Filtering Email with
Websieve Mail Account Management

See also: Spam Filters with WebSieve

Websieve Mail Account Management provides many important tools for Oakton email users. While Netscape Messenger provides for filtering of mail also, Websieve manages your mail farther "upstream" in the process and thus applies management rules to users' email regardless of which email client is being used (Netscape, Webmail, Eudora, etc.).

The following directions are mainly intended to ward off frequently received spam and email-propogated viruses. IT can advise if you wish to use some of the other Web Sieve functions.

     
  1. Go to http://borg.oakton.edu/cgi-bin/websieve.pl and log in using your regular Oakton login ID and password.
  
     
  1. Click "Add Rule"
  
     

A "rule" is a specific condition that will trigger a specific action. An "If / Then..." scenario. For instance, a very simple rule could boil down to 'If the subject line of an incoming message contains the word "elephant" Then delete that message.'

Continue with these steps to set the key conditions and properties of a rule.
  1. Select "Enabled" from the drop menu.
    If you wish to suspend this rule later, you can change this to Disabled. Delete will completely eliminate the rule. Choose Modify if you wish to open an old rule to change it's properties.
  
  1. Check "Continue checking... "
  
  1. Select the "IF" qualities. The "IF" qualities of the message can be any or all of those shown in the illustration.
    Messages carrying a particular virus often repeat a common subject line or from/sender line. Determine what aspect(s) is common across all the messages you wish to handle and use that as the "IF" aspect.
  
  1. Select One of the 5* options for the "THEN" action. These include:
  • Filing a message in a folder other than the Inbox
  
  • Forwarding to another address.
  
  • Auto Reply With (you still receive the message) or Reject (message is deleted). You have the option with these to send a short text message to the sender.
  
  • Discard. This simply deletes the incoming message before it enters your inbox.
    Normally you would choose discard when filtering spam or viruses.

    (*Custom Rules are beyond the scope of this document.)

  

  1. When all conditions of your rule are set, click Save Rule. To create additional rules, return to Step 2.
  
  1. Once you have set up all your rules, click on "Advanced Options."
 
  1. On the Advanced Options page, choose Yes to activate the script.
    You will generally leave other default settings in place.
  
  1. Click Save Changes. The screen will refresh and text near the upper left will indicate whether the update was successful.
  
  1. Click Logout to end the session.
  

Notes:

  • If an email carrying a virus has no actual common element but a small variety of, say, subject lines, you might set up one rule for each of the possible subject lines.
  • 'Wild Card' characters are allowed. A * represents one or more characters while a ? represents any single character.
  • If you set up Websieve filters, delete any Netscape filters that would affect the same conditions (for example, don't have both a WebSieve and a Netscape filter that delete messages with "elephant" in the subject line)
  • Please be aware that Websieve may not be the most approptiate or reliable tool for your task. Consult IT if you experience difficulties.

Copyright Oakton Community College, 2003
Information Technology Department
Last update: March 11, 2004