NAME

Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf - SpamAssassin configuration file

SYNOPSIS

# a comment

rewrite_header Subject          *****SPAM*****

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 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. NOTE: using the # character in the regular expression rules requires escaping. i.e.: \#

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 below, 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.

SCORING OPTIONS

required_score n.nn (default: 5)

Set the score 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. This option was previously known as required_hits and that name is still accepted, but is deprecated.

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 (score set 0). The second score is used when Bayes is disabled, but network tests are enabled (score set 1). The third score is used when Bayes is enabled and network tests are disabled (score set 2). The fourth score is used when Bayes is enabled and network tests are enabled (score set 3).

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

If any of the score values are surrounded by parenthesis '()', then all of the scores in the line are considered to be relative to the already set score. ie: '(3)' means increase the score for this rule by 3 points in all score sets. '(3) (0) (3) (0)' means increase the score for this rule by 3 in score sets 0 and 2 only.

If no score is given for a test by the end of the configuration, a default score is assigned: a score of 1.0 is used for all tests, except those who names begin with 'T_' (this is used to indicate a rule in testing) which receive 0.01.

Note that test names which begin with '__' are indirect rules used to compose meta-match rules and can also act as prerequisites to other rules. They are not scored or listed in the 'tests hit' reports, but assigning a score of 0 to an indirect rule will disable it from running.

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. If you want to whitelist your own domain, be aware that spammers will often impersonate the domain of the recipient. The recommended solution is to instead use whitelist_from_rcvd as explained below.

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

In addition, the "envelope sender" data, taken from the SMTP envelope data where this is available, is looked up.

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 internet to your internal 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 internal_networks be correct. For simple cases, it will be, but for a complex network, or 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.

whitelist_allows_relays add@ress.com

Specify addresses which are in whitelist_from_rcvd that sometimes send through a mail relay other than the listed ones. By default mail with a From address that is in whitelist_from_rcvd that does not match the relay will trigger a forgery rule. Including the address in whitelist_allows_relay prevents that.

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_allows_relays lines is also OK.

The specified email address does not have to match exactly the address previously used in a whitelist_from_rcvd line as it is compared to the address in the header.

e.g.

whitelist_allows_relays joe@example.com fred@example.com
whitelist_allows_relays *@example.com

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.

The headers checked for whitelist addresses are as follows: if Resent-To or Resent-Cc are set, use those; otherwise check all addresses taken from the following set of headers:

To
Cc
Apparently-To
Delivered-To
Envelope-Recipients
Apparently-Resent-To
X-Envelope-To
Envelope-To
X-Delivered-To
X-Original-To
X-Rcpt-To
X-Real-To

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.

BASIC MESSAGE TAGGING OPTIONS

rewrite_header { subject | from | to } STRING

By default, suspected spam messages will not have the Subject, From or To lines tagged to indicate spam. By setting this option, the header will be tagged with STRING to indicate that a message is spam. For the From or To headers, this will take the form of an RFC 2822 comment following the address in parantheses. For the Subject header, this will be prepended to the original subject. Note that you should only use the _REQD_ and _SCORE_ tags when rewriting the Subject header unless report_safe is 0. Otherwise, you may not be able to remove the SpamAssassin markup via the normal methods.

Parentheses are not permitted in STRING if rewriting the From or To headers. (They will be converted to square brackets.)

If rewrite_header subject is used, but the message being rewritten does not already contain a Subject header, one will be created.

A null value for STRING will remove any existing rewrite for the specified header.

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 below in the TEMPLATE 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.

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, note that Checker-Version can not be changed or removed):

add_header spam Flag _YESNOCAPS_
add_header all Status _YESNO_, score=_SCORE_ 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.

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.

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.

See report_safe_copy_headers if you want to copy headers from the original mail into tagged messages.

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 (both Traditional and Simplified)

zh.big5 - Chinese (Traditional only)

zh.gb2312 - Chinese (Simplified only)

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 (Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse) is a system similar to Razor.

dcc_timeout n (default: 10)

How many seconds you wait for DCC to complete, before scanning continues without the DCC results.

dcc_body_max NUMBER

dcc_fuz1_max NUMBER

dcc_fuz2_max NUMBER

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 scanning continues without the Pyzor 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 [option ...]

Additional options for the pyzor(1) command line. Note that for security, only characters in the ranges A-Z, a-z, 0-9, -, _ and / are permitted.

spamcop_from_address add@ress.com (default: none)

This address is used during manual reports to SpamCop as the From: address. You can use your normal email address. If this is not set, a guess will be used as the From: address in SpamCop reports.

spamcop_to_address add@ress.com (default: generic reporting address)

Your customized SpamCop report submission address. You need to obtain this address by registering at http://www.spamcop.net/. If this is not set, SpamCop reports will go to a generic reporting address for SpamAssassin users and your reports will probably have less weight in the SpamCop system.

spamcop_max_report_size (default: 50)

The size (in kilobytes) at which SpamAssassin will truncate messages reported to SpamCop. The default is the maximum size SpamCop will accept at the time of release.

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. A trusted host could conceivably relay spam, but will not originate it, and will not forge header data. DNS blacklist checks will never query for hosts on these networks.

MXes for your domain(s) and internal relays should also be specified using the internal_networks setting. When there are 'trusted' hosts that are not MXes or internal relays for your domain(s) they should only be specified in trusted_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 trusted_networks is not set and internal_networks is, the value of internal_networks will be used for this parameter.

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.

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

What networks or hosts are 'internal' in your setup. Internal means that relay hosts on these networks are considered to be MXes for your domain(s), or internal relays. This uses the same format as trusted_networks, above.

This value is used when checking 'dial-up' or dynamic IP address blocklists, in order to detect direct-to-MX spamming. Trusted relays that accept mail directly from dial-up connections should not be listed in internal_networks. List them only in trusted_networks.

If trusted_networks is set and internal_networks is not, the value of trusted_networks will be used for this parameter.

If neither trusted_networks or internal_networks is set, no addresses will be considered local; in other words, any relays past the machine where SpamAssassin is running will be considered external.

clear_internal_networks

Empty the list of internal 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

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 DNS 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 DNS query. If most of the DNS 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.

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 or 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: domain1.tld domain2.tld domain3.tld

Please note, the DNS test queries for NS records.

SpamAssassin's network rules are run in parallel. This can cause overhead in terms of the number of file descriptors required; it is recommended that the minimum limit on file descriptors be raised to at least 256 for safety.

LEARNING OPTIONS

use_bayes ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)

Whether to use the naive-Bayesian-style classifier built into SpamAssassin. This is a master on/off switch for all Bayes-related operations.

use_bayes_rules ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)

Whether to use rules using the naive-Bayesian-style classifier built into SpamAssassin. This allows you to disable the rules while leaving auto and manual learning enabled.

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.

auto_whitelist_db_modules Module ... (default: see below)

What database modules should be used for the auto-whitelist storage database file. The first named module that can be loaded from the perl include path will be used. The format is:

PreferredModuleName SecondBest ThirdBest ...

ie. a space-separated list of perl module names. The default is:

DB_File GDBM_File NDBM_File SDBM_File

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:

- rules with tflags set to 'learn' (the Bayesian rules)

- rules with tflags set to 'userconf' (user white/black-listing rules, etc)

- rules with tflags set to 'noautolearn'

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_ignore_from add@ress.com

Bayesian classification and autolearning will not be performed on mail from the listed addresses. Program sa-learn will also ignore the listed addresses if it is invoked using the --use-ignores option. One or more addresses can be listed, see whitelist_from.

Spam messages from certain senders may contain many words that frequently occur in ham. For example, one might read messages from a preferred bookstore but also get unwanted spam messages from other bookstores. If the unwanted messages are learned as spam then any messages discussing books, including the preferred bookstore and antiquarian messages would be in danger of being marked as spam. The addresses of the annoying bookstores would be listed. (Assuming they were halfway legitimate and didn't send you mail through myriad affiliates.)

Those who have pieces of spam in legitimate messages or otherwise receive ham messages containing potentially spammy words might fear that some spam messages might be in danger of being marked as ham. The addresses of the spam mailing lists, correspondents, etc. would be listed.

bayes_ignore_to add@ress.com

Bayesian classification and autolearning will not be performed on mail to the listed addresses. See bayes_ignore_from for details.

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.

bayes_sql_override_username

Used by BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.

If this options is set the BayesStore::SQL module will override the set username with the value given. This could be useful for implementing global or group bayes databases.

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.

MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS

lock_method type

Select the file-locking method used to protect database files on-disk. By default, SpamAssassin uses an NFS-safe locking method on UNIX; however, if you are sure that the database files you'll be using for Bayes and AWL storage will never be accessed over NFS, a non-NFS-safe locking system can be selected.

This will be quite a bit faster, but may risk file corruption if the files are ever accessed by multiple clients at once, and one or more of them is accessing them through an NFS filesystem.

Note that different platforms require different locking systems.

The supported locking systems for type are as follows:

nfssafe - an NFS-safe locking system

flock - simple UNIX flock() locking

win32 - Win32 locking using sysopen (..., O_CREAT|O_EXCL).

nfssafe and flock are only available on UNIX, and win32 is only available on Windows. By default, SpamAssassin will choose either nfssafe or win32 depending on the platform in use.

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. Note that this can generate very long lines.

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.

envelope_sender_header Name-Of-Header

SpamAssassin will attempt to discover the address used in the 'MAIL FROM:' phase of the SMTP transaction that delivered this message, if this data has been made available by the SMTP server. This is used in the EnvelopeFrom pseudo-header, and for various rules such as SPF checking.

By default, various MTAs will use different headers, such as the following:

X-Envelope-From
Envelope-Sender
X-Sender
Return-Path

SpamAssassin will attempt to use these, if some heuristics (such as the header placement in the message, or the absence of fetchmail signatures) appear to indicate that they are safe to use. However, it may choose the wrong headers in some mailserver configurations. (More discussion of this can be found in bug 2142 in the SpamAssassin BugZilla.)

To avoid this heuristic failure, the envelope_sender_header setting may be helpful. Name the header that your MTA adds to messages containing the address used at the MAIL FROM step of the SMTP transaction.

If the header in question contains < or > characters at the start and end of the email address in the right-hand side, as in the SMTP transaction, these will be stripped.

If the header is not found in a message, or if it's value does not contain an @ sign, SpamAssassin will fall back to its default heuristics.

(Note for MTA developers: we would prefer if the use of a single header be avoided in future, since that precludes 'downstream' spam scanning. http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/EnvelopeSenderInReceived details a better proposal using the Received headers.)

example:

envelope_sender_header X-SA-Exim-Mail-From

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.

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.

report_hostname ...hostname to use...

Set what _HOSTNAME_ is replaced with in the above report text. By default, this is determined dynamically as whatever the host running SpamAssassin calls itself.

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.

RULE DEFINITIONS AND 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.

Appending :raw to the header name will inhibit decoding of quoted-printable or base-64 encoded strings.

Appending :addr to the header name will cause everything except the first email address to be removed from the header. For example, all of the following will result in "example@foo":

example@foo

example@foo (Foo Blah)

example@foo, example@bar

display: example@foo (Foo Blah), example@bar ;

Foo Blah <example@foo>

"Foo Blah" <example@foo>

"'Foo Blah'" <example@foo>

Appending :name to the header name will cause everything except the first real name to be removed from the header. For example, all of the following will result in "Foo Blah"

example@foo (Foo Blah)

example@foo (Foo Blah), example@bar

display: example@foo (Foo Blah), example@bar ;

Foo Blah <example@foo>

"Foo Blah" <example@foo>

"'Foo Blah'" <example@foo>

There are several special pseudo-headers that can be specified:

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.

EnvelopeFrom is the address used in the 'MAIL FROM:' phase of the SMTP transaction that delivered this message, if this data has been made available by the SMTP server.

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. Also note that the # character must be escaped (\#) or else it will be considered to be the start of a comment and not part of the regexp.

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, and names have a length of no more than 22 characters, 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' [, 'sub-test'])

Check a DNSBL (a DNS blacklist or whitelist). This will retrieve Received: headers from the message, extract the IP addresses, select which ones are 'untrusted' based on the trusted_networks logic, and query that DNSBL zone. There's a few things to note:

duplicated or reserved IPs

Duplicated IPs are only queried once and reserved IPs are not queried. Reserved IPs are those listed in <http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space>, <http://duxcw.com/faq/network/privip.htm>, <http://duxcw.com/faq/network/autoip.htm>, or <ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3330.txt>

the 'set' argument

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

Also, if more than one IP address gets a DNSBL hit for a particular rule, it does not affect the score because rules only trigger once per message.

the 'zone' argument

This is the root zone of the DNSBL, ending in a period.

the 'sub-test' argument

This optional argument behaves the same as the sub-test argument in check_rbl_sub() below.

selecting all IPs except for the originating one

This is accomplished by placing '-notfirsthop' at the end of the set name. This is 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 (mail exchange).

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, place '-firsttrusted' at the end of the set name. 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 placing '-untrusted' at the end of the set name.

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, a SenderBase test beginning with "sb:", or (if none of the preceding options seem to fit) a regular expression.

Note: the set name must be exactly the same for as the main query rule, including selections like '-notfirsthop' appearing at the end of the set name.

body SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME /pattern/modifiers

Define a body pattern test. pattern is a Perl regular expression. Note: as per the header tests, # must be escaped (\#) or else it is considered the beginning of a comment.

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. Note: as per the header tests, # must be escaped (\#) or else it is considered the beginning of a comment.

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. Note: as per the header tests, # must be escaped (\#) or else it is considered the beginning of a comment.

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

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 message pattern test. pattern is a Perl regular expression. Note: as per the header tests, # must be escaped (\#) or else it is considered the beginning of a comment.

The full message is the pristine message headers plus the pristine message body, including all MIME data such as images, other attachments, MIME boundaries, etc.

full SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:name_of_eval_method([args])

Define a full message 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|noautolearn} ]

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. Please see bayes_auto_learn and use_auto_whitelist for more information about tflag interaction with those systems. 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.

noautolearn

The test will explicitly be ignored when calculating the score for learning systems.

priority SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME n

Assign a specific priority to a test. All tests, except for DNS and Meta tests, are run in priority order. The default test priority is 0 (zero).

ADMINISTRATOR SETTINGS

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

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.

The version_tag will be lowercased, and any non-alphanumeric or period character will be replaced by an underscore.

e.g.

version_tag myrules1    # version=2.41-myrules1

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.

use_auto_whitelist ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)

Whether to use auto-whitelists. Auto-whitelists track the long-term average score for each sender and then shift the score of new messages toward that long-term average. This can increase or decrease the score for messages, depending on the long-term behavior of the particular correspondent.

For more information about the auto-whitelist system, please look at the the Automatic Whitelist System section of the README file. The auto-whitelist is not intended as a general-purpose replacement for static whitelist entries added to your config files.

Note that certain tests are ignored when determining the final message score:

- rules with tflags set to 'noautolearn'

auto_whitelist_factory module (default: Mail::SpamAssassin::DBBasedAddrList)

Select alternative whitelist factory module.

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.

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_store_module Name::Of::BayesStore::Module

If this option is set, the module given will be used as an alternate to the default bayes storage mechanism. It must conform to the published storage specification (see Mail::SpamAssassin::BayesStore).

bayes_sql_dsn DBI::databasetype:databasename:hostname:port

Used for BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.

This option give the connect string used to connect to the SQL based Bayes storage.

bayes_sql_username

Used by BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.

This option gives the username used by the above DSN.

bayes_sql_password

Used by BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.

This option gives the password used by the above DSN.

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

If you load user scores from an LDAP directory, this will set the DSN used to connect. You have to write the DSN as an LDAP URL, the components being the host and port to connect to, the base DN for the seasrch, the scope of the search (base, one or sub), the single attribute being the multivalued attribute used to hold the configuration data (space separated pairs of key and value, just as in a file) and finally the filter being the expression used to filter out the wanted username. Note that the filter expression is being used in a sprintf statement with the username as the only parameter, thus is can hold a single __USERNAME__ expression. This will be replaced with the username.

Example: ldap://localhost:389/dc=koehntopp,dc=de?spamassassinconfig?uid=__USERNAME__

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_custom_query query

This option gives you the ability to create a custom SQL query to retrieve user scores and preferences. In order to work correctly your query should return two values, the preference name and value, in that order. In addition, there are several "variables" that you can use as part of your query, these variables will be substituted for the current values right before the query is run. The current allowed variables are:

_TABLE_

The name of the table where user scores and preferences are stored. Currently hardcoded to userpref, to change this value you need to create a new custom query with the new table name.

_USERNAME_

The current user's username.

_MAILBOX_

The portion before the @ as derived from the current user's username.

_DOMAIN_

The portion after the @ as derived from the current user's username, this value may be null.

The query must be one one continuous line in order to parse correctly.

Here are several example queries, please note that these are broken up for easy reading, in your config it should be one continuous line.

Current default query:

SELECT preference, value FROM _TABLE_ WHERE username = _USERNAME_ OR username = '@GLOBAL' ORDER BY username ASC

Use global and then domain level defaults:

SELECT preference, value FROM _TABLE_ WHERE username = _USERNAME_ OR username = '@GLOBAL' OR username = '@~'||_DOMAIN_ ORDER BY username ASC

Maybe global prefs should override user prefs:

SELECT preference, value FROM _TABLE_ WHERE username = _USERNAME_ OR username = '@GLOBAL' ORDER BY username DESC

user_awl_dsn DBI:databasetype:databasename:hostname:port

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

user_awl_sql_username username

The authorized username to connect to the above DSN.

user_awl_sql_password password

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

user_awl_sql_table tablename

The table user auto-whitelists are stored in, for the above DSN.

user_scores_ldap_username

This is the Bind DN used to connect to the LDAP server.

Example: cn=master,dc=koehntopp,dc=de

user_scores_ldap_password

This is the password used to connect to the LDAP server.

loadplugin PluginModuleName [/path/to/module.pm]

Load a SpamAssassin plugin module. The PluginModuleName is the perl module name, used to create the plugin object itself.

/path/to/module.pm is the file to load, containing the module's perl code; if it's specified as a relative path, it's considered to be relative to the current configuration file. If it is omitted, the module will be loaded using perl's search path (the @INC array).

See Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin for more details on writing plugins.

PREPROCESSING OPTIONS

include filename

Include configuration lines from filename. Relative paths are considered relative to the current configuration file or user preferences file.

if (conditional perl expression)

Used to support conditional interpretation of the configuration file. Lines between this and a corresponding endif line, will be ignored unless the conditional expression evaluates as true (in the perl sense; that is, defined and non-0).

The conditional accepts a limited subset of perl for security -- just enough to perform basic arithmetic comparisons. The following input is accepted:

numbers, whitespace, arithmetic operations and grouping

Namely these characters and ranges:

( ) - + * / _ . , < = > ! ~ 0-9 whitespace

version

This will be replaced with the version number of the currently-running SpamAssassin engine. Note: The version used is in the internal SpamAssassin version format which is x.yyyzzz, where x is major version, y is minor version, and z is maintenance version. So 3.0.0 is 3.000000, and 3.4.80 is 3.004080.

plugin(Name::Of::Plugin)

This is a function call that returns 1 if the plugin named Name::Of::Plugin is loaded, or undef otherwise.

If the end of a configuration file is reached while still inside a if scope, a warning will be issued, but parsing will restart on the next file.

For example:

if (version > 3.000000)
  header MY_FOO	...
endif

loadplugin MyPlugin plugintest.pm

if plugin (MyPlugin)
  header MY_PLUGIN_FOO	eval:check_for_foo()
  score  MY_PLUGIN_FOO	0.1
endif

ifplugin PluginModuleName

An alias for if plugin(PluginModuleName).

require_version n.nnnnnn

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

Note: The version used is in the internal SpamAssassin version format which is x.yyyzzz, where x is major version, y is minor version, and z is maintenance version. So 3.0.0 is 3.000000, and 3.4.80 is 3.004080.

TEMPLATE TAGS

The following tags can be used as placeholders in certain options. They will be replaced by the corresponding value when they are used.

Some tags can take an argument (in parentheses). The argument is optional, and the default is shown below.

 _YESNOCAPS_       "YES"/"NO" for is/isn't spam
 _YESNO_           "Yes"/"No" for is/isn't spam
 _SCORE(PAD)_      message score, if PAD is included and is either spaces or
                   zeroes, then pad scores with that many spaces or zeroes
		   (default, none)  ie: _SCORE(0)_ makes 2.4 become 02.4,
		   _SCORE(00)_ is 002.4.  12.3 would be 12.3 and 012.3
		   respectively.
 _REQD_            message threshold
 _VERSION_         version (eg. 3.0.0 or 3.1.0-r26142-foo1)
 _SUBVERSION_      sub-version/code revision date (eg. 2004-01-10)
 _HOSTNAME_        hostname of the machine the mail was processed on
 _REMOTEHOSTNAME_  hostname of the machine the mail was sent from, only
                   available with spamd
 _REMOTEHOSTADDR_  ip address of the machine the mail was sent from, only
                   available with spamd
 _BAYES_           bayes score
 _TOKENSUMMARY_    number of new, neutral, spammy, and hammy tokens found
 _BAYESTC_         number of new tokens found
 _BAYESTCLEARNED_  number of seen tokens found
 _BAYESTCSPAMMY_   number of spammy tokens found
 _BAYESTCHAMMY_    number of hammy tokens found
 _HAMMYTOKENS(N)_  the N most significant hammy tokens (default, 5)
 _SPAMMYTOKENS(N)_ the N most significant spammy tokens (default, 5)
 _AWL_             AWL modifier
 _DATE_            rfc-2822 date of scan
 _STARS(*)_        one * (use any character) for each score point (note: this
                   is limited to 50 'stars' to stay on the right side of the RFCs)
 _RELAYSTRUSTED_   relays used and deemed to be trusted
 _RELAYSUNTRUSTED_ relays used that can not be trusted
 _AUTOLEARN_       autolearn status ("ham", "no", "spam", "disabled",
                   "failed", "unavailable")
 _TESTS(,)_        tests hit separated by , (or other separator)
 _TESTSSCORES(,)_  as above, except with scores appended (eg. AWL=-3.0,...)
 _DCCB_            DCC's "Brand"
 _DCCR_            DCC's results
 _PYZOR_           Pyzor results
 _RBL_             full results for positive RBL queries in DNS URI format
 _LANGUAGES_       possible languages of mail
 _PREVIEW_         content preview
 _REPORT_          terse report of tests hit (for header reports)
 _SUMMARY_         summary of tests hit for standard report (for body reports)
 _CONTACTADDRESS_  contents of the 'report_contact' setting

The HAMMYTOKENS and SPAMMYTOKENS tags have an optional second argument which specifies a format. See the HAMMYTOKENS/SPAMMYTOKENS TAG FORMAT section, below, for details.

HAMMYTOKENS/SPAMMYTOKENS TAG FORMAT

The HAMMYTOKENS and SPAMMYTOKENS tags have an optional second argument which specifies a format: _SPAMMYTOKENS(N,FMT)_, _HAMMYTOKENS(N,FMT)_ The following formats are available:

short

Only the tokens themselves are listed. For example, preference file entry:

add_header all Spammy _SPAMMYTOKENS(2,short)_

Results in message header:

X-Spam-Spammy: remove.php, UD:jpg

Indicating that the top two spammy tokens found are remove.php and UD:jpg. (The token itself follows the last colon, the text before the colon indicates something about the token. UD means the token looks like it might be part of a domain name.)

compact

The token probability, an abbreviated declassification distance (see example), and the token are listed. For example, preference file entry:

add_header all Spammy _SPAMMYTOKENS(2,compact)_

Results in message header:

0.989-6--remove.php, 0.988-+--UD:jpg

Indicating that the probabilities of the top two tokens are 0.989 and 0.988, respectively. The first token has a declassification distance of 6, meaning that if the token had appeared in at least 6 more ham messages it would not be considered spammy. The + for the second token indicates a declassification distance greater than 9.

long

Probability, declassification distance, number of times seen in a ham message, number of times seen in a spam message, age and the token are listed.

For example, preference file entry:

add_header all Spammy _SPAMMYTOKENS(2,long)_

Results in message header:

X-Spam-Spammy: 0.989-6--0h-4s--4d--remove.php, 0.988-33--2h-25s--1d--UD:jpg

In addition to the information provided by the compact option, the long option shows that the first token appeared in zero ham messages and four spam messages, and that it was last seen four days ago. The second token appeared in two ham messages, 25 spam messages and was last seen one day ago. (Unlike the compact option, the long option shows declassification distances that are greater than 9.)

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

cpanm Mail::SpamAssassin

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Mail::SpamAssassin