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rules.MailRules
The rules.MailRules file, located in the Internet Services/Filters folder, provides a high degree of control in managing your spam or unwanted mail. It contains a series of lines that represent RFC-2822 envelope headers to examine, a test on the content of that header, and an action to perform if the test succeeds. For a detailed description of the default rules.MailRules file, see Default rules.MailRules file in our online help.
 WarningYou should have a solid understanding of filter documents and basic coding to configure SMTP mail rules.
SMTP mail rules let you
• replace all formerly built-in Internet Services spam handling rules
• inject an X-SPAM-Warning Internet header that rates the message as one of: HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW
• inject an X-SPAM-Level header that provides a numeric indication of the likelihood that the file is spam
• inject an X-SPAM-Tests header that shows which spam tests this message failed
• control rules by variables (set, by convention, at the top of the rules file)
• control handling by rules (located, by convention, at the bottom of the rules file)
• implement various SMTP crossposting and Bcc limits.
You can run mail rules
• before any headers are received
• as each header is received
• when the end of the header indicator is reached
• as each HTML address and image link is processed
• as each attachment header is received
• at the end of each set of attachment headers
• as each HTML address and image link is processed
• when the end of the message body is reached
• when the end of the message is reached.
The syntax of the rules.MailRules file is based on a combination of Internet Services script and the HeaderMatch document script, and is designed for administrators familiar with these Internet Services coding rules. The expression part of Internet Services script, in turn, is based loosely on C and JavaScript. The mail rules component gives access to the RFC-2822 headers as they are being received. There are two core RFCs that define Internet (SMTP) mail:
• RFC-2821
Defines how two SMTP servers talk to each other, the message sender, and the message recipient. RFC-2821 also defines if mail can be accepted by the recipient or if it should be rejected.
The "To:" and "From:" fields do not have to correspond to who sent and who received the message (and usually do not with spam).
• RFC-2822 (and RFCs 2045-2049)
Defines the format of the email messages that pass between sender and recipient. An RFC-2822 message typically contains a series of lines referred to as the envelope, followed by a single empty line, followed by the message body. For example,
Subject: Gone fishing
where
• Subject is the RFC-2822 envelope header
• : is the colon that always follows any envelope header
• Gone fishing is the content for the envelope header
Note
The standard set of envelope headers (for example, To, From, Subject, Date) can be extended with user-defined extension headers. These headers must begin with (X-). For example,
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 11 Feb 2003 00:38:15.0656 (UTC) FILETIME= [DD6C4E80:01C2D165]
To see an Internet header in a message, choose View > Show Internet Headers in the FirstClass client:
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