Using Special Characters in Zimbra Mail Filters

[sena@kei.com]

Current Zimbra setup is Zimbra NE 5.0.18 running on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. When I try to setup two different mail filters, I run into some bugs:

1. Trying to wildcard filter anything with [Info] in the subject line. When I set up the mail filter to Subject Matches Wildcard Condition [Info]*, the filter doesn't work. E-mail's with [Info] in the subject don't get acted upon. Are special characters allowed to be filtered in this way (specifically '[' or ']')?

2. When I try to setup a spam mail filter using the given example of \*\*\**\*\*\* as a Subject Matches Wildcard Condition, I can't save the filter since Zimbra errors out with the message that '\' is not a valid character.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by sena@kei.com

1. Trying to wildcard filter anything with [Info] in the subject line. When I set up the mail filter to Subject Matches Wildcard Condition [Info]*, the filter doesn't work. E-mail's with [Info] in the subject don't get acted upon. Are special characters allowed to be filtered in this way (specifically '[' or ']')?

You would create a filter for 'Contains [Info]' and not a wildcard.

Originally Posted by sena@kei.com

2. When I try to setup a spam mail filter using the given example of \*\*\**\*\*\* as a Subject Matches Wildcard Condition, I can't save the filter since Zimbra errors out with the message that '\' is not a valid character.

You do not (and should not) filter spam with these filters, the correct place for improving the anti-spam would be in as/av system itself.

[ewilen]

The backslash is fixed in 6.0.

Bug 35908 – double quote and backslash not supported in filter values

Whether to use filters for spam strikes me as a philosophical question. End users are dependent on admins to modify the AS system, so IMO filters are an okay tool for them to use if they're smart about it.