Configuring User Preferences

About this task

User preferences allow email recipients to securely manage their quarantined spam, opt in and out of spam checking, and customize their own lists of allowed and blocked senders. Administrators control which of these options, if any, are available to users. For example, it may be prudent in many organizations to prevent users from opting out of anti-spam protection. Administrators can also set the users’ default interface language, the delivery of email quarantine summaries, and the format and delivery frequency of these summaries.

On the Accounts: User Preferences page, you can configure user options, such as whether users have web access to manage their quarantined messages and whether users receive email summaries of their quarantined messages. When the quarantine summary option is enabled, users receive an email message at a regularly scheduled time that lists all messages that were quarantined by the Email Appliance. Users can then respond to the summary message to release or delete their quarantined messages. Users can opt out of receiving email summaries by disabling this feature via the End User Web Quarantine.

Note
Options on the Accounts: User Preferences page can be configured individually, but you must click Apply after configuring preferences to make the settings take effect.

To configure user preferences:

Follow these steps

  1. On the Quick Tasks sidebar of the Configuration Homepage, click End Users.
    The Accounts: User Preferences page is displayed.
  2. Select the Enable web quarantine access check box to grant users access to a web page on which they can manage their own quarantined messages and set anti-spam options.
  3. Select one of the following authentication options:
    Choose from the following:
    • Directory services: You must have directory services server access configured to use this option. For instructions, see the previous section (Configuring Directory Services). With this method, users log in by entering an assigned username and password.
    • Custom list: Create the list by clicking the associated Define users button, which opens the Email/Password List dialog box. When using this method, you must supply users with the email/login and password they will need to log in to the End User Web Quarantine.

    With both of these options, users log in by pointing their browsers to the Web Quarantine address (http://<host>.<domain>).

    Note
    If you use multiple LDAP servers that contain duplicate usernames, the Email Appliance will automatically authenticate each user and grant access to the correct End User Web Quarantine account.
  4. Select any of the following options that you want to grant to users:
    • Enable allow/block lists: Allow users to create and use personalized allow and block lists for hosts and senders.
    • Allow wildcard usage in allow/block lists: Let users use wildcards when defining their personalized allow and block lists for hosts and senders.
    • Allow users to opt-out of spam checking: Allow users to bypass spam-checking of their messages.
  5. On the Default user interface language drop-down list, select the users’ preferred language. Users also have the option of personalizing the language via an option in the End User Web Quarantine.
  6. Under Configure end user service, click Configure.
  7. In the Configure End User Web Quarantine dialog box, select the HTTPS port numbers used by the SPX Secure Email Portal (if enabled) and the Web Quarantine. Choose between ports 443 and 10443. Whichever port you choose for either service, the other available port is automatically selected for the remaining service.
  8. Click OK.
  9. [Optional] Configure automated emailing of quarantine summaries:
    1. Select Enable email quarantine summary to email users summaries of their quarantined email messages.
    2. Under Schedule, click Configure.
    3. In the Advanced Email Quarantine Summary Schedule dialog box, use the option buttons and drop-down lists to set the appropriate time(s).
    4. Click OK.
  10. [Optional] To set banner options for email quarantine summaries, select the Add header or Add footer check box, and enter the content for the banner (the note inserted into the top or the bottom of the message body) in the associated text box. By default, the following text is displayed in the Add header text box:
    The following messages were quarantined by Sophos because they appear to be spam. To request that a message be released from the quarantine and delivered to you, click the message ID and send the request. If your mail client does not support HTML, reply to this message and delete lines that correspond to messages you do not want approved. To release all messages in the list, simply reply to this message.
  11. When finished configuring user preferences, on the Navigation bar, click the Configuration button.
    You are returned to the Configuration Homepage.
  12. Click the 'x' button to the right of End Users.
    Now that end user preferences are configured, you are ready to proceed to the Internal Mail Hosts/Outbound Proxy task.