Junk filter out of Beta?

Hi,

According to newsletter, the Junk filter is out of beta - great!

But, I still see beta texts in the panel (warning #1 although states that this feature is not any longer a beta) ;)

Ok, I do have a question ... I am planning on taking this into production with my domain but according to information in the panel under Junk filter I need to educate all my users to use http://webmail2.dreamhost.com instead of currently used domain-based webmail. Is there any plans to integrate functionality also to other installations of webmail or is this functionality going to be only available under webmail2.dreamhost.com?

BR,

- miikka

1) The junk mail will not be installed in our individual webmails, as far as has been announced.
2) Everybody must go to webmail2.dreamhost.com to check their junk mails and change the junk mail settings.

Here's why:

The junk mail filter runs on a completely separate system. All mail first passes this server where it is filtered, and if it passes the filter, then it goes on to our own mail servers where we can access it with our own webmails.

That means that in order to check the junk mail (and settings), we must all login to this first machine and not our own mail servers, which is why DreamHost can't provide the junk mail features on our own webmails -- because it's on a completely different machine.

So if you think that your users will be in danger of having some mails caught by the filter (like my boss), then you must educate them about how to check their filter and release any good mails inadvertently caught. If your users probably won't ever get any good mails caught (like my mom), you can spare them the worry.

... and I'm sure they will remove the "beta" remarks soon!

TorbenGB

Actually that's not really true! I just didn't want to muck up the normal Webmail while I hacked in the Junk Mail features.

I'll integrate the changes into the "real" webmail this week, so there won't be anything weird you need to do to check out your Junk Mail!


nate.

That's just more great news!
Please send out a detailed Announcement that account owners can share with their users to explain how to check and adjust the filter.

TorbenGB

Hi there.. is there any progress on this. It says this would be integrated into the "real" webmail in november of last year. I haven't seen it on my webmail domains yet. Is there something I need to do to make this happen? (SpamAssassin is activated on my domain.)

Thank you,
Brian

yeah, it's out of Beta. You should be able to turn it on in your control panel, Mail > Junk. There have been some issues with it recently though, even though it's out of Beta. Apparently a lot of the issues DH people have been having with mail getting delivered very late is from the Junk filter.

-Matttail

Go, Nate! And I echo TorbenGB's request that after the Junk Mail management features are added into regular Webmail, please send out a detailed announcement that account owners can share with their users to explain how to check and adjust the filter.

In the meantime, I've set up a web page for my users to help them understand how to use the basics of the system with Webmail2. I've posted a modified version of this here (just for this DreamHost forum).

After the features are in regular Webmail, only "Step 1" needs to be changed. Any of you in the forum are welcome to use any and all of this for your own purposes. Please don't just link to it, though, as it will only be there temporarily. ~Jim

DH,

Sorry to jump in on this thread, but I had a question. I am attempting to turn off the spam filters for my domain and thought I did so using the control panel (it says the filters are "off"). The problem is that I am still getting the junk mail notifications with a single piece of junk mail in the quarantined area. I can (and do) delete the junk mail, but the filters seem to still be run ning against my domain. I would like to shut the filters off and get no more notifications. Is this possible?

Thanks in advance, Ed

Hi Ed,
this might be something you should write a support ticket about since it's not anything that we forum-goers can help you with. DH needs to check your site's setup on the server.

TorbenGB

You should be able to completely turn off the junk mail filters, yes. If it's not working, there's something we need to fix for you.

- Dallas
- DreamHost Honcho

Any update on when this will be integrated with the normal webmail system?

bryan | website

it allready is. if you read this thread you'd see that. you can turn on junk mail filtering by domain in your panel.



-Matttail

If it has been integrated into *normal* webmail (vs. webmail2), it has been well hidden! I don't think it is there yet...

-Mark

well, you can't turn on he junk mail filter or that sort of stuff though webmail. You have to access it though your DH panel and turn it on for the entire domain. Then it will work no matter where you are chaking your mail.

-Matttail

Maybe I can clear up some confusion here. It seems to me what miikka, nate, TorbenGB, Brian, Mark & I are referring to above is not the ability to turn the junk filter on or off for a domain (which is done through the DH Web Control Panel, as Matttail points out), but rather the functionality of checking what's in quarantine, managing those messages (deleting, moving to inbox, or adding to whitelist), setting blacklist/whitelist preferences, setting the sensitivity level of the filter, and other junk mail management tasks and preferences that you can currently only access from within webmail2.

Nate is apparently working on bringing this functionality into normal webmail, and for various reasons, that's what many of us are waiting for, I believe.

To miikka, et al: Do I have this right? ~Jim

Yes Jim, at least for my part I can say that I'm looking forward to being able to see the quarantine list from "webmail.mydomain.com" rather than via "webmail2.dreamhost.com" because while we _do_ have own-domain webmails, it's sad that they lack some (key) aspects and that's what Nate is fixing. Yay for DreamHost!

TorbenGB

I integrated things this morning.


nate.

Thanks Nate!

-Mark

H O O R A Y !!

I tested it with a few domains, and everything worked great.

Thank you, Nate! ~Jim

*T*H*A*N*K*S* *N*A*T*E*!!!*

This is excellent. It may not appear as much to the eye, but I'm sure a LOT of work lies behind this. And now everybody can check their quarantined mail right inside the normal webmail. BRAVO!

TorbenGB

Now that you can change SpamAssassin settings from the normal webmail interface, do you think you could change the instructions given out when SpamAssassin is enabled? I spent a lot of time trying to log in to webmail2.dreamhost.com before I found this thread in the forums......

Nate~ Thanks again for our new, full-featured Webmail. Besides the instructions requested (above) by TorbenGB and webwide, it seems like the only undone piece of this integration process is to update the "Junk Mail Report" messages, which still direct all users to the old Webmail2.

The address in these messages could of course be changed to a generic "webmail.yourdomain.com (or .net, .org. etc.)," and would no longer be a link. But as the messages are uniquely generated for each e-mail account, could you possibly set it up so they automatically insert the actual domain in the webmail link that appears in the message body? I'm sure my users would love that. ~Jim

I've updated my sample junk mail instructions (mentioned above) for the new integrated Webmail here. It may be useful to those of you who manage hosting for “complete non-techies,” and so need to write “assume nothing” explanations for them.

All DreamHosters are welcome to use anything on the page as you see fit. (Note that the page will not be there permanently.) Maybe you can re-use some of my explanatory copy or images, and save yourself some time. Note that the "e-mail me" is not a live link, but would be used for your users to contact you about this (ideally with some ASCII cloaking or a form to protect your address from spambots). ~Jim

If you don't want to keep that page up permanently, why not add it to the DH wiki? That way the information will still be available if you decide you want it off your site for whatever reason.

kchrist~ As soon as I read your comment, I thought "of course!" I guess I'm still getting used to the Way of the Wiki. I've now posted the page here.

Thanks for the suggestion. ~Jim