I’m currently running my e-mail system on a Linux box using Sendmail
and Spam Assassin.  Right now Spam Assassin attaches an attachment to
messages that it believes to be spam.  If the e-mail rates 3 or higher
on their scale it is marked with this attachment.  I would like to
know how to configure Spam Assassin to automatically delete messages
with a score of 7 or higher.  Thanks very much for your time.  Have a
good one.

---

Request for Question Clarification by bookface-ga on 03 Nov 2003 09:36 PST

JohnGl, thanks for your question and for choosing Google! answers.
(That wouldn't be John Galt, would it?)

man Mail::SpamAssassin::Conf will answer your question in depth, and
many others.
---
       required_hits n.nn   (default: 5)
           Set the number of hits required before a mail is considered
spam.
           "n.nn" can be an integer or a real number.  5.0 is the
default set-
           ting, and is quite aggressive; it would be suitable for a
single-
           user setup, but if you're an ISP installing SpamAssassin,
you
           should probably set the default to be more conservative,
like 8.0
           or 10.0.  It is not recommended to automatically delete or
discard
           messages marked as spam, as your users will complain, but
if you
           choose to do so, only delete messages with an exceptionally
high
           score such as 15.0 or higher.
---

Look for a line that has a required-hits of 3, and that will
presumably be what you need to change:
grep required_hits /usr/share/spamassassin/* /etc/mail/spamassassin/*
| grep 7

Search strategy:
Found on 
http://spamassassin.taint.org/faq/index.cgi?req=show&file=faq01.008.htp
from the SpamAssassin homepage->FAQ.

Let me know how if it works out for you, so I can submit it as a full
answer; if not, let me know how it goes so I can see if I can do
something about it.

Thanks again for your question.

- bookface

---

Request for Question Clarification by bookface-ga on 03 Nov 2003 09:37 PST

argh, sorry about the ugly line breaks.

required_hits n.nn   (default: 5)

Set the number of hits required before a mail is considered spam.
"n.nn" can be an integer or a real number.  5.0 is the default
setting, and is quite aggressive; it would be suitable for a
single-user setup, but if you're an ISP installing SpamAssassin, you
should probably set the default to be more conservative, like 8.0 or
10.0.  It is not recommended to automatically delete or discard
messages marked as spam, as your users will complain, but if you
choose to do so, only delete messages with an exceptionally high score
such as 15.0 or higher.

---

Clarification of Question by johngl-ga on 03 Nov 2003 13:27 PST

Thanks for the help.  Based on what you sent I think the best solution
would be to mark the SPAM's subject line.  I thought I added the
proper flags however it's not working.  Thanks again.

---

Clarification of Question by johngl-ga on 04 Nov 2003 02:39 PST

Who is John Galt?  Not I but one can aspire.  Those are just my initials.  :-)

John-gl,

In my opinion, most users will not bother to set up rules to move spam
out of their inboxes even if it is nicely marked for them. This site
explains (barely, but sufficiently) how to set things up to forward to
another folder (on the server) based on the X-Spam-Status field
insterted by SpamAssassin:
http://computing.ee.ethz.ch/email/spamassassin.en.html

Alternatively, you can as you suggested modify the subject line and
leave the rest of the processing up to the user. If you do so, perhaps
this guide will help you on your way:
http://www.io.com/~jbrak/techsite/index.php?QuickTopic=0

And you can provide an explanation like the following to them so they
know what they can do with these spam-marked messages if they so
choose:
http://www.geri.duke.edu/~irv/filter_spam.txt

Best of luck to you in this endeavour. Please let me know if you need
any further clarifications.

- bookface