Overview

This article outlines the process that should be followed to test whether the Header Checking - Character Sets filter is properly configured and filtering emails formatted in unwanted language character sets.

Prerequisites

Testing the Header Checking Character Sets functionality is done by sending a test email that is purposely composed in such a way that it will be blocked by the filter.

For this purpose, you will require:

• An SMTP client (such as KMail or Microsoft Outlook) connected to your SMTP server or Exchange environment.
• The SMTP/email client should have the ability to select different language encodings (character sets) in order to test whether different language character sets are correctly identified and blocked:
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Solution

Follow the below procedure to test the Header Checking Character Sets Anti-Spam filter.

1. Go to Header Checking → Character Sets tab and select the filtering mode that has to be applied. For example, Block the list below + tick Arabic 
   • 

2. Open your email client to send out a test email. In this case, we are using KMail but this can be any SMTP client with connectivity to your mail server.

3. Write any text in the body and select Arabic (864) encoding. Note that actual text in the body does not matter as only the encoding indicated in the email header is checked. The body can be anything, even empty.

   

4. Send the test e-mail

Confirmation

1. Navigate to GFI MailEssentials > Dashboard and open the Logs tab. Locate the test email you sent which should be blocked with a Scan Result of Blocked [Header Checking] as shown below:

   
2. Further information can be obtained by checking the debug logs as described in Determining why the Header Checking Filter blocked or allowed a message.

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