Chapter 4 - Preferences

4.1 Preferences

CanIt-PRO allows each user to customize certain aspects of the Web-Based GUI. To change your preferences, click on the "Preferences" link:

Figure 4.1: Preferences

The preferences you can change are:

Home page is the page that shows when you first login to your CanIt-PRO page

Number of messages to display per page controls the number of messages per page in the message summary. Allowable values are 10, 30, 50, 100 or 200.

Show link for one-shot messages determines whether the "One-Shot messages" link is displayed in the message summary. If you find this link distracting, turn it off.

Sort messages by lets you sort messages either by date or by spam-scanning score.

Sort order controls the sort order (ascending or descending).

4.2 Importing and Exporting Rules

CanIt-PRO can export your rules in comma-separated value (CSV) format. This format can be manipulated by a variety of software such as spreadsheets and database programs. CanIt-PRO can also import rules in CSV format, allowing for efficient bulk creation of rules.

4.2.1 Importing Rules

To import rules, click on "Preferences" and then "Import Rules". The Import Rules page appears:

Figure 4.2: Import Rules

1. Enter the name of a file to upload in the text box. Use the Browse... button to browse your local file system to find a file.
    
2. Choose what to do in case of a conflict. The default, Preserve Original, means that if the CSV file contains a rule that conflicts with an existing rule, the existing rule is retained. Alternatively, you can choose Overwrite , which overwrites any conflicting rules with rules from the CSV file.
    
3. Click on Import Objects to import the rules.

Note: CanIt-PRO expects the CSV file to follow precisely the format described in Section 4.2.3 Any lines the file which deviate from the format are silently ignored. During rule importing, CanIt-PRO ignores the "stream" field in the CSV file. All rules are imported into the current stream.

4.2.2 Exporting Rules

To export rules, click on "Preferences" and the "Export Rules". The Export Rules screen appears:

Figure 4.3: Export Rules

1. Select all of the rules you wish to export by enabling the appropriate checkboxes.
    
2. Click on Export Objects as Text to view the CSV file as a plain-text file in your browser. Click on Export Objects as Downloadable CSV if you want your browser to prompt you to save the text to a file.

The resulting CSV file can be imported into a spreadsheet program such as Open Office "calc" or other popular spreadsheet software.

4.2.3 Format of the Exported Rules

Each rule type in the CSV file has a specific layout. The fields are as follows:

• For sender blacklists and whitelists, the fields are:
   
  1. Sender - The literal text Sender.
  2. stream - The stream containing the rule.
  3. address - The sender's address.
  4. action - The action to associate with the address (one of allow-always, hold-always, hold-if-spam or reject.)
  5. who - The user ID of the person who created the rule.
  6. comment - Any comment attached to the rule.
      
• For domain blacklists and whitelists, the fields are:
   
  1. Domain - The literal text Domain.
  2. stream - The stream containing the rule.
  3. domain - The domain.
  4. action - The action to associate with the domain (one of allow-always, hold-always, hold-if-spam or reject.)
  5. who - The user ID of the person who created the rule.
  6. comment - Any comment attached to the rule.
      
• For filename extension rules, the fields are:
   
  1. Extension - The literal text Extension
  2. stream - The stream containing the rule.
  3. extension - The filename extension.
  4. action - The action to associate with the extension.
  5. who - The user ID of the person who created the rule.
  6. comment - Any comment attached to the rule.

4.3 Opting Out of Spam Scanning

Each stream can individually opt in or out of spam scanning. If a stream is opted out of spam scanning, then all mail for that stream is passed unchanged. In addition, blacklist rules are ignored. However, virus-scanning is not skipped; messages can still be held or rejected if they contain viruses.

To opt in or out of spam scanning, click on "Preferences" and then "Opt In/Out". Then click on the button to toggle between opting-in and opting-out. Remember that opting in or out is done on a per-stream basis, not on a per-user basis.

4.4 Stream Settings

Each stream can have its own settings relating to certain spam-handling options. To edit stream settings, click on "Preferences" and then "Stream Settings". The Stream Settings page (Figure 4.4 ) appears. Remember, every setting on this page applies to only one particular stream; each stream can have its own settings.

Stream settings can be inherited. If you click on Show Setting Inheritance, CanIt-PRO will put a little tag near the setting ID showing where the setting comes from. This tag will either be "Global" (meaning the setting is inherited from global settings) or the name of a stream.

Figure 4.4: Stream Settings

The available settings are:

Automatically reject messages scoring more than this amount If a message scores higher than this on the spam scale, it will be automatically rejected.

Spam threshold CanIt-PRO will hold any messages scoring higher than this amount. The default value of 5 has been carefully tuned to minimize errors. You should not change it lightly.

Only accept mail for accounts in the Valid Recipients table If this is set to Yes, then CanIt-PRO refuses to accept mail for recipients unless they are listed in the Valid Recipients Table (see Section 3.1)

Hold mail from any sender not listed in Senders Table If this is set to Yes then CanIt-PRO will hold messages from any sender that doesn't have a sender rule (such as Always allow or

Copy all mail in this stream to this e-mail address allows you to send a copy of messages that are sent to your address, to the address specified in the blank area.

Always reject. For full details on this feature, please see Section 3.1.1.

4.5 Notification of Pending Messages

CanIt-PRO can send out e-mails periodically reminding you to that you have pending messages in your trap.

To turn on notifications, click on "Preferences : Notification". The Notification Page appears:

Figure 4.5: Notification Page

To enable notifications:

• Enter the e-mail address to which notifications should be sent. Note that CanIt-PRO attempts to guess the notification e-mail address, but it might guess incorrectly. If CanIt-PRO displays an incorrect notification address, simply erase it and enter the correct address.
• Select the type of notification message:
   
  1. Brief Notification will send short messages that simply inform you that you have pending messages in the trap.
  2. Detailed Notification will send longer messages that include sender and subject details for the first 40 pending messages.
  3. Clickable Webform will send HTML e-mails that let you accept or reject incidents directly from within your e-mail reader without having to log into CanIt-PRO. Note that if you select Clickable Webform, then anyone who receives the notification will be able to accept or reject the incidents mentioned in the notification email. You should therefore only select Clickable Webform if your mail is not automatically forwarded outside of your control.
      
• Select the times at which you would like notifications to be sent. You can choose to be reminded as often as hourly. A more practical choice might be three times daily: Once at 8:00am, once at noon, and once at 4:00pm. If you do not wish to receive notifications, simply turn off all of the time checkboxes.

 

Be aware that the notification times are approximate. Mail can be delayed for many reasons; you should not expect to receive notifications promptly on the hour.

• Select the days on which you would like notifications. In Figure 4.5 , for example, notifications are disabled on Saturday and Sunday.
   
• Click Submit Changes to make your settings take effect

 

4.6 RSS Feeds

CanIt-PRO permits you to set up an RSS feed to view your pending messages.

To enable an RSS feed, click on "Preferences" and then "RSS Feed". The RSS Feed Page appears:

 

Figure 4.6: RSS Feed Page

To enable the RSS feed, click on Enable RSS Feed. An RSS feed URL will be generated; this is the feed location that you put into your RSS reader. The random-looking rsskey parameter is what authenticates you to CanIt-PRO.

Note: The RSS feed URL is sensitive! Anyone who obtains the URL can read your Pending Messages RSS feed. You should therefore keep the URL confidential.

If you think your RSS feed has been compromised, you can take one of two actions:

1. You can disable the RSS feed completely by clicking Disable RSS Feed.
2. You can create a different key by clicking Change RSS Key . This will create a new URL; the old one will no longer work. You will need to update your RSS feed readers with the new URL.

Figure 4.7 shows how the pending messages feed might look in a typical RSS feed reader. Many feed readers allow you to accept or reject the incident directly from within the reader without logging in to CanIt-PRO. To see the incident details, however, you'll need to log in to CanIt-PRO.

Figure 4.7: Example Feed Reader

4.7 Switching Streams

A normal user has a selection box of streams she is allowed to switch to, whereas the CanIt-PRO administrator has a text box into which he can type the name of any stream.

To switch streams, pick the name of the stream and click "View This Stream."

To make the current stream your default stream every time you log in, click "Preferences" and then "Set Default Stream". The following page appears:

Figure 4.8: Set Default Stream

A normal user has a selection box of streams she is allowed to switch to,

If you click "Make current stream your default stream", then the current stream (the one printed near the top of the page) will become your default stream. Each time you log on to CanIt-PRO, you will be logged in to that stream. (This option is only available to users in CanIt-PRO's user table. It is not available to users who authenticate using an external authentication method.)

The second option, "Inherit from This Stream", lets you select a stream from which to inherit rules and settings. Normally, a stream inherits from the default stream, but the administrator may have set up additional streams from which you can inherit. Alternatively, you can choose not to inherit from any other stream.