An Anti-Spam gateway #9: ClamAV

(NOTE: this is part of the “An Anti-Spam gateway” series)

Now for the anti-virus. Go to the ClamAV site, download the latest stable version, uncompress it, then compile and install it:

./configure --with-user=amavis --with-group=amavis --sysconfdir=/etc
make
make install

(note: 3 lines. The first one ends with “–sysconfdir=/etc”)

Edit the /etc/freshclam.conf file. At the end, add the following line:

DatabaseMirror db.XY.clamav.net

replacing the XX with your country code (e.g. “us”, “uk”, “pt”, etc.)

Now, edit the /etc/clamd.conf file.

Near the beginning, comment out or delete the “Example” line. Then, add the following lines at the end:

TCPAddr 127.0.0.1
User amavis

Test if ClamAV is able to update itself:

freshclam --log-verbose

If there are any problems, it should tell you.

Finally, make it so that

/usr/local/bin/freshclam -d

(note the “-d”)

and

/usr/local/sbin/clamd

are run when the system boots. That will depend on your Unix variant.