Originally Posted by sgosnell

The reason the clamscan -r /home >> /home/user/clamscanresults.log didn't work is that >> redirects to an existing file, it doesn't create one if it doesn't exist. To get an empty file, use But that won't work on your system either, because you have to replace 'user' with your username. There should be no user named user on the system. Anytime you see that in an example, you're expected to substitute your own username.

Originally Posted by sgosnell

A couple of things:

clamav must be run as root, so either log in as root or use sudo.

If you want to scan the entire drive, use Scanning the entire disk will take a looooooonnnggg time, so set the cronjob to run while you're in bed sleeping, not while you're trying to do work on the computer.

You don't run !bin/bash in a terminal, you put it into a text file as the first line. Linux runs almost entirely on text files. Open your favorite text editor, put the suggested lines into it, and save the file. From a terminal I like nano, but there are others. I can't remember what Gnome uses for a text editor, but it should be easy enough to find.

Originally Posted by John VV

are you running a email server ?

or are you sharing this linux install with a windows install ?

there will be a log file in
/var/log/clamav ( or something like that )


the only hits i get are from attachments in emails
and then 99.9% of the time it is a SPAM mail


as above viruses are not a issue
rootkits are


there are about 3.5 million micrsoft viruses
and about 12 to 36 linux viruses

and about 24 rootkits

Originally Posted by alex4buba

In that folder, I found two log files
clamav.log and freshclam.log
I have no idea what to look for?

Not sure, should I load those files back to this message?

Cheers
Alex

Originally Posted by Hermani

Hi Alex4Buba,

You're on the right track, because you (already) installed ClamAV.

If you need something to be done in Linux on a regular basis, it is done by a so-called crontab command. This is a list in which you can tell the system what things to do every x amount of time. There are some desktop tools that can do the same however they mostly rely on crontab. And because crontab is found on every Linux installation and always works well, it is nice to use and rely on.

There is a system crontab list you can edit that works with superuser privileges, and every user on the system has its own crontab list to perform tasks with the privileges of that user.

For a tutorial on how to use crontab, take a look at one of the following (there are many more):

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MFMnsnfBJs
• https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-do...-or-unix-oses/ - this looks like one of the most basic tutorials.
• https://ostechnix.com/a-beginners-guide-to-cron-jobs/ : has some clickthroughs
• https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/cron-job

You can run commands in the crontab. However for me the best thing to do is to

1. Make a shell script (this is like a Windows / MS-DOS batch file)
2. Make an entry in the crontab pointing to the shell script

This way you can easily change, modify or extend the command. There are a lot of tutorials about how to write a shell script. The most simple script to run clamav would be something like this:

The first line of code is necessary (I don't know why) and can also be !/bin/bash, if your system runs BASH as well.

The second line of code is the clamscan command you want to issue. The output that normally would be sent to the terminal is now routed to a file called "clamscanresults.log" (you can pick any name). Because I used >> any existing log file is appended, not replaced.

If you save this text file as eg "scancommand.sh" you have a shell script. PLEASE do not forget to enable execution for the shell script - you can do it through the file manager or by issuing a command like

Next, you can modify the crontab. If you want to have all users in /home scanned, you might use the systemwide crontab. So you fire up the crontab editor using the following command

Then you just have to put in the code for the timing of your shellscript and of course, the name and path of your script. If you wanted to edit your user's crontab you could use the following command

Hope I got you started!

Originally Posted by alex4buba

alex@alex-NUC8i7HNK:~$ !/bin/sh
bash: !/bin/sh: event not found
alex@alex-NUC8i7HNK:~$ !/bin/bash
bash: !/bin/bash: event not found
alex@alex-NUC8i7HNK:~$

Originally Posted by hazel

That was a misprint on hermani's part. They meant to say #!/bin/sh. This is called a hashbang and indicates to the script what program is required to run it (in this case the system shell).

But ! by itself has a special meaning in Linux shells. It means "Go back to when I last used this command and repeat it exactly, with the same arguments". That can be a useful and quick way of repeating an operation, but obviously it doesn't work if you haven't used the command before. Hence the message "event not found".

Originally Posted by alex4buba

OK, I am learning... a lot each day

What is this command anyway? #!/bin/sh

Cheers
Alex

Originally Posted by hazel

That was a misprint on hermani's part.

Originally Posted by Hermani

Have corrected my previous post, and I am sorry I did not tell about the touch part.

I am sorry, Hazel and Alex I am still a bit of a n00b too, but I recently have had to figure this all out as well.

Originally Posted by alex4buba

From that tutorial, I gather that cron is a batch file executor of a script, kind of what I used to do with .bat files in the DOS days.

Originally Posted by Hermani

You could say

1. a shell script (.sh file) is about the same as a MS-DOS batch file (.bat)
2. the crontab is a special file that executes programs / commands / shell scripts on a regular basis.

The reason I recommended using a shell script is because I find it is more easy to modify, and I can put extra commands in that can add extra information in a log file, for instance the date and time of an event.

When you get the hang of it, it is quite easy if you have programmed MS-DOS batch files before.

For instance, I use a backup server that I programmed to make a backup copy of my main server on a daily basis. It works fully autonomous and I have zero interaction with it (next to the infrequent check-up and update/upgrade). Also I programmed a small SBC (single board computer) as a secondary backup-server that also makes a daily backup of the most important data, also with zero interaction. Next to that, I have programmed my main server to make a backup of an online Nextcloud server. It all works flawlessly, and I can tell because I have the shell scripts make log files I can read.