#Spamassassin local cf upgrade#

Settings made here can override sitewide settings defined in /etc/mail/spamassassin, and default settings in /usr/share/spamassassin/. User-specific customizations can be placed in the ~/.spamassassin/local.cf file. They can include defining new rules and new rule scores. Settings made here can overrule those in the default files. SpamAssassin will read all files matching *.cf in this directory. These are placed in /etc/mail/spamassassin. The defaults can be overwritten by sitewide configuration files.

Most of the rules that SpamAssassin uses, and the scores applied to each rule, are defined within files in this directory.

#Spamassassin local cf upgrade#

It’s best not to modify these files or place new files in this directory, as an upgrade to SpamAssassin will overwrite these files. These are files that are shipped with SpamAssassin and may change with each release. The rules are stored in text files.ĭefault files are stored in /usr/share/spamassassin. A rule might try to detect a particular word, such as “Rolex”, or it might look for particular words in certain orders, such as “buy Rolex online”. This is a shorthand method of specifying that certain combinations of characters will trigger the rule. Rules are written using a technique called regular expressions, or regex for short. The bulk of the standard configuration files is devoted to simple rules and their scores.Ī rule is typically a match for letters, numbers, or other printing characters.

User-specific settings are stored in ~/.spamassassin/local.cf.

All files matching *.cf are examined by SpamAssassin.

Site-wide customizations and settings are stored in /etc/mail/spamassassin/.

Standard configuration settings are stored in /usr/share/spamassassin.

The configuration files for standard, sitewide, and user-specific settings are saved in different directories as follows:

Enabling SpamAssassin’s Bayesian filter: This can increase filtering accuracy from 80% to 95% or more.

Adding e-mail addresses to white and blacklists: This allows the e-mail from specified senders to always be treated as ham, no matter what the content is, or the opposite.

Obtaining and using new rules: This can improve spam detection.

Altering the scores for rules: This allows rules to be disabled, poor rules to be given less weight, and better rules to be given a higher weight.

The following configuration options are discussed in this article: By enabling them, the spam recognition rate is increased.

Some of the features of SpamAssassin are disabled by default.

By trying to be general, SpamAssassin may fail to filter spam for every user.

Everyone’s spam is different and one user’s spam might look like another user’s ham.After adding a few customizations, the detection rate can be greater than 95%. SpamAssassin by default (that is, when installed but not customized) typically manages to detect over 80% of spam.If SpamAssassin is so good, then why configure it? Well, there are several reasons why it’s worth improving spam filtering with SpamAssassin. Almost every setting can be configured on a system-wide or user-specific basis.