One of the best free Linux anti-virus packages is ClamAV. Installing ClamAV is really simple. Most distributions have binaries available, or if you’re distro supportsAPT, just type:
# apt-get install clamav
ClamAV can handle all of these tasks. ClamAV runs freshclam to check for updates.
If you want to change that number, simply edit the Checks line in /etc/clamav/freshclam.conf.
If you want to change that number, simply edit the Checks line in /etc/clamav/freshclam.conf.
To check your system, ClamAV uses clamscan. There are a wealth of options available for clamscan; to see them, use man clamscan. A quick and dirty way to scan your home directory is to use clamscan as follows:
$ clamscan –ri ––move=/tmp/virus /home/yourusername
The –r option tells ClamAV to recursively scan your directory and every other directory and file in it, while –i makes things a bit quieter, telling ClamAV to only print the names of infected files it finds. If a virus is found in a file, ClamAV moves the file to /tmp/virus/, but that directory must already exist before clamscan starts working. Set up a cron job to create /tmp/virus/ and run clamscan and you have an automated way to keep your system clean and healthy.
Many Linux email clients already support ClamAV directly, including KMail (which allows you to pick the anti-virus program of your choice) and Sylpheed Claws. Others, such as Evolution,require you to manually create filters that pipe email through ClamAV. (C’mon, Evolution (and others)! Let us specify ClamAV or other anti-virus programs directly!)
If you want to protect your Linux server or desktop from viruses, give ClamAV a look. It’s a powerful, well-supported open source project, and it just keeps getting better and better.
