spam scores in message headers (script)

Hi all,

The first version of my script to rewrite spam messages is now online.

http://www.euregio.net/joe/postoffice/spamsort.html

What the script does:

- it scans your local spam-catcher mailbox through a cron job - found messages can be run through SpamAssassin again to add a spam report - found messages can just get their subject rewritten (which is faster) - the messages are re-distributed to their original local recipient - re-distribution can be done to the original POP3 inbox or a separate folder which is accessible by an IMAP client - messages from the spam-catcher mailbox are deleted after processing - the scanning/rewrite process can be limited to just some mailboxes

These options can be enabled and disabled in the script.

There is an online wizard which makes configuration of the script quite easy.

Why would you use this script?

Let's imagine you run a Post.Office mail server with several hundred accounts. You've setup SpamAssassin on that server to filter out unwanted messages. However as a conscientious postmaster, you decided to collect all filtered messages in a local mailbox for manual review. Any false positives are forwarded by you to their original recipient.

After a while, there are hundreds of messages waiting for a manual review. It's time consuming and there is still a chance that you miss a false positive after a red-eyed programming session.

It would be so much easier if Post.Office could rewrite the message subjects and put the messages into the original recipient's mailboxes making your manual review obsolete.

This scenario is quite likely -- it's what's happening around our office. So I decided to write the script which scans the spam-catcher mailbox and then re-distributes the messages back into the original mailboxes with a changed subject.

However there are a few clients who can't care less about any false positives, so there is a possibility to exclude those accounts from the redistribution.

After I hinted on this mailing list that I was working on such a script, I received a lot of interest (even from Tenon :-)). So I spent the last 10 hours working on this script and testing it. The first public release is now available on my Post.Office tips and tricks web site.

http://www.euregio.net/joe/postoffice/

The documentation is still a little bit rough around the edges but I think if you've got some experience with running shell scripts, you can manage to install the script and get it working on your server.

Running all filtered messages through SpamAssassin again is not a very elegant solution but it gets the job done (taking quite some time). Therefore there is still the original subject rewrite option in the script which works quite fast.

How the messages will be analyzed by SpamAssassin depends on your setup. It looks at the current SpamAssassin configuration which is also used by Post.Office. I might add some more features (such as a separate SA config file) when I see enough interest in the script.

A quick hint, make sure your SpamAssassin configuration (/etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf) uses following commands:

rewrite_subject 1
always_add_headers      1
subject_tag     *****SPAM*****
report_safe     1
use_terse_report        0

If you are adventurous you can also play around with the SpamAssassin report settings...

Comments, feedback and donations are welcome... ;-)

Joe.

PS: Use with care. It's been tested on our server and I tried to make sure it works on other systems as well but you never know... therefore I suggest you play around with it and just include your own mailbox for starters.

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Jochen Savelberg | Euregio.Net AG | domain registrations, co-location
joe@xxxxxxxxxxx  | Wirtzfeld 140  | hosting, marketing, entertainment
Online Producer  | 4760 Bullingen | consulting, training, development
MIS/IT Director  | Belgium        |      http://www.euregio.net
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Internet Services since 1995 - AFS-Returnee '93, Belgium to Australia
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