email filters

[lucyKATmom]

I have >20 sites spread over 7 different servers and multiple e-mail accounts to look after for both customers (nursing homes, restaurants) and non-profit organizations (healthcare fundraisers, etc) where I donate my time to support there sites.

There are some email accounts that are getting lots of SPAM and I have set the spf protections, used the existing SPAM filters on the servers and there is still a lot of unacceptable stuff getting through.

I opened a ticket on the support system and I was told that I need to create one filter for each word per e-mail account per each section of the message I wish to ban. Obviously not for me so far.

Is there any way I can create a list of 'the words' I wish to ban so that I can copy and paste that same list. Maybe an 'or' between each word???

Hopefully someone can tell me how to put together a text file or something that will allow me to be a bit more efficient.

Thanks in advance for any hope you can offer me.

[Programmer]

I could not find the filter files in the mail directory.

You could create a script which searches the email directories for new files containing violating keyword/phrases, then move/delete the spam. Use one keyword list for all emails on a hosting account. Run this with a cron job every 10-30 minutes.

Otherwise, the email users can manually forward the spam to one account where you can add the filters as they are received.

All the best!
~ Aaron

[lucyKATmom]

Thank You Aaron

I understand the concept of your approach and it sounds like a viable solution if I had the scripting capabilities.

Unfortunately right now I only have a list of words and phrases I would like to use in the process.

Perhaps one of the admins could direct me to a more specific script that would be acceptable to run?

[Programmer]

Milen is usually all over these posts, where is he?

As you described and from looking at the way the filters are added, that really is a lot of work. A server wide filter is what you need and me too.

When I get some free time (this week) I am going to try and implement this scripting solution. I'll be more than happy to share

~ Aaron

[lucyKATmom]

ticket answer

I have continued my question through the 'ticket' process.

the answer was..

Please note that we cannot assist you on the creation of such script. If you have one of your own, we can tall you if it meets the server configuration.

I have hope we can find some solution soon. The answer was not NO!

Perhaps we need a "family friendly, grandma safe" group to help get a simple script that could check the message body for the offenders on an hourly basis.

That would be a starting point I could live with for now.

[Milen]

Sorry, but I cannot be of much help here. I cannot direct you to a script that would do what you want. I can only suggest the following – if you use Mozilla Thunderbird to check your mail, it included a good mail filter creation tool, after you create the mail filter you want you could use the following add-on to export/import the mail filter you have created to the mail accounts you want. Alternatively, if you are not bothered by potential privacy implications, you could forward your mail accounts to Gmail, which has excellent anti-spam filters. I know that a server-side solution would be much better, but unfortunately I cannot offer one.

[lucyKATmom]

My customers won't get it

Since I have some non-profit groups using volunteers, they have people with minimal PC skills.

We need to elevate the priority of this kind of problem and have this be a service improvement initiative. PLEASE.

Knowing that there would be considerable server resources running scripts that are unique and probably scheduled poorly; I think there may be a partnership opportunity between resellers and the administrators that would result in something that works well.

The efficiency from a server administrator perspective is a critical factor in any SPAM fighting solution.

How can we help?

[Programmer]

As long as the email directories are available to the script, I think this could be done. I noticed the directory/file structure changes from email account creation to using the email from the different control panels.

Tell me how you imagine this working. You want an easy to use solution. Overwrite the filter file by ftp upload, or, have the email users login and add filter suggestions themselves and approved by you (or an admin user)?

Now I'm excited to attempt creating this script and that's why I program.

[lucyKATmom]

Kiss

The "naughty list" is one I maintain independently & load to the server.

I don't want to complicate this. Simple flow of actions

• Message arrives in mailbox.
  
• Crontab activates at the prescribed time and scans header subject and message body and redirects offending messages to 'scumnet@mydomain.com'
  
• from manual analysis of the crud caught and not caught, I amend the list and ftp it to the server again. I empty the trash in 'scumnet@mydomain.com' and watch the process again.

This works for me because:

ZERO user education
I can have one master list that I ftp to the appropriate servers
We may be able to have a small scale solution available rather quickly

Thanks Aaron

[Milen]

The efficiency from a server administrator perspective is a critical factor in any SPAM fighting solution.

I have just spoken with two of our system administrators about this issue. They said that the option to add multiple keywords to a mail filter at once is not supported by our system, the option to export and/or import user-defined mail filters from one email account to another is not available as well. While the former is a functional limitation that cannot be easily overcome, the latter could be added as a feature to the web hosting control panel at some point in the future. However, this would require a developer, not a system administrator, but unfortunately our developers are overloaded, so it is highly unlikely that it will happen anytime soon.
So if Aaron could help you with a solution, this is probably the most viable option for you at the moment.

[lucyKATmom]

Thank You for taking this matter seriously

Milen,

Thank you for taking this issue up the chain of command. I realize that this is a major undertaking and may take some time.

OK Aaron, looks like it's back to you. Maybe this is where your code becomes immortal.

[Programmer]

I foresee a problem with this front-end solution. The major concern is having concurrent writes to the email files which could make them corrupt.

Milen, if you could help, for this to work I need to know what file the script should get an exclusive lock on before making changes to it?

I have found much information and a forum regarding the mail clients and these directory structures. If it uses an internal locking system (not file locking) then this is probably not going to work.

Wish me luck!
~ Aaron

[Programmer]

This is sooo possible. The email uses the Maildir++ storage format which does not require application-level file locking to add, move, delete messages. Each email is in it's own file.

The script would access the email using IMAP (or similar) to interact with the email server, the same way as your Mail User Agent (email client) would access email. Therefor, consuming server resources and file locking is not a concern.

I will start to code this now and pick away at it in my spare time. Please be patient for I have a lot on my plate at the moment, thanks.

~ Aaron

[Programmer]

To add to the above (and to get way ahead of myself), this can become a full blown email client like RoundCube (or work in conjunction with one). It would filter emails at user login thus removing the need for a cron job. As Milen stated, email clients like Thunderbird can use a filter list at the user level, yet this is Vhost wide filter list for multiple email accounts.