Our servers use a variety of highly effective methods to prevent spam. The first is the use of Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBLs) for spam prevention. Our servers are configured to use a hand-picked selection of RBLs which block known spam-hosts, open proxy servers, open mail relays, hijacked/infected servers and the like from sending mail to your server. The RBL selection was designed to eliminate spam without blocking legitimate mail. We also harden the mail server configuration as another layer in spam prevention. For too many reasons to list here, sometimes junk mail still gets in. That's why every 420 Crative Hosting account comes with Spam Assassin and other anti-spam tools to help you combat junk email. Follow the instructions below to set up Spam Assassin. Or, if you'd like, we can set it up for you - just get in touch!
- Log in to your cPanel at www.yourdomain.com/cpanel (where yourdomain.com is your URL/domain name)
- Once inside, under the Mail section, click on Spam Assassin.
- On the new page you'll see various settings for Spam Assassin. If it isn't already enabled, click on the Enable Spam Assassin button.
- The resulting screen after enabling Spam Assassin will show a log of the enabling. You don't need to worry about it unless you encounter an error of some kind. Then just click Go Back.
- Spam Assassin is now enabled. You'll need to then set up your filters (see below).
Filters & Auto Delete
Spam Assassin gives each message it flags as junk a score between 1 and 10. The higher the number, the more conservative the setting, which means that fewer emails will be flagged as spam (i.e., the criteria will be less strict). It's recommended to set the score at 5, 4 or 3. A score of 4 seems to work really well if you're getting dozens or hundreds of junk email every day.
Just setting up a filter will simply flag the junk email as spam so it will still arrive in your inbox, typically with this in the subject line:
+++++SPAM+++++
To keep the spam from ever reaching your inbox, it's best to enable Auto-Delete. To do so, simple click on the Auto-Delete Spam button below the Score filter drop-down. You'll then see a confirmation screen that Auto-Delete is enabled.
Auto-Delete simply means that the server will automatically delete the email it has flagged as junk/spam and therefore never reaches your inbox. Sometimes, depending on your Filter settings, legitimate emails will get flagged as spam and will be deleted. To avoid this, or if you want to see what's being flagged as spam, it's best to not enable Auto-Delete. The other option is to enable your Spam Box.
Spam Box
Spam box will deliver emails flagged as spam by the server into a separate folder named "spam". That folder will fill up as a normal inbox or folder and counts toward your overall disk space limit so its a good idea to empty it out regularly.
Spam Assassin Configuration
Under this setting you have some advanced options for how Spam Assassin filters and identifies junk mail (i.e., black- and white-listing). Please read the instructions on that page or get in touch with us for help.