HOWTO: Install F-Prot with GTK frontend (anti-virus)

[Artificial Intelligence]

Also works for Ubuntu 5.10, 6.06, 6.10 and 7.04
Does NOT work on 64bit version of Ubuntu
This how do not work in 7.10



Q: Is viruses, trojans and malware a threat to a linux system as in Windows?

A: No, there's a very few viruses to linux and the way a Linux/unix is build up makes it difficult to do any serious damage to the system, in fact I've never heard from people who got their Linux/unix system infected.

Q: So why install a anti-virus application/program?

A: For an ordinary Linux Home user with only one OS system their's no need for Anti-virus, but people who's running network, server or dual booting with win OS this tool can be very handy to scan and delete viruses.

Q: I'm a home user only running Linux do I need it?

A: No, a firewall is way better as protection in that case.



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Before Installation:
Make sure that your sourcelist is set up correctly before advancing further into this howto. If you're in doubt how to do that make some search on the forum.


First thing you need is to get the right tools for compiling and the right libs to make F-Prot with GTK frontend to work.

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude upgrade
sudo aptitude install build-essential libwww-perl libgtk2.0-dev checkinstall

Installation:

Grab F-prot here and pick the debian/gnu file. (4.6.8 ) and save it to your Desktop
Download XFPROT-1.20 here and save it to your Desktop.

First the fp-linux-ws.deb need to be installed:

cd ~/Desktop
sudo dpkg -i  fp-linux-ws.deb

Next the frontend for F-prot

cd ~/Desktop
tar zxvf xfprot-1.20.tar.gz
cd xfprot-1.20
./configure --with-sudo --autodetect --without-debug --with-install-dir=/usr/local
make
sudo checkinstall

Launcher:

Now we need to add it to 'Application launcher:

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/fprot.desktop

add:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=F-Prot
Comment=Anti-Virus Application
Exec=xfprot
Icon=/usr/local/xfprot/icons/antivirus-48x48.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;System;

Save and exit.


--------------------------------------------------------
Troubleshooting

- While configuring xfprot and it's complaining about it can't find libgtk2, open the configure file with a text editor application and change the first line to #!/bin/bash

[ubuntu27]

I think it is better if you explain what and why we have to do that [following your instructions]
I mean, all you did was explain that we don't need Anti-virus in Linux [Which is true], and then you said “First thing you need to run this in the terminal”
What for? What will happened if I do that? [Well, looks like you are showing how to install Anvirus for those who want or have a network server... but, one will not know if they are new to Linux]

I am not criticizing, by the way. I am just commenting. Trying to help you make a understandable “How-To” for beginners hehe.

PS: Good job

EDIT: Ah! I see that the title says " HOWTO: Install F-Prot with GTK frontend (anti-virus)" now that makes sense... haha..

[veloct]

works flawlessly, good work. thanks

[Resin]

Thanks buddy, works a treat!

[Artificial Intelligence]

Updated Howto. New F-prot availble (4.6.3)

[5-HT]

*EDIT: figured out the problem was with a symbolic link to the f-prot shell script and condensed/focused the post accordingly

Hi, wondering if someone may be able to help me out with something funny that occured after updating to the new version of f-prot?


It seems that the installation creates the directory: /usr/local/bin, and places a link there to /usr/local/f-prot/f-prot.sh.

For whatever reason, the /usr/local/bin directory that f-prot created only has read/write/execute permissions for root (700 permissions), other users/group have absolutely no access to the directory at all.

Because of this, I cannot run f-prot as a normal user (which wasn't the case with the previous version).

Now, I'm still really new to linux and am just wondering if it's ok to give everyone read/execute permissions to /usr/local/bin (755 permission)?


It looks like /usr/bin has these permissions already, so I don't think this should be a problem from a security standpoint...but am not sure.


So I'm just wondering if any has a /usr/local/bin directory, and if so does it give read/execute permissions to anyone?

Would it be okay for me to give such permissions to the directory, or should I just put a symbolic link pointing to /usr/local/f-prot/f-prot.sh in /usr/bin?


Any suggestions/info would be greatly appreciated!

[ArmadaEnder]

Ok, I'm having a problemwhen trying to install this. Everything works fine until I hit the:

sudo checkinstall
sudo dpkg -i xfprot-1.15_1.15-1_i386.deb

...portion of the tutorial. When entering the above, this occurs:

chris@ubuntu:~/Desktop/xfprot-1.15$ sudo checkinstall
sudo: checkinstall: command not found
chris@ubuntu:~/Desktop/xfprot-1.15$ sudo dpkg -i xfprot-1.15_1.15-1_i386.deb
dpkg: error processing xfprot-1.15_1.15-1_i386.deb (--install):
cannot access archive: No such file or directory
Errors were encountered while processing:
xfprot-1.15_1.15-1_i386.deb
chris@ubuntu:~/Desktop/xfprot-1.15$

I got the icon to appear in the applications tab yet if I try to open it, an error box pops up with this message:

Cannot launch entry
Details: Failed to execute child process "xfprot" (No such file or directory)

Any ideas as to what may have happend?

[veloct]

looks like you don't have checkinstall installed in your system.

sudo apt-get install checkinstall

Then try again.

[ArmadaEnder]

Ah, now I feel stupid. Thank-you very much for the help.

[Artificial Intelligence]

Perhaps I should include the checkinstall application in the howto.


Edit: Done.