Anti-spam FAQs

Will the anti-spam features slow down mail processing?

Under normal circumstances, the anti-spam features will not impact mail delivery. However, the verification options may slow down the server, as they are resource intensive.

How does the anti-spam engine interact with IMail Anti-Virus?

IMail Anti-virus complements the anti-spam features of IMail Server. Connection filtering and verification for anti-spam are completed first, followed by the Anti-Virus scan. Then, the other anti-spam processes are initiated, beginning with content filtering. See also IMail Processing Order.

What can I do if legitimate mail is identified as spam?

You can place the e-mail address or domain name, from which the message was sent, in the white list (trusted addresses) to always let messages from the e-mail address or domain name to be delivered.

If a small number of messages are being misidentified, you can use the antispamseeder.exe utility to add the messages to the antispam-table.txt file. This will increase the likelihood that similar messages will be correctly identified in the future.

If a large number of legitimate mail is being identified as spam, modify the Advanced Options on the Statistical Filter page. Begin by increasing An e-mail is spam when it's calculated probability exceeds option to 95%. If that has no effect, decrease The Probability a new word is spam option to 10%. See Also Advanced Statistical Filtering.

How do I know if the blacklists are accurate?

The blacklists used are not maintained by Ipswitch, therefore we cannot verify their accuracy. Some blacklists are updated more frequently than others, and contain more accurate information. You should be aware of this especially if you decide to configure your own blacklists. For your convenience, IMail Server allows you to identify trusted blacklists. These are blacklists that you have tried and found to be accurate.

Where does Spam go?

By default, messages that are identified as spam are forwarded to a mailbox called "bulk" within the root account. If you have changed the "Forward To" setting, on any of the anti-spam filter pages, then spam goes to the address that is entered in this field.

How do I access the Anti-spam features?

Only system and domain administrators can access the anti-spam tabs. System administrators have access to the server level realtime blacklists and logging tabs. Domain administrators have access to the domain level realtime blacklists, connection filtering, statistical filtering, phrase filtering, and trusted realtime blacklists.

The anti-spam tabs can be accessed from two places: the server level and host level. To access the server Realtime Blacklists page, click the IMail Administrator System tab, then click Realtime Blacklists. The Realtime Blacklists page opens.

To access domain (host) level settings, click the IMail Administrator Anti-Spam tab. The Anti-Spam Settings page opens. The domain level anti-spam options are displayed on the Domain Level Spam Filtering page.

Will the anti-spam features affect mailing list subscriptions?

Most mailing list subscriptions will not be identified as spam. However, to ensure that mailing list messages are not identified as spam, place the domain name from which the mailing list is sent in the Trusted Addresses list. For more information, see Creating Trusted Realtime Blacklists.

If you do not trust the domain, you can create a host rule to send the message to a folder for the user (for example, spam), and the user can create a user rule that puts the message in his/her Inbox. For more information, see Using Delivery Rules to Filter Spam.

Do the anti-spam features work with Web Messaging?

Yes. IMail Server processes mail from IMail Web Messaging in the same way it processes all other mail.

Do I need to use the Antispamseeder.exe utility to alter my word counts?

The file, that ships with the product, is appropriate for most users. However, you may need to alter this file if we have identified words as spam that you do not consider to be spam, or vice versa. For example, the word "mortgage" is identified as spam because in our tests, it occurred 364 times in non-spam, and 7516 times in spam. However, at financial institutions, the word "mortgage" is a non-spam word that occurs frequently. In this case, you need to alter the antispam-table.txt file so that statistical filtering recognizes the word "mortgage" as non-spam. For more information, see Customizing a Host's Antispam-table.txt file.

Will the anti-spam features prevent my users from sending spam?

The anti-spam engine automatically filters mail from all users who are not authenticated. An authenticated users e-mail will then bypass all anti-spam filtering.

Authenticated users are users who have SMTP Authentication enabled on their e-mail client or users who send mail from IMail Web Messaging. By default, IMail Server forces users to authenticate, unless you select another option such as Relay Mail for Anyone or Relay Mail for Addresses in the Mail Relay Settings located under Services tab > SMTP. This means that every time a user connects to the IMail Server, he/she must enter his/her user ID and password.

Should I place a domain name in the phrase list or in the URL Domain Blacklist?

Each location serves a different purpose. The phrase list filters the domain name as it appears in normal text in the body of an e-mail message. The URL Domain Blacklist will filter the domain name if it appears as a link in HTML code within a message, specifically within HREF and IMG SRC tags.