Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf - SpamAssassin configuration file
# a comment
rewrite_subject 1
full PARA_A_2_C_OF_1618 /Paragraph .a.{0,10}2.{0,10}C. of S. 1618/i
describe PARA_A_2_C_OF_1618 Claims compliance with senate bill 1618
header FROM_HAS_MIXED_NUMS From =~ /\d+[a-z]+\d+\S*@/i describe FROM_HAS_MIXED_NUMS From: contains numbers mixed in with letters
score A_HREF_TO_REMOVE 2.0
lang es describe FROM_FORGED_HOTMAIL Forzado From: simula ser de hotmail.com
SpamAssassin is configured using some traditional UNIX-style configuration files, loaded from the /usr/share/spamassassin and /etc/mail/spamassassin directories.
The # character starts a comment, which continues until end of line.
Whitespace in the files is not significant, but please note that starting a line with whitespace is deprecated, as we reserve its use for multi-line rule definitions, at some point in the future.
Currently, each rule or configuration setting must fit on one-line; multi-line settings are not supported yet.
Paths can use ~ to refer to the user's home directory.
Where appropriate, default values are listed in parentheses.
The following tags can be used as placeholders in certain options
specified below. 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
_HITS_ message score
_REQD_ message threshold
_VERSION_ version (eg. 2.55)
_SUBVERSION_ sub-version (eg. 1.187-2003-05-15-exp)
_HOSTNAME_ hostname
_BAYES_ bayes score
_AWL_ AWL modifier
_DATE_ rfc-2822 date of scan
_STARS(*)_ one * (use any character) for each score point (50 at most)
_RELAYSTRUSTED_ relays used and deemed to be trusted
_RELAYSUNTRUSTED_ relays used that can not be trusted
_AUTOLEARN_ autolearn status ("ham", "no", "spam")
_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 hits (for header reports)
_SUMMARY_ summary of tests hit for standard report (for body reports)
_CONTACTADDRESS_ contents of the 'report_contact' setting
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.
e.g.
version_tag myrules1 # version=2.41-myrules1
Whitelist and blacklist addresses are now file-glob-style patterns, so
friend@somewhere.com, *@isp.com, or *.domain.net will all work.
Specifically, * and ? are allowed, but all other metacharacters are not.
Regular expressions are not used for security reasons.
Multiple addresses per line, separated by spaces, is OK. Multiple
whitelist_from lines is also OK.
The headers checked for whitelist addresses are as follows: if Resent-From
is set, use that; otherwise check all addresses taken from the following
set of headers:
Envelope-Sender
Resent-Sender
X-Envelope-From
From
e.g.
whitelist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com whitelist_from *@example.com
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
This string is matched against the reverse DNS lookup used during the handover
from the untrusted internet to your trusted network's mail exchangers. It can
either be the full hostname, or the domain component of that hostname. In
other words, if the host that connected to your MX had an IP address that
mapped to 'sendinghost.spamassassin.org', you should specify
sendinghost.spamassassin.org or just spamassassin.org here.
Note that this requires that trusted_networks be correct. For simple cases,
it will be, but for a complex network, or if you're running with DNS checks off
or with -L, you may get better results by setting that parameter.
e.g.
whitelist_from_rcvd joe@example.com example.com whitelist_from_rcvd *@axkit.org sergeant.org
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.
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
whitelist_from.
user_prefs file.
e.g.
unblacklist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com unblacklist_from *@spammer.com
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.
blacklist_from.
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.
SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME is
the symbolic name used by SpamAssassin for that test; for example,
'FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS'.
If only one valid score is listed, then that score is always used for a test.
If four valid scores are listed, then the score that is used depends on how SpamAssassin is being used. The first score is used when both Bayes and network tests are disabled. The second score is used when Bayes is disabled, but network tests are enabled. The third score is used when Bayes is enabled and network tests are disabled. The fourth score is used when Bayes is enabled and network tests are enabled.
Setting a rule's score to 0 will disable that rule from running.
Note that test names which begin with '__' are reserved for meta-match sub-rules, and are not scored or listed in the 'tests hit' reports.
If no score is given for a test, the default score is 1.0, or 0.01 for tests whose names begin with 'T_' (this is used to indicate a rule in testing).
By convention, rule names are be all uppercase and have a length of no more than 22 characters.
The automatic wrapping can be disabled here (which can generate very long lines).
X-Spam- (so
a header_name Foo will generate a header called X-Spam-Foo).
string can contain tags as explained above in the TAGS section. You
can also use \n and \t in the header to add newlines and tabulators
as desired. A backslash has to be written as \\, any other escaped chars
will be silently removed.
All headers will be folded if fold_headers is set to 1. Note: Manually
adding newlines via \n disables any further automatic wrapping (ie:
long header lines are possible). The lines will still be properly folded
(marked as continuing) though.
For backwards compatibility, some headers are (still) added by default. You can customize existing headers with add_header (only the specified subset of messages will be changed).
See also clear_headers for removing headers.
Here are some examples (these are the defaults in 2.60):
add_header spam Flag _YESNOCAPS_ add_header all Status _YESNO_, hits=_HITS_ required=_REQD_ tests=_TESTS_ autolearn=_AUTOLEARN_ version=_VERSION_ add_header all Level _STARS(*)_ add_header all Checker-Version SpamAssassin _VERSION_ (_SUBVERSION_) on _HOSTNAME_
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.
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.
Subject: line of mails that are considered spam,
if rewrite_subject is 1. Tags can be used here as with the
add_header option. If report_safe is not used (see below), you may
only use the _HITS_ and _REQD_ tags, or SpamAssassin will not be able
to remove this markup from your message.
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.
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.
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).
Xxxxxx: yyy where Xxxxxx is a header and yyy is some text, they'll be used
as headers. See the 10_misc.cf configuration file in
/usr/share/spamassassin for an example.
Unfortunately tags can not be used with this option.
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.
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:
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:
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.
The default is 5.
If a /mask is specified, it's considered a CIDR-style 'netmask', specified
in bits. If it is not specified, but less than 4 octets are specified with a
trailing dot, that's considered a mask to allow all addresses in the remaining
octets. If a mask is not specified, and there is not trailing dot, then just
the single IP address specified is used, as if the mask was /32.
Examples:
trusted_networks 192.168/16 127/8 # all in 192.168.*.* and 127.*.*.*
trusted_networks 212.17.35.15 # just that host
trusted_networks 127. # all in 127.*.*.*
This operates additively, so a trusted_networks line after another one
will result in all those networks becoming trusted. To clear out the
existing entries, use clear_trusted_networks.
If you're running with DNS checks enabled, SpamAssassin includes code to infer your trusted networks on the fly, so this may not be necessary. (Thanks to Scott Banister and Andrew Flury for the inspiration for this algorithm.) This inference works as follows:
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.
You can however specify your own list by specifying
dns_available test: server1.tld server2.tld server3.tld
Please note, the DNS test queries for MX records so if you specify your
own list of servers, please make sure to choose the one(s) which has an
associated MX record.
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.
Note that certain tests are ignored when determining whether a message should be trained upon: - auto-whitelist (AWL) - rules with tflags set to 'learn' (the Bayesian rules) - rules with tflags set to 'userconf' (user white/black-listing rules, etc)
Also note that auto-training occurs using scores from either scoreset 0 or 1, depending on what scoreset is used during message check. It is likely that the message check and auto-train scores will be different.
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 X-Upstream-Spamfilter
bayes_ignore_header X-Upstream-SomethingElse
spamassassin -r) as spam. If you do not want this to happen, set
this option to 0.
This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Instead, use the clear_headers and add_header options to customize headers.
1, the report will also be included in the
X-Spam-Report header for non-spam mail.
This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the flexible add_header option instead:
add_header all Report _REPORT_
X-Spam-Level: *******
This can be useful for MUA rule creation.
This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the add_header option instead:
add_header all Level _STARS(*)_
In other words, for a message scoring 7.2 points with this option set to .
X-Spam-Level: .......
This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the add_header option instead:
add_header all Level _STARS(.)_
The default is to not add the header.
This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the add_header option instead:
add_header all DCC _DCCB_: _DCCR_
The default is to not add the header.
This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed in a future version. Please use the add_header option instead:
add_header all Pyzor _PYZOR_
Note that for checking against dialup lists, you can call check_rbl() with a
special set name of set-notfirsthop and this rule will only be matched
against the relays except for the very first one; this allows SpamAssassin to
catch dialup-sent spam, without penalizing people who properly relay through
their ISP.
This option is deprecated in version 2.60 and later. It will be removed
in a future version. Please use the trusted_networks option instead
(it is a much better way to control DNSBL-checking behaviour).
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).
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.
SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME is a symbolic test name, such as
'FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS'. header is the name of a mail header, such as
'Subject', 'To', etc.
'ALL' can be used to mean the text of all the message's headers. 'ToCc' can be used to mean the contents of both the 'To' and 'Cc' headers.
'MESSAGEID' is a symbol meaning all Message-Id's found in the message; some mailing list software moves the real Message-Id to 'Resent-Message-Id' or 'X-Message-Id', then uses its own one in the 'Message-Id' header. The value returned for this symbol is the text from all 3 headers, separated by newlines.
op is either =~ (contains regular expression) or !~ (does not contain
regular expression), and pattern is a valid Perl regular expression, with
modifiers as regexp modifiers in the usual style. Note that multi-line
rules are not supported, even if you use x as a modifier.
If the [if-unset: STRING] tag is present, then STRING will
be used if the header is not found in the mail message.
Test names should not start with a number, and must contain only alphanumerics and underscores. It is suggested that lower-case characters not be used, as an informal convention. Dashes are not allowed.
Note that test names which begin with '__' are reserved for meta-match sub-rules, and are not scored or listed in the 'tests hit' reports. Test names which begin with 'T_' are reserved for tests which are undergoing QA, and these are given a very low score.
If you add or modify a test, please be sure to run a sanity check afterwards
by running spamassassin --lint. This will avoid confusing error
messages, or other tests being skipped as a side-effect.
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.
trusted_networks logic, and query
that blacklist. There's a few things to note:
check_rbl_sub() calls must use that zone ID.
Also, if an IP gets a hit in one lookup in a zone using that ID, any further hits in other rules using that zone ID will *not* be added to the score.
In addition, you can test all untrusted IP addresses by naming the set 'foo-untrusted'.
Note that this requires that SpamAssassin know which relays are trusted. For
simple cases, SpamAssassin can make a good estimate. For complex cases, you
may get better results by setting trusted_networks manually.
pattern is a Perl regular expression.
The 'body' in this case is the textual parts of the message body; any non-text MIME parts are stripped, and the message decoded from Quoted-Printable or Base-64-encoded format if necessary. The message Subject header is considered part of the body and becomes the first paragraph when running the rules. All HTML tags and line breaks will be removed before matching.
pattern is a Perl regular expression.
The 'uri' in this case is a list of all the URIs in the body of the email, and the test will be run on each and every one of those URIs, adjusting the score if a match is found. Use this test instead of one of the body tests when you need to match a URI, as it is more accurately bound to the start/end points of the URI, and will also be faster.
pattern is a Perl regular expression.
The 'raw body' of a message is the text, including all textual parts. The text will be decoded from base64 or quoted-printable encoding, but HTML tags and line breaks will still be present.
pattern is a Perl regular expression.
The 'full body' of a message is the un-decoded text, including all parts
(including images or other attachments). SpamAssassin no longer tests
full tests against decoded text; use rawbody for that.
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 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.
These settings differ from the ones above, in that they are considered 'more
privileged' -- even more than the ones in the SETTINGS section. No matter what
allow_user_rules is set to, these can never be set from a user's
user_prefs file.
These tests are only run as part of the test suite - they should not affect the general running of SpamAssassin.
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_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 is not specified, it will default to looking in dcc_home
If a dccifd socket is found, it will use it instead of dccproc.
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.
dccproc(8) command. Please note that only
[A-Z -] is allowed (security).
The default is -R
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.
~/.spamassassin directory with mode 0700, but for system-wide
SpamAssassin use, you may want to share this across all users.
_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.)
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).
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).
DBI:mysql:spamassassin:localhost
username.
preference.
value.
spamassassin.
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.
Mail::SpamAssassin
spamassassin
spamd