 1 } (default: 0)

By default, SpamAssassin will run RBL checks. If your ISP already does this for you, set this to 1.

check_mx_attempts n (default: 2)

By default, SpamAssassin checks the From: address for a valid MX this many times, waiting 5 seconds each time.

check_mx_delay n (default 5)

How many seconds to wait before retrying an MX check.

ok_languages xx [ yy zz ... ] (default: all)

Which languages are considered OK to receive mail from. Mail using character sets used by these languages will not be marked as possibly being spam in an undesired language.

The following languages are recognized. In your configuration, you must use the language specifier located in the first column, not the English name for the language. You may also specify "all" if your language is not listed or if you want to allow any language.

af afrikaans

am amharic

ar arabic

be byelorussian

bg bulgarian

bs bosnian

ca catalan

cs czech

cy welsh

da danish

de german

el greek

en english

eo esperanto

es spanish

et estonian

eu basque

fa persian

fi finnish

fr french

fy frisian

ga irish

gd scots

he hebrew

hi hindi

hr croatian

hu hungarian

hy armenian

id indonesian

is icelandic

it italian

ja japanese

ka georgian

ko korean

la latin

lt lithuanian

lv latvian

mr marathi

ms malay

ne nepali

nl dutch

no norwegian

pl polish

pt portuguese

qu quechua

rm rhaeto-romance

ro romanian

ru russian

sa sanskrit

sco scots

sk slovak

sl slovenian

sq albanian

sr serbian

sv swedish

sw swahili

ta tamil

th thai

tl tagalog

tr turkish

uk ukrainian

vi vietnamese

yi yiddish

zh chinese

Note that the language cannot always be recognized. In that case, no points will be assigned.

rbl_timeout n (default 30)

All RBL queries are started at the beginning and we try to read the results at the end. In case some of them are hanging or not returning, you can specify here how long you're willing to wait for them before deciding that they timed out

ok_locales xx [ yy zz ... ] (default: all)

Which locales (country codes) are considered OK to receive mail from. Mail using character sets used by languages in these countries, will not be marked as possibly being spam in a foreign language.

Note that all ISO-8859-* character sets, and Windows code page character sets, are always permitted by default anyway.

If you wish SpamAssassin to block spam in foreign languages, set this to the locale which matches your preference, from the list below:

ja

Japanese

ko

Korea

ru

Cyrillic charsets

th

Thai

zh

Chinese (both simplified and traditional)

auto_whitelist_factor n (default: 0.5, range [0..1])

How much towards the long-term mean for the sender to regress a message. Basically, the algorithm is to track the long-term mean score of messages for the sender (mean), and then once we have otherwise fully calculated the score for this message (score), we calculate the final score for the message as:

finalscore = score + (mean - score) * factor

So if factor = 0.5, then we'll move to half way between the calculated score and the mean. If factor = 0.3, then we'll move about 1/3 of the way from the score toward the mean. factor = 1 means just use the long-term mean; factor = 0 mean just use the calculated score.

describe SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME description ...

Used to describe a test. This text is shown to users in the detailed report.

Note that test names which begin with '__' are reserved for meta-match sub-rules, and are not scored or listed in the 'tests hit' reports.

tflags SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME [ { net | nice } ... ]

Used to set flags on a test. These flags are used in the score-determination back end system for details of the test's behaviour. The following flags can be set:

net

The test is a network test, and will not be run in the mass checking system or if -L is used, therefore its score should not be modified.

nice

The test is intended to compensate for common false positives, and should be assigned a negative score.

report ...some text for a report...

Set the report template which is attached to spam mail messages. See the 10_misc.cf configuration file in /usr/share/spamassassin for an example.

If you change this, try to keep it under 76 columns (inside the the dots below). Bear in mind that EVERY line will be prefixed with "SPAM: " in order to make it clear what's been added, and allow other filters to remove spamfilter modifications, so you lose 6 columns right there. Also note that the first line of the report must start with 4 dashes, for the same reason. Each report line appends to the existing template, so use clear-report-template to restart.

The following template items are supported, and will be filled out by SpamAssassin:

_HITS_: the number of hits the message triggered

_REQD_: the required hits to be considered spam

_SUMMARY_: the full details of what hits were triggered

_VER_: SpamAssassin version

_HOME_: SpamAssassin home URL

clear_report_template

Clear the report template.

terse_report ...some text for a report...

Set the report template which is attached to spam mail messages, for the terse-report format. See the 10_misc.cf configuration file in /usr/share/spamassassin for an example.

clear-terse-report-template

Clear the terse-report template.

spamtrap ...some text for spamtrap reply mail...

A template for spam-trap responses. If the first few lines begin with Xxxxxx: yyy where Xxxxxx is a header and yyy is some text, they'll be used as headers. See the 10_misc.cf configuration file in /usr/share/spamassassin for an example.

clear_spamtrap_template

Clear the spamtrap template.

dcc_path STRING

This option tells SpamAssassin specifically where to find the pyzor client instead of relying on SpamAssassin to find it in the current PATH.

dcc_body_max NUMBER

dcc_fuz1_max NUMBER

dcc_fuz2_max NUMBER

DCC (Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse) is a system similar to Razor. This option sets how often a message's body/fuz1/fuz2 checksum must have been reported to the DCC server before SpamAssassin will consider the DCC check as matched.

As nearly all DCC clients are auto-reporting these checksums you should set this to a relatively high value, e.g. 999999 (this is DCC's MANY count).

The default is 999999 for all these options.

dcc_add_header { 0 | 1 } (default: 0)

DCC processing creates a message header containing the statistics for the message. This option sets whether SpamAssassin will add the heading to messages it processes.

The default is to not add the header.

dcc_timeout n (default: 10)

How many seconds you wait for dcc to complete before you go on without the results

pyzor_path STRING

This option tells SpamAssassin specifically where to find the pyzor client instead of relying on SpamAssassin to find it in the current PATH.

pyzor_max NUMBER

Pyzor is a system similar to Razor. This option sets how often a message's body checksum must have been reported to the Pyzor server before SpamAssassin will consider the Pyzor check as matched.

The default is 5.

pyzor_add_header { 0 | 1 } (default: 0)

Pyzor processing creates a message header containing the statistics for the message. This option sets whether SpamAssassin will add the heading to messages it processes.

The default is to not add the header.

pyzor_timeout n (default: 10)

How many seconds you wait for pyzor to complete before you go on without the results

razor_timeout n (default 10)

How many seconds you wait for razor to complete before you go on without the results

num_check_received { integer } (default: 2)

How many received lines from and including the original mail relay do we check in RBLs (you'd want at least 1 or 2). Note that for checking against dialup lists, you can call check_rbl with a special set name of "set-firsthop" and this rule will only be matched against the first hop if there is more than one hop, so that you can set a negative score to not penalize people who properly relayed through their ISP. See dialup_codes for more details and an example

SETTINGS

These settings differ from the ones above, in that they are considered 'privileged'. Only users running spamassassin from their procmailrc's or forward files, or sysadmins editing a file in /etc/mail/spamassassin, can use them. spamd users cannot use them in their user_prefs files, for security and efficiency reasons, unless allow_user_rules is enabled (and then, they may only add rules from below).

allow_user_rules { 0 | 1 } (default: 0)

This setting allows users to create rules (and only rules) in their user_prefs files for use with spamd. It defaults to off, because this could be a severe security hole. It may be possible for users to gain root level access if spamd is run as root. It is NOT a good idea, unless you have some other way of ensuring that users' tests are safe. Don't use this unless you are certain you know what you are doing. Furthermore, this option causes spamassassin to recompile all the tests each time it processes a message for a user with a rule in his/her user_prefs file, which could have a significant effect on server load. It is not recommended.

dialup_codes { "domain1" => "127.0.x.y", "domain2" => "127.0.a.b" }

Default: { "dialups.mail-abuse.org." => "127.0.0.3", # For DUL + other codes, we ignore that it's on DUL "rbl-plus.mail-abuse.org." => "127.0.0.2", "relays.osirusoft.com." => "127.0.0.3" };

WARNING!!! When passing a reference to a hash, you need to put the whole hash in one line for the parser to read it correctly (you can check with spamassassin -D < mesg)

Set this to what your RBLs return for dialup IPs It is used by dialup-firsthop and relay-firsthop rules so that you can match DUL codes and compensate DUL checks with a negative score if the IP is a dialup IP the mail originated from and it was properly relayed by a hop before reaching you (hopefully not your secondary MX :-) The trailing "-firsthop" is magic, it's what triggers the RBL to only be run on the originating hop The idea is to not penalize (or penalize less) people who properly relayed through their ISP's mail server

Here's an example showing the use of Osirusoft and MAPS DUL, as well as the use of check_two_rbl_results to compensate for a match in both RBLs

header RCVD_IN_DUL rbleval:check_rbl('dialup', 'dialups.mail-abuse.org.') describe RCVD_IN_DUL Received from dialup, see http://www.mail-abuse.org/dul/ score RCVD_IN_DUL 4

header X_RCVD_IN_DUL_FH rbleval:check_rbl('dialup-firsthop', 'dialups.mail-abuse.org.') describe X_RCVD_IN_DUL_FH Received from first hop dialup, see http://www.mail-abuse.org/dul/ score X_RCVD_IN_DUL_FH -3

header RCVD_IN_OSIRUSOFT_COM rbleval:check_rbl('osirusoft', 'relays.osirusoft.com.') describe RCVD_IN_OSIRUSOFT_COM Received via an IP flagged in relays.osirusoft.com

header X_OSIRU_SPAM_SRC rbleval:check_rbl_results_for('osirusoft', '127.0.0.4') describe X_OSIRU_SPAM_SRC DNSBL: sender is Confirmed Spam Source, penalizing further score X_OSIRU_SPAM_SRC 3.0

header X_OSIRU_SPAMWARE_SITE rbleval:check_rbl_results_for('osirusoft', '127.0.0.6') describe X_OSIRU_SPAMWARE_SITE DNSBL: sender is a Spamware site or vendor, penalizing further score X_OSIRU_SPAMWARE_SITE 5.0

header X_OSIRU_DUL_FH rbleval:check_rbl('osirusoft-dul-firsthop', 'relays.osirusoft.com.') describe X_OSIRU_DUL_FH Received from first hop dialup listed in relays.osirusoft.com score X_OSIRU_DUL_FH -1.5

header Z_FUDGE_DUL_MAPS_OSIRU rblreseval:check_two_rbl_results('osirusoft', "127.0.0.3", 'dialup', "127.0.0.3") describe Z_FUDGE_DUL_MAPS_OSIRU Do not double penalize for MAPS DUL and Osirusoft DUL score Z_FUDGE_DUL_MAPS_OSIRU -2

header Z_FUDGE_RELAY_OSIRU rblreseval:check_two_rbl_results('osirusoft', "127.0.0.2", 'relay', "127.0.0.2") describe Z_FUDGE_RELAY_OSIRU Do not double penalize for being an open relay on Osirusoft and another DNSBL score Z_FUDGE_RELAY_OSIRU -2

header Z_FUDGE_DUL_OSIRU_FH rblreseval:check_two_rbl_results('osirusoft-dul-firsthop', "127.0.0.3", 'dialup-firsthop', "127.0.0.3") describe Z_FUDGE_DUL_OSIRU_FH Do not double compensate for MAPS DUL and Osirusoft DUL first hop dialup score Z_FUDGE_DUL_OSIRU_FH 1.5

header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME header op /pattern/modifiers [if-unset: STRING]

Define a test. SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME is a symbolic test name, such as 'FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS'. header is the name of a mail header, such as 'Subject', 'To', etc.

'ALL' can be used to mean the text of all the message's headers. 'ToCc' can be used to mean the contents of both the 'To' and 'Cc' headers.

op is either =~ (contains regular expression) or !~ (does not contain regular expression), and pattern is a valid Perl regular expression, with modifiers as regexp modifiers in the usual style.

If the [if-unset: STRING] tag is present, then STRING will be used if the header is not found in the mail message.

Note that test names which begin with '__' are reserved for meta-match sub-rules, and are not scored or listed in the 'tests hit' reports.

header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME exists:name_of_header

Define a header existence test. name_of_header is the name of a header to test for existence. This is just a very simple version of the above header tests.

header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:name_of_eval_method([arguments])

Define a header eval test. name_of_eval_method is the name of a method on the Mail::SpamAssassin::EvalTests object. arguments are optional arguments to the function call.

body SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME /pattern/modifiers

Define a body pattern test. pattern is a Perl regular expression.

The 'body' in this case is the textual parts of the message body; any non-text MIME parts are stripped, and the message decoded from Quoted-Printable or Base-64-encoded format if necessary. All HTML tags and line breaks will be removed before matching.

body SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:name_of_eval_method([args])

Define a body eval test. See above.

uri SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME /pattern/modifiers

Define a uri pattern test. pattern is a Perl regular expression.

The 'uri' in this case is a list of all the URIs in the body of the email, and the test will be run on each and every one of those URIs, adjusting the score if a match is found. Use this test instead of one of the body tests when you need to match a URI, as it is more accurately bound to the start/end points of the URI, and will also be faster.

rawbody SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME /pattern/modifiers

Define a raw-body pattern test. pattern is a Perl regular expression.

The 'raw body' of a message is the text, including all textual parts. The text will be decoded from base64 or quoted-printable encoding, but HTML tags and line breaks will still be present.

rawbody SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:name_of_eval_method([args])

Define a raw-body eval test. See above.

full SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME /pattern/modifiers

Define a full-body pattern test. pattern is a Perl regular expression.

The 'full body' of a message is the un-decoded text, including all parts (including images or other attachments). SpamAssassin no longer tests full tests against decoded text; use rawbody for that.

full SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:name_of_eval_method([args])

Define a full-body eval test. See above.

meta SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME boolean expression

Define a boolean expression test in terms of other tests that have been hit or not hit. For example:

meta META1 TEST1 && !(TEST2 || TEST3)

Note that English language operators ("and", "or") will be treated as rule names, and that there is no XOR operator.

If you want to define a meta-rule, but do not want its individual sub-rules to count towards the final score unless the entire meta-rule matches, give the sub-rules names that start with '__' (two underscores). SpamAssassin will ignore these for scoring.

PRIVILEGED SETTINGS

These settings differ from the ones above, in that they are considered 'more privileged' -- even more than the ones in the SETTINGS section. No matter what allow_user_rules is set to, these can never be set from a user's user_prefs file.

test SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME (ok|fail) Some string to test against

Define a regression testing string. You can have more than one regression test string per symbolic test name. Simply specify a string that you wish the test to match.

These tests are only run as part of the test suite - they should not affect the general running of SpamAssassin.

razor_config filename

Define the filename used to store Razor's configuration settings. Currently this is the same value Razor itself uses: ~/razor.conf.

dcc_options options

Specify additional options to the dccproc(8) command. Please note that only [A-Z -] is allowed (security).

The default is -R

auto_whitelist_path /path/to/file (default: ~/.spamassassin/auto-whitelist)

Automatic-whitelist directory or file. By default, each user has their own, in their ~/.spamassassin directory with mode 0700, but for system-wide SpamAssassin use, you may want to share this across all users.

timelog_path /path/to/dir (default: NULL)

If you set this value, razor will try to create logfiles for each message I processes and dump information on how fast it ran, and in which parts of the code the time was spent. The files will be named: unixdate_mesgid (i.e 1023257504_chuvn31gdu@4ax.com)

Make sure SA can write the log file, if you're not sure what permissions needed, make the log directory chmod'ed 1777, and adjust later.

auto_whitelist_file_mode (default: 0700)

The file mode bits used for the automatic-whitelist directory or file. Make sure this has the relevant execute-bits set (--x), otherwise things will go wrong.

user-scores-dsn DBI:databasetype:databasename:hostname:port

If you load user scores from an SQL database, this will set the DSN used to connect. Example: DBI:mysql:spamassassin:localhost

user_scores_sql_username username

The authorized username to connect to the above DSN.

user_scores_sql_password password

The password for the database username, for the above DSN.

user_scores_sql_table tablename

The table user preferences are stored in, for the above DSN.

spamphrase score phrase ...

A 2-word spam phrase, for the FREQ_SPAM_PHRASE test.

spamphrase-highest-score nnnnn

The highest score of any of the spamphrases. Used for scaling.

LOCALI[SZ]ATION

A line starting with the text lang xx will only be interpreted if the user is in that locale, allowing test descriptions and templates to be set for that language.

SEE ALSO

Mail::SpamAssassin spamassassin spamd