SpamFilter ISP

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SpamFilter ISP does not require a database to filter emails. A database is however required if you wish to quarantine spam emails that were blocked. The quarantine database allows administrators and end-users to retrieve legitimate emails that were incorrectly detected as spam. When a blocked email is force-delivered, SpamFilter will automatically match the sender with the recipient, so that any future emails from that sender to that recipient will be automatically whitelisted.

 

Supported Databases

The following database platforms are supported by SpamFilter ISP:

Microsoft SQL Server 7 or higher
MySQL v4.1 or higher (v5.1 or higher is required for SpamFilter Enterprise) with MySQL ODBC Connector v3.51.12. Warning - MySQL ODBC Driver v3.51.14 has a known bug that renders it incompatible with SpamFilter. Please install v3.51.12 or earlier of the driver.
Microsoft Access (not supported in SpamFilter Enterprise)
Oracle 8.x and higher (not supported in SpamFilter Enterprise)

 

Microsoft Access

An empty MS Access database is included with SpamFilter, and can be found in the \SpamFilter\database directory. As MS Access was not designed for multi-user applications, we do not recommend using Access in a live, high traffic installation. Please note that Access has a 1GB/2GB limit on table sizes, depending on the version of Access being used. When using MS Access, MDAC 2.8 or higher is required on the server running SpamFilter.

 

MS SQL, MySQL, Oracle

SpamFilter ISP has a simple 1-2-3 step wizard that can create the necessary tables in Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and Oracle. An empty database must be created by the DBAs (Database Administrators) before executing SpamFilter's database wizard. If the DBAs wish to manually control the table creation process, the SQL scripts used to create the tables for all 3 platforms are included in the database platform.

 

MS SQL and MySQL Detailed Configuration Samples

Detailed step-by-step procedures to configure Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL databases can be found in the sections Microsoft SQL Server Database Setup and MySQL Database Setup.

 

SpamFilter ISP Database Options

The "Database Setup" tab in SpamFilter is used to configure the database options in SpamFilter. The database connection, as with all other options in SpamFilter, can be added/changed while the program runs. The connection string can be defined either by using an Universal Data Link File (.UDL) or by specifying a complete connection string within SpamFilter. We recommend using UDL files since they can be used by the webserver as well without exposing the database password in the web files. Sample UDL files for the 4 supported database platforms are found in the \SpamFilter\database directory. Please ensure that the database user defined in the UDL/connection string must have the proper database rights to be able to create tables.

The following options are available:

Days to store quarantined rejected emails - Normally SpamFilter will reject an email if it considered as spam. You can optionally choose to receive and archive those emails rather than having them lost. The remote server will still receive an error stating that the email was rejected, but you will keep a copy in the quarantine directory for this amount of days. This will allow you to force delivery of legitimate email which could have been filtered. If you enter a 0 in this field quarantine is disabled and email is rejected immediately.
Database cleanup interval - Specifies how often SpamFilter performs a cleanup of the database, removing emails that have passed their retention period.

 

Figure 8

Figure 8

 

 

Database Table Details

The three tables used for the quarantine and the privileges needed for them are:

otblMsgs (contains the message body)
DB user needs SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE rights
otblQuarantine (contains all details about the email except the content)
DB user needs SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE rights
otblRejectCodes (contains the current 13 reject categories)
DB user needs SELECT rights
otblServers (used when multiple SpamFilters share the same database)
DB user needs SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE rights
otblLogins (used to store usernames and passwords for users who access the web-based quarantine)
DB user needs SELECT rights (the account used by the APS/PHP pages will need INSERT, UPDATE rights as well)