Rspamd protocol

Protocol basics

Rspamd uses the HTTP protocol, either version 1.0 or 1.1. Rspamd defines some headers which allow the passing of extra information about a scanned message, such as envelope data, IP address or SMTP SASL authentication data, etc. Rspamd supports normal and chunked encoded HTTP requests.

Rspamd HTTP request

Rspamd encourages the use of the HTTP protocol since it is standard and can be used by every programming language without the use of exotic libraries. A typical HTTP request looks like the following:

POST /checkv2 HTTP/1.0
Content-Length: 26969
From: smtp@example.com
Pass: all
Ip: 95.211.146.161
Helo: localhost.localdomain
Hostname: localhost

<your message goes here>

You can also use chunked encoding that allows streamlined data transfer which is useful if you don’t know the length of a message.

HTTP request

Normally, you should just use /checkv2 here. However, if you want to communicate with the controller then you might want to use controller commands.

HTTP headers

To avoid unnecessary work, Rspamd allows an MTA to pass pre-processed data about the message by using either HTTP headers or a JSON control block (described further in this document). Rspamd supports the following non-standard HTTP headers:

Header Description
Deliver-To Defines actual delivery recipient of message. Can be used for personalized statistics and for user specific options.
IP Defines IP from which this message is received.
Helo Defines SMTP helo
Hostname Defines resolved hostname
From Defines SMTP mail from command data
Queue-Id Defines SMTP queue id for message (can be used instead of message id in logging).
Rcpt Defines SMTP recipient (there may be several Rcpt headers)
Pass If this header has all value, all filters would be checked for this message.
Subject Defines subject of message (is used for non-mime messages).
User Defines SMTP user.
Message-Length Defines the length of message excluding the control block.
Settings-ID Defines settings id to apply.
Settings Defines list of rules (settings apply part) as raw json block to apply.
User-Agent Defines user agent (special processing if it is rspamc).
MTA-Tag MTA defined tag (can be used in settings).
MTA-Name Defines MTA name, used in Authentication-Results routines.
TLS-Cipher Defines TLS cipher name.
TLS-Version Defines TLS version.
TLS-Cert-Issuer Defines Cert issuer, can be used in conjunction with client_ca_name in proxy worker.
Filename Hint for filename if used with some file.

Controller also defines certain headers, see here for detail.

Standard HTTP headers, such as Content-Length, are also supported.

Rspamd HTTP reply

Rspamd reply is encoded in JSON. Here is a typical HTTP reply:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: close
Server: rspamd/0.9.0
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2015 16:19:35 GMT
Content-Length: 825
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "is_skipped": false,
    "score": 5.2,
    "required_score": 7,
    "action": "add header",
    "symbols": {
        "DATE_IN_PAST": {
            "name": "DATE_IN_PAST",
            "score": 0.1
        },
        "FORGED_SENDER": {
            "name": "FORGED_SENDER",
            "score": 5
        },
        "TEST": {
            "name": "TEST",
            "score": 100500
        },
        "FUZZY_DENIED": {
            "name": "FUZZY_DENIED",
            "score": 0,
            "options": [
                "1: 1.00 / 1.00",
                "1: 1.00 / 1.00"
            ]
        },
        "HFILTER_HELO_5": {
            "name": "HFILTER_HELO_5",
            "score": 0.1
        }
    },
    "urls": [
        "www.example.com",
        "another.example.com"
    ],
    "emails": [
        "user@example.com"
    ],
    "message-id": "4E699308EFABE14EB3F18A1BB025456988527794@example"
}

For convenience, the reply is LINTed using JSONLint. The actual reply is compressed for speed.

Each reply has the following fields:

  • is_skipped - boolean flag that is true if a message has been skipped due to settings
  • score - floating point value representing the effective score of message
  • required_score - floating point value meaning the threshold value for the metric
  • action - recommended action for a message:
    • no action - message is likely ham (please notice space, not an underscore)
    • greylist - message should be greylisted
    • add header - message is suspicious and should be marked as spam (please notice space, not an underscore)
    • rewrite subject - message is suspicious and should have subject rewritten
    • soft reject - message should be temporary rejected (for example, due to rate limit exhausting)
    • reject - message should be rejected as spam
  • symbols - all symbols added during a message’s processing, indexed by symbol names:
    • name - name of symbol
    • score - final score
    • options - array of symbol options as an array of strings

Additional keys that could be in the reply include:

  • subject - if action is rewrite subject this value defines the desired subject for a message
  • urls - a list of URLs found in a message (only hostnames)
  • emails - a list of emails found in a message
  • message-id - ID of message (useful for logging)
  • messages - object containing optional messages added by Rspamd filters (such as SPF) - The value of the smtp_message key is intended to be returned as SMTP response text by the MTA

Milter headers

This block of reply is used to manipulate headers and SMTP session. It is placed under milter key in the reply. Here are possible elements in this object:

  • add_headers: headers to add (object, indexed by header name)
  • remove_headers: headers to remove (object, indexed by header name)
  • change_from: change SMTP from value (plain string)
  • reject: custom rejection (plain string value), e.g. reject="discard" or reject="quarantine"
  • spam_header: custom spam header (plain string - header name)
  • no_action: instead of doing any action to a message, just add header X-Rspamd-Action equal to that action and accept message (boolean value)
  • add_rcpt: (from 1.8.0) add new recipients (array of strings)
  • del_rcpt: (from 1.8.0) delete recipients (array of strings)

Adding headers

add_headers element has the following format:

{
    "<header_name>": {
        "value": "<header_value>",
        "order": 0
    },
}

Where <header_name> represents header’s name, <header_value> - value, and order the order of insertion (e.g. 0 will be the first header).

Removing headers

remove_headers element has the following format:

{
    "<header_name>": 1
}

Where <header_name> represents header’s name, and the value is the order of the header to remove (starting from 1). There are special treatment for orders 0 and negative order:

  • if order is equal to zero, then it means that *all headers with this name should be removed
  • if order is negative, it means that the Nth header from the end should be removed (where N is abs(order))

Complete example

{
    "milter":
    {
        "add_headers": {
            "ArcMessageSignature": {
                "value": "some_value with JSON\nencoded values",
                "order": 0
            },
        },
        "remove_headers": {
            "DKIM-Signature": -1
        }
    }
}

Rspamd JSON control block

Since Rspamd version 0.9 it is also possible to pass additional data by prepending a JSON control block to a message. So you can use either headers or a JSON block to pass data from the MTA to Rspamd.

To use a JSON control block, you need to pass an extra header called Message-Length to Rspamd. This header should be equal to the size of the message excluding the JSON control block. Therefore, the size of the control block is equal to Content-Length - Message-Length. Rspamd assumes that a message starts immediately after the control block (with no extra CRLF). This method is equally compatible with streaming transfer, however even if you are not specifying Content-Length you are still required to specify Message-Length.

Here is an example of a JSON control block:

{
	"from": "smtp@example.com",
	"pass_all": "true",
	"ip": "95.211.146.161",
	"helo": "localhost.localdomain",
	"hostname": "localhost"
}

Moreover, UCL JSON extensions and syntax conventions are also supported inside the control block.

Curl example

To check a message without rspamc: curl --data-binary @- http://localhost:11333/symbols < file.eml

Normal worker HTTP endpoints

The following endpoints are valid on the normal worker and accept POST:

  • /checkv2 - Check message and return action

Controller HTTP endpoints

The following endpoints are valid merely on the controller. All of these may require Password header to be sent depending on configuration (passing this as query string works too).

  • /fuzzyadd - Add message to fuzzy storage
  • /fuzzydel - Remove message from fuzzy storage

These accept POST. Headers which may be set are:

  • Flag: flag identifying fuzzy storage

  • Weight: weight to add to hashes

  • /learnspam - Train bayes classifier on spam message
  • /learnham - Train bayes classifier on ham message

These also accept POST. The below endpoints all use GET:

  • /errors - Return error messages from ring buffer
  • /stat - Return statistics
  • /graph?type=<hourly|daily|weekly|monthly> - Plots throughput graph
  • /history - Returns rolling history
  • /actions - Return thresholds for actions
  • /symbols - Returns symbols in metric & their scores
  • /maps - Returns list of maps
  • /getmap - Fetches contents of map according to ID passed in Map: header
  • /fuzzydelhash - Delete entries from fuzzy according to content of Hash: header(s)