User Guide?

[iantresman]

Have just purchased and installed MagicSpam. Is there a user guide?

Where can I find information on the different options on the Spam Policies screen? I note the which explains what the option does, but not why I might want to enable/disable it.

[magicspam]

Hello iantresman,

Thank you for your post.

Please note that we do not yet have a detailed guide for MagicSpam as MagicSpam is expected to work well straight out of the box and information in each policy is readily available in the MagicSpam admin-interface panel as you mentioned. That said, for your convenience we are providing you some helpful information below.

When the MagicSpam is first installed it will protect your customers based on the default, policies enabled on the global level (Spam Policies and IP reputation under the Anti-Spam in the MagicSpam admin-interface panel). You can enable additional policies to your liking from the Anti-Spam tab, or simply enable desired package for your customers from the Packages tab and your customers will have their own, MagicSpam user interface panel in their cPanel. Apart from own MagicSpam panel, they will also have additional policies enabled, noted under:

Anti-Spam / User Settings

In order to properly configure MagicSpam for your system, we would suggest running MagicSpam with default recommended policies first and then, based on the logs, enable, disable or enable in "FLAG" mode
policies that are not working as expected for the type of spam sent to your server.

MagicSpam PRO offers an advanced “FLAG” feature that allows you to have detected spam messages only flagged for quarantine and delivered to the customer's Inbox or “Spam” folder instead of rejecting them right away.

You can simply configure any of the available Server Policies or BMS lists in the “FLAG” mode to ensure that if that policy is triggered, the message will be accepted for delivery.

Once you have enabled message flagging for a desired policy or BMS list, please review and adjust flag settings from the:

Anti-Spam (Settings) / System / 'Options' / “Advanced Options”

section in MagicSpam admin-interface panel.

There you have the option to rewrite the subject of the incoming local or remote messages with the “Rewrite Subject Text” and such messages will be delivered to the customer's Inbox.

If you prefer such messages to go directly to the customer's Spam folder, please enable “Deliver to Spam Folder” option.

In case the initial message was rejected due to the policy being fully enabled ("ON"), you can find out what policy has been triggered, in the
log search results - please note the “Type” field.

For any policy or BMS list listed in the logs in the square brackets, you can find the corresponding rule name under the "Spam Policies" or BMS list name under the "IP Reputation" section in MagicSpam
admin-interface panel in the Anti-Spam tab.

To find out what policy or BMS list has been triggered , from the Log Search results you can note the policy type - for example you would compare the block_list (41)) with the "List Number:" number under the
policy name in the:

Anti-Spam / IP Reputation

tab in MagicSpam admin interface panel.

That way you can see which BMS/RBL has been triggered by checking the number next to the policy - "(List Number: x)", in this case 41 represents MIPSpace-Poor BMS list.

Same goes for the server policies, except the value you will be looking for is under the "Rule Name:" in the:

Anti-Spam / Spam Policies

Please note that MagicSpam will send the rejection notification that will provide more information to the sender as to why their message was
rejected.

e.g:
host local.tld [10.10.10.10]
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<user@local.tld>:
550-5.5.1 Server IP 1.2.3.4 listed as abusive. See
550-http://spamauditor.org/best-practices/ip-reputation/ for more
information.
550 Protection provided by MagicSpam 2.1-8.5
http://www.magicspam.com

For your information, please get familiar with best practices for email and network operators in the spam auditor blog below:

http://spamauditor.org/best-practices/

In summary, if the message has not been delivered to the intended recipient, please check which policy or BMS list has been triggered and notify the sender about it so they can submit request for delisting or
fix the issue that caused their message to be rejected. Alternatively, you can enable such policy in the "FLAG" mode to ensure that messages that trigger that policy are delivered to the customer's Spam folder
for review.

Flagged messages are logged with the "QUARANTINE" type field in the MagicSpam logs search results.

Just for the record, there are three states a rule or policy can be set
as:

ON – The policy or rule is strictly enforced and all triggered
emails get quarantined
FLAG – The policy or rule is strictly enforced but it will only
flag an email as spam
OFF – The policy or rule will not be used to trigger spam hits

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For the uncaught spam issues, please note that when configuring settings in your MagicSpam, not all email servers will be exposed to the same spam, and in order to configure MagicSpam settings that work
the best for you and your customers, you may want to analyze the uncaught spam messages and corresponding logs.

Once you have more information on the spam message, you can then simply enable additional policies and/or BMS/IP Reputation Lists in MagicSpam, which will prevent such spam messages in the future.

To find more information on messages, you can use the Log Search tab in MagicSpam admin interface-panel.

Once you have accessed the log searches from the “Log” tab, you will have to find the log entries related to the uncaught spam messages in question.

For more precise log search, look for more information about the sender in the message headers and add it to empty fields in the log search.

For example, to find the corresponding logs for the senders based on the sending address, look for the sender's original email address in the following message header:

Return-Path:

Once you have noted the email address specified in the “Return-Path:” header, you can use it with the log search. In addition, you can use the sender's IP address for easier searches.

The best way to find out how to improve your MagicSpam filtering is by using our new "Replay" feature. For more information on this feature, please check the following FAQ article:

viewtopic.php?f=55&t=237202

In addition, please note that MagicSpam works very well in combination with content filters such as SpamAssassin and you are more than welcome to enable it with your MagicSpam to block any messages that get trough MagicSpam.

That way MagicSpam will reject the most of the massages before they get into your system, and SpamAssassin will filter the ones that do pass MagicSpam.

In fact, many MagicSpam users do enable SpamAssassin or other content filtering products to provide anti-spam protection through content-filtering while MagicSpam provides Best-Practices and IP reputation based anti-spam protection.

Also, please note that our MagicSpam PRO customers also have access to our own content filtering rules, which work with SpamAssassin. You can
enable MagicSpam custom rules from:

Anti-Spam / SpamAssassin

tab in MagicSpam admin-interface panel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

We hope that you will find these guides helpful - please let us know if you have any further questions.

[iantresman]

Thank for that, quick and thorough!

[magicspam]

Hello iantresman,

You are very welcome; we are always happy to assist.

[dcol]

I have MagicSpam Plus and do not see the Spamassissin tab under Anti-Spam.

[magicspam]

Hello dcol,

The MagicSpam Custom SpamAssassin Rules are not yet available on the PLUS versions, only the PRO versions currently have access to the feature. We will bring this to the attention of our product team for further consideration. Which MagicSpam PLUS product are you using?

Thank you.