Installing Spamnix

System requirements

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

• Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, or XP.
  • QUALCOMM Eudora 3, 4, or 5. If you are using Eudora 3 or 4, read this FAQ answer to make sure Spamnix works with your version of Eudora.
  • 400 MHz, 64MB RAM recommended
• MacOS X v10.2 or later
  • 400 MHz CPU, 128MB RAM
  • QUALCOMM Eudora 5.0
• Spamnix only works for email that you download and read using Eudora, and currently only supports POP accounts, not IMAP.

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.

The Installer will ask you for a Destination Directory, and offer your Eudora installation directory as the default (for example, C:\Program Files\Eudora on Windows or Eudora.app on MacOS X). 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.

Running Eudora for the first time after installing Spamnix

The first time you run Eudora after installing Spamnix, Spamnix will create a new mailbox called "Spamnix" and set up a Eudora filter to move all mail that Spamnix identifies as spam into that mailbox. When it does so, you will need to exit and restart Eudora. You will only need to do this once, the first time you run Eudora after installing Spamnix.

Using Spamnix

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.

Configuring Spamnix

Generally, Spamnix will work as soon as you install it, without any special configuration. Spamnix does have some configuration options, however, available from the Spamnix: Change 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: Change 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 two main parts, Accept/Reject Rules and general options. The general options are:

• 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.
• Configure Eudora on start-up. If this option is checked, Spamnix will always check to make sure that a mailbox called Spamnix and a Eudora Filter rule to applying to all mail containing the text "SPAM: Spamnix identified this message as spam." in the body both exist. If you want to configure Spamnix in some other way, simply uncheck this box.
• Disable HTML spam. If this option is checked, any HTML message which Spamnix identifies as spam will be converted into "plain text," rendering the HTML markup, image links, and all embedded scripts inoperative. The advantage of this feature is that it reduces the threat of spammers sending you malicious code, "web bugs," or other items that can violate your privacy or security. The disadvantage is that it makes all the HTML commands visible, making the message largely illegibile.
• Spam threshold. Spamnix works by applying a large number of rules to each incoming message. Each rule tests a message for a particular spam-like property, such as "Subject is all capital letters." Each rule has a number of "points" associated with it, and for each message Spamnix totals the number of points for each rule that matches the message. If the message's total points exceeds the Spam Threshold, it is blocked as spam; otherwise, it is not.

  So, setting this field to a lower value means that a message needs to have fewer indications that it is spam for it to be blocked, and vice-versa for a higher value. The Spamnix ruleset is designed to give the best behavior with a threshold of 5.0, but you can change this setting if desired.

• 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.

The Accept/Reject Rules area 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. For details about Accept and Reject rules, see Accept and Reject Rules.

Reviewing and deleting spam

In its normal configuration, Spamnix moves all incoming email that it identifies as spam into the Spamnix mail folder. You should review this mailbox periodically to find out whether Spamnix has incorrectly identified any non-spam messages as spam. Generally, you can just open the mailbox and quickly scan visually through the Sender and Subject list; it is usually quite obvious that all the messages are spam. Once you have confirmed that messages are spam, delete them.

Tip: Pressing Ctrl-A (Windows) or Command-A (MacOS) in the Spamnix folder selects all the messages, and then pressing Delete deletes them.

Accept and Reject Rules

Most of the time, Spamnix correctly identifies both spam and non-spam. Sometimes, a particular spam message or spammer may slip through repeatedly; Spamnix lets you Reject such messages so you never see them again. Similarly, a particuarly company's advertisements or newsletters to which you have subscribed may be accidentally blocked as spam; Spamnix lets you Accept such messages so they are not blocked in the future.

To Accept a message, use the button on the Eudora toolbar; to Reject a message, use the button. (If these buttons are not on the Eudora toolbar, see the Configuring the Eudora Toolbar section of this document.) Note that 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. Both of these buttons open the Accept or Reject rule dialog, which has two sections:

1. Accept or Reject. Indicate whether you want messages matching the Message Criteria (see below) to be Accepted (never blocked as spam) or Rejected (always blocked as spam).
2. Message Criteria. Indicate which messages to which you want this rule to apply. 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

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

The Progress Dialog

While Eudora is downloading email, it may display a Progress dialog showing how many messages are left to process. Spamnix uses the Progress bar to indicate how long it takes to process each message. The slider bar moves from 0% to 100% over the course of 60 seconds. Usually, Spamnix only takes 1-3 seconds to process each message, so the slider bar never makes it very far towards the 100% mark.

Eudora displays the Progress bar after Spamnix has been working for a certain amount of time without finishing. By default, Eudora waits three seconds before displaying it. You can set the number of seconds Eudora will wait before displaying the Progress bar by setting Eudora's ProgressIdle option to a different number. Note, however, that Spamnix processing is a "foreground" Eudora task, which means that while it is happening you cannot use most of Eudora's features. So delaying the Progress bar is really not all that useful.

You also can tell Eudora not to display the Progress bar at all by setting Eudora's ShowProgress option to 0 but this is not recommended as it takes away your ability to press the "Stop" button (see below).

Using "Stop" for messages that take too long

Occasionally, Spamnix may take a long time to process a message. If it ever takes 60 seconds for a single message, Spamnix will abandon processing that message and simply assume it is not spam. It will then continue processing messages normally.

If you want to tell Spamnix to abandon processing a specific message before 60 seconds have passed, simply press the Stop button on the Progress bar. Spamnix will assume the message is not spam, and continue processing messages normally.

Changing how spam is treated

Blocking spam with Spamnix is actually a two-step process. Spamnix identifies which messages are spam and tags them as spam, and then Eudora recognizes the tag and automatically moves the tagged messages into the Spamnix folder.

In order to get Eudora to move tagged messages, Spamnix configures Eudora's Message Filtering feature. If you select Eudora's Tools menu (Windows) or Window menu (MacOS) and the Filters menu item, Eudora displays all of its filters. The filter that begins "<<body>>SPAM: Spamnix identified this message as spam" is Spamnix's filter. It transfers matching messages to the Spamnix folder.

If you want Eudora to do something with spam messages other than move them into the Spamnix mailbox, you can simply change the filter actions. Read Eudora's online help information for detailed instructions.

Configuring the Eudora Toolbar

If you are using Spamnix with Eudora 4 or newer, there should be four Spamnix buttons on the Eudora toolbar: (Accept), (Reject), (Change Settings), 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.

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.
(Change Settings): Tools menu, Spamnix: Change Settings.
(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.

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.
• On MacOS X:
  1. Double-click on the Spamnix Installer which you downloaded to install Spamnix.
  2. Accept the the License Agreement and press Continue to pass the Read Me file.
  3. Click the drop-list next to Easy Install and select Uninstall.
  4. Press the Uninstall button.

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. Delete the files <EudoraDir>\Plugins\Spamnix.*, <EudoraDir>\Plugins\0Spamnix.DLL, and the folder <EudoraDir>\Plugins\Spamnix, where <EudoraDir> is the folder into which you installed Spamnix.
  3. Delete the files <MailDir>\Plugins\Spamnix.* and the folder <MailDir>\Plugins\Spamnix, where <MailDir> is the folder in which Eudora stores your email. This may or may not be the same as <EudoraDir>.

  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.

Information about SpamAssassin

This information is provided to comply with the terms of SpamAssassin's use of the Perl Artistic License. You do not need to know anything in this section in order to use Spamnix.

Spamnix is based in part on a freely-available open-source product called SpamAssassin, available at www.spamassassin.org. SpamAssassin is written in a computer language called Perl and was designed by its authors to work only in a Unix-style computer environment. Spamnix is an enhancement to SpamAssassin that allows it to operate on Windows as a QUALCOMM Eudora Plug-in. Spamnix is developed and distributed by Spamnix Software, which does not own SpamAssassin.

When you install Spamnix, an executeable program called SPAMNIX.EXE is placed in the Plugins\Spamnix folder of your Eudora program directory (or whereever you choose to install it). SPAMNIX.EXE is based on SpamAssassin (specifically, it uses the "SpamAssassin Modules"), but provides a different set of features than the standard SpamAssassin end-user program which is called "spamassassin.pl". In particular, none of the standard SpamAssassin command line options or configuration file settings are guaranteed to work.

To obtain the original SpamAssassin product distribution, visit www.spamassassin.org and visit the Download page. If the original product is no longer available at that site, contact Spamnix Software for assistance.