We have enabled the spam filter offered by HostmySite, but we still receive large amounts of spam. Does anyone have any other ideas to prevent spam from reaching our inboxes?

For those that aren't using this system, here's what our website has to say about the NoSpamWeb filters that you're both referring to:

Built-in AntiSpam Filtering
All of our newer mailservers include built-in NoSpamWeb Anti-Spam features, and we are currently upgrading the older ones to support this functionality as well. Even if your server supports these features, however, they are not automatically enabled for every website since many of our customers would prefer to perform their own spam filtering using 3rd party programs installed on their home computer. If you do wish to enable Anti-Spam filtering on your domain, please contact support@hostmysite.com and request to sign up for our NoSpamWeb service. Here is an brief outline on how our Anti-Spam filtering works on the mailserver.

There are 4 'criteria' for determining whether or not an email is spam:

Blacklists:

fiveten (blackholes.five-ten-sg.com)
SpamHaus (sbl.spamhaus.org)
ybl (ybl.megacity.org)
Spamcop (bl.spamcop.net)

If the IP address of an email matches one of these black lists, an X-header is inserted into the message header to indicate which black list it matched. Click here for more information on X-headers: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/guide/imailug801/Chapter18%20AntiSpam9.html

Additional Criteria:

Verify MAIL FROM Address (also known as FROM Line Verification)The "From" address of the connecting server is verified for each message to ensure that the user is a valid user on the mail server. If the user or server does not exist, the message is identified as spam. If this test fails, an X-Header is inserted into the message.

Verify HELO/EHLO Domain
The domain passed during the HELO/EHLO is used to perform a DNS query to verify that the domain specified has an "A" record or an "MX" record. If this test fails, an X-Header is inserted into the message.
Note: The SMTPD service does not accept mail from clients that do not begin the SMTP conversation with "HELO" or "EHLO".

If an email receives a total of 3 or more "X-headers" from the above criteria, it is declared spam and deleted automatically. We are not able to create a white list of email addresses that the spam filter should ignore. If it receives two or less 'X-headers', then it will be delivered normally, however if you wish you can setup a filter within your domain to filter all messages with an X-header for even stricter rules. That filter would look something like this:

If HEADER contains "X-IMAIL-SPAM"

***********************************************************

We have also recently begun adding a 7th test, one that checks the reverse DNS of connecting mailservers. In other words, when someone sends you an email, their mailserver must 'declare' itself with a proper domain name, such as 'mail.hostmysite.com'. In order to hide their tracks, most spammers don't do this - if they don't then their email fails this particular test.

Now, even if you recieve a spam email, that doesn't mean our system didn't flag it. If you noticed from my description, we only delete emails that fail 3 of the 7 tests described above. If a spam message fails just 1 or 2 of the tests, a string of text is inserted in the header of the email - this is called an X-header. You can use this information by making your own custom filter based on a certain X-header.

Step 1: Open a spam message that made it through the built-in filters, and check the full headers for a string that looks similar to this:

X-IMAIL-SPAM-FOOFOO

where "FOOFOO" is a string that defines which test the message failed. For example, if the message failed one of the blacklist tests, it would have a header that read like this:

X-IMAIL-SPAM-DNSBL

DNSBL is short for Domain Name Server Black List, for those of you that hate not knowing what an acronym means. A full list of the possible X-headers can be found here:

http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/guide/imailug801/Chapter18%20AntiSpam9.html

Step 2: Login to your webmail and select Filters from the Options & Styles menu.

From here, you can follow the walkthrough found on this page:

http://www.hostmysite.com/support/email/spam-filtering/[/b]

These steps can be somewhat daunting, so if you need clarification on any points simply reply to this thread and myself or another technician will respond within 24 - 48 hours.

Jamie,

Can you give us an approximate date to work with on the older servers vs. the newer ones? I have many sites set up with HMS over a few years and would like to get as many as possible started on this.

Thanks.

Kris
www.iknowtek.com
@>>------

Actually, that's an outdated post - I should really get it changed. At present, all of our mailservers have this capacity, though it is not enabled by default.

To get your sites setup with AntiSpam filtering, then send an email to support@hostmysite.com with the list of sites and we can enable them.

Actually, to be truthful, the way we enable the site is merely to change the MX record from

'mailXX.safesecureweb.com'

to

'mailXX.nospamweb.com'

So, if you run your own DNS, then you'll need to make those changes yourself.

Jamie,

Thanks - I've set up a couple of sites already and will be adding more to the list soon.

I prefer a different approach to handling spam. I like to receive all my emails even if they are spam. Here is the approach I use:

1. Setup a "catcher" user email address and set the catch all, the “nobody” alias, to redirect mail that is not directed to a particular user to the “catcher” user. (The philosophy here is to not mix legitimate mail with mail that may not be.)

2. Setup aliases for accounts that might be used to receive mail. Such as if you had a user Scott Suhmann. You would create the “Scott.Suhmann” user in the system. Then add the aliases “Scott” and “Suhmann” that forwards mail to the “Scott.Suhmann” user. (This is to prevent legitimate mail from being sent to the “catcher” user.)

3. Have each user setup filters for their own account. Common filters can be added to the global filter, called the domain filter in webmail.

4. Setup domain filters that redirect spam to an individual users spam folder or bulk mail folder.

5. Constantly add and review your filters, at least once per month. Over time you can greatly reduce the amount of garbage in your inbox.

Also here are some tips on what not to do:

1. Never bounce a message. This only tells the spammer that your email address is valid and that they just need to figure out a way to get around your filer. Unfortunately, the email address that the message is from can be another user like you and by bouncing the message you just helped the spammer spread the word.

2. Only use vacation messages if you need to. We have a web interface that you can use to check your mail while you are away. If you must use a vacation message, remember you are sending the same type of message to a spammer as a bounced message; that your email address is active.

Using this philosophy all your mail is kept, but it will be separated from legitimate email. All the junk mail (spam) is now available to be scanned for real email.

Spending 2 to 3 hours to learn how mail works and the best filtering methods will save you hours and hours of time in the long term. Eventually as you learn what is and is not spam for you, you will be able to reduce everyone’s work load in sorting mail by setting up domain filters through the root account in the Webmail Interface.

Though if you combine this with the NoSpamWeb service, you will have created an effective strategy for reducing spam.

On our support site you can find links, which I have included below, that will explain how to setup filters to cut down on spam.

http://www.hostmysite.com/support/email/spam-filter/
http://www.hostmysite.com/support/email/spam-filtering/

This last link is on X-Header that is placed in messages that are believed to be spam. You can then filter on these headers as well.

http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/guide/imailug801/Chapter18%20AntiSpam9.html

If you want to use the NoSpamWeb service, just send us an email with the account verification information and we will get you setup.