|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
BLScanPlus
"Classic"
Tutorial |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mailwasher
is a product of Firetrust,
a
commercial package that offers multiple strategies for the effective
control of SPAM. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Press the Play button for some soothing music | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
* Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * * Tutorial * |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tutorial | Need to get up and running quickly?, learn more quickly doing it than reading about it? ok, no problem. Here is a tutorial to get you up and running. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| BLScanPlus | To begin with let's start with the BLScanPlus framework. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| First of all (and if not done already) download the software from the downloads page and install as per the installation page, then come back to this page. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Done it?,
good. Having installed the program you should have a light
blue BLScanPlus icon like this  appear on
your desktop. Double click it and
the BLScanPlus console start screen appears, it should look like this; An explorer window will also open showing the BLScanPlus program folder, the latter is not relevant at this moment so close it by clicking on the red cross at the top right, the one that looks like this;  If the BLScanPlus console does not look like the BLScanPlus console image above, then don't panic! One or two people have their computers setup in slightly odd ways, which means the console window may appear, but with very large text, or in a small box and various other bizarre combinations! There is nothing wrong with your computer, the window settings are just different to the normal defaults. In the software I could ensure that this type of problem does not happen, but this would mean that BLScanPlus would actually change your computers settings. I really don't like writing code that alters a users setup, since it might affect other applications that you use. So for the few people that have this problem, a procedure to adjust your settings (for BLScanPlus only) is given on the problems page. So if your display looks different to the graphic above, go visit that page now. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| Keys | So
having got the console window open and looking right, let's do
something... |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| First of
all, the default setting for BLScanPlus is to use fast keys which
means that a single key press will start an action. On the bottom
right, you can see "E or Esc to Exit".
So go ahead
and press 'e', or 'E' or the 'Esc'ape key (you can
type a key in either lower or
upper case). As soon as
you press it, the window
closes. As an aside, if at any time you want to jump out of BLScanPlus, you could also press Control-C or click the cross in the top right corner of the window. Either would terminate whatever BLScanPlus was doing at the time and are like emergency exits from the program. So normally, you should always use 'e' or the 'Esc'ape key to exit. Double click the BLScanPlus icon and restart the program. Close the program folder window. If you prefer the situation where you type a key and then hit 'Return' (i.e. pressing two keys), you can press 'k' to switch fast keys off, then press the 'Return' or 'Enter' key to get back to the start screen. Having turned fast keys off, you can then turn it back on by pressing 'k' again, then press the 'Return' or 'Enter' key to get back to the start screen. So the 'k' key toggles between fast keys on or off, 99% of people like fast keys on so 'on' is the default. All of the commands operate in the same way, the key to select a given action is shown to the left of the action. If you press 'c', it shows you where to contact me if you get into trouble or have questions, so go ahead and press 'c' then, press the 'Return' or 'Enter' key to get back to the start screen. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Folders | The program folder... |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| When
you installed BLScanPlus, you probably installed into C:\Program
Files\BLScanPlus, this is the product
folder which contains the un-installer and also contains the
actual BLScanPlus program
folder. If you press 'b', the BLScanPlus program folder will be opened in a standard explorer window. In that folder you can see the BLScanPlus program files and some folders that store various information which will include some settings that you will specify later. Close the program folder by clicking on the cross at the top right of the explorer window.  When a BLScanPlus utility runs and generates some output files, the files are written into the program folder. As you can see above, I like to see the folder displayed as shown with the files, size, type and date modified. If yours does not look like this then left-click on "View" at the top and select "Details". Whenever you open this particular folder, it will then look like mine above. So pressing 'b' opens the BLScanPlus program folder. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Settings | Let's
now set up the various settings... |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
To
access the Settings options press 's'
from the start screen. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 |
Fast
Keys: The first question is about fast keys. As already mentioned you can toggle between fast keys 'on' and 'off' using the 'k' key, the default setting is 'on'. So whenever you start BLScanPlus, you'll get fast keys. But if you would like fast keys to be 'off' and permanently 'off' then answer this option by pressing 'n'. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 |
Help
Files: The second question is about help files. When you select one of the six utilities, BLScanPlus will pop-up a help file for that utility and also write a copy into the program folder. (If the help file for that utility is already present in the program folder, it will not show the file as a pop-up because you have probably already read it). If you don't want BLScanPlus to pop-up the file or create a copy in the program folder then answer this question with 'n'. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3 |
Program
Folder: The next setting allows you to open the program folder whenever you start BLScanPlus. This happened when you started the program earlier, this may not seem particularly useful at first, so answer 'n'. The usefulness of this will be apparent later. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4 |
Instructions: For the original version of the utilities, the user was asked to confirm whether they had read the instructions, just to make sure that users were up to speed on what they were doing. Being asked this time and again became a little irritating so you can turn this option off by answering 'y'. I do however advise that you work your way through the instructions for each program. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 |
Direct
Read/Write: When some of the utilities run, they require access to the blacklist and/or trash files that are stored by Mailwasher. This option allows BLScan, Totter and UnRotter to read these files directly from the Mailwasher folder, the alternative would be to manually copy the required file(s) to the program folder. The utility BLScan is the only utility that can write a file outside of the program folder, this option also allows BLScan to put a newly modified blacklist back into the Mailwasher folder. This means that you do not have to move files around in order to run most of the utilities. So answer 'y' to this and BLScanPlus will check where your Mailwasher folder is (and assuming you have Mailwasher) the path to the folder will be shown, you can accept this by pressing the 'Return' key. If you do not know or want to check the path of your Mailwasher folder, it is shown at the bottom of the Mailwasher Help->About dialog box.  You can then confirm the action that BLScan will both read the blacklist from your Mailwasher folder and write it back again when modified by pressing 'y'. Note: It is always recommended that you do not run BLScanPlus when Mailwasher is running. Assuming you selected this option, you will notice that when you go back to the BLScanPlus start screen a new entry has appeared that allows you to see the Mailwasher folder by pressing 'm'. This is the folder where Mailwasher stores the Blacklist.txt file, Trash.rot135 file and filters.txt file. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| ok,
we're setup and ready to roll. Let's run a utility, to start with we'll
take a look at BLScan. [This might be a good moment to get another coffee or go raid the cookie jar. Done it?, good and mind you don't get crumbs onto your keyboard. I've done that a few too many times, now som of my k ys ar a b t st cky.] |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BLScan | Let's
start with BLScan
and scan your blacklist file. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| Select
BLScan by pressing '1' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The
Mailwasher folder path will be shown, accept this by pressing 'Return' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do you want any new files
generated to be timestamped? Answer 'y' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do you want to do manual wildcarding? Answer 'n' | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What threshold value do you want to use? Answer '2' | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do you want wildcards to be assigned the current date? Answer 'y' | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do you want a file with a
sorted list of blacklist entries? Answer 'n' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do you want an exchange
file of your wildcard collection? Answer 'n' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
BLScan will now scan your blacklist file. When it finishes, it will report that it has generated three output files. End BLScan by pressing 'Return' and then press 'b' to show the BLScanPlus program folder. In the folder, you will see the three files generated (called BLScanT, BLScanM and BLScanA). The file names are followed by a timestamp number (such as _02032005111530), this is actually the date and time and helps to distinguish between old and new files. If you use all of the utilities a lot, it can get confusing which files are new or old, so I like to use the timestamped 'on'. Double click on the file called BLScanT, this file shows you all of the domains that occurred more than the threshold value (that we set as 2). By looking at this list, you can see the predominant domains where your spam is coming from. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
So when we scan the blacklist, we do not alter it, but we get several summaries of its content in various files that are written into the program folder. To actually modify the blacklist and replace all of those individual addresses by wildcards, we use manual wildcarding. The only thing to beware of is the choice of threshold, if you have a huge number of domains that occur multiple times, the manual wildcarding process can take a while to complete. So you might be better off starting with a threshold of 10 and then maybe using 5 or 2 at a later date. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Select BLScan by pressing '1' | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Mailwasher folder path will be shown, accept this by pressing 'Return' | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Now this time, notice that BLScan has remembered the settings you used last time (when you just did scan). For the sake of seeing the extra settings in manual wildcarding mode, let's not use the stored settings, so press '4' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do you want any new files generated to be timestamped? Answer 'y' | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do
you want to do manual wildcarding? Answer 'y' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| What threshold value do
you want to use? Answer '2' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do
you want wildcards to be assigned the current date? Answer 'y' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do
you want to retain redundant wildcard entries? Answer 'n' |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| Do
you want to always view the blacklist entries before wildcarding?
Answer 'y' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
BLScan will now walk through the blacklist and stop each time it encounters a domain that occurs more than the threshold number of times (we set the threshold to 2). When it finds a domain occurring >2 times, it will show the relevant addresses and ask what you want to do. You can respond in three ways using;
Keep going through the list (this could take a long time if your blacklist is large). If this starts taking forever because you're blacklist is huge then you can always press Control-C to jump out of BLScanPlus and then restart it, but next time using a higher threshold value (maybe 10) instead. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
When you're done, BLScan will replace your existing blacklist file with a new blacklist file, the new file will have all of the domains you chose wildcarded and all of the individual addresses for those domains removed! This makes the blacklist smaller, quicker to load and any new spam from any username on those domains will be detected by the blacklist. Make sure that Mailwasher is not running before the last step, BLScanPlus will remind you of this. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You've
done it! The first time around is the worst, since you have to
step through loads of domains, but that little job is now done. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Now to finish with let's do a little check. You don't need to do this everytime, I just want to show you something... |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| If you still have
BLScanPlus running, select '1'
to restart BLScan |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Mailwasher folder path will be shown, accept this by pressing 'Return' | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Since we have already
defined all of the settings, select "Manual
Wildcarding - stored
settings - using Ignore list" by pressing '2' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
This
time, you will notice that when BLScan steps through your blacklist;
I actually took the time to go through manual wildcarding of my own blacklist file several times, to get it to the point where I did not have any domains that I was not sure of. Remember that an incoming email is matched against your Friends List first, so if you manually wildcarded a domain, but you have friends on that domain that are in your Friends List, their emails will still get through. I am probably a bit aggressive with my own blacklist and basically anything that looks dubious gets wildcarded. I wrote some filters to look for some keywords just in case I had been overly enthusiastic, I also use Totter once a week too, more on that later. As you have seen, the first time you do manual wildcarding, it can take a long time, but after that, it's much easier. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
So finish off and go through the remainder of the list, double check them and then you're done. I run BLScan once every week to wildcard out any new spam domains that appear. A last point to finish on; If you go to the BLScanPlus start screen and press 'm', you will see the contents of your Mailwasher folder. You will see the Blacklist.txt file in the folder, but also another file of the same name with a timestamp number after it (such as Blacklist_02032005111530.txt). The latter timestamped file is actually your original blacklist file and this is only stored as a backup, Mailwasher does not read it. So if you wanted to put your blacklist back as it was before you ran BLScan, you could delete the Blacklist.txt file and rename the timestamped blacklist file back to Blacklist.txt. Thus you could replace the new file with the original. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| So
by now you've probably got the hang of it. Run manual
wildcarding perhaps once a week to wildcard out any new domains. When
you have some time visit the BLScan page to
get a grip on the various options and other functions. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Time
to look at something else. [You look like you're slightly uncomfortable?, I guess the coffee and cookies have made it through your system, so why don't you go to the bathroom now and come back in a few minutes. Better to do that now, rather than sit there doing the leg waggles.] |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Totter | ok, let's look at Totter | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Totter
is only useful if you chose the option in Mailwasher to
put your deleted emails into a Recycle Bin. To turn this option on go
to the Mailwasher "Tools" menu (at the top), select "Options" and click
on the "Summary" tab. Check the box marked 'Allow deleted email to be
restored from the summary screen'. With this option set, when you delete an email with Mailwasher the deleted email goes into a recycle bin (called the trash file) which is stored in the Mailwasher folder in a file called Trash.rot135. This file is readable but encrypted. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| So
assuming you had the option mentioned above already selected then you
will have some deleted emails in your trash file. If you have only just
turned this option on, you won't have any files in your trash file yet,
so come back to this tutorial in a few days when you've collected
some trash. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Start BLScanPlus and
select Totter by pressing '5' |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Mailwasher folder path will be shown, accept this by pressing 'Return' | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Totter will then prompt for a list of email addresses, enter your email address and press 'Return'. If you have more than one email account with your ISP enter your next email address, press 'Return', the next and so on. When you have entered your address(es) press 'Return'. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Totter will then prompt for a list of search strings. You enter these one at a time, pressing 'Return' after each. Totter will search through your trash for these strings and you will choose later whether you want these to be treated as case sensitive. Note also that any extra spaces or punctuation will be treated as part of the string. So maybe enter your first name, maybe the street name where you live, the name of your company, your home town or any other words you would like to search your trash for. If you have a name like "Pat" it may be an idea to add an extra space on the end e.g. "Pat " or maybe a comma e.g. "Pat," to reduce the number of false matches (you do not need to put the search strings in quotes by the way). When you have entered all of your search strings press 'Return'. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Match case for email addresses?, answer 'n' (so ignore upper/lower case for the email addresses). |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Match case for search
strings?, answer 'y' if you
want the search to be case sensitive or 'n'
if you don't. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Totter will then search your Trash file using the email addresses and search strings you specified. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You will see that Totter
generates a number of output files. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Press
'Return' to get back to the
BLScanPlus start screen, then press 'b'
to
show the BLScanPlus folder. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Take
a look at the file called Totted_*.csv (where * is a timestamp number).
This file is in CSV format that can be read by spreadsheet programs
such as Excel, double click it
to bring up Excel. If you do not have a spreadsheet program like Excel
you can look at the file called Totted_*.txt instead. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The
file shows each email in your trash, which address it was sent to and
where any of your search strings occurred. Using Totter
you can see
which of your email addresses are taking the most hits and if anything
in your trash might be useful (and was perhaps deleted in error). |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| If
you want to pull a message back from the trash, start Mailwasher and
press Control-S and click on
the "Mail Log" tab. You may
need to change
the option box at the bottom marked "Summary
for last..." to see older
emails. Scan down to the email you want, select it with a left mouse
click, right click on it and select 'Restore
Email'. The message will
be resent to your inbox. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ok,
by now you've probably got a grip on BLScan and Totter. The other
utilities are more obvious to use and learn how to drive them, see the
relevant web page. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [What? you only went a
few minutes ago! No this time hang on, I just want to cover a few other
bits.] |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Files
|
Having
defined the settings earlier, you have not had to move any files
around. But all of the utilities can read an input file from a path or
you can also move/copy the files into the BLScanPlus program folder.
For utilities such as BLComp where you may be comparing two files which
are
perhaps not associated with Mailwasher, the best thing
to do is open the BLScanPlus program folder and move/copy the files
into it. If you want to make a copy of any of your files that are
currently being used by Mailwasher, open the Mailwasher folder, then
open the BLScanPlus program
folder and copy the files from one window
to the other. So even if you want to copy files between the folders,
having the ability to open the two folders makes it much easier. As always take care when moving files around not to inadvertantly delete your Mailwasher files in particular. If you do want to move files around, I always recommend working with copies or maybe storing a backup copy before you start making changes. As always, make sure Mailwasher is not running when you copy/move files around. One additional feature of BLScan not mentioned above, is that BLScan always makes a backup copy of any files it reads, these are deposited into the folder called BLScanBackup that you can see in the BLScanPlus program folder. Also, if BLScan puts a new blacklist file into your Mailwasher folder, it also copies the original into the Mailwasher folder, so you in fact have two backup copies your blacklist files. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| The
remaining utilities are not the type that would get used 'every day'
but are used occasionally, especially if you are
sharing files with other users. I think these are sufficiently simple
so as to not require a tutorial. A description of each is given below,
see the relevant web page for assistance to their usage. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UnRotter | UnRotter can be used to decrypt a
Mailwasher ROT135 file, such as the Trash file. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Trash.rot135 file is encrypted in ROT135 format, if you want a decrypted version of this entire file, UnRotter will read the Trash.rot135 file from the Mailwasher folder and create a fully decoded version in the BLScanPlus program folder. You can then see the entire contents of your Trash file. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BLComp | Compares
two blacklist files. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| If
you want to compare two blacklist files, perhaps a 'before' and
'after', or maybe yours versus somebody elses, you can copy the two
files into the BLScanPlus program folder and use BLComp to work out how
they differ. BLComp can optionally compare
the
blacklist and/or whitelist sections. BLComp can also read a list of email addresses, so if someone cut their blacklist section out of their blacklist file, or supplied you with a list, then you can still use BLComp. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BLJoin |
Joins
two blacklist files together (without duplication). |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| Some
users are sharing their blacklist files. But if someone sends you
their blacklist file, how do you add the contents of their blacklist
file to yours? The answer is BLJoin. BLJoin can optionally join the
blacklist and/or whitelist sections. The best way to do this is to put
the two files into the BLScanPlus program folder and run BLJoin. BLJoin will then generate a new file with both
files joined but without any duplications of addresses. BLJoin can also read a list of email addresses, so if someone cut their blacklist section out of their blacklist file, or supplied you with a list, you can still use BLJoin. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BLConv |
Converts wildcarded
domains in a blacklist file into
a set of filters for exchange with other
users. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rather than sharing blacklist files, I had an idea some time ago to trade wildcarded domains as filters. BLConv will read your blacklist file, extract all of the wildcarded domains and generate a set of filters. These can then be sent to other users who can add them to their filters.txt file. This is actually better than trading blacklist files for the reasons discussed on the BLConv page. The best way to use BLConv is to copy your blacklist file into the BLScanPlus folder or specify the path to the Mailwasher folder. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The
End
|
Phew!,
well I'm all talked out, so I'm going to stop right here. If you see
any errors in this tutorial or think it should include more things then
let me know. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| Back to top | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|