Configuring Apache SpamAssassin

[DavidWH]

In an attempt to reduce the amount spam we receive, I configured boxtrapper, but have had a few e-mails get caught.

I've got spam assassin active, and the required score is set to 5.0, but I'm still getting spam.

In Cpanel, the 'score' boxes are all empty.

Any tips on how to increase its effectiveness?

 

[arnydnxluk]

Have you enabled the "Spam Box" option to have spam messages filtered into a separate folder? If not, messages will continue to arrive in your inbox even when exceeding the threshold.

To find a suitable score threshold, you could simply raise the score every few days until you're happy with the results. To get a better idea of how messages are scored, use your email client to view the full headers for each spam message coming through. These headers contain information about how the message has been scored, including the final score.

Is this shared hosting, an unmanaged server or a managed server?

 

[ldjames]

What you can do here depends heavily on whether you have "root" access to the server. If you don't then you are limited to the changes in the post above and, honestly, it is unlikely that spam filtering will be effective even close to the degree of Gmail et al.

If you do have root access, some changes can be made, to SpamAssassin's algorithm and to other checks that prevent spam. This tends to be complex and is the sort of work that we carry out. We have made progress on effective spam filtering on cPanel by:

- Enabling "hard" SPF record checking in WHM > Tweak Settings, disabled by default
- Enabling the use of non-default blacklists in WHM > Tweak Settings
- Rewriting SpamAsssassin logic

Even with these changes, it is unlikely that you will get close to the efficacy of Gmail et al.

I would recommend disabling BoxTrapper as it can land you on the Backscatterer blacklist which will make it more likely that recipients of your emails don't see them.

 

[Bradley Holmes]

Yes, lower the number to 4 and give it a go and then try 3 if needed, I wouldn´t go below 3 you would start to lose legitimate emails.

Along with that you can also set up some rules in the account level filters section, so for example if the email body contains "viagra" then filter to spam box.

Does your host offer a addon anti spam service? Something like Spam Experts ? If so that would do a much better job then spam assassin, and it works straight out of the box.

 

[Benjie_P]

.

 

[Benjie_P]

deleting mine as someone already posted the same recommendation.