How to use the SpamExperts spam filter
Introduction
Your ORC hosting account, which is exclusively for Premium web hosting packages includes an enterprise-quality spam protection solution provided by SpamExperts. This high-quality solution normally costs CHF 4.40 per month, but is provided to you completely free of charge. Compared to the free spam filtering tools provided by other web hosts, SpamExperts offers far more efficient protection against spam. In addition, SpamExperts also filters other threats, such as fraudulent phishing emails and viruses.
SpamExperts not only provides protection against unwanted junk emails in your inbox, but also ensures that outgoing emails are safe. This is of particular benefit, as servers without outbound spam protection can easily get blacklisted when hosting accounts are compromised by spammers and misused to send emails. SpamExperts actively prevents such emails from being sent at all, so you can enjoy excellent email delivery and an inbox that is free of spam and viruses.
Our intention with this article is to provide you with a guide to logging in, managing and configuring your SpamExperts spam filter. We recommend that you keep the default configurations, as the spam filter is already optimally set.
We assume that you have already been successfully integrated into your cPanel account logged in are.
How to use the SpamExperts spam filter
- Click the SpamExperts logo in the cPanel interface to open the SpamExperts configuration window.
2. after clicking on the SpamExperts logo, a screen will appear listing your domain and all parked and add-on domains you may own. Click on the "Login" link next to the domain you want to manage.
Once you have selected "Login", you will be redirected to the control panel of your domain in SpamExperts.
The dashboard is divided into several sections, and here are the most important ones for you:
Protocol search
With the log search you have the possibility to search all incoming messages in your account to see how SpamExperts has rated them. You can also find out why certain messages were rejected.
Spam quarantine
Spam quarantine stores potential spam messages for 28 days. SpamExperts spam detection accuracy is an impressive 99.98 %, so you usually have no need to check the quarantine. Nevertheless, you can log in and check the content if you want. The latest spam messages are displayed at the top, and you can browse them by subject, sender or recipient.
Queue
The delivery queue contains messages waiting to be delivered to an inbox. Here you can see a list of these messages and the reason why they have not been delivered yet. You also have the option to force automatic delivery. Why might a message not be delivered? Maybe the inbox was full or the mail server on the server was temporarily unavailable. SpamExperts collects such emails and tries to redeliver them as soon as possible instead of reporting a failed delivery to the sender.
Domain settings
In this section you can set the maximum number of bounces, enable or disable logging of invalid recipients, define contact details for the domain and set the log retention period (28 days by default).
Domain statistics
The statistics for your domain provide you with an overview of the types of emails that have been delivered or quarantined.
Filter settings
In this section you have the possibility to control the quarantine system. If you disable the quarantine system, emails detected as spam will not be stored in the quarantine, but will be forwarded directly to your inbox. You can also set the subject notation that will be added to emails that have been classified as unsafe by the filtering system. This gives you the option to either move these emails to a special spam folder in your local email client or open them with increased caution.
We strongly advise against changing the preset filter settings. These are automatically optimized to ensure the best possible filtering.
Report spam
In the web interface of the Spam Panel you can find the "Report Spam" function. You can upload spam messages to train the spam filter. This is easily done by dragging and dropping the spam email to your system and then dragging it to the "Report Spam" area. Note that only emails processed by the cluster you are sending the report to will be accepted.
Protection reports
Periodic protection report
For each domain (or for specific recipients in a domain) you can have daily or weekly reports generated and sent by e-mail. You can specify multiple recipients separated by commas. These reports can be sent as either PDF attachments or inline HTML. The PDF report contains a summary of spam and virus emails that the filtering service has blocked for the domain (or address) in question, as well as information about the total volume of processed emails for that domain.
The PDF report also contains a detailed table (for auditing purposes) of rejected but not quarantined messages. This table is enabled by default, but can be disabled via the web interface as it can be very large for some domains. A similar table with messages in the quarantine and links to directly release each message is also included.
On-Demand Protection Report
The on-demand protection report triggers the generation of the previously described report. The transmission may take a few minutes depending on the size of the report.
Email Restrictions
Blocked extensions
The "Blocked extensions" option allows you to select which file extensions should be blocked.
Recipient whitelist/blacklist
To keep filtering under control, the domain administrator can add recipients to the whitelist or blacklist.
Recipient whitelist
Recipients on the whitelist have filter checks disabled. We recommend to use the recipient whitelist only in exceptional cases, for example for special addresses like Abuse@ or Postmaster@.
Recipient blacklist
Emails to blacklisted recipients are automatically rejected without being quarantined. The messages are rejected with a 5xx SMTP error code, causing legitimate SMTP servers to generate a bounce message to the sender.
Special use
To whitelist or blacklist a specific recipient address, enter the local part of the address. Example: If your domain is "mydomain.ch" and you include "nofilter" in the recipient whitelist, emails to "nofilter@meinedomain.ch" will not be checked for spam. To include all recipients of a domain in the whitelist or blacklist (so that not all emails to the domain are checked/blocked), you can use the wildcard "*" for the local part.
Sender whitelist/blacklist
To control filtering, senders can be whitelisted or blacklisted. This check is based on the MAIL FROM address provided by the senders at the SMTP level, which may be different from the "From:" address in the email. If you check the headers of an email, you will find the "Envelope-from" address, which is the actual sender address.
Sender whitelist
Senders on the whitelist have filter checks disabled. You can whitelist a specific sender email address or an entire sender domain. We recommend that you use only the sender address.
If you have any questions about SpamExperts spam filter, contact our support team. We are at your disposal at any time.
