Barracuda Spam Firewall
The Barracuda Spam Firewall allows individuals to manage their own spam filters. This document will outline how to login to the Barracuda and change your settings. It is highly recommended that you read the Best Practices Guide for information about how to best utilize these filters to reduce spam.
Logging in to the Barracuda
You have two options for logging in to the Barracuda:
Method 1) You can go to https://rhspam.rose-hulman.edu (notice the https), enter your Rose-Hulman username and password, and click Login.
OR
Method 2) You will receive a Spam Quarantine Summary (daily, by default) that contains a link at the bottom of the email to automatically login you in. This link will only function for 3 days. More information about this email can be found in the Spam Quarantine Summary Email section, below.
Your Quarantine Inbox
When you login to the Barracuda, you will see your Quarantine Inbox. This is where "possible spam" emails are held for your review. There are several actions you can choose for each email. You can either use the links next to the subject or check the box next to the messages you wish to preform an action on and use the buttons at the top of the screen. It is recommended that you use one of the Classify options for dealing with each message (more about this in the Best Practices Guide).
- Deliver - The message is passed along to your regular inbox. No additional processing is done to that message.
- Whitelist - Adds the sender to your whitelist. This should only be used if multiple messages from the same sender are still quarantined after using "Classify as Not Spam" on those messages. Take a look at the Best Practices Guide for more information about when to whitelist email addresses or domains.
- Delete - The email is deleted from your quarantine inbox and is gone permanently.
Note: The checkbox to the left of Time Received is a check all box.
Changing Your Barracuda Preferences
The Barracuda allows you to customize several settings to best suit your spam filtering needs. Once you have logged in to the Barracuda, click on the Preferences tab. You will see three headers, Whitelist/Blacklist, Quarantine Settings, and Spam Settings.
| Whitelist/Blacklist | Quarantine Settings | Spam Settings |
| This section will allow you to specify email addresses and domains that should either be always delivered (whitelist) or always blocked (blacklist). Please read the Best Practices Guide BEFORE use the white and black lists. These lists should be used as a last option for classifying spam and good email. | This section will allow you to control if "possible spam" will be held at the Barracuda for your review and to set how often you are notified that emails have been quarantined. It is recommended you use the quarantine feature and set the notification interval as daily or weekly. | This section will allow you to configure your spam tagging, quarantining, and blocking scores. Make sure you set the Use System Defaults to No before saving your custom scores. It is not recommended that you enable the blocking feature unless you are certain all emails above a given score are spam. More information about determining the score of a message can be found in the Best Practices Guide. |
If you only wish to have your email tagged with [RHSPAM] and never quarantined, go to the Spam Settings tab, set Use System Defaults to No, change the Quarantine score to 10, then click Save Changes. This will disable the quarantine feature while still tagging spam.
Spam Quarantine Summary Email
If you have one or more emails in your Quarantine Inbox you will receive a Spam Quarantine Summary email (once per day by default). This email will list the "possible emails" that await your review. While this email provides a quick way to Deliver, Whitelist, and/or Delete each email, it will not train the Bayesian learning filter. It is recommended that you use the click here link at the bottom of the email to access your Quarantine Inbox directly so you may Classify those emails. Additional information about the Bayesian learning filter and how to Classify emails can be found in the Best Practices Guide.
