Wednesday, November 14, 2012

ClamAV - Linux Antivirus Software

Antivirus for Linux sounds unnecessary due to the low probability of Linux being infected by a virus. However because Linux can communicate and share files with Windows, antivirus is another piece of software that will prevent the spread of malware between Windows clients where Linux could be the conduit.

ClamAV is included in most Linux distribution repositories. ClamAV is, “...designed especially for e-mail scanning on mail gateways. It provides a number of utilities including a flexible and scalable multi-threaded daemon, a command line scanner and advanced tool for automatic database updates.” Even though ClamAV is designed for mail gateways, to scan incoming e-mail, there are tools to manually scan media for viruses. Normally a systems home folder, which contains the users home directories, or shared folders like SAMBA shares with Windows clients are scanned on a schedule. ClamAV is not normally used to scan the complete filesystem of a Linux machine. This in conjunction with Windows antivirus software will helpfully prevent any malware outbreaks in your home or organization.