6.3 ORF Online Help
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Table of Contents

Auto Sender Whitelist Settings


This section of the ORF help describes the settings available in the Auto Sender Whitelist Settings dialog (WhitelistsAuto Sender Whitelist page, Settings button).

Mode Tab

Select the customization mode of the whitelist. Three options are available:

  • Global (no customization)
    Outgoing email recipients recorded will be considered whitelisted senders for everyone.

    Example: if an outbound email is sent from [email protected] to [email protected], inbound emails from Jane will be whitelisted for everyone at yourdomain.tld and at yourotherdomain.tld.

  • Customized per domain
    Outgoing email recipients recorded will be whitelisted senders only for the domain of the outgoing email sender.

    Example: if an outbound email is sent from [email protected] to [email protected], inbound emails from Jane will be whitelisted for everyone at yourdomain.tld, but not for yourotherdomain.tld.

  • Customized per recipient
    Outgoing email recipients recorded will be whitelisted senders only for the sender of the outgoing email.

    Example: if an outbound email is sent from [email protected] to [email protected], inbound emails from Jane will be whitelisted for [email protected] only.

The Auto Sender Whitelist database stores all information (i.e., which local sender sent the outgoing email to which recipient) in its records regardless the mode selected, so you can switch between modes seamlessly anytime.

Lifetime Tab

Lifetime controls how long ORF remembers outgoing emails (i.e., how long a sender should be kept whitelisted). The longer the lifetime, the more disk space required for the whitelist database.

Enable lifetime control

If disabled, ORF will keep all Auto Sender Whitelist records indefinitely (default setting). If enabled, ORF will clean the database periodically of expired records. The Record lifetime value tells ORF how long a record should be kept with Lifetime Control enabled. You can set the lifetime manually in hours, or select a preset value by clicking the Lifetime button. The lifetime resets each time the (original) sender sends another email to the recipient.

It is recommended to keep Lifetime Control enabled, otherwise the database storing the Auto Sender Whitelist data will grow indefinitely over time, possibly resulting in substantial disk space consumption.

Check Exceptions Tab

Sender email address exceptions

This list can be used to exclude specific senders or domains from the ASWL test check. By excluding a sender, you tell ORF to not to whitelist a sender address, even if it is otherwise listed in the Auto Sender Whitelist.

It is recommended to add your local domain names to the exception list. If your domains accidentally end up on the Auto Sender Whitelist, spammers spoofing them can avoid filtering. For more information and detailed instructions, read our article.

Collection Exceptions Tab

There are three ways to exclude outgoing emails from the Auto Sender Whitelist address collection.

IP-based exceptions

If your server is located in a DMZ, emails relayed to the internal network are also treated as outgoing emails, so you need to exclude these from the address collection. Enter the IP address of these relay target servers to the IP Exception List.

Note that this exception list is not available under Microsoft® Exchange® 2019/2016/2013/2010/2007, because ORF does not have information about the next delivery hop under these Exchange versions.

Subject-based exceptions

Use this list to define exceptions based on the subject of the outgoing email. Typically, this list is used to exclude autoresponses, such as Out of Office autoresponses from the filtering, but extending this list may come handy if you run mailing lists or distribute email newsletters with certain email subject patterns.

ORF ships with a default list of Out of Office auto-response subject patterns for several languages. Note that some of the subject patterns may not be displayed properly due to the lack of required fonts.

Items can be added to the list by clicking the Edit List... button, then clicking the New button in the Subject exceptions dialog.

Auto-Response detection exceptions

When enabled, this exception list watches the incoming emails and if there is an outgoing email response within a specific number of seconds, the outgoing email is categorized as an auto-response and does not get added to the whitelist. This is useful if you have an auto-responder (e.g., a challenge/response spam filter, CRM software) or a mailing list hosted on your network.

Log Tab

Enable or disable logging of successful outgoing email recipient additions to the Auto Sender Whitelist.

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