SpamAssassin tags spam by comparing each message to hundreds of different known indicators of spam. Each rule has a point score associated with it and when the score total passes the predetermined threshold, the message is marked as spam and sent to Graymail.

Although we provide a set default for our SpamAssassin, it can be customized to fit your needs. You can get to your SpamAssassin configuration by logging into https://members.sonic.net and by navigating to E-mail > Spam Filtering. Welcomelisting and Blocklisting are also useful tools for managing spam and are worth checking out if you haven't already.

Modify Scores

This is an advanced tool that let's you customize the specific point values assigned to SpamAssassin rules. If you know the specific rule you are looking for, you can search for it in the top bar. If you would like to browse all rules, click on Show All Scores.

All rules are listed with the name of the rule, the default point value, the custom point value if applicable (otherwise blank) and a description of the rule. There are links to customize the point value of the rule as well as reset it to default. Scrolling to the bottom of the page will allow you to reset all point values.

SpamAssassin Configuration

This page has the bulk of SpamAssassin settings.

Required Hits

: This is the number of points required for a message to be marked as spam. The default is 5. Before lowering the score, note that while the odds of catching spam will increase, you may also catch some legitimate e-mails in that net. If you change this amount, we recommend keeping an eye on spam e-mails for a couple of days to make sure you aren't getting any false positives.

Report Options

: This setting dictates how spam messages are delivered. The first option will only modify the header of the e-mail to show that it was marked as spam. The second and default option is to create a new report e-mail and attach the spam as a message/rfc822 MIME part. This ensures the spam is completely preserved, not easily opened and easier to recover. The final option, to attach the original message as text/plain can be useful if you are using an e-mail client that loads attachments without any action from the end user.

Rewrite Subject

: This option will rewrite the subject of the spam message to indicate that it has been marked as spam. It can be very useful if you have spam messages being delivered directly to your inbox instead of graymail. This option is disabled by default.

Use Razor2

: If this option is checked, incoming e-mails will be compared to known spam in the Razor2 system. Razor2 is a distributed, collaborative, spam detection and filtering network, which uses a distributed and constantly updating catalog of spam in propagation that is used to filter out known spam. This setting is checked by default.

Use DCC

: If this box is checked, incoming mail will be compared to known spam in the Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse (DCC). This is a system of thousands of clients and more than 200 servers collecting and counting checksums related to over 130 million messages daily. The counts can be used to detect and filter spam or unsolicited bulk mail. This is checked by default.

Skip RBL Checks

: If this setting is checked, SpamAssassin will not perform checks against DNS-based Realtime Block Lists. SpamAssassin does not use RBLs to block e-mail, but to help determine a given message's score. By default, this setting is unchecked.

OK Locales

: This setting determines which locales (country codes) are considered okay for incoming mail. Locale and language character sets do not always correspond. If you receive lots of spam in foreign languages, and never get any non-spam in these languages, this setting may help. All locales is the default selection.

General Configuration

Mail Exchange Configuration

: Our MX servers use a collection of techniques to reject and traffic shape messages from known spammers, exploited systems, and suspicious senders as well as enforce compliance with best common practices. This is enabled by default, but can be disabled if you prefer.

SpamAssassin Configuration

: SpamAssassin can also be disabled. We strongly recommend keeping both SpamAssassin and Mail Exchange filtering enabled and that if you are having trouble receiving some e-mails, see if Welcomelisting can fix the problem.