SOLVED CPANEL-24637 Configuring Calculated Spam Score Settings for SpamAssassin

[aztopdavid]

In previous versions of cPanel, when analyzing an email I considered to be a false positive, I'd look at the content analysis details found in the X-Spam-Report header, and if I saw a particular SA test that's not helpful in my situation, I'd go into the SpamAssassin configuration in cPanel (now called "Spam Filters") and zero out the scoring for that particular test. Here are just a few that I had previously set to 0:

ACT_NOW_CAPS
CK_HELO_GENERIC
DEAR_FRIEND
KAM_ADVERT2

However, I went in to override the score for SB_GIF_AND_NO_URIS today and found that the my list of "Spam Testing Scores" (found in Spam Filters > Additional Configurations > Configure Calculated Spam Score Settings) are all showing with a value of "1" in the score column, and I can't change any of them to zero. When I try that, and click on "Update Scoring Options," I get a green confirmation popup, but when I go back in and view the settings, they're not changed to 0, or have only changed to 0.999. I tried removing one of the entries and used "Add a new 'scores' item" to add it back with a value of 0, but it wound up with a non-zero value. When I tried adding SB_GIF_AND_NO_URIS with a value of zero, it wound up with a value of 2.199.

Does anyone know how I can regain control of configuring my own values for specific SA tests (setting them to 0 in most cases)?

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @aztopdavid


I'm finding that the score can't be just 0. I did some testing on this and found you can do 0.001 but not 0, though I do see that when I attempt to enter in .00001 I get a warning that indicates the nearest valid value is is 0 or .0001.

Either way I see this as something that needs a case, either we need to remove the warning or you need to be able to enter a value of 0. I'll be opening that and I'll update here with the CaseID as soon as I have it for you!

 

[aztopdavid]

Thanks, I forgot to give my cPanel/WHM version of v76.0.14. I tried entering .001 and 0.001 and managed to get one of the tests to accept that value and show it when going back into the Calculated Spam Score Settings screen, but only in Chrome and not in Firefox, where it still shows as 0.999. Firefox handles some form field interactions differently -- when it's a numerical entry box, it adds up/down value arrows and I don't know if that's screwing things up or if it's a browser cache issue (I'll test that in a moment). UPDATE: apparently, changes to those values aren't immediately processed, but appear to await some sort of periodic chron job, as it's now 10-15 minutes later and they're all reading as 0.001 in both Firefox and Chrome.

I have analyzed the headers of some of my mail, and sure enough, all those tests that I had previously zeroed out have been getting valued at 1.0. For example "PYZOR_CHECK" is valued at 2.0 by default and it was causing false positives, so I set it to 0 but after the change in cPanel's SA interactions, it's being scored as 1.0, along with 30 other SA tests that I had zeroed out. This is affecting all the domains on my server, but thankfully, I've only made SA test edits on a few of them.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @aztopdavid


I got a case opened for this today - CPANEL-24637 and I'll continue to update here with the progress of that.

I did find during my testing that while you can update /home/$user/.spamassassin/user_prefs to manually disable those tests (just set them to 0) it won't be reflected as such in the UI, instead it will show 1.

Thank you for all the information and I'll update you as soon as I have any updates on the internal case.

Thanks!

 

[Gino Viroli]

FYI the issue is still there on cPanel v78.0.20

FYI2 it worked after deleting manually via FTP some rules into /home/$user/.spamassassin/user_prefs and then set them again from cPanel interface "cPanel > Email > Spam Filters > Additional Configurations (For Advanced Users) > Calculated Spam Score Settings"

 

[aztopdavid]

Here's another behavior clarification about making edits to the "Spam Testing Scores." After adding a new custom score and saving, the customized value (whether it be 0.001 or something higher) won't necessarily display right away unless I tell the browser to refresh the page, which then results in the display of the updated (or new) value. This despite the appearance in the UI that things are refreshing after the initial transaction. That's buggy UI behavior in my opinion.

 

[friedmayofan]

Thanks for updating aztopdavid,
I'm having weird issues like this on cpanel 70.0.68
However, the tests had updated for a while... hitting some spam... then, about 10 minutes later they were back to their old settings... (defaults). In my case I'm trying to increase a) spam tagging threshold from 3 to 5 (all headers for users are reporting 3.0, but cpanel UI is CLAIMING it's 5 by default... interacting with this does nothing...), and b) values for blocklists and a few other tests that are super popular for my main user right now. We'll see if they stick... or revert...

 

[aztopdavid]

I'm at cPanel 80.0 (build 18) and am not experiencing any problem with instability of the settings. I have mine set to tag at 2 and auto-delete at 5, but I've had to add a lot of calculated spam score customizations (36) to avoid false positives. I hope your situation stabilizes.

 

[cPanelLauren]

This was fixed in cPanel v80 - I apologize for not updating this thread sooner. Glad to hear that you're no longer experiencing the issue as well @aztopdavid!