Libelle Mail Archive Manual

Automatic whitelisting

Automatic whitelisting is implemented as a Spamassassin plugin. This interrogates the Libelle Mail Archive database when a message is being scanned. If it contains messages that have previously been sent to the sender of this message, the MA_WHITELIST rule fires and subtracts 50 from the message's score.

The plugin and rule have been developed and tested under Spamassassin 3.2.5 and 3.3.0.

Installing automatic whitelisting

1. Download the maplugin tarball and unpack its contents. It contains the three files: MAwhitelist.cf and MAwhitelist.pm and makefile
2. Edit MAwhitelist.cf, setting MAwhitelist_sql_dsn, MAwhitelist_sql_username and MAwhitelist_sql_password to the corresponding values in mailarchive.conf
3. Check makefile to make sure that it will put MAwhitelist.cf and MAwhitelist.pm in the right place for your Spamassassin installation, usually /etc/mail/spamassassin. Correct it if necessary.
4. Make both files available to SpamAssassin by running:

   sudo make install

5. Check that Spamassassin can correctly parse the files by running:

   spamassassin --lint

   under the usual Spamassassin user. If any errors are found they must be fixed before proceeding.
6. Stop and restart spamd

Prevent incorrect whitelisting

Use MAUpdate to set the Self flag on all addresses in the Libelle Mail Archive database that belong to valid mailboxes within your domain(s).

This is an anti-spam feature and must be activated if the automatic whitelisting feature is used. It prevents inappropriate whitelisting from taking place. Spammers commonly forge sender mail addresses by using mail addresses within the recipient domain. Setting the Self flag prevents mail from these addresses being whitelisted but has no other effect.