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.

Currently, each rule or configuration setting must fit on one-line; multi-line settings are not supported yet.

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

Where appropriate, default values are listed in parentheses.

USER PREFERENCES

The following options can be used in both site-wide (local.cf) and user-specific (user_prefs) configuration files to customize how SpamAssassin handles incoming email messages.

VERSION OPTIONS

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 AND BLACKLIST OPTIONS

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. Specifically, * and ? are allowed, but all other metacharacters are not. Regular expressions are not used for security reasons.

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

The headers checked for whitelist addresses are as follows: if Resent-From is set, use that; otherwise check all addresses taken from the following set of headers:

Envelope-Sender
Resent-Sender
X-Envelope-From
From

e.g.

whitelist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com
whitelist_from *@example.com

unwhitelist_from add@ress.com

Used to override a default whitelist_from entry, so for example a distribution whitelist_from can be overridden in a local.cf file, or an individual user can override a whitelist_from entry in their own user_prefs file. The specified email address has to match exactly the address previously used in a whitelist_from line.

e.g.

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

whitelist_from_rcvd addr@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 string to match the relay's rDNS.

This string is matched against the reverse DNS lookup used during the handover from the untrusted internet to your trusted network's mail exchangers. It can either be the full hostname, or the domain component of that hostname. In other words, if the host that connected to your MX had an IP address that mapped to 'sendinghost.spamassassin.org', you should specify sendinghost.spamassassin.org or just spamassassin.org here.

Note that this requires that trusted_networks be correct. For simple cases, it will be, but for a complex network, or if you're running with DNS checks off or with -L, you may get better results by setting that parameter.

e.g.

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

def_whitelist_from_rcvd addr@lists.sourceforge.net sourceforge.net

Same as whitelist_from_rcvd, but used for the default whitelist entries in the SpamAssassin distribution. The whitelist score is lower, because these are often targets for spammer spoofing.

unwhitelist_from_rcvd add@ress.com

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

The specified email address has to match exactly the address previously used in a whitelist_from_rcvd line.

e.g.

unwhitelist_from_rcvd joe@example.com fred@example.com
unwhitelist_from_rcvd *@axkit.org

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 overridden 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 as a recipient in the message headers (Resent-To, To, Cc, obvious envelope recipient, etc.) the 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.

blacklist_to add@ress.com

If the given address appears as a recipient in the message headers (Resent-To, To, Cc, obvious envelope recipient, etc.) the mail will be blacklisted. Same format as blacklist_from.

SCORING OPTIONS

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 more conservative, like 8.0 or 10.0. It is not recommended to automatically delete or discard messages marked as spam, as your users will complain, but if you choose to do so, only delete messages with an exceptionally high score such as 15.0 or higher.

score SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME n.nn [ n.nn n.nn n.nn ]

Assign scores (the number of points for a hit) to a given test. Scores can be positive or negative real numbers or integers. SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME is the symbolic name used by SpamAssassin for that test; for example, 'FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS'.

If only one valid score is listed, then that score is always used for a test.

If four valid scores are listed, then the score that is used depends on how SpamAssassin is being used. The first score is used when both Bayes and network tests are disabled. The second score is used when Bayes is disabled, but network tests are enabled. The third score is used when Bayes is enabled and network tests are disabled. The fourth score is used when Bayes is enabled and network tests are enabled.

Setting a rule's score to 0 will disable that rule from running.

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.

If no score is given for a test, the default score is 1.0, or 0.01 for tests whose names begin with 'T_' (this is used to indicate a rule in testing).

By convention, rule names are be all uppercase and have a length of no more than 22 characters.

MESSAGE TAGGING OPTIONS

rewrite_subject { 0 | 1 } (default: 0)

By default, the subject lines of suspected spam will not be tagged. This can be enabled here.

fold_headers { 0 | 1 } (default: 1)

By default, headers added by SpamAssassin will be whitespace folded. In other words, they will be broken up into multiple lines instead of one very long one and each other line will have a tabulator prepended to mark it as a continuation of the preceding one.

The automatic wrapping can be disabled here (which can generate very long lines).

add_header { spam | ham | all } header_name string

Customized headers can be added to the specified type of messages (spam, ham, or "all" to add to either). All headers begin with X-Spam- (so a header_name Foo will generate a header called X-Spam-Foo). header_name is restricted to the character set [A-Za-z0-9_-].

string can contain tags as explained above in the TAGS section. You can also use \n and \t in the header to add newlines and tabulators as desired. A backslash has to be written as \\, any other escaped chars will be silently removed.

All headers will be folded if fold_headers is set to 1. Note: Manually adding newlines via \n disables any further automatic wrapping (ie: long header lines are possible). The lines will still be properly folded (marked as continuing) though.

For backwards compatibility, some headers are (still) added by default. You can customize existing headers with add_header (only the specified subset of messages will be changed).

See also clear_headers for removing headers.

Here are some examples (these are the defaults in 2.60):

add_header spam Flag _YESNOCAPS_
add_header all Status _YESNO_, hits=_HITS_ required=_REQD_ tests=_TESTS_ autolearn=_AUTOLEARN_ version=_VERSION_
add_header all Level _STARS(*)_
add_header all Checker-Version SpamAssassin _VERSION_ (_SUBVERSION_) on _HOSTNAME_

remove_header { spam | ham | all } header_name

Headers can be removed from the specified type of messages (spam, ham, or "all" to remove from either). All headers begin with X-Spam- (so header_name will be appended to X-Spam-).

See also clear_headers for removing all the headers at once.

Note that X-Spam-Checker-Version is not removable because the version information is needed by mail administrators and developers to debug problems. Without at least one header, it might not even be possible to determine that SpamAssassin is running.

clear_headers

Clear the list of headers to be added to messages. You may use this before any add_header options to prevent the default headers from being added to the message.

report_safe_copy_headers header_name ...

If using report_safe, a few of the headers from the original message are copied into the wrapper header (From, To, Cc, Subject, Date, etc.) If you want to have other headers copied as well, you can add them using this option. You can specify multiple headers on the same line, separated by spaces, or you can just use multiple lines.

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

Text added to the Subject: line of mails that are considered spam, if rewrite_subject is 1. Tags can be used here as with the add_header option. If report_safe is not used (see below), you may only use the _HITS_ and _REQD_ tags, or SpamAssassin will not be able to remove this markup from your message.

report_safe { 0 | 1 | 2 } (default: 1)

if this option is set to 1, if an incoming message is tagged as spam, instead of modifying the original message, SpamAssassin will create a new report message and attach the original message as a message/rfc822 MIME part (ensuring the original message is completely preserved, not easily opened, and easier to recover).

If this option is set to 2, then original messages will be attached with a content type of text/plain instead of message/rfc822. This setting may be required for safety reasons on certain broken mail clients that automatically load attachments without any action by the user. This setting may also make it somewhat more difficult to extract or view the original message.

If this option is set to 0, incoming spam is only modified by adding some X-Spam- headers and no changes will be made to the body. In addition, a header named X-Spam-Report will be added to spam. You can use the remove_header option to remove that header after setting report_safe to 0.

report_charset CHARSET (default: unset)

Set the MIME Content-Type charset used for the text/plain report which is attached to spam mail messages.

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 78 columns. Each report line appends to the existing template, so use clear_report_template to restart.

Tags can be included as explained above.

clear_report_template

Clear the report template.

report_contact ...text of contact address...

Set what _CONTACTADDRESS_ is replaced with in the above report text. By default, this is 'the administrator of that system', since the hostname of the system the scanner is running on is also included.

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

Set the report template which is attached to spam mail messages which contain a non-text/plain part. See the 10_misc.cf configuration file in /usr/share/spamassassin for an example.

Each unsafe-report line appends to the existing template, so use clear_unsafe_report_template to restart.

Tags can be used in this template (see above for details).

clear_unsafe_report_template

Clear the unsafe_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.

Unfortunately tags can not be used with this option.

clear_spamtrap_template

Clear the spamtrap template.

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.

Also note that by convention, rule descriptions should be limited in length to no more than 50 characters.

LANGUAGE OPTIONS

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

This option is used to specify which languages are considered OK for incoming mail. SpamAssassin will try to detect the language used in the message text.

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

The rule UNWANTED_LANGUAGE_BODY is triggered based on how this is set.

In your configuration, you must use the two or three letter language specifier in lowercase, not the English name for the language. You may also specify all if a desired language is not listed, or if you want to allow any language. The default setting is all.

Examples:

ok_languages all         (allow all languages)
ok_languages en          (only allow English)
ok_languages en ja zh    (allow English, Japanese, and Chinese)

Note: if there are multiple ok_languages lines, only the last one is used.

Select the languages to allow from the list below:

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 Gaelic
gd - Scottish Gaelic
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

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

This option is used to specify which locales (country codes) are considered OK for incoming mail. Mail using character sets used by languages in these countries will not be marked as possibly being spam in a foreign language.

If you receive lots of spam in foreign languages, and never get any non-spam in these languages, this may help. Note that all ISO-8859-* character sets, and Windows code page character sets, are always permitted by default.

Set this to all to allow all character sets. This is the default.

The rules CHARSET_FARAWAY, CHARSET_FARAWAY_BODY, and CHARSET_FARAWAY_HEADERS are triggered based on how this is set.

Examples:

ok_locales all         (allow all locales)
ok_locales en          (only allow English)
ok_locales en ja zh    (allow English, Japanese, and Chinese)

Note: if there are multiple ok_locales lines, only the last one is used.

Select the locales to allow from the list below:

en - Western character sets in general
ja - Japanese character sets
ko - Korean character sets
ru - Cyrillic character sets
th - Thai character sets
zh - Chinese (both simplified and traditional) character sets

NETWORK TEST OPTIONS

use_dcc ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)

Whether to use DCC, if it is available.

dcc_timeout n (default: 10)

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

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.

use_pyzor ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)

Whether to use Pyzor, if it is available.

pyzor_timeout n (default: 10)

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

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_options options

Specify options to the pyzor command. Please note that only [A-Za-z0-9 -/] is allowed (security).

trusted_networks ip.add.re.ss[/mask] ... (default: none)

What networks or hosts are 'trusted' in your setup. Trusted in this case means that relay hosts on these networks are considered to not be potentially operated by spammers, open relays, or open proxies. DNS blacklist checks will never query for hosts on these networks.

If a /mask is specified, it's considered a CIDR-style 'netmask', specified in bits. If it is not specified, but less than 4 octets are specified with a trailing dot, that's considered a mask to allow all addresses in the remaining octets. If a mask is not specified, and there is not trailing dot, then just the single IP address specified is used, as if the mask was /32.

Examples:

trusted_networks 192.168/16 127/8		# all in 192.168.*.* and 127.*.*.*
trusted_networks 212.17.35.15		# just that host
trusted_networks 127.			# all in 127.*.*.*

This operates additively, so a trusted_networks line after another one will result in all those networks becoming trusted. To clear out the existing entries, use clear_trusted_networks.

If you're running with DNS checks enabled, SpamAssassin includes code to infer your trusted networks on the fly, so this may not be necessary. (Thanks to Scott Banister and Andrew Flury for the inspiration for this algorithm.) This inference works as follows:

if the 'from' IP address is on the same /16 network as the top Received line's 'by' host, it's trusted
if the address of the 'from' host is in a reserved network range, then it's trusted
if any addresses of the 'by' host is in a reserved network range, then it's trusted

clear_trusted_networks

Empty the list of trusted networks.

use_razor2 ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)

Whether to use Razor version 2, if it is available.

razor_timeout n (default: 10)

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

use_bayes ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)

Whether to use the naive-Bayesian-style classifier built into SpamAssassin.

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.

rbl_timeout n (default: 15)

All RBL queries are made at the beginning of a check and we try to read the results at the end. This value specifies the maximum period of time to wait for an RBL query. If most of the RBL queries have succeeded for a particular message, then SpamAssassin will not wait for the full period to avoid wasting time on unresponsive server(s). For the default 15 second timeout, here is a chart of queries remaining versus the effective timeout in seconds:

queries left    100%  90%  80%  70%  60%  50%  40%  30%  20%  10%  0%
timeout          15   15   14   14   13   11   10    8    5    3   0

In addition, whenever the effective timeout is lowered due to additional query results returning, the remaining queries are always given at least one more second before timing out, but the wait time will never exceed rbl_timeout.

For example, if 20 queries are made at the beginning of a message check and 16 queries have returned (leaving 20%), the remaining 4 queries must finish within 5 seconds of the beginning of the check or they will be timed out.

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.

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

Please note, the DNS test queries for MX records so if you specify your own list of servers, please make sure to choose the one(s) which has an associated MX record.

LEARNING OPTIONS

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.

bayes_auto_learn ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)

Whether SpamAssassin should automatically feed high-scoring mails (or low-scoring mails, for non-spam) into its learning systems. The only learning system supported currently is a naive-Bayesian-style classifier.

Note that certain tests are ignored when determining whether a message should be trained upon: - auto-whitelist (AWL) - rules with tflags set to 'learn' (the Bayesian rules) - rules with tflags set to 'userconf' (user white/black-listing rules, etc)

Also note that auto-training occurs using scores from either scoreset 0 or 1, depending on what scoreset is used during message check. It is likely that the message check and auto-train scores will be different.

bayes_auto_learn_threshold_nonspam n.nn (default: 0.1)

The score threshold below which a mail has to score, to be fed into SpamAssassin's learning systems automatically as a non-spam message.

bayes_auto_learn_threshold_spam n.nn (default: 12.0)

The score threshold above which a mail has to score, to be fed into SpamAssassin's learning systems automatically as a spam message.

Note: SpamAssassin requires at least 3 points from the header, and 3 points from the body to auto-learn as spam. Therefore, the minimum working value for this option is 6.

bayes_ignore_header header_name

If you receive mail filtered by upstream mail systems, like a spam-filtering ISP or mailing list, and that service adds new headers (as most of them do), these headers may provide inappropriate cues to the Bayesian classifier, allowing it to take a "short cut". To avoid this, list the headers using this setting. Example:

bayes_ignore_header X-Upstream-Spamfilter
bayes_ignore_header X-Upstream-SomethingElse

bayes_min_ham_num (Default: 200)

bayes_min_spam_num (Default: 200)

To be accurate, the Bayes system does not activate until a certain number of ham (non-spam) and spam have been learned. The default is 200 of each ham and spam, but you can tune these up or down with these two settings.

bayes_learn_during_report (Default: 1)

The Bayes system will, by default, learn any reported messages (spamassassin -r) as spam. If you do not want this to happen, set this option to 0.

DEPRECATED OPTIONS

always_add_headers { 0 | 1 } (default: 1)

By default, X-Spam-Status and X-Spam-Level) will be added to all messages scanned by SpamAssassin. If you don't want to add those headers to non-spam, set this value to 0.

This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Instead, use the clear_headers and add_header options to customize headers.

always_add_report { 0 | 1 } (default: 0)

When the report_safe option is turned off, mail tagged as spam will include a report in a header named X-Spam-Report. If you set always_add_report to 1, the report will also be included in the X-Spam-Report header for non-spam mail.

This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the flexible add_header option instead:

add_header all Report _REPORT_

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.

Note that a maximum of 50 'stars' will be added, to keep under RFC-822's message header line length limit.

This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the add_header option instead:

add_header all Level _STARS(*)_

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: .......

This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the add_header option instead:

add_header all Level _STARS(.)_

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.

This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the add_header option instead:

add_header all DCC _DCCB_: _DCCR_

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.

This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the add_header option instead:

add_header all Pyzor _PYZOR_

num_check_received { integer } (default: 9)

How many received lines from and including the original mail relay do we check in RBLs (at least 1 or 2 is recommended).

Note that for checking against dialup lists, you can call check_rbl() with a special set name of set-notfirsthop and this rule will only be matched against the relays except for the very first one; this allows SpamAssassin to catch dialup-sent spam, without penalizing people who properly relay through their ISP.

This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the trusted_networks option instead (it is a much better way to control DNSBL-checking behaviour).

use_terse_report { 0 | 1 } (default: 1)

This option is deprecated and does nothing. It will be removed in a future version.

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

This option is deprecated and does nothing. It will be removed in a future version.

clear_terse_report_template

This option is deprecated and does nothing. It will be removed in a future version.

PRIVILEGED 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.

Note that it is not currently possible to use allow_user_rules to modify an existing system rule from a user_prefs file with spamd.

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.

'MESSAGEID' is a symbol meaning all Message-Id's found in the message; some mailing list software moves the real Message-Id to 'Resent-Message-Id' or 'X-Message-Id', then uses its own one in the 'Message-Id' header. The value returned for this symbol is the text from all 3 headers, separated by newlines.

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. Note that multi-line rules are not supported, even if you use x as a modifier.

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

Test names should not start with a number, and must contain only alphanumerics and underscores. It is suggested that lower-case characters not be used, as an informal convention. Dashes are not allowed.

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. Test names which begin with 'T_' are reserved for tests which are undergoing QA, and these are given a very low score.

If you add or modify a test, please be sure to run a sanity check afterwards by running spamassassin --lint. This will avoid confusing error messages, or other tests being skipped as a side-effect.

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.

header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:check_rbl('set', 'zone')

Check a DNSBL (DNS blacklist), also known as RBLs (realtime blacklists). This will retrieve Received headers from the mail, parse the IP addresses, select which ones are 'untrusted' based on the trusted_networks logic, and query that blacklist. There's a few things to note:

Duplicated or reserved IPs

These are stripped, and the DNSBLs will not be queried for them. Reserved IPs are those listed in <http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space>, <http://duxcw.com/faq/network/privip.htm>, or <http://duxcw.com/faq/network/autoip.htm>.

The first argument, 'set'

This is used as a 'zone ID'. If you want to look up a multi-meaning zone like relays.osirusoft.com, you can then query the results from that zone using it; but all check_rbl_sub() calls must use that zone ID.

Also, if an IP gets a hit in one lookup in a zone using that ID, any further hits in other rules using that zone ID will *not* be added to the score.

Selecting all IPs except for the originating one

This is accomplished by naming the set 'foo-notfirsthop'. Useful for querying against DNS lists which list dialup IP addresses; the first hop may be a dialup, but as long as there is at least one more hop, via their outgoing SMTP server, that's legitimate, and so should not gain points. If there is only one hop, that will be queried anyway, as it should be relaying via its outgoing SMTP server instead of sending directly to your MX.

Selecting IPs by whether they are trusted

When checking a 'nice' DNSBL (a DNS whitelist), you cannot trust the IP addresses in Received headers that were not added by trusted relays. To test the first IP address that can be trusted, name the set 'foo-firsttrusted'. That should test the IP address of the relay that connected to the most remote trusted relay.

In addition, you can test all untrusted IP addresses by naming the set 'foo-untrusted'.

Note that this requires that SpamAssassin know which relays are trusted. For simple cases, SpamAssassin can make a good estimate. For complex cases, you may get better results by setting trusted_networks manually.

header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:check_rbl_txt('set', 'zone')

Same as check_rbl(), except querying using IN TXT instead of IN A records. If the zone supports it, it will result in a line of text describing why the IP is listed, typically a hyperlink to a database entry.

header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:check_rbl_sub('set', 'sub-test')

Create a sub-test for 'set'. If you want to look up a multi-meaning zone like relays.osirusoft.com, you can then query the results from that zone using the zone ID from the original query. The sub-test may either be an IPv4 dotted address for RBLs that return multiple A records or a non-negative decimal number to specify a bitmask for RBLs that return a single A record containing a bitmask of results.

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. The message Subject header is considered part of the body and becomes the first paragraph when running the rules. 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.

meta SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME boolean arithmetic expression

Can also define a boolean arithmetic expression in terms of other tests, with a hit test having the value "1" and an unhit test having the value "0". For example:

meta META2 (3 * TEST1 - 2 * TEST2) > 0

Note that Perl builtins and functions, like abs(), can't be used, and will be treated as rule names.

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.

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

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.
userconf: The test requires user configuration before it can be used (like language- specific tests).
learn: The test requires training before it can be used.

ADMINISTRATOR 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 left to Razor to decide.

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. Note that if taint mode is enabled in the Perl interpreter, you should use this, as the current PATH will have been cleared.

dcc_home STRING

This option tells SpamAssassin specifically where to find the dcc homedir. If dcc_path is not specified, it will default to looking in dcc_home/bin for dcc client instead of relying on SpamAssassin to find it in the current PATH. If it isn't found there, it will look in the current PATH. If a dccifd socket is found in dcc_home, it will use that interface that instead of dccproc.

dcc_dccifd_path STRING

This option tells SpamAssassin specifically where to find the dccifd socket. If dcc_dccifd_path is not specified, it will default to looking in dcc_home If a dccifd socket is found, it will use it instead of dccproc.

dcc_path STRING

This option tells SpamAssassin specifically where to find the dccproc client instead of relying on SpamAssassin to find it in the current PATH. Note that if taint mode is enabled in the Perl interpreter, you should use this, as the current PATH will have been cleared.

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.

bayes_path /path/to/file (default: ~/.spamassassin/bayes)

Path for Bayesian probabilities databases. Several databases will be created, with this as the base, with _toks, _seen etc. appended to this filename; so the default setting results in files called ~/.spamassassin/bayes_seen, ~/.spamassassin/bayes_toks etc.

By default, each user has their own, in their ~/.spamassassin directory with mode 0700/0600, but for system-wide SpamAssassin use, you may want to reduce disk space usage by sharing this across all users. (However it should be noted that Bayesian filtering appears to be more effective with an individual database per user.)

auto_whitelist_file_mode (default: 0700)

The file mode bits used for the automatic-whitelist directory or file.

Make sure you specify this using the 'x' mode bits set, as it may also be used to create directories. However, if a file is created, the resulting file will not have any execute bits set (the umask is set to 111).

bayes_file_mode (default: 0700)

The file mode bits used for the Bayesian filtering database files.

bayes_use_hapaxes (default: 1)

Should the Bayesian classifier use hapaxes (words/tokens that occur only once) when classifying? This produces significantly better hit-rates, but increases database size by about a factor of 8 to 10.

bayes_use_chi2_combining (default: 1)

Should the Bayesian classifier use chi-squared combining, instead of Robinson/Graham-style naive Bayesian combining? Chi-squared produces more 'extreme' output results, but may be more resistant to changes in corpus size etc.

bayes_journal_max_size (default: 102400)

SpamAssassin will opportunistically sync the journal and the database. It will do so once a day, but will sync more often if the journal file size goes above this setting, in bytes. If set to 0, opportunistic syncing will not occur.

bayes_expiry_max_db_size (default: 150000)

What should be the maximum size of the Bayes tokens database? When expiry occurs, the Bayes system will keep either 75% of the maximum value, or 100,000 tokens, whichever has a larger value. 150,000 tokens is roughly equivalent to a 8Mb database file.

bayes_auto_expire (default: 1)

If enabled, the Bayes system will try to automatically expire old tokens from the database. Auto-expiry occurs when the number of tokens in the database surpasses the bayes_expiry_max_db_size value.

bayes_learn_to_journal (default: 0)

If this option is set, whenever SpamAssassin does Bayes learning, it will put the information into the journal instead of directly into the database. This lowers contention for locking the database to execute an update, but will also cause more access to the journal and cause a delay before the updates are actually committed to the Bayes database.

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.

user_scores_sql_field_username field_username

The field that the username whose preferences you're looking up is stored in. Default: username.

user_scores_sql_field_preference field_preference

The name of the preference that you're looking for. Default: preference.

user_scores_sql_field_value field_value

The name of the value you're looking for. Default: value.

user_scores_sql_field_scope field_scope

The 'scope' field. In Horde this makes the preference a single-module preference or a global preference. There's no real need to change it in other systems. Default: spamassassin.

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.

	Global
`s`	Focus search bar
`?`	Bring up this help dialog

	GitHub
`g` `p`	Go to pull requests
`g` `i`	go to github issues (only if github is preferred repository)

	POD
`g` `a`	Go to author
`g` `c`	Go to changes
`g` `i`	Go to issues
`g` `d`	Go to dist
`g` `r`	Go to repository/SCM
`g` `s`	Go to source
`g` `b`	Go to file browse

	Search terms
module: (e.g. module:Plugin)
distribution: (e.g. distribution:Dancer auth)
author: (e.g. author:SONGMU Redis)
version: (e.g. version:1.00)

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

TAGS

USER PREFERENCES

VERSION OPTIONS

WHITELIST AND BLACKLIST OPTIONS

SCORING OPTIONS

MESSAGE TAGGING OPTIONS

LANGUAGE OPTIONS

NETWORK TEST OPTIONS

LEARNING OPTIONS

DEPRECATED OPTIONS

PRIVILEGED SETTINGS

ADMINISTRATOR SETTINGS

LOCALI[SZ]ATION

SEE ALSO

Module Install Instructions