Spam is one of the most annoying things on the internet. To prevent your inbox from being cluttered with spam you can turn on the spamfilter. The Primerelay spamfilter checks every e-mail on content and sender. Based on the results of these checks each mail will be given a score. The higher the score, the more marks of spam have been found. The standard score which makes an e-mail count as spam is set at 5 points. Most 'legitimate' e-mail will score between 0 and 2 points, so there is a margin for errors before a regular e-mail is treated as spam.
The Primerelay spamfilter offers several options to deal with spam you receive in your mailbox. The filter options can be managed per emailaddress or on a domainwide basis (so that all addresses will use the same filter setup). You can easily change them yourself in the Primerelay CCC. However, before changing the options please read the explanations below. By default the filter only tags spam with an extra header.
Despite the fact that the Primerelay spamfilter is very advanced and its performance is monitored continuously, it is impossible to offer a filter that catches all spam.
Tagging only
With the tagging only option the Primerelay spamfilter will add an extra line to the headers of your email. This line can look like this:
X-PR-SpamCheck: 2.785 (xx) NO_REAL_NAME,PR_RCVD_IN_XBLThe header consists of the headername, the score, a textual representation of the score and the tests on which the email failed. With this header you can filter your e-mail in your own mailprogram, for example move them to a different folder. This is the default filteroption.
Standard Profile
The standard profile moves all e-mail with a score of five or more points to a seperate spam folder. You can access this folder with Primerelay Secure Webmail. E-mail in the spam folder older than 1 month will automatically be removed. With this profile you will not lose any e-mail and the chance that legitimate e-mail will be filed in the spamfolder is very small.
Safe blocking profile
This profile looks alot like the default profile, with the difference that is blocks all e-mail that scores more than 10 points. These messages will not end up in the spam-folder, but will be blocked directly on the mailserver. Only e-mail with a score between 5 and 10 points will be filed in the spam-folder. WARNING: Blocked e-mail cannot be recovered!
Rigid blocking profile
With this profile you will block all e-mail which scores more than 5 points, the standard Primerelay non-spam/spam threshold. No e-mail will be filed in the spam-folder. WARNING: Blocked e-mail cannot be recovered!
Custom profile
With the custom profile you can set your own non-spam - spam threshold and define what should be done with detected spam. The following examples show the possibilities:
- You can set the non-spam/spam threshold to 7 points, so that e-mail will be counted as spam and moved to the spam folder when it reaches the 7 points score. To set this up, check the first option (Save in spam folder) and set the score to 7.
- You want to block all e-mail that scores more than 10 points and have other e-mail delivered in your inbox. For this check the second option (Block) and set the score to 10. All e-mail that scores more than 10 points will be blocked by the mailserver and never reach your inbox or spam-folder.
- A combination of the above is also possible. For example, you want all e-mail which scores more than 6 points to be filed in your spam-folder and all e-mail that reaches 11 or more points to be blocked. Check both options (Save in spam folder and Block) and set the score of the first to 6 and the score of the second to 11. This way all email which scores between 6 and 11 points will be filed in your spam-folder and all e-mail that scores more than 11 points will be blocked on the mailserver.
