Provided by: spamassassin_4.0.0-8ubuntu5_all 
NAME
Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf - SpamAssassin configuration file
SYNOPSIS
# a comment
rewrite_header Subject *****SPAM*****
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
lang pt_BR report O programa detetor de Spam ZOE [...]
DESCRIPTION
SpamAssassin is configured using traditional UNIX-style configuration files, loaded from the
"/usr/share/spamassassin" and "/etc/spamassassin" directories.
The following web page lists the most important configuration settings used to configure SpamAssassin;
novices are encouraged to read it first:
https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/ImportantInitialConfigItems
FILE FORMAT
The "#" character starts a comment, which continues until end of line. NOTE: if the "#" character is to
be used as part of a rule or configuration option, it must be escaped with a backslash. i.e.: "\#"
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.
File and directory paths can use "~" to refer to the user's home directory, but no other shell-style path
extensions such as globing or "~user/" are supported.
Where appropriate below, default values are listed in parentheses.
Test names ("SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME") can only contain alphanumerics/underscores, can not start with digit,
and must be less than 128 characters.
USER PREFERENCES
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.
SCORING OPTIONS
required_score n.nn (default: 5)
Set the score required before a mail is considered spam. "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. This option was previously known as "required_hits"
and that name is still accepted, but is deprecated.
score SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME n.nn [ n.nn n.nn n.nn ]
Assign scores (the number of points for a hit) to a given test. Scores can be positive or negative
real numbers or integers. "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 (score set 0). The
second score is used when Bayes is disabled, but network tests are enabled (score set 1). The third
score is used when Bayes is enabled and network tests are disabled (score set 2). The fourth score is
used when Bayes is enabled and network tests are enabled (score set 3).
Setting a rule's score to 0 will disable that rule from running.
If any of the score values are surrounded by parenthesis '()', then all of the scores in the line are
considered to be relative to the already set score. ie: '(3)' means increase the score for this rule
by 3 points in all score sets. '(3) (0) (3) (0)' means increase the score for this rule by 3 in
score sets 0 and 2 only.
If no score is given for a test by the end of the configuration, a default score is assigned: a score
of 1.0 is used for all tests, except those whose names begin with 'T_' (this is used to indicate a
rule in testing) which receive 0.01.
Note that test names which begin with '__' are indirect rules used to compose meta-match rules and
can also act as prerequisites to other rules. They are not scored or listed in the 'tests hit'
reports, but assigning a score of 0 to an indirect rule will disable it from running.
WELCOMELIST AND BLOCKLIST OPTIONS
welcomelist_from user@example.com
Previously whitelist_from which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Used to welcomelist sender addresses which send mail that is often tagged (incorrectly) as spam.
Use of this setting is not recommended, since it blindly trusts the message, which is routinely and
easily forged by spammers and phish senders. The recommended solution is to instead use
"welcomelist_auth" or other authenticated welcomelisting methods, or "welcomelist_from_rcvd".
Welcomelist and blocklist 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. Matching is case-
insensitive.
Multiple addresses per line, separated by spaces, is OK. Multiple "welcomelist_from" lines are also
OK.
The headers checked for welcomelist 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
In addition, the "envelope sender" data, taken from the SMTP envelope data where this is available,
is looked up. See "envelope_sender_header".
e.g.
welcomelist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com
welcomelist_from *@example.com
unwelcomelist_from user@example.com
Previously unwelcomelist_from which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Used to remove a default welcomelist_from entry, so for example a distribution welcomelist_from can
be overridden in a local.cf file, or an individual user can override a welcomelist_from entry in
their own "user_prefs" file. The specified email address has to match exactly (although case-
insensitively) the address previously used in a welcomelist_from line, which implies that a wildcard
only matches literally the same wildcard (not 'any' address).
e.g.
unwelcomelist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com
unwelcomelist_from *@example.com
welcomelist_from_rcvd addr@lists.sourceforge.net sourceforge.net
Previously whitelist_from_rcvd which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Works similarly to welcomelist_from, except that in addition to matching a sender address, a relay's
rDNS name or its IP address must match too for the welcomelisting rule to fire. The first parameter
is a sender's e-mail address to welcomelist, and the second is a string to match the relay's rDNS, or
its IP address. Matching is case-insensitive.
This second parameter is matched against a TCP-info information field as provided in a FROM clause of
a trace information (i.e. in a Received header field, see RFC 5321). Only the Received header fields
inserted by trusted hosts are considered. This parameter can either be a full hostname, or a domain
component of that hostname, or an IP address (optionally followed by a slash and a prefix length) in
square brackets. The address prefix (mask) length with a slash may stand within brackets along with
an address, or may follow the bracketed address. Reverse DNS lookup is done by an MTA, not by
SpamAssassin.
For backward compatibility as an alternative to a CIDR notation, an IPv4 address in brackets may be
truncated on classful boundaries to cover whole subnets, e.g. "[10.1.2.3]", "[10.1.2]", "[10.1]",
"[10]".
In other words, if the host that connected to your MX had an IP address 192.0.2.123 that mapped to
'sendinghost.example.org', you should specify "sendinghost.example.org", or "example.org", or
"[192.0.2.123]", or "[192.0.2.0/24]", or "[192.0.2]" here.
Note that this requires that "internal_networks" be correct. For simple cases, it will be, but for a
complex network you may get better results by setting that parameter.
It also requires that your mail exchangers be configured to perform DNS reverse lookups on the
connecting host's IP address, and to record the result in the generated Received header field
according to RFC 5321.
e.g.
welcomelist_from_rcvd joe@example.com example.com
welcomelist_from_rcvd *@* mail.example.org
welcomelist_from_rcvd *@axkit.org [192.0.2.123]
welcomelist_from_rcvd *@axkit.org [192.0.2.0/24]
welcomelist_from_rcvd *@axkit.org [192.0.2.0]/24
welcomelist_from_rcvd *@axkit.org [2001:db8:1234::/48]
welcomelist_from_rcvd *@axkit.org [2001:db8:1234::]/48
def_welcomelist_from_rcvd addr@lists.sourceforge.net sourceforge.net
Previously def_whitelist_from_rcvd which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Same as "welcomelist_from_rcvd", but used for the default welcomelist entries in the SpamAssassin
distribution. The welcomelist score is lower, because these are often targets for spammer spoofing.
welcomelist_allows_relays user@example.com
Previously whitelist_allows_relays which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Specify addresses which are in "welcomelist_from_rcvd" that sometimes send through a mail relay other
than the listed ones. By default mail with a From address that is in "welcomelist_from_rcvd" that
does not match the relay will trigger a forgery rule. Including the address in
"welcomelist_allows_relay" prevents that.
Welcomelist and blocklist 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. Matching is case-
insensitive.
Multiple addresses per line, separated by spaces, is OK. Multiple "welcomelist_allows_relays" lines
are also OK.
The specified email address does not have to match exactly the address previously used in a
welcomelist_from_rcvd line as it is compared to the address in the header.
e.g.
welcomelist_allows_relays joe@example.com fred@example.com
welcomelist_allows_relays *@example.com
unwelcomelist_from_rcvd user@example.com
Previously unwhitelist_from_rcvd which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Used to remove a default welcomelist_from_rcvd or def_welcomelist_from_rcvd entry, so for example a
distribution welcomelist_from_rcvd can be overridden in a local.cf file, or an individual user can
override a welcomelist_from_rcvd entry in their own "user_prefs" file.
The specified email address has to match exactly the address previously used in a
welcomelist_from_rcvd line.
e.g.
unwelcomelist_from_rcvd joe@example.com fred@example.com
unwelcomelist_from_rcvd *@axkit.org
blocklist_from user@example.com
Used to specify addresses which send mail that is often tagged (incorrectly) as non-spam, but which
the user doesn't want. Same format as "welcomelist_from".
unblocklist_from user@example.com
Previously unblacklist_from which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Used to remove a default blocklist_from entry, so for example a distribution blocklist_from can be
overridden in a local.cf file, or an individual user can override a blocklist_from entry in their own
"user_prefs" file. The specified email address has to match exactly the address previously used in a
blocklist_from line.
e.g.
unblocklist_from joe@example.com fred@example.com
unblocklist_from *@spammer.com
welcomelist_to user@example.com
Previously whitelist_to which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
If the given address appears as a recipient in the message headers (Resent-To, To, Cc, obvious
envelope recipient, etc.) the mail will be listed as allowed. Useful if you're deploying
SpamAssassin system-wide, and don't want some users to have their mail filtered. Same format as
"welcomelist_from".
There are three levels of To-welcomelisting, "welcomelist_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.
The headers checked for welcomelist addresses are as follows: if "Resent-To" or "Resent-Cc" are set,
use those; otherwise check all addresses taken from the following set of headers:
To
Cc
Apparently-To
Delivered-To
Envelope-Recipients
Apparently-Resent-To
X-Envelope-To
Envelope-To
X-Delivered-To
X-Original-To
X-Rcpt-To
X-Real-To
more_spam_to user@example.com
See above.
all_spam_to user@example.com
See above.
blocklist_to user@example.com
Previously blacklist_auth which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
If the given address appears as a recipient in the message headers (Resent-To, To, Cc, obvious
envelope recipient, etc.) the mail will be blocklisted. Same format as "blocklist_from".
welcomelist_auth user@example.com
Previously whitelist_auth which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Used to specify addresses which send mail that is often tagged (incorrectly) as spam. This is
different from "welcomelist_from" and "welcomelist_from_rcvd" in that it first verifies that the
message was sent by an authorized sender for the address, before welcomelisting.
Authorization is performed using one of the installed sender-authorization schemes: SPF (using
"Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::SPF"), or DKIM (using "Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::DKIM"). Note that
those plugins must be active, and working, for this to operate.
Using "welcomelist_auth" is roughly equivalent to specifying duplicate "welcomelist_from_spf",
"welcomelist_from_dk", and "welcomelist_from_dkim" lines for each of the addresses specified.
e.g.
welcomelist_auth joe@example.com fred@example.com
welcomelist_auth *@example.com
def_welcomelist_auth user@example.com
Previously def_whitelist_auth which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Same as "welcomelist_auth", but used for the default welcomelist entries in the SpamAssassin
distribution. The welcomelist score is lower, because these are often targets for spammer spoofing.
unwelcomelist_auth user@example.com
Previously unwhitelist_auth which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Used to remove a "welcomelist_auth" or "def_welcomelist_auth" entry. The specified email address has
to match exactly the address previously used.
e.g.
unwelcomelist_auth joe@example.com fred@example.com
unwelcomelist_auth *@example.com
enlist_uri_host (listname) host ...
Adds one or more host names or domain names to a named list of URI domains. The named list can then
be consulted through a check_uri_host_listed() eval rule implemented by the WLBLEval plugin, which
takes the list name as an argument. Parenthesis around a list name are literal - a required syntax.
Host names may optionally be prefixed by an exclamation mark '!', which produces false as a result if
this entry matches. This makes it easier to exclude some subdomains when their superdomain is listed,
for example:
enlist_uri_host (MYLIST) !sub1.example.com !sub2.example.com example.com
No wildcards are supported, but subdomains do match implicitly. Lists are independent. Search for
each named list starts by looking up the full hostname first, then leading fields are progressively
stripped off (e.g.: sub.example.com, example.com, com) until a match is found or we run out of
fields. The first matching entry (the most specific) determines if a lookup yielded a true (no '!'
prefix) or a false (with a '!' prefix) result.
If an URL found in a message contains an IP address in place of a host name, the given list must
specify the exact same IP address (instead of a host name) in order to match.
Use the delist_uri_host directive to neutralize previous enlist_uri_host settings.
Enlisting to lists named 'BLOCK' and 'WELCOME' have their shorthand directives blocklist_uri_host and
welcomelist_uri_host and corresponding default rules, but the names 'BLOCK' and 'WELCOME' are
otherwise not special or reserved.
delist_uri_host [ (listname) ] host ...
Removes one or more specified host names from a named list of URI domains. Removing an unlisted name
is ignored (is not an error). Listname is optional, if specified then just the named list is
affected, otherwise hosts are removed from all URI host lists created so far. Parenthesis around a
list name are a required syntax.
Note that directives in configuration files are processed in sequence, the delist_uri_host only
applies to previously listed entries and has no effect on enlisted entries in yet-to-be-processed
directives.
For convenience (similarity to the enlist_uri_host directive) hostnames may be prefixed by a an
exclamation mark, which is stripped off from each name and has no meaning here.
enlist_addrlist (listname) user@example.com
Adds one or more addresses to a named list of addresses. The named list can then be consulted
through a check_from_in_list() or a check_to_in_list() eval rule implemented by the WLBLEval plugin,
which takes the list name as an argument. Parenthesis around a list name are literal - a required
syntax.
Listed addresses are 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. Matching is case-insensitive.
Multiple addresses per line, separated by spaces, is OK. Multiple "enlist_addrlist" lines are also
OK.
Enlisting an address to the list named blocklist_to is synonymous to using the directive
blocklist_to.
Enlisting an address to the list named blocklist_from is synonymous to using the directive
blocklist_from.
Enlisting an address to the list named welcomelist_to is synonymous to using the directive
welcomelist_to.
Enlisting an address to the list named welcomelist_from is synonymous to using the directive
welcomelist_from.
e.g.
enlist_addrlist (PAYPAL_ADDRESS) service@paypal.com
enlist_addrlist (PAYPAL_ADDRESS) *@paypal.co.uk
blocklist_uri_host host-or-domain ...
Previously blacklist_uri_host which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Is a shorthand for a directive: enlist_uri_host (BLOCK) host ...
Please see directives enlist_uri_host and delist_uri_host for details.
welcomelist_uri_host host-or-domain ...
Previously whitelist_uri_host which will work interchangeably until 4.1.
Is a shorthand for a directive: enlist_uri_host (WELCOME) host ...
Please see directives enlist_uri_host and delist_uri_host for details.
BASIC MESSAGE TAGGING OPTIONS
rewrite_header { subject | from | to } STRING
By default, suspected spam messages will not have the "Subject", "From" or "To" lines tagged to
indicate spam. By setting this option, the header will be tagged with "STRING" to indicate that a
message is spam. For the From or To headers, this will take the form of an RFC 2822 comment following
the address in parentheses. For the Subject header, this will be prepended to the original subject.
Note that you should only use the _REQD_ and _SCORE_ tags when rewriting the Subject header if
"report_safe" is 0. Otherwise, you may not be able to remove the SpamAssassin markup via the normal
methods. More information about tags is explained below in the TEMPLATE TAGS section.
Parentheses are not permitted in STRING if rewriting the From or To headers. (They will be converted
to square brackets.)
If "rewrite_header subject" is used, but the message being rewritten does not already contain a
"Subject" header, one will be created.
A null value for "STRING" will remove any existing rewrite for the specified header.
subjprefix
Add a prefix in emails Subject if a rule is matched. To enable this option "rewrite_header Subject"
config option must be enabled as well.
The check "if can(Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf::feature_subjprefix)" should be used to silence warnings
in previous SpamAssassin versions.
To be able to use this feature a "add_header all Subjprefix _SUBJPREFIX_" configuration line could be
needed when the glue between the MTA and SpamAssassin rewrites the email content.
Here is an example on how to use this feature:
rewrite_header Subject *****SPAM*****
add_header all Subjprefix _SUBJPREFIX_
body OLEMACRO_MALICE eval:check_olemacro_malice()
describe OLEMACRO_MALICE Dangerous Office Macro
score OLEMACRO_MALICE 5.0
if can(Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf::feature_subjprefix)
subjprefix OLEMACRO_MALICE [VIRUS]
endif
add_header { spam | ham | all } header_name string
Customized headers can be added to the specified type of messages (spam, ham, or "all" to add to
either). All headers begin with "X-Spam-" (so a "header_name" Foo will generate a header called
X-Spam-Foo). header_name is restricted to the character set [A-Za-z0-9_-].
The order of "add_header" configuration options is preserved, inserted headers will follow this order
of declarations. When combining "add_header" with "clear_headers" and "remove_header", keep in mind
that "add_header" appends a new header to the current list, after first removing any existing header
fields of the same name. Note also that "add_header", "clear_headers" and "remove_header" may appear
in multiple .cf files, which are interpreted in alphabetic order.
"string" can contain tags as explained below in the TEMPLATE 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.
You can customize existing headers with add_header (only the specified subset of messages will be
changed).
See also "clear_headers" and "remove_header" for removing headers.
Here are some examples (these are the defaults, note that Checker-Version can not be changed or
removed):
add_header spam Flag _YESNOCAPS_
add_header all Status _YESNO_, score=_SCORE_ required=_REQD_ tests=_TESTS_ autolearn=_AUTOLEARN_ version=_VERSION_
add_header all Level _STARS(*)_
add_header all Checker-Version SpamAssassin _VERSION_ (_SUBVERSION_) on _HOSTNAME_
remove_header { spam | ham | all } header_name
Headers can be removed from the specified type of messages (spam, ham, or "all" to remove from
either). All headers begin with "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.
clear_headers
Clear the list of headers to be added to messages. You may use this before any add_header options to
prevent the default headers from being added to the message.
"add_header", "clear_headers" and "remove_header" may appear in multiple .cf files, which are
interpreted in alphabetic order, so "clear_headers" in a later file will remove all added headers
from previously interpreted configuration files, which may or may not be desired.
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.
report_safe ( 0 | 1 | 2 ) (default: 1)
if this option is set to 1, if an incoming message is tagged as spam, instead of modifying the
original message, SpamAssassin will create a new report message and attach the original message as a
message/rfc822 MIME part (ensuring the original message is completely preserved, not easily opened,
and easier to recover).
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.
See report_safe_copy_headers if you want to copy headers from the original mail into tagged messages.
report_wrap_width (default: 75)
This option sets the wrap width for description lines in the X-Spam-Report header, not accounting for
tab width.
LANGUAGE OPTIONS
ok_locales xx [ yy zz ... ] (default: all)
This option is used to specify which locales are considered OK for incoming mail. Mail using the
character sets that are allowed by this option will not be marked as possibly being spam in a foreign
language.
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:
en - Western character sets in general
ja - Japanese character sets
ko - Korean character sets
ru - Cyrillic character sets
th - Thai character sets
zh - Chinese (both simplified and traditional) character sets
normalize_charset ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)
Whether to decode non- UTF-8 and non-ASCII textual parts and recode them to UTF-8 before the text is
given over to rules processing. The character set used for attempted decoding is primarily based on a
declared character set in a Content-Type header, but if the decoding attempt fails a module
Encode::Detect::Detector is consulted (if available) to provide a guess based on the actual text, and
decoding is re-attempted. Even if the option is enabled no unnecessary decoding and re-encoding work
is done when possible (like with an all-ASCII text with a US-ASCII or extended ASCII character set
declaration, e.g. UTF-8 or ISO-8859-nn or Windows-nnnn).
Unicode support in old versions of perl or in a core module Encode is likely to be buggy in places,
so if the normalize_charset function is enabled it is advised to stick to more recent versions of
perl (preferably 5.12 or later). The module Encode::Detect::Detector is optional, when necessary it
will be used if it is available.
NETWORK TEST OPTIONS
trusted_networks IPaddress[/masklen] ... (default: none)
What networks or hosts are 'trusted' in your setup. Trusted in this case means that relay hosts on
these networks are considered to not be potentially operated by spammers, open relays, or open
proxies. A trusted host could conceivably relay spam, but will not originate it, and will not forge
header data. DNS blocklist checks will never query for hosts on these networks.
See "https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/TrustPath" for more information.
MXes for your domain(s) and internal relays should also be specified using the "internal_networks"
setting. When there are 'trusted' hosts that are not MXes or internal relays for your domain(s) they
should only be specified in "trusted_networks".
The "IPaddress" can be an IPv4 address (in a dot-quad form), or an IPv6 address optionally enclosed
in square brackets. Scoped link-local IPv6 addresses are syntactically recognized but the interface
scope is currently ignored (e.g. [fe80::1234%eth0] ) and should be avoided.
If a "/masklen" is specified, it is considered a CIDR-style 'netmask' length, specified in bits. If
it is not specified, but less than 4 octets of an IPv4 address are specified with a trailing dot, an
implied netmask length covers all addresses in remaining octets (i.e. implied masklen is /8 or /16 or
/24). If masklen is not specified, and there is not trailing dot, then just a single IP address
specified is used, as if the masklen were "/32" with an IPv4 address, or "/128" in case of an IPv6
address.
If module Net::CIDR::Lite is installed, it's also possible to use dash separated IP range format
(e.g. 192.168.1.1-192.168.255.255).
If a network or host address is prefaced by a "!" the matching network or host will be excluded from
the list even if a less specific (shorter netmask length) subnet is later specified in the list. This
allows a subset of a wider network to be exempt. In case of specifying overlapping subnets, specify
more specific subnets first (tighter matching, i.e. with a longer netmask length), followed by less
specific (shorter netmask length) subnets to get predictable results regardless of the search
algorithm used - when Net::Patricia module is installed the search finds the tightest matching entry
in the list, while a sequential search as used in absence of the module Net::Patricia will find the
first matching entry in the list.
Note: 127.0.0.0/8 and ::1 are always included in trusted_networks, regardless of your config.
Examples:
trusted_networks 192.168.0.0/16 # all in 192.168.*.*
trusted_networks 192.168. # all in 192.168.*.*
trusted_networks 212.17.35.15 # just that host
trusted_networks !10.0.1.5 10.0.1/24 # all in 10.0.1.* but not 10.0.1.5
trusted_networks 2001:db8:1::1 !2001:db8:1::/64 2001:db8::/32
# 2001:db8::/32 and 2001:db8:1::1/128, except the rest of 2001:db8:1::/64
This operates additively, so a "trusted_networks" line after another one will append new entries to
the list of trusted networks. To clear out the existing entries, use "clear_trusted_networks".
If "trusted_networks" is not set and "internal_networks" is, the value of "internal_networks" will be
used for this parameter.
If neither "trusted_networks" or "internal_networks" is set, a basic inference algorithm is applied.
This works as follows:
• If the 'from' host has an IP address in a private (RFC 1918) network range, then it's trusted
• If there are authentication tokens in the received header, and the previous host was trusted,
then this host is also trusted
• Otherwise this host, and all further hosts, are consider untrusted.
clear_trusted_networks
Empty the list of trusted networks.
internal_networks IPaddress[/masklen] ... (default: none)
What networks or hosts are 'internal' in your setup. Internal means that relay hosts on these
networks are considered to be MXes for your domain(s), or internal relays. This uses the same syntax
as "trusted_networks", above - see there for details.
This value is used when checking 'dial-up' or dynamic IP address blocklists, in order to detect
direct-to-MX spamming.
Trusted relays that accept mail directly from dial-up connections (i.e. are also performing a role of
mail submission agents - MSA) should not be listed in "internal_networks". List them only in
"trusted_networks".
If "trusted_networks" is set and "internal_networks" is not, the value of "trusted_networks" will be
used for this parameter.
If neither "trusted_networks" nor "internal_networks" is set, no addresses will be considered local;
in other words, any relays past the machine where SpamAssassin is running will be considered
external.
Every entry in "internal_networks" must appear in "trusted_networks"; in other words,
"internal_networks" is always a subset of the trusted set.
Note: 127/8 and ::1 are always included in internal_networks, regardless of your config.
clear_internal_networks
Empty the list of internal networks.
msa_networks IPaddress[/masklen] ... (default: none)
The networks or hosts which are acting as MSAs in your setup (but not also as MX relays). This uses
the same syntax as "trusted_networks", above - see there for details.
MSA means that the relay hosts on these networks accept mail from your own users and authenticates
them appropriately. These relays will never accept mail from hosts that aren't authenticated in some
way. Examples of authentication include, IP lists, SMTP AUTH, POP-before-SMTP, etc.
All relays found in the message headers after the MSA relay will take on the same trusted and
internal classifications as the MSA relay itself, as defined by your trusted_networks and
internal_networks configuration.
For example, if the MSA relay is trusted and internal so will all of the relays that precede it.
When using msa_networks to identify an MSA it is recommended that you treat that MSA as both trusted
and internal. When an MSA is not included in msa_networks you should treat the MSA as trusted but
not internal, however if the MSA is also acting as an MX or intermediate relay you must always treat
it as both trusted and internal and ensure that the MSA includes visible auth tokens in its Received
header to identify submission clients.
Warning: Never include an MSA that also acts as an MX (or is also an intermediate relay for an MX) or
otherwise accepts mail from non-authenticated users in msa_networks. Doing so will result in unknown
external relays being trusted.
clear_msa_networks
Empty the list of msa networks.
originating_ip_headers header ... (default: X-Yahoo-Post-IP X-Originating-IP X-Apparently-From
X-SenderIP)
A list of header field names from which an originating IP address can be obtained. For example,
webmail servers may record a client IP address in X-Originating-IP.
These IP addresses are virtually appended into the Received: chain, so they are used in RBL checks
where appropriate.
Currently the IP addresses are not added into X-Spam-Relays-* header fields, but they may be in the
future.
clear_originating_ip_headers
Empty the list of 'originating IP address' header field names.
always_trust_envelope_sender ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 0)
Trust the envelope sender even if the message has been passed through one or more trusted relays.
See also "envelope_sender_header".
skip_rbl_checks ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 0)
Turning on the skip_rbl_checks setting will disable the DNSEval plugin, which implements Real-time
Block List (or: Blockhole List) (RBL) lookups.
By default, SpamAssassin will run RBL checks. Individual blocklists may be disabled selectively by
setting a score of a corresponding rule to 0.
See also a related configuration parameter skip_uribl_checks, which controls the URIDNSBL plugin
(documented in the URIDNSBL man page).
dns_available { yes | no | test[: domain1 domain2...] } (default: yes)
Tells SpamAssassin whether DNS resolving is available or not. A value yes indicates DNS resolving is
available, a value no indicates DNS resolving is not available - both of these values apply
unconditionally and skip initial DNS tests, which can be slow or unreliable.
When the option value is a test (with or without arguments), SpamAssassin will query some domain
names on the internet during initialization, attempting to determine if DNS resolving is working or
not. A space-separated list of domain names may be specified explicitly, or left to a built-in
default of a dozen or so domain names. From an explicit or a default list a subset of three domain
names is picked randomly for checking. The test queries for NS records of these domain: if at least
one query returns a success then SpamAssassin considers DNS resolving as available, otherwise not.
The problem is that the test can introduce some startup delay if a network connection is down, and in
some cases it can wrongly guess that DNS is unavailable because a test connection failed, what causes
disabling several DNS-dependent tests.
Please note, the DNS test queries for NS records, so specify domain names, not host names.
Since version 3.4.0 of SpamAssassin a default setting for option dns_available is yes. A default in
older versions was test.
dns_server ip-addr-port (default: entries provided by Net::DNS)
Specifies an IP address of a DNS server, and optionally its port number. The dns_server directive
may be specified multiple times, each entry adding to a list of available resolving name servers. The
ip-addr-port argument can either be an IPv4 or IPv6 address, optionally enclosed in brackets, and
optionally followed by a colon and a port number. In absence of a port number a standard port number
53 is assumed. When an IPv6 address is specified along with a port number, the address must be
enclosed in brackets to avoid parsing ambiguity regarding a colon separator. A scoped link-local IP
address is allowed (assuming underlying modules allow it).
Examples :
dns_server 127.0.0.1
dns_server 127.0.0.1:53
dns_server [127.0.0.1]:53
dns_server [::1]:53
dns_server fe80::1%lo0
dns_server [fe80::1%lo0]:53
In absence of dns_server directives, the list of name servers is provided by Net::DNS module, which
typically obtains the list from /etc/resolv.conf, but this may be platform dependent. Please consult
the Net::DNS::Resolver documentation for details.
clear_dns_servers
Empty the list of explicitly configured DNS servers through a dns_server directive, falling back to
Net::DNS -supplied defaults.
dns_local_ports_permit ranges...
Add the specified ports or ports ranges to the set of allowed port numbers that can be used as local
port numbers when sending DNS queries to a resolver.
The argument is a whitespace-separated or a comma-separated list of single port numbers n, or port
number pairs (i.e. m-n) delimited by a '-', representing a range. Allowed port numbers are between 1
and 65535.
Directives dns_local_ports_permit and dns_local_ports_avoid are processed in order in which they
appear in configuration files. Each directive adds (or subtracts) its subsets of ports to a current
set of available ports. Whatever is left in the set by the end of configuration processing is made
available to a DNS resolving client code.
If the resulting set of port numbers is empty (see also the directive dns_local_ports_none), then
SpamAssassin does not apply its ports randomization logic, but instead leaves the operating system to
choose a suitable free local port number.
The initial set consists of all port numbers in the range 1024-65535. Note that system config files
already modify the set and remove all the IANA registered port numbers and some other ranges, so
there is rarely a need to adjust the ranges by site-specific directives.
See also directives dns_local_ports_permit and dns_local_ports_none.
dns_local_ports_avoid ranges...
Remove specified ports or ports ranges from the set of allowed port numbers that can be used as local
port numbers when sending DNS queries to a resolver.
Please see directive dns_local_ports_permit for details.
dns_local_ports_none
Is a fast shorthand for:
dns_local_ports_avoid 1-65535
leaving the set of available DNS query local port numbers empty. In all respects (apart from speed)
it is equivalent to the shown directive, and can be freely mixed with dns_local_ports_permit and
dns_local_ports_avoid.
If the resulting set of port numbers is empty, then SpamAssassin does not apply its ports
randomization logic, but instead leaves the operating system to choose a suitable free local port
number.
See also directives dns_local_ports_permit and dns_local_ports_avoid.
dns_test_interval n (default: 600 seconds)
If dns_available is set to test, the dns_test_interval time in number of seconds will tell
SpamAssassin how often to retest for working DNS. A numeric value is optionally suffixed by a time
unit (s, m, h, d, w, indicating seconds (default), minutes, hours, days, weeks).
dns_options opts (default: v4, v6, norotate, nodns0x20, edns=4096)
Provides a (whitespace or comma -separated) list of options applying to DNS resolving. Available
options are: v4, v6, rotate, dns0x20 and edns (or edns0). Option name may be negated by prepending a
no (e.g. norotate, NoEDNS) to counteract a previously enabled option. Option names are not case-
sensitive. The dns_options directive may appear in configuration files multiple times, the last
setting prevails.
Option v4 declares resolver capable of returning IPv4 (A) records. Option v6 declares resolver
capable of returning IPv6 (AAAA) records. One would set nov6 if the resolver is filtering AAAA
responses. NOTE: these options only refer to resolving capabilies, there is no other meaning like
whether the IP address of resolver itself is IPv4 or IPv6.
Option edns (or edns0) may take a value which specifies a requestor's acceptable UDP payload size
according to EDNS0 specifications (RFC 6891, ex RFC 2671) e.g. edns=4096. When EDNS0 is off (noedns
or edns=512) a traditional implied UDP payload size is 512 bytes, which is also a minimum allowed
value for this option. When the option is specified but a value is not provided, a conservative
default of 1220 bytes is implied. It is recommended to keep edns enabled when using a local recursive
DNS server which supports EDNS0 (like most modern DNS servers do), a suitable setting in this case is
edns=4096, which is also a default. Allowing UDP payload size larger than 512 bytes can avoid
truncation of resource records in large DNS responses (like in TXT records of some SPF and DKIM
responses, or when an unreasonable number of A records is published by some domain). The option
should be disabled when a recursive DNS server is only reachable through non- RFC 6891 compliant
middleboxes (such as some old-fashioned firewall) which bans DNS UDP payload sizes larger than 512
bytes. A suitable value when a non-local recursive DNS server is used and a middlebox does allow
EDNS0 but blocks fragmented IP packets is perhaps 1220 bytes, allowing a DNS UDP packet to fit within
a single IP packet in most cases (a slightly less conservative range would be 1280-1410 bytes).
Option rotate causes SpamAssassin to choose a DNS server at random from all servers listed in
"/etc/resolv.conf" every dns_test_interval seconds, effectively spreading the load over all currently
available DNS servers when there are many spamd workers.
Option dns0x20 enables randomization of letters in a DNS query label according to
draft-vixie-dnsext-dns0x20, decreasing a chance of collisions of responses (by chance or by a
malicious intent) by increasing spread as provided by a 16-bit query ID and up to 16 bits of a port
number, with additional bits as encoded by flipping case (upper/lower) of letters in a query. The
number of additional random bits corresponds to the number of letters in a query label. Should work
reliably with all mainstream DNS servers - do not turn on if you see frequent info messages "dns: no
callback for id:" in the log, or if RBL or URIDNS lookups do not work for no apparent reason.
dns_query_restriction (allow|deny) domain1 domain2 ...
Option allows disabling of rules which would result in a DNS query to one of the listed domains. The
first argument must be a literal "allow" or "deny", remaining arguments are domains names.
Most DNS queries (with some exceptions) are subject to dns_query_restriction. A domain to be queried
is successively stripped-off of its leading labels (thus yielding a series of its parent domains),
and on each iteration a check is made against an associative array generated by dns_query_restriction
options. Search stops at the first match (i.e. the tightest match), and the matching entry with its
"allow" or "deny" value then controls whether a DNS query is allowed to be launched.
If no match is found an implicit default is to allow a query. The purpose of an explicit "allow"
entry is to be able to override a previously configured "deny" on the same domain or to override an
entry (possibly yet to be configured in subsequent config directives) on one of its parent domains.
Thus an 'allow zen.spamhaus.org' with a 'deny spamhaus.org' would permit DNS queries on a specific
DNS BL zone but deny queries to other zones under the same parent domain.
Domains are matched case-insensitively, no wildcards are recognized, there should be no leading or
trailing dot.
Specifying a block on querying a domain name has a similar effect as setting a score of corresponding
DNSBL and URIBL rules to zero, and can be a handy alternative to hunting for such rules when a site
policy does not allow certain DNS block lists to be queried.
Special wildcard "dns_query_restriction deny *" is supported to block all queries except allowed
ones.
Example:
dns_query_restriction deny dnswl.org surbl.org
dns_query_restriction allow zen.spamhaus.org
dns_query_restriction deny spamhaus.org mailspike.net spamcop.net
clear_dns_query_restriction
The option removes any entries entered by previous 'dns_query_restriction' options, leaving the list
empty, i.e. allowing DNS queries for any domain (including any DNS BL zone).
dns_block_rule RULE domain
If rule named RULE is hit, DNS queries to specified domain are temporarily blocked. Intended to be
used with rules that check RBL return codes for specific blocked status. For example:
urirhssub URIBL_BLOCKED multi.uribl.com. A 1
dns_block_rule URIBL_BLOCKED multi.uribl.com
Block status is maintained across all processes by empty statefile named "dnsblock_multi.uribl.com"
in global state dir: home_dir_for_helpers/.spamassassin, $HOME/.spamassassin, /var/lib/spamassassin
(localstate), depending which is found and writable.
dns_block_time (default: 300)
dns_block_rule query blockage will last this many seconds.
LEARNING OPTIONS
use_learner ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)
Whether to use any machine-learning classifiers with SpamAssassin, such as the default 'BAYES_*'
rules. Setting this to 0 will disable use of any and all human-trained classifiers.
use_bayes ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)
Whether to use the naive-Bayesian-style classifier built into SpamAssassin. This is a master on/off
switch for all Bayes-related operations.
use_bayes_rules ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)
Whether to use rules using the naive-Bayesian-style classifier built into SpamAssassin. This allows
you to disable the rules while leaving auto and manual learning enabled.
bayes_auto_learn ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)
Whether SpamAssassin should automatically feed high-scoring mails (or low-scoring mails, for non-
spam) into its learning systems. The only learning system supported currently is a naive-Bayesian-
style classifier.
See the documentation for the "Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::AutoLearnThreshold" plugin module for
details on how Bayes auto-learning is implemented by default.
bayes_token_sources (default: header visible invisible uri)
Controls which sources in a mail message can contribute tokens (e.g. words, phrases, etc.) to a Bayes
classifier. The argument is a space-separated list of keywords: header, visible, invisible, uri,
mimepart), each of which may be prefixed by a no to indicate its exclusion. Additionally two reserved
keywords are allowed: all and none (or: noall). The list of keywords is processed sequentially: a
keyword all adds all available keywords to a set being built, a none or noall clears the set, other
non-negated keywords are added to the set, and negated keywords are removed from the set. Keywords
are case-insensitive.
The default set is: header visible invisible uri, which is equivalent for example to: All NoMIMEpart.
The reason why mimepart is not currently in a default set is that it is a newer source (introduced
with SpamAssassin version 3.4.1) and not much experience has yet been gathered regarding its
usefulness.
See also option "bayes_ignore_header" for a fine-grained control on individual header fields under
the umbrella of a more general keyword header here.
Keywords imply the following data sources:
header - tokens collected from a message header section
visible - words from visible text (plain or HTML) in a message body
invisible - hidden/invisible text in HTML parts of a message body
uri - URIs collected from a message body
mimepart - digests (hashes) of all MIME parts (textual or non-textual) of a message, computed after
Base64 and quoted-printable decoding, suffixed by their Content-Type
all - adds all the above keywords to the set being assembled
none or noall - removes all keywords from the set
The "bayes_token_sources" directive may appear multiple times, its keywords are interpreted
sequentially, adding or removing items from the final set as they appear in their order in
"bayes_token_sources" directive(s).
bayes_ignore_header header_name
If you receive mail filtered by upstream mail systems, like a spam-filtering ISP or mailing list, and
that service adds new headers (as most of them do), these headers may provide inappropriate cues to
the Bayesian classifier, allowing it to take a "short cut". To avoid this, list the headers using
this setting. Header matching is case-insensitive. Example:
bayes_ignore_header X-Upstream-Spamfilter
bayes_ignore_header X-Upstream-SomethingElse
bayes_ignore_from user@example.com
Bayesian classification and autolearning will not be performed on mail from the listed addresses.
Program "sa-learn" will also ignore the listed addresses if it is invoked using the "--use-ignores"
option. One or more addresses can be listed, see "welcomelist_from".
Spam messages from certain senders may contain many words that frequently occur in ham. For example,
one might read messages from a preferred bookstore but also get unwanted spam messages from other
bookstores. If the unwanted messages are learned as spam then any messages discussing books,
including the preferred bookstore and antiquarian messages would be in danger of being marked as
spam. The addresses of the annoying bookstores would be listed. (Assuming they were halfway
legitimate and didn't send you mail through myriad affiliates.)
Those who have pieces of spam in legitimate messages or otherwise receive ham messages containing
potentially spammy words might fear that some spam messages might be in danger of being marked as
ham. The addresses of the spam mailing lists, correspondents, etc. would be listed.
bayes_ignore_to user@example.com
Bayesian classification and autolearning will not be performed on mail to the listed addresses. See
"bayes_ignore_from" for details.
bayes_min_ham_num (Default: 200)
bayes_min_spam_num (Default: 200)
To be accurate, the Bayes system does not activate until a certain number of ham (non-spam) and spam
have been learned. The default is 200 of each ham and spam, but you can tune these up or down with
these two settings.
bayes_learn_during_report (Default: 1)
The Bayes system will, by default, learn any reported messages ("spamassassin -r") as spam. If you
do not want this to happen, set this option to 0.
bayes_sql_override_username
Used by BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.
If this options is set the BayesStore::SQL module will override the set username with the value
given. This could be useful for implementing global or group bayes databases.
bayes_use_hapaxes (default: 1)
Should the Bayesian classifier use hapaxes (words/tokens that occur only once) when classifying?
This produces significantly better hit-rates.
bayes_journal_max_size (default: 102400)
SpamAssassin will opportunistically sync the journal and the database. It will do so once a day, but
will sync more often if the journal file size goes above this setting, in bytes. If set to 0,
opportunistic syncing will not occur.
bayes_expiry_max_db_size (default: 150000)
What should be the maximum size of the Bayes tokens database? When expiry occurs, the Bayes system
will keep either 75% of the maximum value, or 100,000 tokens, whichever has a larger value. 150,000
tokens is roughly equivalent to a 8Mb database file.
bayes_auto_expire (default: 1)
If enabled, the Bayes system will try to automatically expire old tokens from the database. Auto-
expiry occurs when the number of tokens in the database surpasses the bayes_expiry_max_db_size value.
If a bayes datastore backend does not implement individual key/value expirations, the setting is
silently ignored.
bayes_token_ttl (default: 3w, i.e. 3 weeks)
Time-to-live / expiration time in seconds for tokens kept in a Bayes database. A numeric value is
optionally suffixed by a time unit (s, m, h, d, w, indicating seconds (default), minutes, hours,
days, weeks).
If bayes_auto_expire is true and a Bayes datastore backend supports it (currently only Redis), this
setting controls deletion of expired tokens from a bayes database. The value is observed on a best-
effort basis, exact timing promises are not necessarily kept. If a bayes datastore backend does not
implement individual key/value expirations, the setting is silently ignored.
bayes_seen_ttl (default: 8d, i.e. 8 days)
Time-to-live / expiration time in seconds for 'seen' entries (i.e. mail message digests with their
status) kept in a Bayes database. A numeric value is optionally suffixed by a time unit (s, m, h, d,
w, indicating seconds (default), minutes, hours, days, weeks).
If bayes_auto_expire is true and a Bayes datastore backend supports it (currently only Redis), this
setting controls deletion of expired 'seen' entries from a bayes database. The value is observed on a
best-effort basis, exact timing promises are not necessarily kept. If a bayes datastore backend does
not implement individual key/value expirations, the setting is silently ignored.
bayes_learn_to_journal (default: 0)
If this option is set, whenever SpamAssassin does Bayes learning, it will put the information into
the journal instead of directly into the database. This lowers contention for locking the database
to execute an update, but will also cause more access to the journal and cause a delay before the
updates are actually committed to the Bayes database.
MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS
time_limit n (default: 300)
Specifies a limit on elapsed time in seconds that SpamAssassin is allowed to spend before providing a
result. The value may be fractional and must not be negative, zero is interpreted as unlimited. The
default is 300 seconds for consistency with the spamd default setting of --timeout-child .
This is a best-effort advisory setting, processing will not be abruptly aborted at an arbitrary point
in processing when the time limit is exceeded, but only on reaching one of locations in the program
flow equipped with a time test. Currently equipped with the test are the main checking loop,
asynchronous DNS lookups, plugins which are calling external programs. Rule evaluation is guarded by
starting a timer (alarm) on each set of compiled rules.
When a message is passed to Mail::SpamAssassin::parse, a deadline time is established as a sum of
current time and the "time_limit" setting.
This deadline may also be specified by a caller through an option 'master_deadline' in $suppl_attrib
on a call to parse(), possibly providing a more accurate deadline taking into account past and
expected future processing of a message in a mail filtering setup. If both the config option as well
as a 'master_deadline' option in a call are provided, the shorter time limit of the two is used
(since version 3.3.2). Note that spamd (and possibly third-party callers of SpamAssassin) will
supply the 'master_deadline' option in a call based on its --timeout-child option (or equivalent),
unlike the command line "spamassassin", which has no such command line option.
When a time limit is exceeded, most of the remaining tests will be skipped, as well as auto-learning.
Whatever tests fired so far will determine the final score. The behaviour is similar to short-
circuiting with attribute 'on', as implemented by a Shortcircuit plugin. A synthetic hit on a rule
named TIME_LIMIT_EXCEEDED with a near-zero default score is generated, so that the report will
reflect the event. A score for TIME_LIMIT_EXCEEDED may be provided explicitly in a configuration
file, for example to achieve welcomelisting or blocklisting effect for messages with long processing
times.
The "time_limit" option is a useful protection against excessive processing time on certain
degenerate or unusually long or complex mail messages, as well as against some DoS attacks. It is
also needed in time-critical pre-queue filtering setups (e.g. milter, proxy, integration with MTA),
where message processing must finish before a SMTP client times out. RFC 5321 prescribes in section
4.5.3.2.6 the 'DATA Termination' time limit of 10 minutes, although it is not unusual to see some
SMTP clients abort sooner on waiting for a response. A sensible "time_limit" for a pre-queue
filtering setup is maybe 50 seconds, assuming that clients are willing to wait at least a minute.
lock_method type
Select the file-locking method used to protect database files on-disk. By default, SpamAssassin uses
an NFS-safe locking method on UNIX; however, if you are sure that the database files you'll be using
for Bayes and AWL storage will never be accessed over NFS, a non-NFS-safe locking system can be
selected.
This will be quite a bit faster, but may risk file corruption if the files are ever accessed by
multiple clients at once, and one or more of them is accessing them through an NFS filesystem.
Note that different platforms require different locking systems.
The supported locking systems for "type" are as follows:
nfssafe - an NFS-safe locking system
flock - simple UNIX flock() locking
win32 - Win32 locking using "sysopen (..., O_CREAT|O_EXCL)".
nfssafe and flock are only available on UNIX, and win32 is only available on Windows. By default,
SpamAssassin will choose either nfssafe or win32 depending on the platform in use.
fold_headers ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)
By default, headers added by SpamAssassin will be whitespace folded. In other words, they will be
broken up into multiple lines instead of one very long one and each continuation line will have a
tabulator prepended to mark it as a continuation of the preceding one.
The automatic wrapping can be disabled here. Note that this can generate very long lines. RFC 2822
required that header lines do not exceed 998 characters (not counting the final CRLF).
report_safe_copy_headers header_name ...
If using "report_safe", a few of the headers from the original message are copied into the wrapper
header (From, To, Cc, Subject, Date, etc.) If you want to have other headers copied as well, you can
add them using this option. You can specify multiple headers on the same line, separated by spaces,
or you can just use multiple lines.
envelope_sender_header Name-Of-Header
SpamAssassin will attempt to discover the address used in the 'MAIL FROM:' phase of the SMTP
transaction that delivered this message, if this data has been made available by the SMTP server.
This is used in the "EnvelopeFrom" pseudo-header, and for various rules such as SPF checking.
By default, various MTAs will use different headers, such as the following:
X-Envelope-From
Envelope-Sender
X-Sender
Return-Path
SpamAssassin will attempt to use these, if some heuristics (such as the header placement in the
message, or the absence of fetchmail signatures) appear to indicate that they are safe to use.
However, it may choose the wrong headers in some mailserver configurations. (More discussion of this
can be found in bug 2142 and bug 4747 in the SpamAssassin BugZilla.)
To avoid this heuristic failure, the "envelope_sender_header" setting may be helpful. Name the
header that your MTA or MDA adds to messages containing the address used at the MAIL FROM step of the
SMTP transaction.
If the header in question contains "<" or ">" characters at the start and end of the email address in
the right-hand side, as in the SMTP transaction, these will be stripped.
If the header is not found in a message, or if it's value does not contain an "@" sign, SpamAssassin
will issue a warning in the logs and fall back to its default heuristics.
(Note for MTA developers: we would prefer if the use of a single header be avoided in future, since
that precludes 'downstream' spam scanning.
"https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/EnvelopeSenderInReceived" details a better proposal, storing
the envelope sender at each hop in the "Received" header.)
example:
envelope_sender_header X-SA-Exim-Mail-From
describe SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME description ...
Used to describe a test. This text is shown to users in the detailed report.
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.
report_charset CHARSET (default: UTF-8)
Set the MIME Content-Type charset used for the text/plain report which is attached to spam mail
messages.
report ...some text for a report...
Set the report template which is attached to spam mail messages. See the "10_default_prefs.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.
clear_report_template
Clear the report template.
report_contact ...text of contact address...
Set what _CONTACTADDRESS_ is replaced with in the above report text. By default, this is 'the
administrator of that system', since the hostname of the system the scanner is running on is also
included.
report_hostname ...hostname to use...
Set what _HOSTNAME_ is replaced with in the above report text. By default, this is determined
dynamically as whatever the host running SpamAssassin calls itself.
unsafe_report ...some text for a report...
Set the report template which is attached to spam mail messages which contain a non-text/plain part.
See the "10_default_prefs.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).
clear_unsafe_report_template
Clear the unsafe_report template.
mbox_format_from_regex
Set a specific regular expression to be used for mbox file From separators.
For example, this setting will allow sa-learn to process emails stored in a kmail 2 mbox:
mbox_format_from_regex /^From \S+ ?[[:upper:]][[:lower:]]{2}(?:, \d\d [[:upper:]][[:lower:]]{2}
\d{4} [0-2]\d:\d\d:\d\d [+-]\d{4}| [[:upper:]][[:lower:]]{2} [ 1-3]\d [ 0-2]\d:\d\d:\d\d \d{4})/
parse_dkim_uris ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 1)
If this option is set to 1 and the message contains DKIM headers, the headers will be parsed for URIs
to process alongside URIs found in the body with some rules and modules (ex. URIDNSBL)
RULE DEFINITIONS AND PRIVILEGED SETTINGS
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/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).
allow_user_rules ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 0)
This setting allows users to create rules (and only rules) in their "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".
redirector_pattern /pattern/modifiers
A regex pattern that matches both the redirector site portion, and the target site portion of a URI.
Note: The target URI portion must be surrounded in parentheses and
no other part of the pattern may create a backreference.
Example: http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/whatever/spammer.domain/yo/dude
redirector_pattern /^https?:\/\/(?:opt\.)?chkpt\.zdnet\.com\/chkpt\/\w+\/(.*)$/i
header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME header op /pattern/modifiers [if-unset: STRING]
Define a test. "SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME" is a symbolic test name, such as 'FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS'. "header"
is the name of a mail header field, such as 'Subject', 'To', 'From', etc. Header field names are
matched case-insensitively (conforming to RFC 5322 section 1.2.2), except for all-capitals metaheader
fields such as ALL, MESSAGEID, ALL-TRUSTED.
Appending a modifier ":raw" to a header field name will inhibit decoding of quoted-printable or
base-64 encoded strings, and will preserve all whitespace inside the header string. The ":raw" may
also be applied to pseudo-headers e.g. "ALL:raw" will return a pristine (unmodified) header section.
Appending a modifier ":addr" to a header field name will cause everything except the first email
address to be removed from the header field. It is mainly applicable to header fields 'From',
'Sender', 'To', 'Cc' along with their 'Resent-*' counterparts, and the 'Return-Path'.
Appending a modifier ":name" to a header field name will cause everything except the first display
name to be removed from the header field. It is mainly applicable to header fields containing a
single mail address: 'From', 'Sender', along with their 'Resent-From' and 'Resent-Sender'
counterparts.
It is syntactically permitted to append more than one modifier to a header field name, although
currently most combinations achieve no additional effect, for example "From:addr:raw" or
"From:raw:addr" is currently the same as "From:addr" .
For example, appending ":addr" to a header name will result in example@foo in all of the following
cases:
example@foo
example@foo (Foo Blah)
example@foo, example@bar
display: example@foo (Foo Blah), example@bar ;
Foo Blah <example@foo>
"Foo Blah" <example@foo>
"'Foo Blah'" <example@foo>
For example, appending ":name" to a header name will result in "Foo Blah" (without quotes) in all of
the following cases:
example@foo (Foo Blah)
example@foo (Foo Blah), example@bar
display: example@foo (Foo Blah), example@bar ;
Foo Blah <example@foo>
"Foo Blah" <example@foo>
"'Foo Blah'" <example@foo>
There are several special pseudo-headers that can be specified:
"ALL" can be used to mean the text of all the message's headers. Note that all whitespace inside the
headers, at line folds, is currently compressed into a single space (' ') character. To obtain a
pristine (unmodified) header section, use "ALL:raw" - the :raw modifier is documented above. Also
similar that return headers added by specific relays: ALL-TRUSTED, ALL-INTERNAL, ALL-UNTRUSTED, ALL-
EXTERNAL.
"ToCc" can be used to mean the contents of both the 'To' and 'Cc' headers.
"EnvelopeFrom" is the address used in the 'MAIL FROM:' phase of the SMTP transaction that delivered
this message, if this data has been made available by the SMTP server. See "envelope_sender_header"
for more information on how to set this.
"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 to '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.
"X-Spam-Relays-Untrusted", "X-Spam-Relays-Trusted", "X-Spam-Relays-Internal" and
"X-Spam-Relays-External" represent a portable, pre-parsed representation of the message's network
path, as recorded in the Received headers, divided into 'trusted' vs 'untrusted' and 'internal' vs
'external' sets. See "https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/TrustedRelays" for more details.
"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. Also note
that the "#" character must be escaped ("\#") or else it will be considered to be the start of a
comment and not part of the regexp.
If the header specified matches multiple headers, their text will be concatenated with embedded \n's.
Therefore you may wish to use "/m" if you use "^" or "$" in your regular expression.
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 must not start with a number, and must contain only alphanumerics and underscores. It is
suggested that lower-case characters not be used, and names have a length of no more than 22
characters, 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.
header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME exists:header_field_name
Define a header field existence test. "header_field_name" is the name of a header field to test for
existence. Not to be confused with a test for a nonempty header field body, which can be implemented
by a "header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME header =~ /\S/" rule as described above.
header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:name_of_eval_method([arguments])
Define a header eval test. "name_of_eval_method" is the name of a method registered by a
"Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin" object. "arguments" are optional arguments to the function call.
header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:check_rbl('set', 'zone' [, 'sub-test'])
Check a DNSBL (a DNS blocklist or welcomelist). This will retrieve Received: headers from the
message, extract the IP addresses, select which ones are 'untrusted' based on the "trusted_networks"
logic, and query that DNSBL zone. There's a few things to note:
duplicated or private IPs
Duplicated IPs are only queried once and reserved IPs are not queried. Private IPs are those
listed in "https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space", or
"https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5735" as private.
the 'set' argument
This is used as a 'zone ID'. If you want to look up a multiple-meaning zone like SORBS, you can
then query the results from that zone using it; but all check_rbl_sub() calls must use that zone
ID.
Also, if more than one IP address gets a DNSBL hit for a particular rule, it does not affect the
score because rules only trigger once per message.
the 'zone' argument
This is the root zone of the DNSBL.
The domain name is considered to be a fully qualified domain name (i.e. not subject to DNS
resolver's search or default domain options). No trailing period is needed, and will be removed
if specified.
the 'sub-test' argument
This optional argument behaves the same as the sub-test argument in check_rbl_sub() below.
selecting all IPs except for the originating one
This is accomplished by placing '-notfirsthop' at the end of the set name. This is useful for
querying against DNS lists which list dialup IP addresses; the first hop may be a dialup, but as
long as there is at least one more hop, via their outgoing SMTP server, that's legitimate, and so
should not gain points. If there is only one hop, that will be queried anyway, as it should be
relaying via its outgoing SMTP server instead of sending directly to your MX (mail exchange).
selecting IPs by whether they are trusted
When checking a 'nice' DNSBL (a DNS welcomelist), you cannot trust the IP addresses in Received
headers that were not added by trusted relays. To test the first IP address that can be trusted,
place '-firsttrusted' at the end of the set name. That should test the IP address of the relay
that connected to the most remote trusted relay.
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.
In addition, you can test all untrusted IP addresses by placing '-untrusted' at the end of the
set name. Important note -- this does NOT include the IP address from the most recent
'untrusted line', as used in '-firsttrusted' above. That's because we're talking about the
trustworthiness of the IP address data, not the source header line, here; and in the case of the
most recent header (the 'firsttrusted'), that data can be trusted. See the Wiki page at
"https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/TrustedRelays" for more information on this.
Selecting just the last external IP
By using '-lastexternal' at the end of the set name, you can select only the external host that
connected to your internal network, or at least the last external host with a public IP.
header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:check_rbl_txt('set', 'zone')
Same as check_rbl(), except querying using IN TXT instead of IN A records. If the zone supports it,
it will result in a line of text describing why the IP is listed, typically a hyperlink to a database
entry.
header SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:check_rbl_sub('set', 'sub-test')
Create a sub-test for 'set'. If you want to look up a multi-meaning zone like relays.osirusoft.com,
you can then query the results from that zone using the zone ID from the original query. The sub-
test may either be an IPv4 dotted address for RBLs that return multiple A records, or a non-negative
decimal number to specify a bitmask for RBLs that return a single A record containing a bitmask of
results, or a regular expression.
Note: the set name must be exactly the same for as the main query rule, including selections like
'-notfirsthop' appearing at the end of the set name.
body SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME /pattern/modifiers
Define a body pattern test. "pattern" is a Perl regular expression. Note: as per the header tests,
"#" must be escaped ("\#") or else it is considered the beginning of a comment.
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.
Parts declared as text/html will be rendered from HTML to text.
Body is processed as a raw byte string, which means Unicode-specific regex features like \p{} can NOT
be used for matching. The normalize_charset setting will also affect how raw bytes are presented.
Rules in .cf files should be written portably - to match "a with umlaut" character, look for both
LATIN1 and UTF8 raw byte variants: /(?:\xE4|\xC3\xA4)/
All body paragraphs (double-newline-separated blocks text) are turned into a linebreaks-removed,
whitespace-normalized, single line. Any lines longer than 2kB are split into shorter separate lines
(from a boundary when possible), this may unexpectedly prevent pattern from matching. Patterns are
matched independently against each of these lines.
Note that by default the message Subject header is considered part of the body and becomes the first
line when running the rules. If you don't want to match Subject along with body text, use "tflags
RULENAME nosubject".
See "https://wiki.apache.org/SpamAssassin/WritingRules" for more information.
body SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:name_of_eval_method([args])
Define a body eval test. See above.
uri SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME /pattern/modifiers
Define a uri pattern test. "pattern" is a Perl regular expression. Note: as per the header tests,
"#" must be escaped ("\#") or else it is considered the beginning of a comment.
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.
rawbody SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME /pattern/modifiers
Define a raw-body pattern test. "pattern" is a Perl regular expression. Note: as per the header
tests, "#" must be escaped ("\#") or else it is considered the beginning of a comment.
The 'raw body' of a message is the raw data inside all textual parts. The text will be decoded from
base64 or quoted-printable encoding, but HTML tags and line breaks will still be present. Multiline
expressions will need to be used to match strings that are broken by line breaks.
Note that the text is split into 2-4kB chunks (from a word boundary when possible), this may
unexpectedly prevent pattern from matching. Patterns are matched independently against each of these
chunks.
rawbody SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:name_of_eval_method([args])
Define a raw-body eval test. See above.
full SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME /pattern/modifiers
Define a full message pattern test. "pattern" is a Perl regular expression. Note: as per the header
tests, "#" must be escaped ("\#") or else it is considered the beginning of a comment.
The full message is the pristine message headers plus the pristine message body, including all MIME
data such as images, other attachments, MIME boundaries, etc.
Note that CRLF/LF line endings are matched as the original message has them. For any full rules that
match newlines, it's recommended to use \r?$ instead of plain $, so it works on all systems.
full SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME eval:name_of_eval_method([args])
Define a full message eval test. See above.
meta SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME boolean expression
Define a boolean expression test in terms of other tests that have been hit or not hit. For example:
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 SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME boolean arithmetic expression
Can also define an arithmetic expression in terms of other tests, with an unhit test having the value
"0" and a hit test having a nonzero value. The value of a hit meta test is that of its arithmetic
expression. The value of a hit eval test is that returned by its method. The value of a hit header,
body, rawbody, uri, or full test which has the "multiple" tflag is the number of times the test hit.
The value of any other type of hit test is "1".
For example:
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.
meta SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME ... rules_matching(RULEGLOB) ...
Special function that will expand to list of matching rulenames. Can be used anywhere in
expressions. Argument supports glob style rulename matching (* = anything, ? = one character).
Matching is case-sensitive.
For example, this will hit if at least two __FOO_* rule hits:
body __FOO_1 /xxx/
body __FOO_2 /yyy/
body __FOO_3 /zzz/
meta FOO_META rules_matching(__FOO_*) >= 2
Which would be the same as:
meta FOO_META (__FOO_1 + __FOO_2 + __FOO_3) >= 2
reuse SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME [ OLD_SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME_1 ... ]
Defines the name of a test that should be "reused" during the scoring process. If a message has an
X-Spam-Status header that shows a hit for this rule or any of the old rule names given, a hit will be
added for this rule when mass-check --reuse is used. Examples:
"reuse SPF_PASS"
"reuse MY_NET_RULE_V2 MY_NET_RULE_V1"
The actual logic for reuse tests is done by Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::Reuse.
tflags SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME flags
Used to set flags on a test. Parameter is a space-separated list of flag names or flag name = value
pairs. These flags are used in the score-determination back end system for details of the test's
behaviour. Please see "bayes_auto_learn" for more information about tflag interaction with those
systems. The following flags can be set:
net The test is a network test, and will not be run in the mass checking system or if -L is used,
therefore its score should not be modified.
nice
The test is intended to compensate for common false positives, and should be assigned a negative
score.
userconf
The test requires user configuration before it can be used (like language-specific tests).
learn
The test requires training before it can be used.
noautolearn
The test will explicitly be ignored when calculating the score for learning systems.
autolearn_force
The test will be subject to less stringent autolearn thresholds.
Normally, SpamAssassin will require 3 points from the header and 3 points from the body to be
auto-learned as spam. This option keeps the threshold at 6 points total but changes it to have no
regard to the source of the points.
noawl
This flag is specific when using AWL plugin.
Normally, AWL plugin normalizes scores via auto-welcomelist. In some scenarios it works against
the system administrator when trying to add some rules to correct miss-classified email. When AWL
plugin searches the email and finds the noawl flag it will exit without normalizing the score nor
storing the value in db.
multiple
The test will be evaluated multiple times, for use with meta rules. Only affects header, body,
rawbody, uri, and full tests.
maxhits=N
If multiple is specified, limit the number of hits found to N. If the rule is used in a meta
that counts the hits (e.g. __RULENAME > 5), this is a way to avoid wasted extra work (use "tflags
multiple maxhits=6").
For example:
uri __KAM_COUNT_URIS /^./
tflags __KAM_COUNT_URIS multiple maxhits=16
describe __KAM_COUNT_URIS A multiple match used to count URIs in a message
meta __KAM_HAS_0_URIS (__KAM_COUNT_URIS == 0)
meta __KAM_HAS_1_URIS (__KAM_COUNT_URIS >= 1)
meta __KAM_HAS_2_URIS (__KAM_COUNT_URIS >= 2)
meta __KAM_HAS_3_URIS (__KAM_COUNT_URIS >= 3)
meta __KAM_HAS_4_URIS (__KAM_COUNT_URIS >= 4)
meta __KAM_HAS_5_URIS (__KAM_COUNT_URIS >= 5)
meta __KAM_HAS_10_URIS (__KAM_COUNT_URIS >= 10)
meta __KAM_HAS_15_URIS (__KAM_COUNT_URIS >= 15)
nosubject
Used only for body rules. If specified, Subject header will not be a part of the matched body
text. See body for more info.
ips_only
This flag is specific to rules invoking an URIDNSBL plugin, it is documented there.
domains_only
This flag is specific to rules invoking an URIDNSBL plugin, it is documented there.
ns This flag is specific to rules invoking an URIDNSBL plugin, it is documented there.
a This flag is specific to rules invoking an URIDNSBL plugin, it is documented there.
notrim
This flag is specific to rules invoking an URIDNSBL plugin, it is documented there.
nolog
This flag will hide (sensitive) rule informations from reports
priority SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME n
Assign a specific priority to a test. All tests, except for DNS and Meta tests, are run in
increasing priority value order (negative priority values are run before positive priority values).
The default test priority is 0 (zero).
The values -99999999999999 and -99999999999998 have a special meaning internally, and should not be
used.
CAPTURING TAGS USING REGEX NAMED CAPTURE GROUPS
SpamAssassin 4.0 supports capturing template tags from regex rules. The captured tags, along with other
standard template tags, can be used in other rules as a matching string. See TEMPLATE TAGS section for
more info on tags.
Capturing can be done in any body/rawbody/header/uri/full rule that uses a regex for matching (not eval
rules). Standard Perl named capture group format "(?<NAME>pattern)" must be used, as described in
<https://perldoc.perl.org/perlre#(?%3CNAME%3Epattern)>.
Example, capturing a tag named "BODY_HELLO_NAME":
body __HELLO_NAME /\bHello, (?<BODY_HELLO_NAME>\w+)\b/
The tag can then be used in another rule for matching, using a %{TAGNAME} template. This would search
the captured name in From-header:
header HELLO_NAME_IN_FROM From =~ /\b%{BODY_HELLO_NAME}\b/i
If any tag that a rule depends on is not found, then the rule is not run at all. To prevent a literal
%{NAME} string from being parsed as a template, it can be escaped with a backslash: \%{NAME}.
Captured tags can also be used in reports and in other plugins like AskDNS, with the standard
"_BODY_HELLO_NAME_" notation.
Note that at this time there is no automatic dependency tracking for rule running order. All rules that
use named capture groups are automatically set to priority -10000, so that the tags should always be
ready for any normal rules to use. When rule depends on a tag that might be set at later stage by a
plugin for example, it's priority should be set manually to a higher value.
ADMINISTRATOR SETTINGS
These settings differ from the ones above, in that they are considered 'more privileged' -- even more
than the ones in the PRIVILEGED SETTINGS section. No matter what "allow_user_rules" is set to, these can
never be set from a user's "user_prefs" file when spamc/spamd is being used. However, all settings can
be used by local programs run directly by the user.
version_tag string
This tag is appended to the SA version in the X-Spam-Status header. You should include it when you
modify your ruleset, especially if you plan to distribute it. A good choice for string is your last
name or your initials followed by a number which you increase with each change.
The version_tag will be lowercased, and any non-alphanumeric or period character will be replaced by
an underscore.
e.g.
version_tag myrules1 # version=2.41-myrules1
test SYMBOLIC_TEST_NAME (ok|fail) Some string to test against
Define a regression testing string. You can have more than one regression test string per symbolic
test name. Simply specify a string that you wish the test to match.
These tests are only run as part of the test suite - they should not affect the general running of
SpamAssassin.
body_part_scan_size (default: 50000)
Per mime-part scan size limit in bytes for "body" type rules. The decoded/stripped mime-part is
truncated approx to this size. Helps scanning large messages safely, so it's not necessary to skip
them completely. Disabled with 0.
rawbody_part_scan_size (default: 500000)
Like body_part_scan_size, for "rawbody" type rules.
rbl_timeout t [t_min] [zone] (default: 15 3)
All DNS queries are made at the beginning of a check and we try to read the results at the end. This
value specifies the maximum period of time (in seconds) to wait for a DNS query. If most of the DNS
queries have succeeded for a particular message, then SpamAssassin will not wait for the full period
to avoid wasting time on unresponsive server(s), but will shrink the timeout according to a
percentage of queries already completed. As the number of queries remaining approaches 0, the
timeout value will gradually approach a t_min value, which is an optional second parameter and
defaults to 0.2 * t. If t is smaller than t_min, the initial timeout is set to t_min. Here is a
chart of queries remaining versus the timeout in seconds, for the default 15 second / 3 second
timeout setting:
queries left 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
timeout 15 14.9 14.5 13.9 13.1 12.0 10.7 9.1 7.3 5.3 3
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 should finish within 7.3 seconds since their query started or
they will be timed out. Note that timed out queries are only aborted when there is nothing else left
for SpamAssassin to do - long evaluation of other rules may grant queries additional time.
If a parameter 'zone' is specified (it must end with a letter, which distinguishes it from other
numeric parametrs), then the setting only applies to DNS queries against the specified DNS domain
(host, domain or RBL (sub)zone). Matching is case-insensitive, the actual domain may be a subdomain
of the specified zone.
util_rb_tld tld1 tld2 ...
This option maintains a list of valid TLDs in the RegistryBoundaries code. Top level domains (TLD)
include things like com, net, org, xn--p1ai, рф, ... International domain names may be specified in
ASCII-compatible encoding (ACE), e.g. xn--p1ai, xn--qxam, or with Unicode labels encoded as UTF-8
octets, e.g. рф, ελ.
util_rb_2tld 2tld-1.tld 2tld-2.tld ...
This option maintains list of valid 2nd-level TLDs in the RegistryBoundaries code. 2TLDs include
things like co.uk, fed.us, etc. International domain names may be specified in ASCII-compatible
encoding (ACE), or with Unicode labels encoded as UTF-8 octets.
util_rb_3tld 3tld1.some.tld 3tld2.other.tld ...
This option maintains list of valid 3rd-level TLDs in the RegistryBoundaries code. 3TLDs include
things like demon.co.uk, plc.co.im, etc. International domain names may be specified in ASCII-
compatible encoding (ACE), or with Unicode labels encoded as UTF-8 octets.
clear_util_rb
Empty internal list of valid TLDs (including 2nd and 3rd level) which RegistryBoundaries code uses.
Only useful if you want to override the standard lists supplied by sa-update.
bayes_path /path/filename (default: ~/.spamassassin/bayes)
This is the directory and filename for Bayes databases. Several databases will be created, with this
as the base directory and filename, with "_toks", "_seen", etc. appended to the base. 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. For
system-wide SpamAssassin use, you may want to reduce disk space usage by sharing this across all
users. However, Bayes appears to be more effective with individual user databases.
bayes_file_mode (default: 0700)
The file mode bits used for the Bayesian filtering database files.
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). The argument is a string of octal digits, it is converted to a numeric value internally.
bayes_store_module Name::Of::BayesStore::Module
If this option is set, the module given will be used as an alternate to the default bayes storage
mechanism. It must conform to the published storage specification (see
Mail::SpamAssassin::BayesStore). For example, set this to Mail::SpamAssassin::BayesStore::SQL to use
the generic SQL storage module.
bayes_sql_dsn DBI::databasetype:databasename:hostname:port
Used for BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.
This option give the connect string used to connect to the SQL based Bayes storage.
bayes_sql_username
Used by BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.
This option gives the username used by the above DSN.
bayes_sql_password
Used by BayesStore::SQL storage implementation.
This option gives the password used by the above DSN.
bayes_sql_username_authorized ( 0 | 1 ) (default: 0)
Whether to call the services_authorized_for_username plugin hook in BayesSQL. If the hook does not
determine that the user is allowed to use bayes or is invalid then the database will not be
initialized.
NOTE: By default the user is considered invalid until a plugin returns a true value. If you enable
this, but do not have a proper plugin loaded, all users will turn up as invalid.
The username passed into the plugin can be affected by the bayes_sql_override_username config option.
user_scores_dsn DBI:databasetype:databasename:hostname:port
If you load user scores from an SQL database, this will set the DSN used to connect. Example:
"DBI:mysql:spamassassin:localhost"
If you load user scores from an LDAP directory, this will set the DSN used to connect. You have to
write the DSN as an LDAP URL, the components being the host and port to connect to, the base DN for
the search, the scope of the search (base, one or sub), the single attribute being the multivalued
attribute used to hold the configuration data (space separated pairs of key and value, just as in a
file) and finally the filter being the expression used to filter out the wanted username. Note that
the filter expression is being used in a sprintf statement with the username as the only parameter,
thus is can hold a single __USERNAME__ expression. This will be replaced with the username.
Example: "ldap://localhost:389/dc=koehntopp,dc=de?saconfig?uid=__USERNAME__"
user_scores_sql_username username
The authorized username to connect to the above DSN.
user_scores_sql_password password
The password for the database username, for the above DSN.
user_scores_sql_custom_query query
This option gives you the ability to create a custom SQL query to retrieve user scores and
preferences. In order to work correctly your query should return two values, the preference name and
value, in that order. In addition, there are several "variables" that you can use as part of your
query, these variables will be substituted for the current values right before the query is run. The
current allowed variables are:
_TABLE_
The name of the table where user scores and preferences are stored. Currently hardcoded to
userpref, to change this value you need to create a new custom query with the new table name.
_USERNAME_
The current user's username.
_MAILBOX_
The portion before the @ as derived from the current user's username.
_DOMAIN_
The portion after the @ as derived from the current user's username, this value may be null.
The query must be one continuous line in order to parse correctly.
Here are several example queries, please note that these are broken up for easy reading, in your
config it should be one continuous line.
Current default query:
"SELECT preference, value FROM _TABLE_ WHERE username = _USERNAME_ OR username = '@GLOBAL' ORDER
BY username ASC"
Use global and then domain level defaults:
"SELECT preference, value FROM _TABLE_ WHERE username = _USERNAME_ OR username = '@GLOBAL' OR
username = '@~'||_DOMAIN_ ORDER BY username ASC"
Maybe global prefs should override user prefs:
"SELECT preference, value FROM _TABLE_ WHERE username = _USERNAME_ OR username = '@GLOBAL' ORDER
BY username DESC"
user_scores_ldap_username
This is the Bind DN used to connect to the LDAP server. It defaults to the empty string (""),
allowing anonymous binding to work.
Example: "cn=master,dc=koehntopp,dc=de"
user_scores_ldap_password
This is the password used to connect to the LDAP server. It defaults to the empty string ("").
user_scores_fallback_to_global (default: 1)
Fall back to global scores and settings if userprefs can't be loaded from SQL or LDAP, instead of
passing the message through unprocessed.
loadplugin [Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::]ModuleName [/path/module.pm]
Load a SpamAssassin plugin module. The "ModuleName" is the perl module name, used to create the
plugin object itself.
Module naming is strict, name must only contain alphanumeric characters or underscores. File must
have .pm extension.
"/path/module.pm" is the file to load, containing the module's perl code; if it's specified as a
relative path, it's considered to be relative to the current configuration file. If it is omitted,
the module will be loaded using perl's search path (the @INC array).
See "Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin" for more details on writing plugins.
tryplugin ModuleName [/path/module.pm]
Same as "loadplugin", but silently ignored if the .pm file cannot be found in the filesystem.
ignore_always_matching_regexps (Default: 0)
Ignore any rule which contains a regexp which always matches. Currently only catches regexps which
contain '||', or which begin or end with a '|'. Also ignore rules with "some" combinatorial
explosions.
geodb_module STRING
This option tells SpamAssassin which geolocation module to use. If not specified, all supported ones
are tried in this order:
Plugins can override this internally if required.
MaxMind::DB::Reader (same as GeoIP2::Database::Reader)
Geo::IP
IP::Country::DB_File (not used unless geodb_options path set)
IP::Country::Fast
geodb_options dbtype:/path/to/db ...
Supported dbtypes:
city - use City database country - use Country database isp - try loading ISP database asn - try
loading ASN database
Append full database path with colon, for example: isp:/opt/geoip/isp.mmdb
Plugins can internally request all types they require, geodb_options is only needed if the default
location search (described below) does not work.
GeoIP/GeoIP2 searches these files/directories:
country:
GeoIP2-Country.mmdb, GeoLite2-Country.mmdb
GeoIP.dat (and v6 version)
city:
GeoIP2-City.mmdb, GeoLite2-City.mmdb
GeoIPCity.dat, GeoLiteCity.dat (and v6 versions)
isp:
GeoIP2-ISP.mmdb
GeoIPISP.dat, GeoLiteISP.dat (and v6 versions)
directories:
/usr/local/share/GeoIP
/usr/share/GeoIP
/var/lib/GeoIP
/opt/share/GeoIP
geodb_search_path /path/to/GeoIP ...
Alternative to geodb_options. Overrides the default list of directories to search for default
filenames.
PREPROCESSING OPTIONS
include filename
Include configuration lines from "filename". Relative paths are considered relative to the current
configuration file or user preferences file.
if (boolean perl expression)
Used to support conditional interpretation of the configuration file. Lines between this and a
corresponding "else" or "endif" line will be ignored unless the expression evaluates as true (in the
perl sense; that is, defined and non-0 and non-empty string).
The conditional accepts a limited subset of perl for security -- just enough to perform basic
arithmetic comparisons. The following input is accepted:
numbers, whitespace, arithmetic operations and grouping
Namely these characters and ranges:
( ) - + * / _ . , < = > ! ~ 0-9 whitespace
version
This will be replaced with the version number of the currently-running SpamAssassin engine.
Note: The version used is in the internal SpamAssassin version format which is "x.yyyzzz", where
x is major version, y is minor version, and z is maintenance version. So 3.0.0 is 3.000000, and
3.4.80 is 3.004080.
perl_version
(Introduced in 3.4.1) This will be replaced with the version number of the currently-running
perl engine. Note: The version used is in the $] version format which is "x.yyyzzz", where x is
major version, y is minor version, and z is maintenance version. So 5.8.8 is 5.008008, and
5.10.0 is 5.010000. Use to protect rules that incorporate RE syntax elements introduced in later
versions of perl, such as the "++" non-backtracking match introduced in perl 5.10. For example:
# Avoid lint error on older perl installs
# Check SA version first to avoid warnings on checking perl_version on older SA
if version > 3.004001 && perl_version >= 5.018000
body INVALID_RE_SYNTAX_IN_PERL_BEFORE_5_18 /(?[ \p{Thai} & \p{Digit} ])/
endif
Note that the above will still generate a warning on perl older than 5.10.0; to avoid that
warning do this instead:
# Avoid lint error on older perl installs
if can(Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf::perl_min_version_5010000)
body INVALID_RE_SYNTAX_IN_PERL_5_8 /\w++/
endif
Warning: a can() test is only defined for perl 5.10.0!
plugin(Name::Of::Plugin)
This is a function call that returns 1 if the plugin named "Name::Of::Plugin" is loaded, or
"undef" otherwise.
has(Name::Of::Package::function_name)
This is a function call that returns 1 if the perl package named "Name::Of::Package" includes a
function called "function_name", or "undef" otherwise. Note that packages can be SpamAssassin
plugins or built-in classes, there's no difference in this respect. Internally this invokes
UNIVERSAL::can.
can(Name::Of::Package::function_name)
This is a function call that returns 1 if the perl package named "Name::Of::Package" includes a
function called "function_name" and that function returns a true value when called with no
arguments, otherwise "undef" is returned.
Is similar to "has", except that it also calls the named function, testing its return value
(unlike the perl function UNIVERSAL::can). This makes it possible for a 'feature' function to
determine its result value at run time.
If the end of a configuration file is reached while still inside a "if" scope, a warning will be
issued, but parsing will restart on the next file.
For example:
if (version > 3.000000)
header MY_FOO ...
endif
loadplugin MyPlugin plugintest.pm
if plugin (MyPlugin)
header MY_PLUGIN_FOO eval:check_for_foo()
score MY_PLUGIN_FOO 0.1
endif
ifplugin PluginModuleName
An alias for "if plugin(PluginModuleName)".
else
Used to support conditional interpretation of the configuration file. Lines between this and a
corresponding "endif" line, will be ignored unless the conditional expression evaluates as false (in
the perl sense; that is, not defined and not 0 and non-empty string).
require_version n.nnnnnn
Indicates that the entire file, from this line on, requires a certain version of SpamAssassin to run.
If a different (older or newer) version of SpamAssassin tries to read the configuration from this
file, it will output a warning instead, and ignore it.
Note: The version used is in the internal SpamAssassin version format which is "x.yyyzzz", where x is
major version, y is minor version, and z is maintenance version. So 3.0.0 is 3.000000, and 3.4.80 is
3.004080.
enable_compat xxxxxx
Define a version compatibility flag.
This creates a function named "Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf::compat_xxxxxx", which returns true. It can
be used for example in cf-files, similarly as existing "feature_" checks:
if can(Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf::compat_xxxxxx)
Name can only consist of [a-zA-Z0-9_] characters.
Mainly used by SpamAssassin distribution to handle backwards compatibility issues.
TEMPLATE TAGS
The following "tags" can be used as placeholders in certain options. 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.
_YESNO_ "Yes" for spam, "No" for nonspam (=ham)
_YESNO(spam_str,ham_str)_ returns the first argument ("Yes" if missing)
for spam, and the second argument ("No" if missing) for ham
_YESNOCAPS_ "YES" for spam, "NO" for nonspam (=ham)
_YESNOCAPS(spam_str,ham_str)_ same as _YESNO(...)_, but uppercased
_SCORE(PAD)_ message score, if PAD is included and is either spaces or
zeroes, then pad scores with that many spaces or zeroes
(default, none) ie: _SCORE(0)_ makes 2.4 become 02.4,
_SCORE(00)_ is 002.4. 12.3 would be 12.3 and 012.3
respectively.
_REQD_ message threshold
_VERSION_ version (eg. 3.0.0 or 3.1.0-r26142-foo1)
_SUBVERSION_ sub-version/code revision date (eg. 2004-01-10)
_RULESVERSION_ comma-separated list of rules versions, retrieved from
an '# UPDATE version' comment in rules files; if there is
more than one set of rules (update channels) the order
is unspecified (currently sorted by names of files);
_HOSTNAME_ hostname of the machine the mail was processed on
_REMOTEHOSTNAME_ hostname of the machine the mail was sent from, only
available with spamd
_REMOTEHOSTADDR_ ip address of the machine the mail was sent from, only
available with spamd
_BAYES_ bayes score
_TOKENSUMMARY_ number of new, neutral, spammy, and hammy tokens found
_BAYESTC_ number of new tokens found
_BAYESTCLEARNED_ number of seen tokens found
_BAYESTCSPAMMY_ number of spammy tokens found
_BAYESTCHAMMY_ number of hammy tokens found
_HAMMYTOKENS(N)_ the N most significant hammy tokens (default, 5)
_SPAMMYTOKENS(N)_ the N most significant spammy tokens (default, 5)
_DATE_ rfc-2822 date of scan
_STARS(*)_ one "*" (use any character) for each full score point
(note: limited to 50 'stars')
_SENDERDOMAIN_ a domain name of the envelope sender address, lowercased
_AUTHORDOMAIN_ a domain name of the author address (the From header
field), lowercased; note that RFC 5322 allows a mail
message to have multiple authors - currently only the
domain name of the first email address is returned
_RELAYSTRUSTED_ relays used and deemed to be trusted (see the
'X-Spam-Relays-Trusted' pseudo-header)
_RELAYSUNTRUSTED_ relays used that can not be trusted (see the
'X-Spam-Relays-Untrusted' pseudo-header)
_RELAYSINTERNAL_ relays used and deemed to be internal (see the
'X-Spam-Relays-Internal' pseudo-header)
_RELAYSEXTERNAL_ relays used and deemed to be external (see the
'X-Spam-Relays-External' pseudo-header)
_FIRSTTRUSTEDIP_ IP address of first trusted client (see RELAYSTRUSTED)
_FIRSTTRUSTEDREVIP_ IP address of first trusted client (in reversed
format suitable for RBL queries)
_LASTEXTERNALIP_ IP address of client in the external-to-internal
SMTP handover
_LASTEXTERNALREVIP_ IP address of client in the external-to-internal
SMTP handover (in reversed format suitable for RBL
queries)
_LASTEXTERNALRDNS_ reverse-DNS of client in the external-to-internal
SMTP handover
_LASTEXTERNALHELO_ HELO string used by client in the external-to-internal
SMTP handover
_AUTOLEARN_ autolearn status ("ham", "no", "spam", "disabled",
"failed", "unavailable")
_AUTOLEARNSCORE_ portion of message score used by autolearn
_TESTS(,)_ tests hit separated by "," (or other separator)
_TESTSSCORES(,)_ as above, except with scores appended (eg. AWL=-3.0,...)
_SUBTESTS(,)_ subtests (start with "__") hit separated by ","
(or other separator)
_SUBTESTSCOLLAPSED(,)_ subtests (start with "__") hit separated by ","
(or other separator) with duplicated rules collapsed
_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 hit (for header reports)
_SUBJPREFIX_ subject prefix based on rules, to be prepended to Subject
header by SpamAssassin caller
_SUMMARY_ summary of tests hit for standard report (for body reports)
_CONTACTADDRESS_ contents of the 'report_contact' setting
_HEADER(NAME)_ includes the value of a message header. value is the same
as is found for header rules (see elsewhere in this doc)
_TIMING_ timing breakdown report
_ADDEDHEADERHAM_ resulting header fields as requested by add_header for spam
_ADDEDHEADERSPAM_ resulting header fields as requested by add_header for ham
_ADDEDHEADER_ same as ADDEDHEADERHAM for ham or ADDEDHEADERSPAM for spam
If a tag reference uses the name of a tag which is not in this list or defined by a loaded plugin, the
reference will be left intact and not replaced by any value.
All template tag names must consist of only uppercase character set [A-Z0-9_] and not contain consecutive
underscores (__).
Additional, plugin specific, template tags can be found in the documentation for the following plugins:
L<Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::ASN>
L<Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::AWL>
L<Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::TxRep>
The "HAMMYTOKENS" and "SPAMMYTOKENS" tags have an optional second argument which specifies a format. See
the HAMMYTOKENS/SPAMMYTOKENS TAG FORMAT section, below, for details.
HAMMYTOKENS/SPAMMYTOKENS TAG FORMAT
The "HAMMYTOKENS" and "SPAMMYTOKENS" tags have an optional second argument which specifies a format:
"_SPAMMYTOKENS(N,FMT)_", "_HAMMYTOKENS(N,FMT)_" The following formats are available:
short
Only the tokens themselves are listed. For example, preference file entry:
"add_header all Spammy _SPAMMYTOKENS(2,short)_"
Results in message header:
"X-Spam-Spammy: remove.php, UD:jpg"
Indicating that the top two spammy tokens found are "remove.php" and "UD:jpg". (The token itself
follows the last colon, the text before the colon indicates something about the token. "UD" means
the token looks like it might be part of a domain name.)
compact
The token probability, an abbreviated declassification distance (see example), and the token are
listed. For example, preference file entry:
"add_header all Spammy _SPAMMYTOKENS(2,compact)_"
Results in message header:
"0.989-6--remove.php, 0.988-+--UD:jpg"
Indicating that the probabilities of the top two tokens are 0.989 and 0.988, respectively. The first
token has a declassification distance of 6, meaning that if the token had appeared in at least 6 more
ham messages it would not be considered spammy. The "+" for the second token indicates a
declassification distance greater than 9.
long
Probability, declassification distance, number of times seen in a ham message, number of times seen
in a spam message, age and the token are listed.
For example, preference file entry:
"add_header all Spammy _SPAMMYTOKENS(2,long)_"
Results in message header:
"X-Spam-Spammy: 0.989-6--0h-4s--4d--remove.php, 0.988-33--2h-25s--1d--UD:jpg"
In addition to the information provided by the compact option, the long option shows that the first
token appeared in zero ham messages and four spam messages, and that it was last seen four days ago.
The second token appeared in two ham messages, 25 spam messages and was last seen one day ago.
(Unlike the "compact" option, the long option shows declassification distances that are greater than
9.)
LOCALISATION
A line starting with the text "lang xx" will only be interpreted if SpamAssassin is running in that
locale, allowing test descriptions and templates to be set for that language.
Current locale is determined from LANGUAGE, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES or LANG environment variables, first
found is used.
The locales string should specify either both the language and country, e.g. "lang pt_BR", or just the
language, e.g. "lang de".
Example:
lang de describe EXAMPLE_RULE Beispielregel
SEE ALSO
Mail::SpamAssassin(3) spamassassin(1) spamd(1)
perl v5.38.2 2024-04-12 Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf(3pm)