There is a common perception that there are no viruses on the Linux platform – which to a large extent is true. But your still have email on your system. what happens when you get a mail attachment which you would like to forward to your windows machine so you can open it with your favourite proprietary software? And what if this attachment is infected by a virus? This is where the anti virus solutions for Linux comes into the picture.
ClamAV is a free GPLed anti-virus solution which provides a lot of advantages when installed in Linux. Sticking to the philosophy of linux, it contains a set of command line tools which can be used to check if a file on your system is infected by a virus.
For Linux, ClamAV is one of the best virus scanners. And not only is ClamAV one of the best, it also has a great front-end for users who prefer to not have to deal with command line tools. That front-end? ClamTk. In this article you will learn how to install and use ClamTk to keep your Linux box virus free. Your friends and co-workers might thank you in the end.
Installing clamAV is as simple as issuing a command.
Open up terminal: sudo apt-get install clamav clamtk
(clamtk is the Graphical Front end)
Using ClamTk
To open the ClamTk window you can either click Applications –>System Tools–>Virus Scanner or from either the run dialog (F2) or a terminal window issue the command clamtk.
One of the first things you should do is click Help–>Update Signatures which effectively runs the freshclam command and keeps your clamav uptodate
You can take care of scanning a few different ways:
- Click Home button (the Home icon) to do a quick scan of your ~/ directory.
- Click the Binoculars icon to scan a single file.
- Click the magnifying glass to scan a directory.
- Click Scan–>Recursive Scan to scan a parent directory and it’s children.
- Click Scan–>Home (thorough) to do a more thorough scan of your home directory.
For those who use Claws Mail, I would preffer a recursive scan on the ~/Mail directory. But I warn you, a thorough, recursive scan can be somewhat resource intensive. So if you need to do this type of scan, you might want to do it when you’re not busy, otherwise your machine might become a bit less responsive.
I never yet came across an infected file on any of my Linux machines. Well that doesn’t stop me from scanning, especially with a ton of emails, and I prefer to do my part to ensure that no email that might leave my inbox (especially forwards) contains a virus. You should do this as well, even when Linux is your main operating system.
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