Are you confused about how to install ClamAV on Ubuntu 18.04? We can help you with it.

Usually, we use antivirus software like ClamAV to scan the files, pdfs, etc for virus detection.

At Bobcares, we often receive requests to install it as part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let us have a detailed look at how easily our Support Engineers install it for our customers.

A brief look on ClamAV

Viruses are common in all Operating systems. So, using an antivirus to perform scanning is always important.

Also, we scan new files in the system to ensure server security. So, to scan the website files, pdfs, emails, etc, server owners use the antivirus software like ClamAV.

We can install ClamAV on all major operating systems like Linux, Windows, BSD and many more.

So, let us discuss the installation of ClamAV in detail.

How we install ClamAV on Ubuntu 18.04?

Having a decade of experience in managing servers, our Dedicated Engineers deal with the ClamAV frequently.

Let us now see how our Support Engineers install it easily for our customers as part of our security audit.

On an Ubuntu server, we follow the below steps,

Firstly, we update the local repository using the command,

apt update

Then, we run the below command to install the ClamAV from the APT repositories.

apt install clamav

After that, we can verify the ClamAV installation and its version using the following command.

clamscan --version

Next, we need to update the ClamAV signatures. Updating the signatures is really critical. An old outdated virus database can set the server prone for virus attack.

To update the database, we use the virus database update tool freshclam.

Usually, this database update runs in the background by default.  But, if we want to run it manually, we need to first stop the ClamAV daemon.

systemctl stop clamav-freshclam.service

Then, we need to run the command,

freshclam

Finally, we can do a virus scan for files and folders on the system using the command,

clamscan --infected --remove --recursive "path of the file"

This command scan and remove all the files and folders recursively inside the specified path.

For instance, the below image shows the result while scanning the current user’s home/Myfiles/Pictures.

After installation, we run Clamav periodically on the server to find out any infected files. However, Clamav can often create a high load on the server. To avoid this, our Security Engineers restrict the server resources that Clamav scan use during scanning.

[Need more assistance to install ClamAV?- We’re available 24/7 to help you.]

Conclusion

In today’s writeup, we discussed how our Support Engineers easily install ClamAV on Ubuntu 18.04.