spamassassin
SPAMASSASSIN(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation SPAMASSASSIN(1)
NAME
spamassassin - mail filter to identify spam using text analysis
SYNOPSIS
spamassassin [options] [ < mailmessage │ path ... ]
spamassassin -d [ < mailmessage │ path ... ]
spamassassin -r [ < mailmessage │ path ... ]
spamassassin -k [ < mailmessage │ path ... ]
spamassassin -W│-R [ < mailmessage │ path ... ]
Options:
-L, --local Local tests only (no online tests)
-r, --report Report message as spam
-k, --revoke Revoke message as spam
-d, --remove-markup Remove spam reports from a message
-C path, --configpath=path, --config-file=path
Path to standard configuration dir
-p prefs, --prefspath=file, --prefs-file=file
Set user preferences file
--siteconfigpath=path Path for site configs
(def: /etc/mail/spamassassin)
-x, --nocreate-prefs Don’t create user preferences file
-e, --exit-code Exit with a non-zero exit code if the
tested message was spam
--mbox read in messages in mbox format
--mbx read in messages in UW mbx format
-t, --test-mode Pipe message through and add extra
report to the bottom
--lint Lint the rule set: report syntax errors
-W, --add-to-whitelist Add addresses in mail to whitelist (AWL)
--add-to-blacklist Add addresses in mail to blacklist (AWL)
-R, --remove-from-whitelist Remove all addresses found in mail
from whitelist (AWL)
--add-addr-to-whitelist=addr Add addr to whitelist (AWL)
--add-addr-to-blacklist=addr Add addr to blacklist (AWL)
--remove-addr-from-whitelist=addr Remove addr from whitelist (AWL)
-D, --debug [area=n,...] Print debugging messages
-V, --version Print version
-h, --help Print usage message
DESCRIPTION
SpamAssassin is a mail filter to identify spam using text analysis and
several internet-based realtime blacklists.
Using its rule base, it uses a wide range of heuristic tests on mail
headers and body text to identify "spam", also known as unsolicited
commercial email.
Once identified, the mail is then tagged as spam for later filtering
using the user’s own mail user-agent application.
SpamAssassin also includes support for reporting spam messages to col-
laborative filtering databases, such as Vipul’s Razor (
http://razor.sourceforge.net/ ).
The default tagging operations that take place are detailed in "TAG-
GING".
By default, message(s) are read in from STDIN (< mailmessage), or from
specified files and directories (path ...) STDIN and files are assumed
to be in file format, with a single message per file. Directories are
assumed to be in a format where each file in the directory contains
only one message (directories are not recursed and filenames containing
whitespace or beginning with "." or "," are skipped). The options
--mbox and --mbx can override the assumed format, see the appropriate
OPTION information below.
OPTIONS
-e, --error-code, --exit-code
Exit with a non-zero error code, if the message is determined to be
spam.
-h, --help
Print help message and exit.
-t, --test-mode
Test mode. Pipe message through and add extra report. Note that
the report text assumes that the message is spam, since in normal
use it is only visible in this case. Pay attention to the score
instead.
If you run this with -d, the message will first have SpamAssassin
markup removed before being tested.
If you run tests with the auto-whitelist enabled, the score result
will be added to the AWL. This may not be what you want to do. If
it is not, then disable the auto-whitelist.
-r, --report
Report this message as manually-verified spam. This will submit
the mail message read from STDIN to various spam-blocker databases.
Currently, these are the Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse
"http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/dcc/", Pyzor
"http://pyzor.sourceforge.net/", Vipul’s Razor
"http://razor.sourceforge.net/", and SpamCop "http://www.spam-
cop.net/".
If the message contains SpamAssassin markup, the markup will be
stripped out automatically before submission. The support modules
for DCC, Pyzor, and Razor must be installed for spam to be reported
to each service. SpamCop reports will have greater effect if you
register and set the "spamcop_to_address" option.
The message will also be submitted to SpamAssassin’s learning sys-
tems; currently this is the internal Bayesian statistical-filtering
system (the BAYES rules). (Note that if you only want to perform
statistical learning, and do not want to report mail to third-par-
ties, you should use the "sa-learn" command directly instead.)
-k, --revoke
Revoke this message. This will revoke the mail message read from
STDIN from various spam-blocker databases. Currently, these are
Vipul’s Razor.
Revocation support for the Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse,
Pyzor, and SpamCop is not currently available.
If the message contains SpamAssassin markup, the markup will be
stripped out automatically before submission. The support modules
for Razor must be installed for spam to be revoked from the ser-
vice.
The message will also be submitted as ’ham’ (non-spam) to
SpamAssassin’s learning systems; currently this is the internal
Bayesian statistical-filtering system (the BAYES rules). (Note
that if you only want to perform statistical learning, and do not
want to report mail to third-parties, you should use the "sa-learn"
command directly instead.)
--lint
Syntax check (lint) the rule set and configuration files, reporting
typos and rules that do not compile correctly. Exits immediately
with 0 if there are no errors, or greater than 0 if any errors are
found.
-W, --add-to-whitelist
Add all email addresses, in the headers and body of the mail mes-
sage read from STDIN, to the automatic whitelist. Note that you
must be running "spamassassin" or "spamd" with the auto-whitelist
enabled for this to work.
--add-to-blacklist
Add all email addresses, in the headers and body of the mail mes-
sage read from STDIN, to the automatic whitelist with a high score
(ensuring they will be ’’blacklisted’’). Note that you must be
running "spamassassin" or "spamd" with the auto-whitelist enabled.
-R, --remove-from-whitelist
Remove all email addresses, in the headers and body of the mail
message read from STDIN, from the automatic whitelist. STDIN must
contain a full email message, so to remove a single address you
should use --remove-addr-from-whitelist instead.
Note that you must be running "spamassassin" or "spamd" with the
auto-whitelist enabled.
--add-addr-to-whitelist
Add the named email address to the automatic whitelist. Note that
you must be running "spamassassin" or "spamd" with the auto-
whitelist enabled.
--add-addr-to-blacklist
Add the named email address to the automatic whitelist with a high
score (ensuring they will be ’’blacklisted’’). Note that you must
be running "spamassassin" or "spamd" with the auto-whitelist
enabled.
--remove-addr-from-whitelist
Remove the named email address from the automatic whitelist. Note
that you must be running "spamassassin" or "spamd" with the auto-
whitelist enabled.
-L, --local
Do only the ’’local’’ tests, ones that do not require an internet
connection to operate. Normally, SpamAssassin will try to detect
whether you are connected to the net before doing these tests any-
way, but for faster checks you may wish to use this.
Note that SpamAssassin’s network rules are run in parallel. This
can cause overhead in terms of the number of file descriptors
required if --local is not used; it is recommended that the minimum
limit on fds be raised to at least 256 for safety.
-d, --remove-markup
Remove SpamAssassin markup (the "SpamAssassin results" report,
X-Spam-Status headers, etc.) from the mail message. The resulting
message, which will be more or less identical to the original, pre-
SpamAssassin input, will be output to STDOUT.
(Note: the message will not be exactly identical; some headers will
be reformatted due to some features of the Mail::Internet package,
but the body text will be.)
-C path, --configpath=path, --config-file=path
Use the specified path for locating the distributed configuration
files. Ignore the default directories (usually "/usr/share/spamas-
sassin" or similar).
--siteconfigpath=path
Use the specified path for locating site-specific configuration
files. Ignore the default directories (usually "/etc/mail/spamas-
sassin" or similar).
-p prefs, --prefspath=prefs, --prefs-file=prefs
Read user score preferences from prefs (usually "$HOME/.spamassas-
sin/user_prefs").
-D [area=n,...], --debug [area=n,...]
Produce diagnostic output. The level of diagnostic output can be
set for each area separately; area is the area of the code to
instrument, and n is a positive or negative number indicating the
debug level or bitmask for that area of code. For example, to pro-
duce diagnostic output on all rules that hit, use:
spamassassin -D rulesrun=255
-x, --nocreate-prefs
Disable creation of user preferences file.
--mbox
Specify that the input message(s) are in mbox format. mbox is a
standard Unix message folder format.
--mbx
Specify that the input message(s) are in UW .mbx format. mbx is
the mailbox format used within the University of Washington’s IMAP
implementation; see "http://www.washington.edu/imap/".
CONFIGURATION FILES
The rule base, text templates, and rule description text are loaded
from the configuration files.
By default, configuration data is loaded from the first existing direc-
tory in: /usr/share/spamassassin; /usr/share/spamassassin;
/usr/local/share/spamassassin; /usr/share/spamassassin .
Site-specific configuration data is used to override any values which
had already been set. This is loaded from the first existing directory
in: /etc/mail/spamassassin; /usr/etc/mail/spamassassin; /usr/etc/spa-
massassin; /usr/local/etc/spamassassin; /usr/pkg/etc/spamassassin;
/usr/etc/spamassassin; /etc/mail/spamassassin; /etc/spamassassin .
Spamassassin will read *.cf in these directories, in alphanumeric order
within each directory (similar to SysV-style startup scripts). In
other words, it will read 10_misc.cf before 50_scores.cf and
20_body_tests.cf before 20_head_test.cf. Options in later files will
override earlier files.
The user preferences (such as scores to attach to each rule), are
loaded from the file specified in the -p argument. If this is not
specified, ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs is used if it exists. "spamas-
sassin" will create this file if it does not exist, using
user_prefs.template as a template. This file will be looked for in:
/etc/mail/spamassassin; /usr/etc/mail/spamassassin; /usr/share/spamas-
sassin; /etc/spamassassin; /etc/mail/spamassassin;
/usr/local/share/spamassassin; /usr/share/spamassassin.
TAGGING
The following two sections detail the tagging that takes place for mes-
sages.
Note that if you use the -t argument, all mails will be tagged as if
they are spam messages.
TAGGING FOR SPAM MAILS
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 and easier to recover).
The new report message inherits the following headers (if they are
present) from the original spam message:
Subject: header
From: header
To: header
The above headers can be modified if the relavent "rewrite_header"
option is given.
Cc: header
Date: header
And (by default) these headers are added:
X-Spam-Status: header
A string, "Yes, score=nn required=nn tests=xxx,xxx
autolearn=(ham│spam│no│unavailable│failed)" is set in this header
to reflect the filter status.
X-Spam-Flag: header
Set to "YES".
X-Spam-Report: header
Please note that the headers that added are now fully configurable via
the add_header option. Please see the manpage for Mail::SpamAssas-
sin::Conf(3) for more information.
spam mail body text
The SpamAssassin report is added to top of the mail message body,
if the message is marked as spam.
DEFAULT TAGGING FOR HAM (NON-SPAM) MAILS
X-Spam-Status: header
A string, "No, score=nn required=nn tests=xxx,xxx
autolearn=(ham│spam│no│unavailable│failed)" is set in this header
to reflect the filter status.
Added headers are fully configurable via the add_header configuration
option. Please see the manpage for Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf(3) for more
information.
INSTALLATION
The spamassassin command is part of the Mail::SpamAssassin Perl module.
Install this as a normal Perl module, using "perl -MCPAN -e shell", or
by hand.
For further details on how to install, please read the "INSTALL" file
from the SpamAssassin distribution.
SEE ALSO
sa-learn(1) spamd(1) spamc(1) Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf(3) Mail::SpamAs-
sassin(3)
PREREQUISITES
"Mail::SpamAssassin"
BUGS
See <http://bugzilla.spamassassin.org/>
AUTHORS
The SpamAssassin(tm) Project <http://spamassassin.apache.org/>
COPYRIGHT
SpamAssassin is distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0, as
described in the file "LICENSE" included with the distribution.
perl v5.8.6 2005-11-08 SPAMASSASSIN(1)
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