Managing your CNU Anti-Spam messages
The CNU Barracuda Spam Firewall quarantines messages based on the score its diagnostics give to the message. A score can range from 1 to 10, the higher the score, the more likely the message is spam.
Once the CNU Barracuda Spam Firewall (http://barracuda.cnu.edu:8000/cgi-bin/index.cgi) gets a message for you that it needs to quarantine, it will automatically create an account for you and send you an email similar to the one shown below.
If you receive a message telling you that you have been given an account on our Barracuda Spam Firewall, it means:
- You received a message with a score greater than 6
- The spam firewall automatically activated your personal account
- The spam firewall sent a random password to your email address with directions on how to view the message
The message looks something like this:
You may simply click the link provided, and it will take you to your quarantine page. Below is a picture of a quarantine page:
back to top There are a number of things you can do from this page. The first thing to notice is the actual message listing. You see that each message in the quarantine has a check box on the left side. This box is used to "select" that message for the "action" you want to perform. Click the box next to "Date Received", which is in the heading (gray area), to select ALL messages at once. If ALL messages in your quarantine are either SPAM or NOT SPAM, you can check that box to make it a little easier to select all messages. There are 5 "action buttons" above the message list. Here is what they mean:
Deliver: This button will deliver the message to your mailbox (if the message is not a spam, and you want to read the message in your regular email program, this is the button to use)
Whitelist: This button will add this sender (the person the message is From) to your personal "whitelist". The whitelist is a setting that tells the Barracuda to ALWAYS deliver mail to me if the message has this email address in the "From" field.
Delete: This will delete the message from your quarantine mailbox.
Classify as Not Spam: This button, along with "Classify as Spam", is used to "train" your bayesian filter mentioned previously. It is important for you to classify messages that hit your quarantine as either SPAM or NOT SPAM. Doing so, will make the filter much more effective for you.
Classify as Spam: As above, this one "trains" your bayesian filter. Use this to tell the filter that this message is to be considered as SPAM in the future. Once you classify a message as spam, it is removed automatically from your quarantine. This is permanent, and there is no way to get the message back, so be sure it really is SPAM before selecting this option. |
The "actions" column on the far right end of the message list allows you to Deliver, Whitelist or Delete a single message. Be sure you classify messages as spam or not spam before you do one of these, though. I cannot stress enough the importance of this step.
You will notice, also, that the message listing itself includes the date the message was delivered, who it is from (this column is not wide enough to display the full email address, so it may not be totally visible), the subject of the message and the 3 actions available for this message. If you wish to view the message to determine if it is spam or not, you can click on the message listing to get a popup box that will let you see the message. This is pictured here:
back to top The view above allows you to see the message. If you are interested in viewing the "raw" message, you can click on the "View Source" tab. There have been some occasions where I have found some messages do not display properly. Without fail (so far), these have all been spam or viruses. You simply click the "X" at the top right to close this view to return to the quarantine box.
On the quarantine view, you will see a tab labled "Preferences". Clicking there will show you the following:
This screen allows you to add email addresses to your whitelist or blacklist. The descriptions of what these do is detailed on the page itself. You may also block (or allow) entire domains, so if you never want to receive any mail from Yahoo, you could put in "yahoo.com" in the "blocked" area and click the "Add" button, and the Barracuda box would then block any mail from "yahoo.com" from reaching you. However, keep in mind if you are too heavy-handed, you could accidentally block all your mail, so if you start playing with this, please keep in mind we may not be able to rescue you from whatever you did.
To manage your personal quarantine settings, click the "Quarantine Settings" button along the top:
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To disable the quarantine altogether (not recommended), you simply select "No" next to "Enable Quarantine" and click the "save changes" button (the one toward the top). The "notification interval" sets how often the Barracuda should inform you when you have messages in the quarantine. Daily is the default setting. If you set this to "never", you will have to check in from time to time to see if you have waiting messages. Daily is the recommended setting until you get the filter tuned well enough so that you are certain you are not catching valid email in the quarantine. As some items will continue to be quarantined based on global rules outside of your control, we recommend that you elect to receive notifications of quarantined items so that you will know that there are things for you that you otherwise would have missed. Then you can delete or deliver those items as you choose. The "notification address" is the email address you want the notices sent to. For most of you, it is your normal email address. It is not recommended that you change the address that is listed here.
The "Spam Settings" button (not pictured) allows you to turn off spam scanning completely. Not really recommended, but some folks don't want their mail scanned at all. The "Password" button (not pictured) will require that you know your password, which is included in the "welcome" message sent to you initially. If you have lost this password, we do not have a way to retrieve it, or reset it. All we can do is delete the account, and let you regenerate it, or allow the Barracuda to regenerate it automatically, the next time you get a quarantine message.
Your Daily Or Weekly Email Summarizing Quarantined Items
The Barracuda Spam Firewall will send you a daily or weekly notice listing items that it has "caught." These may be items you want or may be items you do not want. The email message you receive daily or weekly from the Barracuda box will look like this:
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In our experience, the most reliable thing to do is look at the very bottom of the e-mail for the line that says "To view your entire quarantine inbox or manage your preferences, click here." Clicking where it says "click here" will log you into the Barracuda Spam Firewall and present you with the list of messages it has caught.
Conversely, if you start clicking on the links to the right of individual messages, many users have been taken to a login screen and have to log in each time they click on a link. This is why we recommend just going to the very bottom of the e-mail and double-clicking the link that says "To view your entire quarantine inbox or manage your preferences, click here."
Note: Some have reported that when you receive a message about a quarantined message and go to view it, your Quarantine InBox is empty. We have traced this behavior to two possible scenarios:
Scenario 1 - The Barracuda Spam Firewall creates a separate Quarantine Inbox for each e-mail user it identifies. So if you receive mail as "jdoe@cnu.edu" and you also receive mail at "joe.doe@cnu.edu" this means you have TWO separate Quarantine InBoxes. Thusly it is important when you receive notification that an item has been quarantined that you determine to which Quarantine InBox the item was sent. Obviously if the item was sent to "joe.doe@cnu.edu" and you log in as "jdoe@cnu.edu" you will see an empty quarantine inbox because you have logged in to the wrong account. As rudimentary as this may sound, this is how the spam firewall works. If you are clicking the link at the bottom of the email (as suggested above) this will not happen.
Scenario 2 - In some cases your browser window does not update properly to show you the contents of your Quarantine InBox. Always click the tab that says "preferences" and see if you can view any of your Barracuda preferences. Then click back onto the tab that says "Quarantine InBox". In many cases when you double-click the link in the notification e-mail the Quarantine InBox will appear empty, but once you perform this procedure, and pop out of it and then back into it, it will display message list properly. |
Wait! What if I want to Receive All/None/Some of my Spam mail?
The Barracuda Spam Firewall can be tuned to deliver as much or as little "spam" e-mail to your inbox. These options are configured through the Spam Filter Options in the Web Interface.The Spam Filter Enable/Disable option allows a mail users to get all mail sent to them regardless of the spam score. The Spam Scoring can also be adjusted individually to allow for more granular control of the individual's e-mail. Remember that pushing the sliders to 10 disables that particular option.
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If you have further questions or concerns, please let us know by contacting ITS via email at helpdesk@cnu.edu by phone (594-7079).
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