Clamav

Configuring Software - antivirus

While the nature of Gentoo Linux will keep you relatively virus-free for the rest of your computing days, there are still rootkits and other baddies out there that can infect your system. You may also want to have a tool on hand to scan torrents you are downloading and installing into virtual machines or sharing with friends. An excellent and simple antivirus package is clamav.

$ sudo emerge -av clamav

Once it has emerged, set it to start with the system and start the daemon.

$ sudo rc-update add clamd default
$ sudo /etc/init.d/clamd start

This will also start freshclam, clamav's automatic database update service. To run clamav as a normal user, you'll need to add yourself to the clamav group. Substitute your username for username below.

$ sudo usermod -a -G clamav username

To scan a file or folder using clamav, use the clamscan command.

$ clamscan filename

You can use clamscan --help to view a list of options for clamav. You can use cron to set up a regularly scheduled virus scan.