Clam AV nuts and bolts

[az]

I copied this to the forum-wiki delta.

http://test.wiki.ubuntu.com/forum/software/clamav

It needs some cleaning up...

[petunia_volubilis]

if I may a little up for my previous post :

latest clamav version in backports for amd-64 is 0.83
it was not possible to get the 0.85.1 version neither from the debian sid repository nor from the deb files

is there a way to update viruses definition manually, because freshclam would not run with the 0.83 ?

thanx again

[Gentist]

"WARNING: Your ClamAV installation is OUTDATED - please update immediately!
WARNING: Current functionality level = 4, required = 5"

Trying to update the virus-definition base might not be a good idea. I'm not sure how the internals of ClamAV works, but that error message does hint that it might not work well.

It might be partly because I'm a bleeding-edge Gentoo user, but I've found that while it could be ok to be a bit out-of-date at times, as long as security patches are applied, Ubuntu can sometimes be frustratingly out-of-date.

I thought the point of not going bleeding-edge is to assure that things will work. However, with Ubuntu, I've found that it could render things like ClamAV utterly useless, which is most of the time a lot worse than "partly working" or "fixable, but requires some work". If there's anything that Ubuntu needs to fix, it's this. Packages shouldn't be bleeding-edge, but they should at least be current enough for official support (which basically equals functionality).

[petunia_volubilis]

Hi,
I am not sure I did correctly get your point

I thought the point of not going bleeding-edge is to assure that things will work. However, with Ubuntu, I've found that it could render things like ClamAV utterly useless

I am not that uncomfortable with using old clamav version, as long as things work. But this is not actually the case.
What should I do, then ?

Thank you

[billiejoex]

A little question about ClamAV: does the ClamAV database contains also the Win32 virus signatures or it contains a linux viruses db only?
Can ClamAV detect a Win32 virus or not?
I ask this becouse I would integrate an AV protection in a linux mail server.

[shufla]

Hi,

A little question about ClamAV: does the ClamAV database contains also the Win32 virus signatures or it contains a linux viruses db only?
Can ClamAV detect a Win32 virus or not?
I ask this becouse I would integrate an AV protection in a linux mail server.

Yes, clamav _detects_ Win32 viruses. I do not know how many viruses are on Linux/BSD - 5? Less, more.

Best Regards,
Shufla

[billiejoex]

Thanks.

[sol77]

How about a script for scanning a file for viruses that can be run from Nautilus?

What I have so far is:

#!/bin/bash
for uri in $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_FILE_PATHS; do
	clamscan "$uri"
done

But how do I go about getting the results printed out?
A terminal opening with the results would be fine.

I'm very new to this so I don't have a clue, other than that something should be echoed.

[tc101]

I tried to install this using the directions from the first post. In my terminal I entered

sudo apt-get install clamav

I got several pages of messages, but at the end I get the error messages below. Any idea what my problem is?

Setting up clamav-base (0.88.4-1ubuntu2.1) ...
Adding system user `clamav' with uid 110...
Adding new group `clamav' (115).
Adding new user `clamav' (110) with group `clamav'.
Not creating home directory `/var/lib/clamav'.
dpkg: error processing clamav-base (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of clamav-freshclam:
clamav-freshclam depends on clamav-base (= 0.88.4-1ubuntu2.1); however:
Package clamav-base is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing clamav-freshclam (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of clamav:
clamav depends on clamav-freshclam | clamav-data; however:
Package clamav-freshclam is not configured yet.
Package clamav-data is not installed.
Package clamav-freshclam which provides clamav-data is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing clamav (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
clamav-base
clamav-freshclam
clamav
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
tomcarr@tomcarr-desktop:~$ clamscan -ir $HOME
ERROR: Can't initialize the virus database

[caffienda]

I have the same error as the above poster. What can I do to fix this?