User settings can be modified through a web-based interface called Usermin. SpamAssassin filter settings, Procmail filter settings, forwarding email, and autoreply (vacation) messages can be configured. The Mail option in the upper-left of the Usermin web interface , when expanded, will list the user tools installed.

The service is protected by the ECE firewall, so if you are not connecting from ECE Tier-1 or Tier-2 machines, you have to use the ECE VPN server or the UofT VPN server to access the web pages.

https://mail.ece.utoronto.ca:20000

How-tos for web-based interface:

Setting Up ECE email autoreply (vacation)

Setting Up ECE email forwarding

The ECE email server uses Spamassassin for filtering Spam email. The system scores incoming email based on sender, subject, content, attachments and additional attributes and if the score is high enough, the email is placed in your Spam folder.

Spam will still get through since there is a balancing act between allowing legitimate email and blocking spam. Spammers are constantly finding ways to disguise their spam to look like legitimate email.

The following web page shows how to mark incoming email addresses as Always Allow (Whitelist) or Always Deny (Blacklist).

Allow and Deny email Addresses in Spamassassin (Spam filter Whitelist and Blacklist)

The following web page shows how to define additional tests on incoming email depending on content of the header or body. Custom tests are usually not needed but in the case you are getting a lot of false positives or negatives then the option is available.

Additional content tests for Spamassassin

Procmail can be very useful for users that receive large amounts of incoming mail.

• Advanced filtering with Procmail