Installing Spamnix

System requirements

Spamnix 3.0 is designed to run on computers that meet the following minimum specifications:

• Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, or XP
  or MacOS X 10.2 or later
• 400 MHz, 128MB RAM recommended
• QUALCOMM Eudora 5, 6, or 7
• POP and IMAP personalities are supported

Spamnix will work on computers with a slower CPU and less RAM, but may take too long to process each message for your satisfaction.

Using the Installer

After downloading the Spamnix installation program, perform the following steps:

1. If Eudora is running on your system, close it.
2. Double-click on the Spamnix installer to run it.
3. Read each of the Installation Wizard screens and then press the Next button.

On Windows, the Installer will ask you for a Destination Directory, and offer your Eudora installation directory as the default (for example, C:\Program Files\Eudora). You should accept this default, which will actually cause Spamnix to be installed in the Plugins subdirectory of the Eudora directory. If you choose another Destination Directory, Spamnix will not work properly.

On MacOS X, the Installer will install Spamnix into /Applications/Spamnix Software/Spamnix and plug it in to all copies of Eudora on your computer from there.

The Spamnix Getting Started Wizard

The first time you run Eudora after installing Spamnix, Spamnix will display a Getting Started Wizard that explains what you need to know to use Spamnix effectively. Please read through it. It covers:

• How Spamnix works.
• How to train Spamnix on individual messages.
• How Spamnix and Eudora 6 SpamWatch interact.
• Advanced features and other documentation.

You can open the Getting Started Wizard at any time from the Eudora Tools menu (on MacOS X, the Special menu).

Spamnix starts automatically

Spamnix is a Eudora plug-in, which means it starts automatically when Eudora starts and exits automatically when Eudora exits. You do not need to take any action to activate Spamnix once it is installed.

Spamnix and Eudora SpamWatch

Eudora 6/7 in Paid mode include a spam-blocking feature called SpamWatch. We believe Spamnix is more accurate than SpamWatch and that it is best to turn SpamWatch off. On Windows, Spamnix turns SpamWatch off automatically. On MacOS X, you can disable SpamWatch by removing one file.

If you want, Spamnix and SpamWatch can both operate within Eudora simultaneously. To minimize confusion, though, you should understand how they interact.

Like Spamnix, SpamWatch also computes a spam score for every message, and Eudora chooses whichever score is higher. So, if Spamnix says a message scores 45 (non-spam) and Spamwatch says it scores 52 (spam), Eudora will assign the message a score of 52. (There is one exception: a message matching a Spamnix Accept ("whitelist") rule always gets a score of 0.)

Once a message receives a score, Spamnix filters it regardless of which plug-in assigned the score. So, in the above example, the message scoring 52 would be sent to the Junk mailbox, even though Spamnix knew it was not spam. You can and should still use the Message > Not Junk menu item to re-train on the message because doing so trains both Spamnix and SpamWatch.

On Windows, if you want to turn SpamWatch back on:

1. Open the   Spamnix Settings General tab.
2. Uncheck the "Disable Eudora's built-in SpamWatch" option.
3. Restart Eudora.

Uninstalling Spamnix

To remove Spamnix from your system, perform the following steps:

• On Windows:
  1. If Eudora is running on your computer, close it.
  2. Click on the Windows Start button.
  3. Select the Settings menu, and Control Panel menu item.
  4. Select the Add/Remove Programs icon.
  5. Scroll down the list of installed applications until you find Spamnix, and double-click it.
  6. Answer "Yes" when it asks if you are sure you want to remove it.
  7. Follow the uninstall instructions.
  8. If Spamnix is still active when you restart Eudora, reboot your computer. If that does not work, follow the manual uninstallation instructions below.
• On MacOS X:
  1. Delete the folder /Applications/Spamnix Software/Spamnix.
  2. Empty the Trash.

If for some reason the automated uninstallation process does not fully remove Spamnix from your system, you can manually uninstall it:

• On Windows:
  1. If Eudora is running on your computer, close it.
  2. Click on the Windows Start button.
  3. Select Find Files or Folders or Search > For files or folders.
  4. Search for all files named 0Spamnix.DLL (the first character is a zero, nor the letter "O").
  5. Delete all files named 0Spamnix.DLL.

  Spamnix does not add anything to the Windows registry that you need to remove in order to uninstall it.

• On MacOS X:
  1. Open a new Finder window and navigate to /Applications/Eudora Application Folder.
  2. Press the Ctrl key and click on the Eudora application icon.
  3. Select Show Package Contents from the drop-down menu.
  4. In the new Finder window that appears, navigate to Contents/MacOS.
  5. Drag the icons Spamnix and Spamnix.bundle to the Trash.
  6. Empty the trash.

Training Spamnix

Spamnix is a learning-based spam blocker. When first installed, it does not know anything about what you consider spam, and will not block a single message. You teach it how to recognize spam by providing examples of both spam and non-spam messages. Every time it makes a mistake, you "re-train" it on the incorrectly categorized message. Soon, Spamnix will identify almost every message correctly.

IMPORTANT: Especially during the first few weeks of use, check your mail and review the Junk mailbox frequently, re-training Spamnix on every mistake it makes. This will give you the best results as quickly as possible. You should expect Spamnix to take a week of consistent training before it achieves 99% accuracy.

As each new email message arrives, Spamnix compares it to its training database and assigns it a spam score between 0 and 100, where 0 means "definitely not spam," 50 means "unsure," and 100 means "definitely spam." Spamnix transfers any message whose score is greater than 50 to the Junk mailbox, which shows the spam score for each message (see image on right).

Note: With Eudora 5, the mailbox is named "_Junk" and the spam score is shown only at the end of each message, not in the mailbox summary window itself.

Training Spamnix on individual messages

If a spam message makes it into your In box, that means Spamnix thinks it is non-spam. You need to train Spamnix that the message is spam. Similarly, if a non-spam messages is sent to your Junk mailbox, you need to train Spamnix that the message is non-spam.

To train Spamnix that a message is spam with Eudora 6/7, use the Message > Junk menu item (it is near the bottom of Eudora's Message menu). When Eudora 6/7 "junks" a message, it also transfers it to the Junk mailbox automatically.

With Eudora 5, the Junk menu item is not available. Instead, use the Spamnix   (Reject) button to open the Accept/Reject dialog and select "Train Spamnix to recognize messages like this in the future". The Reject button does not transfer the message to the Junk mailbox; you can do that manually if desired.

To train Spamnix that a message is non-spam with Eudora 6/7, use the Message > Not Junk menu item. With Eudora 5, use the Spamnix   (Accept) button.

Training Spamnix on entire mailboxes

To train Spamnix on entire mailboxes at a time:

1. Open the Training tab by selecting the Tools menu (or Special on MacOS X) and the Spamnix: Settings menu item (see Configuring Spamnix for more details about the Spamnix: Settings dialog).
2. Identify mailboxes which you are absolutely certain contain either all spam or no spam. If you are not certain about a mailbox's contents, either review it by hand to make sure or simply do not use it for traing purposes. Some suggestions:
   • Train on approximately the same number of spam and non-spam messages, with no more than twice the messages in one category as the other. If you train on vastly more messages in one category than the other, Spamnix will end up treating too many messages as belonging to that category.
   • You can train on spam messages that Spamnix has already blocked. Spamnix removes its own spam report before training.
   • One good source of non-spam messages for training is your own Out box (unless, of course, you tend to send spam messages :-).
   • One common approach is to create two dedicated mailboxes called Training Spam and Training Non-Spam in which you save known spam and non-spam. This makes it easy to add new messages and re-train Spamnix on the same messages in the future.
3. Select each mailbox you identified in step #1 and press the No Spam or Only Spam button as appropriate to classify it. You can also move all the mailboxes in a folder at once. When you classify a mailbox, Spamnix will count and display the number of messages in it. If you make a mistake, use the Unclassify button to correct it.
4. Press Train Now. Note that Spamnix may take several minutes to train itself on your messages.

Creating Accept and Reject rules

Once properly trained, Spamnix almost always correctly identifies both spam and non-spam. Sometimes, however, you want to override Spamnix's learning system with a specific rule. To tell Spamnix to always block certain messages, use the button to create a Reject rule. To tell Spamnix that to always allow certain messages, use the button to create an Accept rule. Note: On Windows, Eudora only activates the and buttons when a message is open; you cannot Accept or Reject a message while viewing it in the Preview pane (Eudora 6.2 fixes this problem).

Both of these buttons open the Accept or Reject Message dialog, which has two sections:

1. Accept or Reject. Indicate whether this message should have been Accepted (not blocked as spam) or Rejected (blocked as spam).
2. Message Recognition. Indicate whether you want to teach Spamnix about this message by Training the learning system or creating a static rule.
   1. Train Spamnix. Select this option to train the learning system on this message. No Accept or Reject Rule will be created. See Training Spamnix on individual messages for details.
   This option is recommended for normal false positives and negatives.
   2. Create a rule. Select this option to create a static Accepr or Reject rule based on the message's sender, recipients, or subject. This option is recommended for messages that Spamnix consistently misses or for "spam-like" messages that you nevertheless want to receive (because training Spamnix to Accept one spam-like message is likely to cause it to accept others).

      You have five options:

      1. A From address rule matches if the specified address matches the address in a message's From header (also, the message's Sender, Envelope-Sender, Resent-Sender, X-Envelope-From, Return-Path, and Resent-From headers). The address must match completely, but you can use the wildcard "*" (asterisk) to match any zero or more characters. For example, the following table shows some From address criteria entries and actual From addresses they would or would not match.

         Critera	"From:" header	Match?	Why
         pcr@myco.com	pcr@myco.com	Yes	exact match
         pcr@myco	pcr@myco.com	No	incomplete match; nothing matches the ".com"; "pcr@myco*" would, though
         pcr@*	pcr@myco.com	Yes	complete match, with * matching "myco.com"
         *@myco.com	pcr@web.myco.com	No	the * matches "pcr", but "@myco.com" does not match "*web.myco.com"
         *@*myco.com	pcr@web.myco.com	Yes	the first * matches "pcr" and the second * matches "web."

      2. A From domain rule matches if the specified domain name matches the domain in a message's From header (also, the other headers listed for From address rules). A From domain rule for the domain EXAMPLE.COM is exactly equivalent to a From address rule for the address "*@*example.com".
      3. A To address rules matches if the specified address matches the address in a message's To header (also, the message's CC, Apparently-To, Delivered-To, Envelope-Recipients, Apparently-Resent-To, and X-Envelope-To headers). The rules are the same as for a From address rule.
      4. A To domain rule matches if the specified domain name matches the domain in a message's To header (also, the other headers listed for To address rules). A To domain rule for the domain EXAMPLE.COM is exactly equivalent to a To address rule for the address "*@*example.com".
      5. A Subject rule matches if the specified text appears anywhere within the message's Subject header; a complete match is not necessary. For example, the following table shows some Subject criteria entries and actual Subjects they would or would not match.

         Critera	"Subject:" header	Match?	Why
         Hello	Hello, there!	Yes	"Hello" appears in the subject
         this test	This is a test.	No	"this test" does not appear in the subject
         this*test	This is a test.	Yes	the * matches " is a ", so the criteria appears in the subject

      6. An Attachment rule matches if the message contains an attachment matching the specified file name. Again, "*" may be used as a wildcard.

The Spamnix: Settings dialog

To open the Spamnix Settings dialog, you can either press the button on the Eudora toolbar or select the Tools menu (Windows) or the Special menu (MacOS) and the Spamnix: Settings menu item. If the button is not on the Eudora toolbar, see the Configuring the Eudora Toolbar section of this document.

The Spamnix Settings dialog has four panels: General, Training, Rules, and Spam Actions.

General settings

The Spamnix Settings: General panel displays useful information and program-wide options.

• Registration code. This text area contains your current Spamnix registration code and shows which mode (Trial or Paid) Spamnix is currently registered for. When you obtain a new Spamnix registration code, enter it here.
• Show the Spamnix Getting Started Wizard. When checked, Spamnix will display the Spamnix Getting Started Wizard every time Eudora starts.
• Append spam report to blocked messages. When checked, Spamnix will add a spam report showing a message's spam score and any Accept/Reject rules it matched to the bottom of every message marked as spam. With Eudora 5, this feature is mandatory. With Eudora 6/7, this feature is optional, but be aware that enabling it will slow down mail processing slightly and may cause conflicts with anti-virus software.
• Disable Eudora's built-in SpamWatch (Eudora 6/7 only). When checked, Spamnix turns off Eudora's built-in spam blocker SpamWatch. Please read this FAQ entry for details on why this is a good idea.
• Disable Spamnix. When checked, Spamnix will not block any spam or modify email messages in any way. All of its other features will still work, however.
• Log received messages. This option is generally useful only if requested by Technical Support. If this option is checked, Spamnix will store two copies of the most recent 1,000 messages you've received in the Plugins\Spamnix folder (Windows) or Eudora Items/Plugins/Spamnix folder (MacOS X) of your Eudora mail folder. One copy (e.g. 123-eud.txt) contains exactly the message as Eudora handed it to Spamnix, and the other copy (e.g. 123-out.txt) contains the message after Spamnix has finished processing it.

Managing Accept and Reject rules

The Rules panel shows your current Accept and Reject rules, and allows you to modify them. To add a new Accept or Reject entry, press the Add... button. To change an entry, select the item and press the Edit... button. To remove an entry, select the item and press the Remove button. The Rules panel also contains an option:

• Accept messages from addresses in Address Book. While this option is checked, Spamnix will accept any message from a sender address listed in any of your Eudora Address Books. The Address Book addresses do not appear in the Accept/Reject Rules list, however. Note: Spamnix does not notice any changes made to your Address Book(s) while Eudora is running until either you restart Eudora or visit this dialog box and press OK.
• Reject messages containing executable attachments. When checked, Spamnix will reject any message containing an attachment with any of the following extensions: ade, adp, bas, bat, chm, cmd, com, cpl, crt, eml, exe, hlp, hta, inf, ins, isp, jse, lnk, mdb, mde, msc, msi, msp, mst, pcd, pif, reg, scr, sct, shs, url, vbs, vbe, wsf, wsh, wsc.

For details about Accept and Reject rules, see Accepting and Rejecting Messages.

To manage your Accept and Reject lists directly, see the Configuring Spamnix section.

Changing how spam is treated

By default, Spamnix transfers any message whose spam score is greater than 50 to the Junk mailbox (_Junk with Eudora 5). You can change this behavior via the Spam Actions tag.

You can change the mailbox spam is transferred to by clicking the button containing the mailbox name, and select a new mailbox from the list that appears. You can raise the score required to block a message by dragging the slider next to the mailbox name.

You can have Spamnix send higher-scoring messages to a separate mailbox by checking the second Action button, choosing a mailbox, and setting the score threshold slider to a higher value.

Finally (on Windows only), you can have Spamnix automatically delete the highest-scoring messages by checking the third Action button. This is not recommended until you have used Spamnix for a while and are confident of its accuracy. Note that any message matching a Reject rule receives a score of 100. Messages deleted via this mechanism cannot be recovered.

Additionally, by checking box next to Also run user filters on spam, any custom "incoming" Eudora filter(s) you create will operate on spam after all actions specified in the Spam Actions tab. This allows you to override any action Spamnix makes except "delete completely."

WARNING Due to a bug in Eudora, if you enable Also run user filters on spam, any filter that transfers an incoming message which Spamnix marks as spam back to the In box will cause Eudora to enter an infinite loop and eventually crash. Transferring to other mailboxes appears safe.

Using Spamnix in Eudora

Spamnix buttons on the Eudora Toolbar

If you are using Spamnix with Eudora 4 or newer, there should be five Spamnix buttons on the Eudora toolbar: (Accept), (Reject), (Settings), (Report), and (Help). Spamnix asks Eudora to put its buttons on the main toolbar, but Eudora does not always comply. In particular, the first time you upgrade to a new version of Spamnix (i.e.: the second time you install Spamnix), Eudora may remove the toolbar buttons and you will have to put them back manually.

For detailed instructions on how to manually put Spamnix's buttons on the toolbar, read this FAQ entry.

Eudora 3 does not allow Spamnix to put its buttons on the toolbar. See Keyboard Shortcuts to access the corresponding functionality.

Spamnix and IMAP

Note: This section assumes you are already familiar with using Eudora with IMAP. Read the Eudora online Help or contact Eudora Technical Support if you need general information about using Eudora with IMAP.

Eudora 6.2 and newer allows Spamnix to work with IMAP accounts. Since Spamnix works by examining the entire body of each message as it is arrives, however, you need to configure your IMAP Personalities to download the complete message body instead of just the minimal headers. To make this change:

• On Windows:
  1. Select the Tools menu > Personalities menu item.
  2. Right-click on the IMAP Personality and select Properties.
  3. Select the Incoming mail tab.
  4. Under For new mail, download:, select Full message except attachments over. We suggest entering a small number such a 0, 1 or 2 KB for the maximum attachment size to download automatically.
  5. Press OK.
• On MacOS X:
  1. Select the Special menu > Settings... menu item.
  2. Select the Personality Extras icon in the list of the left side of the Settings dialog box.
  3. Under Personality to Configure, select your IMAP Personality.
  4. Under Download Options, select Full message except attachments over. We suggest entering a small number such a 0, 1 or 2 KB for the maximum attachment size to download automatically.
  5. Press OK.

Keyboard Shortcuts

On Windows, all of Spamnix's features are accessible directly from the keyboard, whether or not you have Spamnix's icons in the toolbar. To access each toolbar button's corresponding functionality, use the following Eudora menus:

(Accept): Edit menu, Message plug-ins, Spamnix: Accept message.
(Reject): Edit menu, Message plug-ins, Spamnix: Reject message.
(Reject): Edit menu, Message plug-ins, Spamnix: Show report.
(Settings): Tools menu, Spamnix: Change Settings.
(Statistics): Tools menu, Spamnix: Statistics.
(Help): Tools menu, Spamnix: Help.

Once the Spamnix: Settings or Accept/Reject Rule dialog is displayed, all dialog controls are accessible via underlined-letter keys as well as Space and Tab in the standard Windows fashion.

Information about CRM114

You do not need to know anything in this section in order to use Spamnix.

Spamnix uses a freely-available open-source project called CRM114, available at crm114.sourceforge.net. CRM114 is designed by its authors to work only in a Unix-style computer environment. Spamnix is an enhancement to CRM114 that allows it to operate on Windows and MacOS X as a QUALCOMM Eudora Plug-in. Spamnix is developed and distributed by Spamnix Software, which does not own CRM114.

When you run Eudora, Spamnix creates a child process named SPAMNIX.EXE that uses CRM114. The complete source code for CRM114 as used by Spamnix is publicly available as a gzipped tar file, subject to the terms of the GNU General Public License (see the file GPL-License.txt in the distribution for details). No support of any kind is provided for this source code.