[wellylug] email virus scanners

Cliff Pratt enkidu at cliffp.com
Thu Dec 28 10:53:48 NZDT 2006


Nic Cave-Lynch wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> I've finally made the leap to a Linux desktop (Fedora Core 6). I'm 
> currently going through the painful business of replacing all my key 
> applications.
> 
> One thing though: what about virus scanning, particularly of email? I've 
> got a license for AVG for Linux, so that can do the periodic file scans, 
> but incoming mail??? AVG seems to require some arrangement with postfix 
> or sendmail or similar, and will then scan as mail gets picked up by 
> those. I just use Thunderbird and Opera for mail, and they pick up from 
> the pop3 machines at various ISPs. That doesn't seem to fit the AVG model.
> 
> Sooo: am I just thinking about mail virus scanning the wrong way, (maybe 
> I should just assume that Linux doesn't have mail viruses so I don't 
> need to worry: seems risky)? Or should I go the postfix route and use 
> AVG like that (though I can't quite get my head around what I need to do 
> to make that work)? Or is there some other virus scanning solution that 
> I should be looking at? Or something else entirely?
> 
> What do other people do? Any suggestions/comments?
> 
There is less need for virus scanners on Linux, though it is conceivable 
that you could receive a virus and then accidentally pass it on to a 
Windows user. I personally don't use virus scanning on my machines, but 
I pick up my mail from ISPs who provide virus scanning anyway.

If you still want to scan for viruses, (and this *may* become necessary 
if Linux is ever targetted by virus writers), then one thing you can do 
is pick up your mail with 'fetchmail' and feed it to your own local 
server running postfix, exim, or even (for the masochists) sendmail. 
Then you can scan with AVG as the mail comes in, before it is delivered 
to your (local) mail box.

Cheers,

Cliff




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