What's New in V4 alpha 1

[Julian Field]

Here's the "What's New" list. It may not be complete, and some of the
features are far more flexible than I can give space to here, but it should
give you a flavour of what is new in this release.

- Completely redesigned and rewritten from scratch

- Multiple concurrent scanning processes makes it run much faster as all
   the CPU's in the server can be fully loaded at all times

- Virtually all configuration options can have their value calculated from
   a ruleset allowing you to set different values depending on the From:
   address, the To: address or the IP address of the computer sending you
   the message

- Support for 12 virus scanners:
   Sophos, McAfee, Command, Kaspersky, Inoculate, Inoculan, Nod32, F-Secure,
   F-Prot, Panda, RAV and AntiVir.

- Can report messages back to people who sent you spam, explaining what
   detected it as spam. Different messages depending on whether it triggered
   an RBL, SpamAssassin or both.

- Complete hiding of directory paths in virus reports sent to users, so
   as not to confuse them or give away configuration information about your
   servers

- A header can be added to every message indicating the SpamAssassin score
   by giving 1 character per point, so a message with a score of 7 would
   contain "sssssss" in the header (the character is configurable).

- Notices about viruses no longer have to go to the local postmaster, they
   can go to any address

- All messages sent back to senders are created so that they cannot bounce,
   but can be replied to

- Messages already signed as being clean will not be re-signed by another
   MailScanner server on your site (but they will still be scanned)

- Actions to take when a message is detected as being spam include any
    combination of
   "deliver" it to the intended recipient as normal
   "store"   it in the spam archive
   "delete"  it altogether
   "bounce"  it back to the sender by sending them a warning message
   "forward" it to any other email addresses

- Completely separate set of actions can be used when the message scores
   above a certain SpamAssassin "High Score" threshold

- Mail for any group of users can be archived to a directory or forwarded
   onto another address. The original recipient should not be able to
   detect this has happened, if you choose not to tell them

- Spam whitelists and blacklists can be far more complex than before, if
   you need them to be

- Not only can you choose a list of addresses whose mail you want to scan,
   you can also choose a list of addresses whose mail you do not want to scan

- You can choose not to run SpamAssassin on messages that have already
   triggered an RBL blacklist

--
Julian Field                Teaching Systems Manager
jkf at ecs.soton.ac.uk         Dept. of Electronics & Computer Science
Tel. 023 8059 2817          University of Southampton
                             Southampton SO17 1BJ