SPAMASSASSIN(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation SPAMASSASSIN(1)

spamassassin - extensible email filter used to identify spam

SpamAssassin is an intelligent email filter which uses a diverse range of tests to identify unsolicited bulk email, more commonly known as "spam". These tests are applied to email headers and content to classify email using advanced statistical methods. In addition, SpamAssassin has a modular architecture that allows other technologies to be quickly wielded against spam and is designed for easy integration into virtually any email system.

For ease of access, the SpamAssassin manual has been split up into several sections. If you're intending to read these straight through for the first time, the suggested order will tend to reduce the number of forward references.

Extensive additional documentation for SpamAssassin is available, primarily on the SpamAssassin web site and wiki.

You should be able to view SpamAssassin's documentation with your man(1) program or perldoc(1).

spamassassin              SpamAssassin overview (this section)

Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf  SpamAssassin configuration files

spamassassin-run          "spamassassin" front-end filtering script
sa-learn                  train SpamAssassin's Bayesian classifier
spamc                     client for spamd (faster than spamassassin)
spamd                     spamassassin server (needed by spamc)

Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::AskDNS
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::AutoLearnThreshold
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::Bayes
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::BodyEval
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::Check
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::DKIM
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::DMARC
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::DNSEval
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::FreeMail
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::HTMLEval
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::HTTPSMismatch
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::HashBL
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::HeaderEval
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::ImageInfo
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::MIMEEval
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::MIMEHeader
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::Pyzor
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::Razor2
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::RelayEval
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::ReplaceTags
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::SPF
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::SpamCop
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::URIDNSBL
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::URIDetail
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::URIEval
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::VBounce
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::WLBLEval
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::WelcomeListSubject

SpamAssassin web site:     https://spamassassin.apache.org/
Wiki-based documentation:  https://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/

A users mailing list exists where other experienced users are often able to help and provide tips and advice. Subscription instructions are located on the SpamAssassin web site.

The SpamAssassin rule base, text templates, and rule description text are loaded from configuration files.

Default configuration data is loaded from the first existing directory in:

/var/lib/spamassassin/4.000000
/usr/share/spamassassin
/usr/share/spamassassin
/usr/local/share/spamassassin
/usr/share/spamassassin

Site-specific configuration data is used to override any values which had already been set. This is loaded from the first existing directory in:

/etc/mail/spamassassin
/usr/etc/mail/spamassassin
/usr/etc/spamassassin
/usr/local/etc/spamassassin
/usr/pkg/etc/spamassassin
/usr/etc/spamassassin
/etc/mail/spamassassin
/etc/spamassassin

From those directories, SpamAssassin will first read files ending in ".pre" in lexical order and then it will read files ending in ".cf" in lexical order (most files begin with two numbers to make the sorting order obvious).

In other words, it will read init.pre first, then 10_default_prefs.cf before 50_scores.cf and 20_body_tests.cf before 20_head_tests.cf. Options in later files will override earlier files.

Individual user preferences are loaded from the location specified on the "spamassassin", "sa-learn", or "spamd" command line (see respective manual page for details). If the location is not specified, ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs is used if it exists. SpamAssassin will create that file if it does not already exist, using user_prefs.template as a template. That file will be looked for in:

/etc/mail/spamassassin
/usr/etc/mail/spamassassin
/usr/share/spamassassin
/etc/spamassassin
/etc/mail/spamassassin
/usr/local/share/spamassassin
/usr/share/spamassassin

The following two sections detail the default tagging and markup that takes place for messages when running "spamassassin" or "spamc" with "spamd" in the default configuration.

Note: before header modification and addition, all headers beginning with "X-Spam-" are removed to prevent spammer mischief and also to avoid potential problems caused by prior invocations of SpamAssassin.

By default, all messages with a calculated score of 5.0 or higher are tagged as spam.

If an incoming message is tagged as spam, instead of modifying the original message, SpamAssassin will create a new report message and attach the original message as a message/rfc822 MIME part (ensuring the original message is completely preserved and easier to recover).

The new report message inherits the following headers (if they are present) from the original spam message:

The above headers can be modified if the relevant "rewrite_header" option is given (see "Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf" for more information).

By default these message headers are added to spam:

Set to "YES".

The headers that added are fully configurable via the "add_header" option (see "Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf" for more information).

The SpamAssassin report is added to top of the mail message body, if the message is marked as spam.

These headers are added to all messages, both spam and ham (non-spam).

The version and subversion of SpamAssassin and the host where SpamAssassin was run.
A series of "*" characters where each one represents a full score point.
A string, "(Yes|No), score=nn required=nn tests=xxx,xxx autolearn=(ham|spam|no|unavailable|failed)" is set in this header to reflect the filter status. For the first word, "Yes" means spam and "No" means ham (non-spam).

The headers that added are fully configurable via the "add_header" option (see "Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf" for more information).

The spamassassin command is part of the Mail::SpamAssassin Perl module. Install this as a normal Perl module, using "perl -MCPAN -e shell", or by hand.

Note that it is not possible to use the "PERL5LIB" environment variable to affect where SpamAssassin finds its perl modules, due to limitations imposed by perl's "taint" security checks.

For further details on how to install, please read the "INSTALL" file from the SpamAssassin distribution.

Mail::SpamAssassin
    Spam detector and markup engine
Mail::SpamAssassin::ArchiveIterator
    find and process messages one at a time
Mail::SpamAssassin::AutoWelcomelist
    auto-welcomelist handler for SpamAssassin
Mail::SpamAssassin::Bayes
    determine spammishness using a Bayesian classifier
Mail::SpamAssassin::BayesStore
    Bayesian Storage Module
Mail::SpamAssassin::BayesStore::SQL
    SQL Bayesian Storage Module Implementation
Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf::LDAP
    load SpamAssassin scores from LDAP database
Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf::Parser
    parse SpamAssassin configuration
Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf::SQL
    load SpamAssassin scores from SQL database
Mail::SpamAssassin::Message
    decode, render, and hold an RFC-2822 message
Mail::SpamAssassin::Message::Metadata
    extract metadata from a message
Mail::SpamAssassin::Message::Node
    decode, render, and make available MIME message parts
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgLearner
    per-message status (spam or not-spam)
Mail::SpamAssassin::PerMsgStatus
    per-message status (spam or not-spam)
Mail::SpamAssassin::PersistentAddrList
    persistent address list base class
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin
    SpamAssassin plugin base class
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::RelayCountry
    add message metadata indicating the country code of each relay
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::SPF
    perform SPF verification tests
Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::URIDNSBL
    look up URLs against DNS blocklists
Mail::SpamAssassin::SQLBasedAddrList
    SpamAssassin SQL Based Auto Welcomelist

See https://issues.apache.org/SpamAssassin/

The SpamAssassin(tm) Project https://spamassassin.apache.org/

SpamAssassin is distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0, as described in the file "LICENSE" included with the distribution.

Copyright (C) 2015 The Apache Software Foundation

2023-07-26 perl v5.38.0