This article applies to:
- Trustwave MailMarshal (SEG)
- Trustwave ECM/MailMarshal Exchange
Question:
How do I bypass Message Stamping if a Message Stamp already exists?
Background:
Occasionally users complain about MailMarshal applying too many message stamps or legal disclaimers to an email message. With a message stamping rule, MailMarshal will stamp every new message regardless of whether previous replies (which are now incorporated in the new message) have already been stamped.
Message stamps are merely extra bits of text appended to the message body - they become part of the message. For example, if a new message incorporates six previous replies, it will show six message stamps - which can look untidy.
Procedure:
So how do we get rid of them? The first important point is: do we really want to? In many cases a message stamp is a legal disclaimer for the company. If a new message is not stamped with a disclaimer (because it already incorporates previous replies with disclaimers) technically the new message does not have a disclaimer. The displayed disclaimer relates only to a previous reply. Is this desirable?
If however it is decided that it is unnecessary to apply a message stamp then it is possible to set up a rule which bypasses the message stamping rule if the message stamp already exists. The following steps outline how to set up a rule which bypasses the message stamp rule if the message stamp already exists:
- Create a Text Censor Script to detect your Message Stamp
- Create the text censor script with caution because it needs to be accurate enough to detect the message stamp, but the more words that are included in the text censor script the longer it takes to run the script. So we don't really want to put the entire message stamp in the text censor script.
- Create a Rule that says, if the Text Censor Script is triggered, bypass Stamping Rule
Please also use caution when creating this type of rule as it is very important that only the appropriate rule is skipped. It is a good idea to create this rule as close to the bottom of the rule list as possible, preferably second to last and the very last rule will be the rule to stamp messages.
So, if a message already has the message stamp it will trigger the text censor script and bypass the remaining rule (the message stamping rule). If a message doesn't already have the message stamp, it won't trigger the text censor script and will be passed onto the next rule for processing (the message stamping rule).
The rule that runs just before the stamping rule should look like this:
Standard Rule: Stamp
When a message arrives
Where the message is addressed to or from any user
Where message triggers text censor script(s) AlreadyStamped
Pass the message on and skip the next rule
It is also possible to create weighted TextCensor scripts. This allows you to specify the maximum number of message stamps which can be applied to a message (such as 3), before the text censor script is triggered and the message stamping rule is bypassed. Trustwave Knowledgebase article Q10542 explains how to use weighted text censor scripts.
- This article was previously published as:
- NETIQKB29203
- Marshal KB135