Mac OS X Server

Mac OS X: Training Spam Assassin

Mac OS X Server’s built-in spam filter is Spam Assassin (sa).  This article describes methods for teaching Spam Assassin how not to encounter false positives. First, man sa-learn and read about the command in it’s man file.

Once you have done so, here are some tips for using sa-learn:

sa-learn –ham teaches spam assassin that a message is not spam.

sa-learn –spam teaches sa that a message is spam

spam assassin learns based on files.  Files are in the mbx or mbox format.  Append–mbox or –mbx on the command to teach it based on these file types.  To scan a folder for files to use, just use the * key for the wildcard.

sa-learn –backup backs up the sa database

If you teach it a message is ham and it is indeed not you can use the –forget to forget the teachings

sa considers email as interesting tokens.  It adds these to the database

always train with an equal amount of ham as spam or you could teach it to be more or less veracious.