CONFIGURING
About this task
Mail rules automatically handle mail in a variety of situations. By configuring a set of conditions and actions, you can customize rules to block spam mail or intercept messages with questionable content. For example, you could create a rule that rejects mail that includes a suspicious subject line, such as "MAKE_MONEY_FAST!!!", or messages originating from a known spam vendor. Similarly you can restrict users from receiving message attachments that do not have a business purpose by setting up a rule to intercept messages that contain attachments of certain file types (EXE, VBS, VBE, SCR, and so forth) and redirect them to a quarantine database where they could be reviewed by an administrator and optionally sent on to the intended recipient.
Except where a rule action explicitly indicates, Domino does not notify the sender or recipient if a rule prevents a message from reaching its destination. For example, if a rule results in a message being routed to a graveyard database, Domino does not generate a delivery failure report or indicate to the intended recipients that a message for them has been intercepted. By contrast, if a message triggers a rule with the specified two-part action Don't deliver message/ Send NDR, the sender receives a delivery failure report stating that the message was rejected for policy reasons.
Note: Although Domino does not generate a notification to the sender when a rule condition triggers the action don't accept message, because rules execute as mail is deposited to MAIL.BOX, the sender may still receive notification that the message was rejected. For example, when the Domino SMTP listener refuses a message because of a mail rule, the sending SMTP server receives the error indicating that the transaction was rejected for policy reasons. Typically, servers receiving this type of error generate a delivery failure report to the sending user. Similarly, when a mail rule prevents the server from accepting a message, a Notes® client attempting to deposit the message in MAIL.BOX displays an error indicating that the message cannot be sent.
Mail rules are not intended to serve as an anti-virus solution and should not be considered a replacement for anti-virus software. Although you can configure rules to quarantine messages with known virus attachments, the available rule actions do not include typical anti-virus features such as generating warnings upon detecting a virus or automatically disinfecting files.
Domino stores the mail rules you create in the Configuration Settings document. On startup, each server retrieves from the appropriate Configuration Settings document and registers them as monitors on each MAIL.BOX database in use.
Whenever MAIL.BOX receives a new message from any source -- the SMTP process, the Router on another server, or a client depositing a message -- the server evaluates the various message fields against the registered mail rules. Each message is evaluated only once. Additional updates occurring after a message is added to MAIL.BOX -- such as updates to reflect the number of recipients handled -- do not cause reevaluation of the rules.
Stopping the processing of a mail rule
When setting up mail rules, you can use a stop processing action to stop processing all of the rules that follow the one that contains the stop processing action. You can use the stop processing action alone, that is, as the only action in a mail rule, or you can use it with another action in a rule, and it can also be in one rule that is in a series of rules. This is especially useful when more than one rule could apply to a message, but you want execution of mail rules to stop after the first action is executed. For example, you can define the following rules:
Result: If the subject line contains the subject Marketing and Sales, the message is moved to the Marketing Information database and processing stops. No other action is taken on the message.
When multiple mail rules are enabled, you can set their relative priority by moving them up and down in the list.
Putting new rules into effect
The Configuration Settings document displays new mail rules only if the document has been previously saved.
When you add a new rule, it takes effect only after the server reloads the mail rules. A reload is automatically triggered if the Server task detects a rule change when performing its routine check of the Configuration Settings document. This check occurs approximately every five minutes.
You can force the server to reload rules, using a console command.
Enter the following command at the server console:
set rules
To create a new mail rule
If you create a rule that includes a backslash (\), semicolon (;), comma (,), asterisk (*), or quotation mark ("), an error message appears indicating that these characters are not allowed. This message does not yet display for forward slashes (/), but forward slashes should not be used when setting rules.
Procedure
1. Make sure you already have a Configuration Settings document for the server(s) where the rules will apply.
3. Click Configurations.
4. Select the Configuration Settings document for the mail server or servers you want to administer, and click Edit Configuration.
5. Click the Router/SMTP -> Restrictions and Controls -> Rules tab.
6. Click New Rule.
7. In the Specify Conditions section of the New Rule dialog box, set the criteria the server uses to determine whether to apply a rule to a given message. A rule condition can include the following components:
Note: To create a rule that acts on all messages deposited in MAIL.BOX, choose All Documents
For example, if the target message item is Attachment Name and the qualifier is contains, enter .VBS to create a rule that acts on all messages having an attached file with a name containing the string .VBS, including, LOVE-LETTER.VBS, CLICK-THIS.VBS.TXT, and MY.VBS.CARD.EXE.
Note: When defining a match against a user's name, specify the canonical format, for example, UserName/Sales/East
9. Optional: Modify the condition by doing the following:
Note: When you mark a message as held, other rules are not executed until the "held" message is released.
Domino differentiates between messages held by a mail rule and messages held as undeliverable.
Note: This action may not work properly on servers where third-party products, such as certain types of anti-virus software, also manipulate the RoutingState item.
13. Click Save & Close.
14. The change takes affect the server task registers it or after the set rules command is received.
Results
How mail rules handle encrypted messages
If MAIL.BOX receives an encrypted message (Notes encrypted, S/MIME, PGP, and so forth), the server mail rules process any rule conditions that are based on unencrypted information in the message envelope, such as the sender, importance, and recipients, but do not process conditions based on the encrypted portion of the message body. Most rule conditions are based on information in the message envelope. The server does not log instances in which rules are unable to process a message.
Specifying the message form in a condition
You can specify which types of messages a rule acts on by specifying the message form type in the rule condition. When evaluating the form type, the server checks the Notes message form used (the Form item displayed in the Document properties); it does not use form information defined in MIME items in the message. All messages deposited in MAIL.BOX are rendered as Notes documents, including inbound Internet messages in native MIME format. By default, messages received over SMTP use the Memo form, except for SMTP Nondelivery reports, which Domino renders using the NonDelivery Report form. Common Notes form names include:
Related tasks Creating a Configuration Settings document Setting transfer limits