SpamBouncer user configuration reference:

Purpose:

PreRequisites:

• The reader is executing the procedure herein on a supported platform, as defined here.
• The person performing this procedure can log into the target NetMAX system as a user.

Overview

SpamBouncer reads your email, applies a series of rules that identify probable spam, and then moves the probable spam email to an IMAP mail folder for you called "spam." This folder appears in your email folder list if any messages have been identified as spam. When spam is identified and placed in the spam folder, we call this "bouncing" the message.

Each user may specify up to four text files to configure the actions of SpamBouncer for their account: .legitlists, .localhostfile, .myemail, and .nobounce. Users will find them in their home directory, after the installation of SpamBouncer. Users may use the NetMAX Files Management interface to create and/or edit these files. Use of the NetMAX Files Management interface is outlined in the NetMAX Server Manual.

Each of these text files must be in Unix text format (end of line character must be a line feed). That means that you must use a text editor to edit them; DO NOT USE a word processing program like Microsoft Word or Microsoft Wordpad. If you edit these files on a Windows- or Macintosh-based computer, you must upload them using ftp in ASCII mode or some other means that will create Unix, not DOS, text files.

In each file, you must include email addresses or domain names, one on each line of the file. Ensure that there are no blank lines in each of these files, and that the last email address or domain name is followed by a carriage return. (That may create what looks like a blank line in some text editors, but it isn't actually a blank line.)

• .legitlists. Putting information in this file prevents the SpamBouncer from bouncing messages sent to you from mailing lists to which you have subscribed. Enter the names of all legitimate bulk mailing lists you are subscribed to. A sample .legitlists file is shown below:
      junkfax-l@trashbusters.org
      html-wizards-l@earlham.edu
      outback@yahoogroups.com
  
  
• .localhostfile. The entries in this file help SpamBouncer determine which messages are being transmitted from people in your local network(s). Enter the name of each domain that you consider local (Your sysadmin has probably predefined the domains that are considered local for your network and therefore, you probably do not need to change this file). If you receive email only for one host, enter that host name in the file. A sample .localhostfile file is shown below:
      hrweb.org
      spambouncer.org
  
  
  
• .myemail. The entries in this file tell SpamBouncer what email addresses you consider legitimate to receive email into. If a message is addressed to someone with a different email address than those listed in this file, it is likely to be bounced. Enter every email address that belongs to you on this system. (SpamBouncer will work without this file initialized, but you will bounce more spam if you put your preferred email receive address(es) in this file.) A sample .myemail file is shown below:
      abuse@hrweb.org
      abuse@spambouncer.org
      ariel@hrweb.org
      ariel@spambouncer.org
      postmaster@hrweb.org
      postmaster@spambouncer.org
      webmaster@hrweb.org
      webmaster@spambouncer.org
  
  
  
• .nobounce. This file contains entries of all email address or domains that you do not want bounced --if anyone you want correspondence with is bounced, enter their email address in this file. Addresses entered in this file can send you email and it will never be bounced or tagged as spam. Enter the email address of every person you regularly receive email from. This will speed up delivery of your mail and reduce the work your server must do to filter your mail, since email from addresses in the NOBOUNCE file are filtered for viruses, but nothing else. In addition, if you regularly add the email addresses of people you correspond with to the NOBOUNCE file, you can use more aggressive filtering options in the SpamBouncer without having a large number of false positives. A sample .nobounce file is shown below:
      friend@home.com
      anotherfriend@home.com
      boss@work.com
      coworker@work.com
      mom@juno.com
      brother@yahoo.com
      kid@highschool.kids.us
  

You can also add partial strings, such as entire domains or subdomains, or partial email addresses, to your NOBOUNCE file. For example, if you know that all email sent from the subdomain engineering.work.com is from one of your coworkers and nobody else, you could add that string to your NOBOUNCE file just as you would add an email address. If you have a friend who habitually changes ISPs or uses email accounts at multiple sites, but whose email address always starts with skywalker@, you could add that string to your NOBOUNCE file just as you would add an email address. An example of a nobounce file that contains partial strings is included below, where the first line signifies an entire domain, instead of an entire email address:
    @cybernet.com
    friend@home.com
    anotherfriend@home.com
    boss@work.com
    coworker@work.com
    mom@juno.com
    brother@yahoo.com
    kid@highschool.kids.us

NOTE: Be careful about adding partial strings or entire domains to your NOBOUNCE file. If the string you add is a common string that might be found in email other than the email you are expecting, this can cause the SpamBouncer to think that a spam is okay and not filter it. For example, if you mean to accept all mail from a domain, cybernet.com, then you might add a line like the following to your NOBOUNCE file:
    cybernet.com


Though this will prevent messages from the cybernet.com domain from being bounced, it would also have the undesired effect of preventing messages from domains with "cybernet.com" included in them, for instance "notcybernet.com" The proper way to apply domain-wide exceptions is as illustrated above, by preceding the domain with an "@" symbol. This tells SpamBouncer not to bounce messages that come from addresses like "somebody@cybernet.com" but to still bounce those from "somebody@notcybernet.com" and similar addresses.

NOTE: Though SpamBouncer does not process messages originating from a host, email address, or domain contained in the .nobounce (or the globalnobounce file for administrators,) it still processes these messages for virus content.

For example, if you have several friends who have email addresses at aol.com, and you add aol.com to your NOBOUNCE file, the SpamBouncer will pass anything that appears to be from anyone at aol.com without filtering it. Lots of spammers forge email address at aol.com in the From: lines of their spam, so this means you would get a lot of spam in your inbox that the SpamBouncer would otherwise have caught.

It is safest to add only complete email addresses to your NOBOUNCE file unless you are an experienced user and understand the implications of a partial match.

NOTE: You should also subscribe to the "spam" folder created in your email account, so that you can verify that SpamBouncer is filtering what it should, and not filtering what it shouldn't. For instructions on how to do this, please refer to the document below.

READ THE FILE "SubscribingtoSpamBouncer.html" IN THE SAME DIRECTORY AS THIS DOCUMENT TO ENSURE THAT YOU ARE NOT LOSING IMPORTANT EMAIL MESSAGES