Email Filters and Spam Assassin

[davidinperth]

Hi All, This is my first post so hopefully I will correctly adhere to to the guidelines!

I currently have two cPanel services with different providers. One is v102.0.18 (was v94.0.24) and the other is v104.0.3.

On the newer version if I create an email filter that checks the 'Spam Bar' for '+' it doesn't work because Spam Assassin hasn't assigned a score to the email headers at the time the filter checks. If the filter is not there, then the spam assassin score is assigned as normal. If I create a filter prior to the Spam Bar check that 'pipes to program' and causes a short delay but then fails with a bounceback, the Spam Bar check then works as expected.

On the older versions (both) this type of filter with spam assassin works as expected.

I have had a support query lodged with the provider of the newer version for over a month and they have been unable to identify why this might be happening. Can anyone provide any guidance, suggestions or assistance please?

Many Thanks, David

 

[cPRex]

Hey there! It's always possible there was a regression in that particular behavior in version 104. If you have root access to the server, could you submit a ticket to our team directly so we can examine your machine?

 

[davidinperth]

Thank you - I don't believe I have root access but I have forwarded your response onto the provider with a link to this case and hopefully they can work with you to identify the issue.

 

[ehardin]

When setting up an email filter for Spam Score higher than...do I use the spam status score= or the Spam-Score. For instance, if I want to delete any email with a spam status score= 12.0 / Spam-Status: 120, do I set the value of the filter to 12 or to 120? I have been Googling for 30 minitutes and cannot find this stated anywhere.

 

[cPRex]

Where are you trying to make this change? You should just have one option in the cPanel interface that looks like the attached screenshot where you can choose the value from the dropdown.

 

[ehardin]

I'm not trying to adjust the spam threshold. I am trying to filter email. So I am going to Email Filter and setting the Rules as Spam Score / is above (numbers only) and then I am supposed to enter a value but there are 2 possible values I could use, spam status score= and Spam-Score: So If I want to delete everything over a certain score do I use 12 or 120 in this case?

 

[cPRex]

Thanks for the clarification. You'd want to use 12 for that value. Let us know if that doesn't work as expected!

 

[ehardin]

Thanks. This was confusing. I originally started with a filter that set Spam Score is above 60 move to folder /spam and, sure enough, all email with a Spam Score above 60 were sent to /spam. I then created a second email filter for Spam Score is above 120 Discard Message which I assume means delete message. But this morning the /spam folder had many emails that were above 120. That is when I thought about the Spam Status score= but then why does my first email filter work with the 60 instead of 6. I'll try it out. My only other thought is that it is the order of the filters. So maybe the "above 60" is moving everthing to /spam and so there is nothing left for the 2nd filter of over 120 to delete. I'll keep playing around.

 

[cPRex]

That's correct - the filters do process in order, so the order they are arranged in matters.

 

[ehardin]

I don't know. My results are not making any sense. As it stands right now I have email filter #1 as SPAM SCORE is above 120 copy to the /junk folder. Email filter #2 is SPAM SCORE is above 60 copy to /spam folder. In the /junk folder I have emails with spam scores of say 90 / 9.0 and in the /spam folder I have emails with spam scores of 160 / 16.0. As far as all email above 60 being kept from my Inbox, that works but why are the 2 email filters not firing in sync one after the other. I want to delete anything above 120 but if the filter is catching some below 120 I can't trust to delete them.

 

[cPRex]

If you have full root access to the server, you can always submit a ticket with our team so we can take a look!