SmarterMail Integration

SmarterMail has native SpamFoo support built in. SmarterMail automatically downloads, installs, and runs the SpamFoo client without any separate installation, and email classification works out of the box for all mailboxes.

Enabling Antispam

  1. Log in to SmarterMail as a system administrator
  2. Navigate to Settings > Antispam > SpamFoo
  3. Check Enabled and give it an appropriate weight
  4. Save changes

SmarterMail handles the rest: downloading SpamFoo, provisioning the license, and starting the service. Spam detection begins within a few seconds.

Enabling Classification

Classifications are enabled per user, so you would enable them by enabling the Email Classification feature on a specific user, or by setting user defaults and propagating the setting in the domains you wish to apply them.

For instance, to turn it on for an entire domain, you would:

  1. Log in to SmarterMail as a system administrator
  2. Navigate to Manage > Domains > [CLICK A DOMAIN] > User Defaults Tab
  3. Check Email Classification
  4. Save changes
  5. Propagate the setting to all users on the domain

SmarterMail will queue the users up for classification. It will process the smallest users first. Once a user's mail is done being classified, the Email Classification system interfaces will show up for them in webmail. This process can be monitored in the Manage > Troubleshooting > Mailbox Processing tab.

What It Does

Once enabled, SpamFoo runs as a background process on the SmarterMail server. When an email arrives, SmarterMail sends it to SpamFoo for analysis. SpamFoo examines the message headers, authentication results, body text, and metadata using local ML models, then returns a spam score and a class (Primary, Promotions, Updates, or Transactions). The entire process happens locally, and no email content leaves the server.

SmarterMail combines SpamFoo's spam score with its other antispam checks (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, Trusted Senders, etc.) to make a final delivery decision. You can adjust how much weight SpamFoo's result carries in Settings > Antispam > SpamFoo.

Classification-Only Mode

If you prefer to use a different antispam solution for spam detection but still want SpamFoo's email classification, you can enable classification without the Antispam check being enabled.

User Feedback

SpamFoo improves over time based on user corrections. When a user marks a message as spam (or not spam), or moves a message to a different classification, SmarterMail automatically sends the mathematical attributes of that correction to SpamFoo. Additionally, users may choose to consent to allow a sanitized version of the raw email to be used for additional training. This consent can be granted or revoked at any time in user settings. SpamFoo uses these corrections to:

  • Learn patterns from corrected messages to recognize similar emails in the future
  • Contribute anonymized feedback to improve the global models for all SpamFoo users

No action is required from the administrator. Users simply use SmarterMail's existing spam reporting and tab management features as normal.

Dashboard

SpamFoo includes an admin dashboard for monitoring classification activity, managing allow/block lists, and viewing logs. SmarterMail provides access to this dashboard through its own interface. System administrators see the full dashboard, and end users see a limited view of their personal or domain.

Updates

SpamFoo updates happen automatically in the background:

  • ML models are updated automatically as improved models become available. Updates apply without interrupting mail processing.
  • Client updates are downloaded and installed by SmarterMail when a new version is available.

Troubleshooting

SpamFoo is not classifying emails

  1. Verify SpamFoo shows as licensed in Settings > Licensing
  2. Verify SpamFoo is enabled in Settings > Antispam > SpamFoo
  3. Check that the spamfoo-client process is running on the server
  4. Check SpamFoo logs at {SmarterMail data}/spamfoo/data/logs/ for errors
  5. Verify the license file exists at {SmarterMail data}/spamfoo/etc/sf.key

High latency or timeouts

  • Check the SpamFoo dashboard for queue depth. If the queue is consistently full, increase the concurrency setting (see Performance Tuning).
  • Verify the server has at least 512 MB of memory available for SpamFoo

Next Steps