Emails blocked before Spam Assassin

[netquality]

Hi all,

I have mentioned a similar problem a few weeks ago. It seems Eukhost block certain emails before we even get a chance to deal with them through Spam Assassin or our own Spam filters. I seem to recall it was due to an "Exim filter"?

I have recently narrowed down a problem where emails were not getting through to me on the Typhoon server if the subject line has "Re:" at the start and when the message body contains the text "Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions".

An important business associate has that line in his email signature and the end result was that none of his replies to my emails got through.

So I have two questions:

1. Why do these two harmless phrases cause such problems? Surely many genuine emails have this combination of phrases.

2. Why are they blocked before they reach our accounts where we can control what we deem to be and not to be spam?

Any comments gratefully received.

Many thanks, Ian

[jc8654]

I'm quite puzzled that there is an exim filter on particularly doing that job when Spam Assasin is there. I would expect exim to be checking for blacklisted IPs but that's all. Which server is your account hosted on?

[netquality]

It's the Typhoon server. I might be wrong about Exim, I just remember it being mentioned last time.

It's definitely not IP blocking. We tested lots of email combinations and the emails only failed to get throught with the combination mentioned above.

Thanks, Ian

[jc8654]

I'd go on livechat or open a support ticket about it as it''s very odd if that's happening...

[eUKhost.com]

Hi Ian,

This must be due to exim_filter which cannot be disabled on the server. We will need to check which rule is creating problems for you. exim_filter is essential on shared and reseller hosting servers as it prevents misuse of mailserver. Dictionary attacks have become common these days so exim_filter is important for any cPanel server.