Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf - SpamAssassin configuration file
# 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
lang pt_BR report O programa detetor de Spam ZOE [...]
SpamAssassin is configured using traditional UNIX-style configuration files,
loaded from the /usr/share/spamassassin and /etc/spamassassin
directories.
The following web page lists the most important configuration settings used to configure SpamAssassin; novices are encouraged to read it first:
http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/ImportantInitialConfigItems
The # character starts a comment, which continues until end of line.
NOTE: if the # character is to be used as part of a rule or
configuration option, it must be escaped with a backslash. 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.
File and directory paths can use ~ to refer to the user's home
directory, but no other shell-style path extensions such as globing or
~user/ are supported.
Where appropriate below, default values are listed in parentheses.
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.
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.
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.
Used to whitelist sender addresses which send mail that is often tagged (incorrectly) as spam.
Use of this setting is not recommended, since it blindly trusts the message,
which is routinely and easily forged by spammers and phish senders. The
recommended solution is to instead use whitelist_auth or other authenticated
whitelisting methods, or whitelist_from_rcvd.
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. See envelope_sender_header.
e.g.
whitelist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com whitelist_from *@example.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
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 you may get better results by setting that
parameter.
It also requires that your mail exchangers be configured to perform DNS reverse lookups on the connecting host's IP address, and to record the result in the generated Received: header.
e.g.
whitelist_from_rcvd joe@example.com example.com whitelist_from_rcvd *@axkit.org sergeant.org
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.
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
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
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.
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. The specified email address has to match exactly
the address previously used in a blacklist_from line.
e.g.
unblacklist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com unblacklist_from *@spammer.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
See above.
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.
Used to specify addresses which send mail that is often tagged (incorrectly) as
spam. This is different from whitelist_from and whitelist_from_rcvd in
that it first verifies that the message was sent by an authorized sender for
the address, before whitelisting.
Authorization is performed using one of the installed sender-authorization
schemes: SPF (using Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugins::SPF), Domain Keys (using
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugins::DomainKeys), or DKIM (using
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugins::DKIM). Note that those plugins must be active,
and working, for this to operate.
Using whitelist_auth is roughly equivalent to specifying duplicate
whitelist_from_spf, whitelist_from_dk, and whitelist_from_dkim lines
for each of the addresses specified.
e.g.
whitelist_auth joe@example.com fred@example.com whitelist_auth *@example.com
Same as whitelist_auth, but used for the default whitelist entries
in the SpamAssassin distribution. The whitelist score is lower, because
these are often targets for spammer spoofing.
Used to override a whitelist_auth entry. The specified email address has to
match exactly the address previously used in a whitelist_auth line.
e.g.
unwhitelist_auth joe@example.com fred@example.com unwhitelist_auth *@example.com
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
if report_safe is 0. Otherwise, you may not be able to remove
the SpamAssassin markup via the normal methods. More information
about tags is explained below in the TEMPLATE TAGS section.
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.
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_
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 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.
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.
This option is used to specify which locales are considered OK for incoming mail. Mail using the character sets that are allowed by this option 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:
Whether to detect character sets and normalize message content to Unicode. Requires the Encode::Detect module, HTML::Parser version 3.46 or later, and Perl 5.8.5 or later.
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.
See http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/TrustPath for more information.
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.
If a network or host address is prefaced by a ! the network or host will be
excluded (or included) in a first listed match fashion.
Note: 127/8 is always included in trusted_networks, regardless of your config.
Examples:
trusted_networks 192.168/16 # all in 192.168.*.* trusted_networks 212.17.35.15 # just that host trusted_networks !10.0.1.5 10.0.1/24 # all in 10.0.1.* but not 10.0.1.5
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 neither trusted_networks or internal_networks is set, a basic
inference algorithm is applied. This works as follows:
Empty the list of trusted networks.
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.
Every entry in internal_networks must appear in trusted_networks; in
other words, internal_networks is always a subset of the trusted set.
Note: 127/8 is always included in internal_networks, regardless of your config.
Empty the list of internal networks.
The networks or hosts are acting as MSAs in your setup. MSA means that the relay hosts on these networks accept mail from your own users and authenticates them appropriately. These relays will never accept mail from hosts that aren't authenticated in some way. Examples of authentication include, IP lists, SMTP AUTH, POP-before-SMTP, etc.
All relays found in the message headers after the MSA relay will take on the same trusted and internal classifcations as the MSA relay itself, as defined by your trusted_networks and internal_networks configuration.
For example, if the MSA relay is trusted and internal so will all of the relays that precede it.
When using msa_networks to identify an MSA it is recommended that you treat that MSA as both trusted and internal. When an MSA is not included in msa_networks you should treat the MSA as trusted but not internal, however if the MSA is also acting as an MX or intermediate relay you must always treat it as both trusted and internal and ensure that the MSA includes visible auth tokens in its Received header to identify submission clients.
Warning: Never include an MSA that also acts as an MX (or is also an intermediate relay for an MX) or otherwise accepts mail from non-authenticated users in msa_networks. Doing so will result in unknown external relays being trusted.
Empty the list of msa networks.
Trust the envelope sender even if the message has been passed through one or
more trusted relays. See also envelope_sender_header.
By default, SpamAssassin will run RBL checks. If your ISP already does this for you, set this to 1.
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.
If dns_available is set to 'test' (which is the default), the dns_test_interval time in number of seconds will tell SpamAssassin how often to retest for working DNS.
If set to 'rotate', this causes SpamAssassin to choose a DNS server at random
from all servers listed in /etc/resolv.conf every 'dns_test_interval'
seconds, effectively spreading the load over all currently available DNS
servers when there are many spamd workers.
Whether to use the naive-Bayesian-style classifier built into SpamAssassin. This is a master on/off switch for all Bayes-related operations.
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.
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.
See the documentation for the
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::AutoLearnThreshold plugin module
for details on how Bayes auto-learning is implemented by default.
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
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.
Bayesian classification and autolearning will not be performed on mail
to the listed addresses. See bayes_ignore_from for details.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
flock() locking
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.
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.
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.
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 and bug 4747 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 issue a warning in the logs and 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, storing the envelope sender at each hop in the Received
header.)
example:
envelope_sender_header X-SA-Exim-Mail-From
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.
Set the MIME Content-Type charset used for the text/plain report which is attached to spam mail messages.
Set the report template which is attached to spam mail messages. See the
10_default_prefs.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 the report template.
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.
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.
Set the report template which is attached to spam mail messages which contain a
non-text/plain part. See the 10_default_prefs.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 the unsafe_report template.
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/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).
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.
A regex pattern that matches both the redirector site portion, and the target site portion of a URI.
Note: The target URI portion must be surrounded in parentheses and no other part of the pattern may create a backreference.
Example: http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/whatever/spammer.domain/yo/dude
redirector_pattern /^https?:\/\/(?:opt\.)?chkpt\.zdnet\.com\/chkpt\/\w+\/(.*)$/i
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":
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"
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. See envelope_sender_header for more information
on how to set this.
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.
X-Spam-Relays-Untrusted, X-Spam-Relays-Trusted,
X-Spam-Relays-Internal and X-Spam-Relays-External represent a portable,
pre-parsed representation of the message's network path, as recorded in the
Received headers, divided into 'trusted' vs 'untrusted' and 'internal' vs
'external' sets. See http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/TrustedRelays for
more details.
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 must 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.
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.
name_of_eval_method is the name of
a method on the Mail::SpamAssassin::EvalTests object. arguments
are optional arguments to the function call.
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:
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.
check_rbl_sub() below.
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.
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.
In addition, you can test all untrusted IP addresses by placing '-untrusted'
at the end of the set name. Important note -- this does NOT include the
IP address from the most recent 'untrusted line', as used in '-firsttrusted'
above. That's because we're talking about the trustworthiness of the
IP address data, not the source header line, here; and in the case of
the most recent header (the 'firsttrusted'), that data can be trusted.
See the Wiki page at http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/TrustedRelays
for more information on this.
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.
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.
Define a body eval test. See above.
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.
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.
Define a raw-body eval test. See above.
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.
Define a full message eval test. See above.
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.
Can also define a boolean arithmetic expression in terms of other tests, with an unhit test having the value "0" and a hit test having a nonzero value. The value of a hit meta test is that of its arithmetic expression. The value of a hit eval test is that returned by its method. The value of a hit header, body, rawbody, uri, or full test which has the "multiple" tflag is the number of times the test hit. The value of any other type of hit test is "1".
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.
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 for more information
about tflag interaction with those systems. The following flags
can be set:
Assign a specific priority to a test. All tests, except for DNS and Meta tests, are run in increasing priority value order (negative priority values are run before positive priority values). The default test priority is 0 (zero).
The values <-99999999999999> and <-99999999999998> have a special meaning internally, and should not be used.
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 when spamc/spamd is being used. However, all
settings can be used by local programs run directly by the user.
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
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.
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 (in seconds) 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), but will shrink the timeout according to a percentage of queries already completed. As the number of queries remaining approaches 0, the timeout value will gradually approach a t_min value, which is an optional second parameter and defaults to 0.2 * t. If t is smaller than t_min, the initial timeout is set to t_min. Here is a chart of queries remaining versus the timeout in seconds, for the default 15 second / 3 second timeout setting:
queries left 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% timeout 15 14.9 14.5 13.9 13.1 12.0 10.7 9.1 7.3 5.3 3
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 should finish within 7.3 seconds since their query started or they will be timed out. Note that timed out queries are only aborted when there is nothing else left for SpamAssassin to do - long evaluation of other rules may grant queries additional time.
If a parameter 'zone' is specified (it must end with a letter, which distinguishes it from other numeric parametrs), then the setting only applies to DNS queries against the specified DNS domain (host, domain or RBL (sub)zone). Matching is case-insensitive, the actual domain may be a subdomain of the specified zone.
This option allows the addition of new TLDs to the RegistrarBoundaries code. Updates to the list usually happen when new versions of SpamAssassin are released, but sometimes it's necessary to add in new TLDs faster than a release can occur. TLDs include things like com, net, org, etc.
This option allows the addition of new 2nd-level TLDs (2TLD) to the RegistrarBoundaries code. Updates to the list usually happen when new versions of SpamAssassin are released, but sometimes it's necessary to add in new 2TLDs faster than a release can occur. 2TLDs include things like co.uk, fed.us, etc.
This is the directory and filename for Bayes databases. Several databases
will be created, with this as the base directory and filename, with _toks,
_seen, etc. appended to the base. 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. For system-wide SpamAssassin use, you may want to reduce disk
space usage by sharing this across all users. However, Bayes appears to be
more effective with individual user databases.
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).
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). For example, set this to Mail::SpamAssassin::BayesStore::SQL to use the generic SQL storage module.
Used for BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.
This option give the connect string used to connect to the SQL based Bayes storage.
Used by BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.
This option gives the username used by the above DSN.
Used by BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.
This option gives the password used by the above DSN.
Whether to call the services_authorized_for_username plugin hook in BayesSQL. If the hook does not determine that the user is allowed to use bayes or is invalid then then database will not be initialized.
NOTE: By default the user is considered invalid until a plugin returns a true value. If you enable this, but do not have a proper plugin loaded, all users will turn up as invalid.
The username passed into the plugin can be affected by the bayes_sql_override_username config option.
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__
The authorized username to connect to the above DSN.
The password for the database username, for the above DSN.
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:
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.
SELECT preference, value FROM _TABLE_ WHERE username = _USERNAME_ OR username = '@GLOBAL' ORDER BY username ASC
SELECT preference, value FROM _TABLE_ WHERE username = _USERNAME_ OR username = '@GLOBAL' OR username = '@~'||_DOMAIN_ ORDER BY username ASC
SELECT preference, value FROM _TABLE_ WHERE username = _USERNAME_ OR username = '@GLOBAL' ORDER BY username DESC
This is the Bind DN used to connect to the LDAP server. It defaults to the empty string (""), allowing anonymous binding to work.
Example: cn=master,dc=koehntopp,dc=de
This is the password used to connect to the LDAP server. It defaults to the empty string ("").
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.
Same as loadplugin, but silently ignored if the .pm file cannot be found in
the filesystem.
filename. Relative paths are considered
relative to the current configuration file or user preferences file.
Used to support conditional interpretation of the configuration
file. Lines between this and a corresponding else or 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:
Namely these characters and ranges:
( ) - + * / _ . , < = > ! ~ 0-9 whitespace
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.
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
if plugin(PluginModuleName).
endif line,
will be ignored unless the conditional expression evaluates as false
(in the perl sense; that is, not defined and 0).
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.
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)
_DATE_ rfc-2822 date of scan
_STARS(*)_ one "*" (use any character) for each full score point
(note: limited to 50 'stars')
_RELAYSTRUSTED_ relays used and deemed to be trusted (see the
'X-Spam-Relays-Trusted' pseudo-header)
_RELAYSUNTRUSTED_ relays used that can not be trusted (see the
'X-Spam-Relays-Untrusted' pseudo-header)
_RELAYSINTERNAL_ relays used and deemed to be internal (see the
'X-Spam-Relays-Internal' pseudo-header)
_RELAYSEXTERNAL_ relays used and deemed to be external (see the
'X-Spam-Relays-External' pseudo-header)
_LASTEXTERNALIP_ IP address of client in the external-to-internal
SMTP handover
_LASTEXTERNALRDNS_ reverse-DNS of client in the external-to-internal
SMTP handover
_LASTEXTERNALHELO_ HELO string used by client in the external-to-internal
SMTP handover
_AUTOLEARN_ autolearn status ("ham", "no", "spam", "disabled",
"failed", "unavailable")
_AUTOLEARNSCORE_ portion of message score used by autolearn
_TESTS(,)_ tests hit separated by "," (or other separator)
_TESTSSCORES(,)_ as above, except with scores appended (eg. AWL=-3.0,...)
_SUBTESTS(,)_ subtests (start with "__") hit separated by ","
(or other separator)
_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
_HEADER(NAME)_ includes the value of a message header. value is the same
as is found for header rules (see elsewhere in this doc)
If a tag reference uses the name of a tag which is not in this list or defined by a loaded plugin, the reference will be left intact and not replaced by any value.
The HAMMYTOKENS and SPAMMYTOKENS tags have an optional second argument
which specifies a format. See the HAMMYTOKENS/SPAMMYTOKENS TAG FORMAT
section, below, for details.
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:
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.)
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.
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.)
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.
The locales string should specify either both the language and country, e.g.
lang pt_BR, or just the language, e.g. lang de.
Mail::SpamAssassin
spamassassin
spamd