Use the Admin Console

The admin console is the SpamFoo Dashboard as a System Admin sees it. This page is a tour of each part of the console and links to the pages that explain each task in detail.

Open the Console

  • With SmarterMail: sign in to SmarterMail as a system administrator and open the SpamFoo Dashboard from there. No extra setup is needed. See Open Your Dashboard.
  • Without SmarterMail: on the server running SpamFoo Client, go to http://localhost:16253/admin/ and sign in with the proxy secret. You can also run spamfoo-client login-link on the server and open the one-time link it prints. See Sign In Without SmarterMail.
  • From another computer: set up a reverse proxy first. See Set Up Remote Access.

Find Your Way Around

The menu on the left has these items for a System Admin:

Menu Item What It Shows
Overview > Mail Health Mail volume, caught rate, and any problems that need attention. This is the page the console opens on.
Overview > Domains Every domain on this server that has received mail, with totals for each.
Messages A searchable history of the messages SpamFoo has checked.
Senders The domains, IP addresses, and email addresses sending mail to this server.
Rules System Spam Rules, which apply to every domain on the server.
Anti-Phishing The Anti-Phishing model and its sensitivity, plus protected identities and delegated senders for each domain.
System > Status The health of SpamFoo Client, its license, versions, updates, and storage.
System > Settings Settings you can change from the console.
System > Logs A log viewer.
Help Opens this help site in a new tab.

The bar across the top has:

  • A search box that finds domains, sender domains, sender email addresses, sender IP addresses, and mailboxes. It only appears for a System Admin who is not viewing as another role.
  • A language picker and a button to switch between light and dark mode.
  • The role button, which shows your current role. Click it to view the console as a Domain Admin or User. When you signed in with the proxy secret or a sign-in link, it also has Log out. See View as Another Role.

Check Mail Health

Mail Health is the first page you see. Use the time range menu at the top right to pick the last hour, 6 hours, 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days.

  • Alerts: a banner appears at the top when SpamFoo Client can't reach the SpamFoo API, or when the license is missing, past due, suspended, expired, or canceled. Each banner links to System Status. While the API is unreachable, SpamFoo Client keeps classifying with what is already on the server, but models are not updated and domain reputation services are unavailable.
  • Status line: whether the API is connected, how long the engine has been running, how many messages it is checking per minute, and how many are waiting in the scan queue.
  • Tiles: Total Scanned, Caught Rate, Average Scan Time, Not Spam, Spam, and Phishing for the selected range. Caught Rate is the share of scanned mail that was spam or phishing.
  • Mail Trend: a chart of Not Spam, Spam, and Phishing over the range. The label at the top right says whether each point is a minute, an hour, or a day.
  • Classifications for Non-Spam Email: how much of the mail that was not spam went to Primary, Updates, Transactions, and Promotions, plus any that was not classified. See The Four Email Classifications.
  • Top Spam Sources: the domains or IP addresses that sent the most spam and phishing in the time range. Caught % is the share of each sender's mail that was spam or phishing, with spam in red and phishing in gold. Click a row to see those messages. All senders opens the Senders page.

Review Domains

The Domains page lists every domain on this server that has received mail. Pick the last 7, 30, or 90 days at the top right.

  • Four tiles show Total Scanned, Not Spam, Spam, and Phishing for all domains together.
  • Use the search box to find a domain. The All, Active, and Idle buttons filter the list. An idle domain shows a tag with how many days it has been quiet.
  • Under each domain name, tags show how many Domain Spam Rules and protected identities the domain has.
  • The Mailboxes column counts mailboxes that received mail in the range. Scanned includes a small chart of daily volume.
  • Click a column heading to sort. Right-click a domain for View Domain, View Messages, and View as Domain Admin.

Domain Details

Click a domain to open its details for the same time range.

  • View as Domain Admin switches the console to that domain's Domain Admin view. View Messages opens the Messages page filtered to the domain.
  • Tiles show Total Scanned, Not Spam, Spam, and Phishing, followed by a daily Mail Trend chart and the Classifications breakdown.
  • Mailboxes lists each mailbox that received mail in the range, with its Scanned, Spam, and Phishing counts and a caught rate, highest caught rate first. Click a mailbox to see its messages, or right-click it and choose View as User.
  • Top Senders Into This Domain lists the sender domains that sent this domain the most spam and phishing in the last 24 hours. Click a sender to see those messages.

Search Messages

The Messages page is a history of the messages SpamFoo has checked on this server. As a System Admin you see messages for every mailbox.

  • Filter by Detection Type, Detection Path, Verified, Sender Domain, Sender IP, or Recipient, then click Search. Clear resets the filters.
  • The heading shows how many messages match and how they split between not spam, spam, phishing, and classification only.
  • Click a message to open its details, including the signals behind the result, Sender Verification, and the processing steps. Right-click a message to create a rule for the sender or the sender's IP address.

For more, see See Why a Message Was Spam, Correct a Wrong Result, and Check Sender Verification.

Review Senders

The Senders page shows who is sending mail to this server, by domain, IP address, or email address. You can open a sender's activity and create a rule from it. See Review Senders.

Manage Rules

The Rules page holds the System Spam Rules. Each one marks mail from a sender as Spam or Not Spam on every domain. See Manage Spam Rules and Senders.

Manage Anti-Phishing

The Anti-Phishing page has two tabs:

  • Detection: turns the Anti-Phishing model on or off and sets its sensitivity. The model needs a SpamFoo Anti-Phishing license.
  • Protected identities: each domain's protected identities, the names attackers are likely to fake, such as executives or the payroll team.

See Protect Against Phishing.

Check System Status

System > Status shows everything about SpamFoo Client itself.

  • Status line: whether the API is connected, how long SpamFoo Client has been up, its version and release channel, and whether a GPU is in use.
  • Tiles: Messages per Minute, Processed Today, Scan Queue, Memory, CPU, and Database. A green dot next to a tile name means the value updates live.
  • License: the license status, plan, license key, license ID, expiration date, and the features the plan includes. See Read the License Card.
  • Connection string: in standalone mode only, the server's address and the proxy secret as one value. The value is hidden until you click Show, and the copy button copies it either way. Paste it into the setup card for SpamFoo in SmarterMail to connect SmarterMail to this SpamFoo Client. Treat it like a password. See Use SpamFoo Client on Another Server.
  • Versions: the version of SpamFoo Client and of each model.
  • Maintenance: Update Models and Update Client. Each asks you to confirm, and the service may restart to apply an update. When program updates are turned off, Update Client is grayed out and explains how to update instead. In a Docker container running in standalone mode, the Update Client row instead checks for a newer version and tells you to pull the new image. See Update and Back Up.
  • Storage: the database size, how many messages are stored, the oldest record, and the folder paths for the database, personalization data, models, backups, logs, and license key.

Read the License Card

The status tag at the top of the card can be:

  • Active or Trial: the license is in good standing.
  • Grace Period: the license has expired, and SpamFoo keeps it working for a short time so you can renew it. The card shows Grace Period Ends and a License in grace period message with the date. Renew the license in your SpamFoo account before then.
  • Waiting for a license key: no key is set up. Add one with spamfoo-client activate.
  • Other statuses, such as past due, suspended, expired, or canceled, mean the license needs attention in your SpamFoo account.

SpamFoo Client checks its license with SpamFoo regularly. If it can't reach SpamFoo by this date, it stops classifying mail. When the license has expired for good, the card shows License expired, and classification requests are refused until a valid license key is active. See Requests Fail After the License Expires.

Change Settings

System > Settings groups settings into cards: Display, Classification, Hardware, Logging, Scan History, Message Content, and Database Backups. Change any fields, then click Save Changes in the bar at the bottom of the page. Discard throws away edits you haven't saved. See Read and Change Settings for what each setting does.

Read Logs

System > Logs lets you search SpamFoo Client's logs by date, category, and text. See Read Logs in the Admin Console.

See What Other Roles See

Domain Admins and Users see a smaller menu that covers only their own domain or mailbox. To see exactly what they see, use View as Domain Admin or View as User. See Manage Sign-In and Roles, Manage a Domain, and Read Your Overview.