Question about quarantine

[Patrick Joy]

Hi everyone,

I have just configured amavis-new (2.5.3) and spamassassin (3.2.5) and
integrated with postfix (2.5.1). I have linked amavis to mysql also.

Everything seems to working fine, spam headers are being added and some
mail is going the the quarantine however I would appreciate it anyone
could answer the following questions about the behaviour of the quarantine.

I have the following settings:

$sa_spam_subject_tag = '***SPAM*** ';
$sa_tag_level_deflt = -9999; # add spam info headers if at, or above
that level
$sa_tag2_level_deflt = 8; # add 'spam detected' headers at that level
$sa_kill_level_deflt = 10; # triggers spam evasive actions
$sa_dsn_cutoff_level = 15; # spam level beyond which a DSN is not sent

$final_virus_destiny = D_DISCARD; # (data not lost, see virus
quarantine)
$final_banned_destiny = D_BOUNCE; # D_REJECT when front-end MTA
$final_spam_destiny = D_DISCARD;
$final_bad_header_destiny = D_PASS; # False-positive prone (for spam)

1) Does this mean that anything with a score over 8 will go the quarantine?
2) What happens emails with a score over 10? Do they get discarded or do
they go to the quarantine?
3) What happens emails with a score over 15? Do they get discarded or do
they go to the quarantine?

My aim is to have nothing discarded, I would like all suspected emails
to go to the quarantine and have users decide before whether they get
discarded or not. Do I have the correct settings for that?

Thanks,
Patrick

[Simon Brereton]

On 4 May 2013 05:15, "Patrick Joy" <pa...@paddyjoy.com> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I have just configured amavis-new (2.5.3) and spamassassin (3.2.5) and integrated with postfix (2.5.1). I have linked amavis to mysql also.
>
> Everything seems to working fine, spam headers are being added and some mail is going the the quarantine however I would appreciate it anyone could answer the following questions about the behaviour of the quarantine.
>
> I have the following settings:
>
> $sa_spam_subject_tag = '***SPAM*** ';
> $sa_tag_level_deflt  = -9999;  # add spam info headers if at, or above that level
> $sa_tag2_level_deflt = 8; # add 'spam detected' headers at that level

Email will have ***SPAM*** added to the subject..

> $sa_kill_level_deflt = 10; # triggers spam evasive actions

Email will quarantine..

> $sa_dsn_cutoff_level = 15;   # spam level beyond which a DSN is not sent

Email will be discarded. Sender will not be notified.  See $final_spam_destiny       = D_DISCARD;

[Patrick Joy]

Thanks Simon,

So if I don't want anything to be discarded I should increase $sa_dsn_cutoff_level to something large like 9999?

Patrick

[Patrick Joy]

On 4 May 2013 11:31, "Patrick Joy" <pa...@paddyjoy.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks Simon,
>
> So if I don't want anything to be discarded I should increase $sa_dsn_cutoff_level to something large like 9999?

Please don't top post..

Yes, or I believe just comment the line out.

Thanks I'll experiment with both.

For what it's worth I've never seen a legitimate mail with a spamassassin score over 15.  I can't imagine why you'd want to not discard them. 

That's good to know! The main reason I want to keep them all is because customers can be funny sometimes, one missing email (legitimate or not) and they will be up in arms.

Simon

[Simon Brereton]

For what it's worth I've never seen a legitimate mail with a spamassassin score over 15.  I can't imagine why you'd want to not discard them. 

Simon

[Simon Brereton]

On 4 May 2013 12:02, "Patrick Joy" <pa...@paddyjoy.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 04/05/13 19:44, Simon Brereton wrote:
>>

> Thanks I'll experiment with both.
>

>> For what it's worth I've never seen a legitimate mail with a spamassassin score over 15.  I can't imagine why you'd want to not discard them. 
>

> That's good to know! The main reason I want to keep them all is because customers can be funny sometimes, one missing email (legitimate or not) and they will be up in arms.

But it's your responsibility as a service provider (which if you have customers is what you are) to also protect them.  And us.  And you.

Assume I'm wrong and only most email 15 and over is spam... the ones you're quarantining for them to look at contain phishing links and viruses/Trojans, whether by payload or link.  Now if your customer is not educated to appreciate that smtp is an unreliable communications protocol, they are probably also likely to click on Trojan installers and respond to phishing attacks.

Now their network is compromised, or your machine is spewing spam and in a blacklist.   Now all your other customers are mad and you have much bigger problems than a missing email (which might have gone missing for any number of reasons out of your control).

In short, yes, you have to, as a service provider, provide reliability.  But as with any it service you have to balance the wants of a few against the security of many.

It's of course your machine, your customer and most important of all, your policy.  I'm not mandating what you should or should not do, but have a think about it and the implications and look at the risk/reward.

Good luck!

Simon

[John Hinton]

Studies have been done and if I recall the numbers... 'people' given all their mail to filter make 4 mistakes in 1000 emails. If you can reduce that 1000 number by removing most of what is scored highly as spam, the 'maybe spam' left in their spam box leads to more accurate recovery of ham by a human. So, yes, it is proven that at a certain level of filtering, accurate delivery of email to the Inbox increases. Will they complain when the one is missed? Yes. Will it be your filter? Only on very rare occasions. Are these the same people that complain to you about too much spam? Generally yes.

Now... if you could please stop spamming my Inbox by CCing the amavisd list instead of replying to the amavis list so that my mail filters work. I would appreciate that as well.

John