Message rules instruct the AXIGEN Mail Server to take certain actions on processed email messages based on pieces of information contained by the message headers.

Thus you can create rules like:

• messages from john@example.com copy to alex@localdomain;
• messages from jokes@domain.com move to folder Jokes;
• all messages reply with "Out-of-office" message;

Message rules are easily created using the provided Web Wizard by each individual user via the WebMail module of AXIGEN. For more details on Wizard usage, please see Mail Filtering in WebMail.

More complex message rules can be created by the system administrator using a simple scripting language called SIEVE. The same language is used by the WebMail Wizard when defining message rules automatically.

Using Message rules is safe since they do not operate on the mail content but only extract information from the mail header and take actions according to the pre-defined rules. They work basically by comparing different keys using different comparators and comparison methods, against headers of a mail message. Based on the result of the comparison, you can apply different actions to the corresponding mail message, i.e. reject, discard, redirect, etc.

Message rules are static filters, where the filter itself is contained in a separate file. Different user-defined scripts can be included in any AXIGEN Filtering System. The supported language provides an extremely flexible filtering methodology, as users can define any number of script filters according to their needs.

AXIGEN also implements the vacation extension. This means that message rules can be created and applied for generating out-of-office type automatic replies. Thus, auto-generated messages can be sent when the user of the account for which the vacation applies, is on vacation, out of office or in general away for an extended period of time. The vacation extension is an extra functionality also available via script files.

Antivirus/Antispam Filters can also interact with Message rules, via two headers appended to email messages. These headers contain a spam or virus level value which actually indicates the likelihood of that particular email message being virus or spam. Based on these levels, actions imposed by the message rules can be taken, for instance moving email messages above a certain level to a specified Quarantine folder.

AXIGEN supports creating customized filter chain. This means system administrators can define and use as many Antivirus/Antispam Filters and Message rules as required by their security policies.

For a complete description of message rules implementation in AXIGEN, see the SIEVE Language section. For a complete description of this language, see RFC 3028.

Message rules can also be created from Webadmin at different server levels. For more details on adding new message rules from Webadmin, see:
Configuring Message Rules
Domain Filter Configuration
Account Filter Configuration

Filters can also be configured using the CLI Filters context (see Configuring AXIGEN using CLI) and by editing the configuration file (see Configuring AXIGEN using the Configuration File)

See subsections of current page for more details:

SIEVE Overview and Implementation in AXIGEN