Jack (aka Rock) please help - Problems with Spam Filter in Plesk

[Will]

Hi,

I have 8 mail accounts set up at the moment in Plesk, and I'm receiving alot of spam emails daily, more than 70 a day if I combined all of the spam from all the mail accounts.

I have considered adding new mail alias so all the mails are forwarded into 1 single mail account, but we need the 8 mail accounts for the staffs of the company (so they can send mail using their own e-mail address). I believe adding an Alias is basically email forwarding.

The next thing I tried was to reduce "Hits required for spam" setting from the default 7 to 4. This reduced alot of spam, but unfortunately, it also reduced alot of important e-mails, especially if they have attachments. Infact, I tested the spam filter (Spam Assasin) and I found out that if the "Hits required for spam" is below 6, ie. 5 or below, it will mark the e-mail as spam if it has an attachment.

Now because our companies receives lots of important emails with attachments, that means the lowest setting I can set for "Hits required for spam" is 6, which is what I've done, but now I'm getting alot of spam emails again.

It is impossible to add all these to spam's e-mail address to the Black list, because everytime, their email is different.

What is Worst is that you have to add them to the Black list individually to each mail accounts slowly one by one, and it loads very slow.

I don't want to use the spam training facility as I cannot clear it (in the event that I accidently taught it to delete important emails). I was told on Livechat by "Williams" that there is no "clear" or reset function for spam training, I think the Help page for Plesk is abit outdated, as it said theres a "clear" function for a full reset.

Instead, I can only see a "Forget it" button which is basically an undo button for each e-mail. The problem with this is, you can only undo emails that exist, so if you OR the spam filter has already deleted it, you cannot "undo" anything.

• So I was just wondering what is the best way to get round this?
  
  
• How can I make the spam filter accept emails with attachments without receiving more spam e-mails?
  
  
• How can I add spam e-mail address to ALL black list for ALL mail accounts at once?
  
  
• How can I do a full clear or reset on existing spam training?
  
  
• And if spam training is the only way to go, will training to one mail account be learnt for the trainer on all mail accounts on my domain? How does it work?

Sorry for so many long questions, but I've tried to look for the answer in the Help manual and havn't found a good solution. I hope Rock or anyone who has experienced this problem can help me out.

Cheers guys!

Will

[DavidAllen]

Why not use a spam filter at the recieving end - eg in outlook (or whatever else you use).
I use spam assasin at the server (default settings) - outlook's junk email filter and 'In-boxer'.
I have loads of email addresses (>15) and the spam that gets through to my inbox is virtually non exixtant
The 3 levels of filtering appears to work very well - with hardly any good emails being classified as Spam.

[Will]

Hi there David,

Yes, we use Outlook. I just thought if we automatically elimulate (or delete) the spam when it arrives at the server, it will save bandwidth? Am I correct? Because Outlook would not need to download the spam, therefore reducing POP3 traffic.

Can you just expand on what you mean by "spam assassin at the server (default settings)? Do you mean using the server-wide settings for white and black list? I believe eUKHost doesnt have any server-wide settings for any white or black list.

Also, what do you mean by 'In-boxer'?

Can you suggest any spam filter software that you use to me please?

Thank you!

[DavidAllen]

In-boxer is a spam filter that works within Outlook

Spam assasin default settings (on my Linux server) are just the score (5 hits is the default) - no white/blacklist settings

Yes - you are right - downloading them does use bandwidth - but with the average size of a spam email being relatively small, I'm not too worried about it

Regards

[Rock]

Hi Will,

I just replied to your ticket few mins ago.. Here are few basic steps for encountering spams :

Login to Plesk > domain.com > Mail > Preferences > remove the 'Catch-all' email configured. Doing this reduces the spams by 50%.

Login to Plesk > domain.com > Mail > user@domain.com > Spam filter > Hits required for spam. Set this value to 3 or 4. The lower the value, the strict the filter.

Login to Plesk > domain.com > Mail > user@domain.com > Spam filter > Training

More info can be found here : Setting Up Spam Filter

[Will]

Hi Rock,

I have thought about all the methods you mentioned above, but like I mentioned, I cannot set the value to below 6 because I found out that anything below 6 automatically deletes any e-mai with attachments, and alot of important emails we get includes attachments.

I have already read the information on setting up spam filter already, but they are inaccurate or outdated (as Wiliams on Livechat told me).

Firstly, for the spam training, there is not a "Clear" button for a full reset on the spam training database.

Secondly, the "Forget it" function says this:

To remove any information on a given message from the spam filter database, select the corresponding check box and click 'Forget It'.

You can only remove training information on emails that is ALREADY in your inbox, which means if its not there, you cannot undo or reset it. For example, If my spam filter has deleted the email, then there is no way to undo it because theres no email in my inbox. You can only undo training information ONLY if its in your inbox.

Which still leaves me with the following questions:

• How can I make the spam filter accept emails with attachments without receiving more spam e-mails?
  
  
• How can I add spam e-mail address to ALL black list for ALL mail accounts at once?
  
  
• How can I do a full clear or reset on existing spam training?
  
  
• And if spam training is the only way to go, will training to one mail account be learnt for the trainer on all mail accounts on my domain? How does it work?

Thank you once again.

PS. I will remove the "catch all" now.

[eUK-Martin]

Yes, catchall will indeed reduce alot of spam emails.

Have you tried setting the whilte list with the require hit set to 4 for the emails that sends attachements.

White list will also allow to add email addresses as *@ domain.com to add all the emails of domain.com as safe.

[Will]

Hi there,

That is not possible because the email addresses are unknown, it could be anyone, new clients etc...

Also, e-mail addresses of my clients do not always follow the same *.@domain.com, ie hotmail.com or yahoo.com, so its not possible. Surely theres a way to tell the spam filter to accept attachments no matter what? Is there such option disabled?

Do you think you could answer some of these questions:

Which still leaves me with the following questions:

How can I make the spam filter accept emails with attachments without receiving more spam e-mails?

How can I add spam e-mail address to ALL black list for ALL mail accounts at once?

How can I do a full clear or reset on existing spam training?

And if spam training is the only way to go, will training to one mail account be learnt for the trainer on all mail accounts on my domain? How does it work?

Cheers.