My e-mail provider told me where the user_prefs file was and told me to find SpamAssassin on the Web to find out how to do it. I had never edited anything on the web before, so I had to learn how to access and edit that file, which I did. I know they moved a SpamAssassin setting from 2 to 3 when I earlier complained about my UPDATE WINDOWS spam/viruses.
Now that I added score MICROSOFT_EXECUTABLE 10 to my user_prefs file, that problem is solved. But I would like to be able to easily modify my white and black lists, change the setting back to 2 (I am missing some e-mail), and if possible, find some way to give SpamAssassin some feedback about spam that gets through to my computer. The docs speak a different language than what I'm used to - and seem to be designed for people who have SpamAssassin on their own computers. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Menschel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 9:26 PM To: Howard Brazee Cc: Matt Kettler; Spamassassin-Talk (E-mail) Subject: Re[2]: [SAtalk] White & black lists on server -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello Howard, Tuesday, October 28, 2003, 11:23:19 AM, you wrote: HB> A lot of these documents and replies seem to be designed around me HB> having SpamAssassin on my computer. Instead it is on my e-mail HB> server. Mine too. There are three categories of "end users" as far as I can tell: 1) Those whose ISP offers SpamAssassin options, and who have full access to their user_prefs file (by web form, FTP, or whatever other method), 2) Those who run web-based domains on someone else's shared server, and who have full access to everything within their domain (including user_prefs) but not to the primary SpamAssassin code, 3) Those whose ISP offers SpamAssassin, but does not provide any more than minimal control to the users. I gather from your description you're either (1) or (2). Which? (I'm in group 2.) HB> Is there a place to look at to find out how someone who has a server HB> based SpamAssassin can modify the whitelists, blacklists, and give HB> SpamAssassin feedback about SPAM - from my own PC? Or for that HB> matter, to test my user_prefs from my own PC? I can share parts of my user_prefs with you. If you have the access to user_prefs that you describe, then you should have full access to creating and maintaining your own whitelists, blacklists, and even to adjust the distributed rule scores and various other parameters within SA. We probably should have a wiki page for that at http://www.exit0.us/ -- you can help us build one. You may not have the ability to add your own rule set to SA, though if you have enough access to your server, you might be able to use a solution like mine. HB> I like it server based, as that means the messages don't hog my HB> bandwidth, and can be deleted while I am on vacation for a week with HB> my computer turned off. But it isn't obvious how to use it this way. Those capabilities depend very strongly on how much control you have over your server... Tuesday, October 28, 2003, 11:57:35 AM, you wrote: >> Seriously those, really those documents are oriented at it being >> installed on a server, but they're also oriented around you logging >> into the server for maintenance. HB> I infer that this means I can make this a virtual drive. I'll play HB> around with this at home and try to do it. Currently two of my home HB> computers can be seen just fine, but my main one is invisible and I HB> am trying to trace that down. But if I can do this, I should be HB> able to use the other software fine? I don't know if you can make this a virtual drive (which would imply putting it on your Windows network neighborhood, or equivalent), but if you at least have FTP access you can maintain your user_prefs file just fine. If you can somehow issue commands on your server, that'd be even better. That's when SSH would come in handy. I don't have SSH access to my server, but I do reasonably well with a cron-based interface. >> Some people have set up automated scripts attached to various email >> accounts on their server to make certain tasks semi-automatic.. >> However, most of these are little home-brew tools to handle one or two >> things specific to their setup. Also if your spamassassin config is >> completely broken, you may not be able to send/receive mail at all and >> these kinds of tools won't do anything for you. HB> Which means I shouldn't be modifying that file from work where I HB> can't test it. Some changes are fairly safe -- you can adjust a rule's score from 1.2 to 1.5 without too much concern. However, if you get into creating your own rules, then yes, you want to be able to --lint (verify) the changes. HB> How about giving my server's SpamAssassin feedback from within HB> Outlook? Can I do something to tell it that "this message is spam", HB> so that it can learn from it? It appears that user side HB> SpamAssassin can do this, but I haven't seen how to talk to it from HB> home. Outlook is horrible for SA feedback. From what I understand, most versions of Outlook are unable to reliably save the original message in its original format, and therefore cannot accurately feed that original email back to SA. If you have the flexibility, use a different email program. My personal favorite is The Bat!; Eudora is also very good. Netscape's Messenger is also excellent for this purpose. Those three should be easy enough for even a mainframe programmer or admin to install and use. (I was a mainframe programmer myself 16 years ago.) Bob Menschel -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0 iQA/AwUBP59BNpebK8E4qh1HEQKlbwCg2g2GSVh1fCk7NqFf+ik0L+b/FnsAn3Bp 2IRZ3IKG7lj2doIaTfIpyL2O =p038 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. 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