How to manually edit the GFI MailEssentials Whitelist

Answer

The process of importing a series of email addresses/domains in the GFI MailEssentials Whitelist consists of the following steps:

• Generate a template of the Whitelist XML from the GFI MailEssentials Configuration
• Edit the Whitelist XML file to include any modifications you wish make to the Whitelist.
• Import the Whitelist into the GFI MailEssentials configuration

The following procedure will discuss the steps above in further detail:

Generate a template of the Whitelist XML from the GFI MailEssentials Configuration

A template of the XML file can be exported from the GFI MailEssentials configuration as follows:

1. Open the GFI MailEssentials configuration
2. Expand the Anti-Spam node
3. Select the Whitelist node  and click the Whitelist Tab
4. Click on the Export button to generate the XML file containing your current entries in the GFI MailEssentials Whitelist.
5. Enter a name of the XML file you wish to save and click the Save button.
   
   Note: If you wish to keep a backup of your whitelist before making any modifications, save a copy of the file generated in the step above.

Edit the generated XML File

Once you have exported the XML file as discussed above, you will need to open it with notepad or an XML editor. Every new entry within the whitelist is listed within the 'z:row entry' section as follows:

<z:row description="" entry="user@domain.com" type="type number" />

Example:

<z:row description="awesome company" entry="*@gfi.com" type="1" />

Every new entry within the whitelist XML file needs to have a type ID associated to that entry. The Type ID will define what rule will be applied to that whitelist entry. The following are the type IDs which can be specified within the XML file:

• MIME to: type="0"
• MIME from: type="1"
• SMTP to: type="2"
• SMTP from: type="3"
• Recipient (SMTP and MIME to): type="4"
• Sender (SMTP and MIME from): type="5"

Add a new <z:row entry /> for every new entry you wish to include in the GFI MailEssentials Whitelist. Once you have completed this step, save all changes to the XML file.

Import the Whitelist in the GFI MailEssentials Configuration

Once you have saved your updated XML file, import the new Whitelist XML file into the GFI MailEssentials Configuration as explained below:

1. Open the GFI MailEssentials configuration once again
2. Expand the Anti-Spam node
3. Select the Whitelist node and select the Whitelist tab
4. Paste the path with file name in the Specify the full path and filename of the file to use for importing:
5. Select the Import node
6. An import graph will show the percentage of the import until its successful