I was reading on the web that clamav is not an “endpoint antivirus solution” but at the same time its called the best antivirus for gnu/linux and gnu/linux servers. Is worth for a desktop/personal computer?
OP, I’ll be honest with ya: if you’re looking for something akin to M$ Defender but on Desktop Linux (and free), you ain’t gonna find it.
A quick look at your Lemmy history suggests that you’re security-conscious. In that context, it’s worth noting that ‘Linux’ does provide you. However, depending on your situation and/or threat model, this might come at the cost of expertise.
If you never download random stuff from the internet, then your average distro might be sufficient as long as you commit to the most basic set of best practices.
However, if you do download random stuff from the internet OR if your situation and/or threat model warrants a more conscious approach, then things might change substantially.
But before subjecting you to Qubes OS, we’d have to know more about your situation. So, first of all, could you elaborate on your use case of ClamAV? Or, perhaps even what you intend to do in general?
in general: for my personal daily use pc. I download 🏴☠️ files and software for websites around the internet, so it would be nice have an antivirus
in specific: i want to self host services in my home server, so i want it to be secure and protected
in general: for my personal daily use pc. I download 🏴☠️ files and software for websites around the internet, so it would be nice have an antivirus
Aight. Understood. Thank you for the clarification!
So…, now it becomes a question of how
paranoidsecurity-sensitive you are 😅. I suppose relying on a distro with pretty decent security defaults (like e.g. Fedora or openSUSE) makes sense for a start. Furthermore, definitely commit to best practices[1]. As for the scanning part, other comments have already touched on that.If the PC you’re doing this contains sensitive information OR you’re not satisfied with the provided “probably good enough” solution, then consider going “the extra mile”. Which would involve the use of specialized OSes, relying on VMs and whatnot. But I digress…
in specific: i want to self host services in my home server, so i want it to be secure and protected
Unfortunately, I’m not confident talking on servers specifically. It’s simply not something I’ve put serious thoughts to yet. I hope someone else will touch on that 😉.
A lot can be said on this, but it would dominate this text if I’d try to touch on it. ↩︎
I do my shady stuff inside a VM. How safe is that?
That depends.
If this is a Linux guest on a Linux host and both are just your average distros, then it’s fine~ish. It’s not 100% safe as some malware is able to escape a VM, see this for a recent example of this.
Doing your shady stuff within a disposable air-gapped[1] VM on a RISC-V powered Sculpt OS host should be pretty safe, though.
In this context, I just mean it has only had the least amount of possible privileges/capabilities during its lifetime. ↩︎
Thanks for the info and the link.
Backup your data so that you can restore what matters to you. There is no need for an antivirus on Linux if you stick to the distribution channels of your distribution because package are verified. Unlike in the close source world because the source of those packages are open, verifying, even though imperfect, is much simpler. Popular distributions, e.g. Debian or Redhat, have a very strong incentive not to let anything slip. Maintainer of packages also are able not just to track what changed but also by whom, that means if there is a problem it can be identified and attributed rather quickly and thus other maintainers can be warned. It is not impossible and supply chain attacks do happen, e.g. xz backdoor, but it is rare, specific and has been studied and thus partly alleviated even though it remains a challenge.
If you do download executables or binaries, not media e.g. videos or music, from random places though then all bets are off.
I’ve heard it is possible to put a virus even into an image, and I might actually be a victim of such an attack… But yeah, it is extremely rare
If you are sailing the seas gamewise 🏴☠️, Bottles does decent job finding and warning you with it’s Analyse feature :)
For the average home desktop/laptop user, you probably don’t need it. It won’t hurt, but unless you’re really downloading and executing random files off the internet, it won’t do much.
If you run a server that is publicly available on the internet that allows folks to upload files to it, then you will almost certainly want it.
Lenspect or just VirusTotal
ClamUI on flathub
It is not worthy that it mainly is for windows malware and if you stick to your distro repositories you should be save
Not really worth it unless you’re downloading attachments from spam emails or sketchy websites. It’s pretty dated tech - old school AV definitions, but there’s nothing better that’s free afaik
I recommend Lenspect on Linux. It uses VirusTotal API to scan files you select. It is available on Flathub with minimal permissions (basically just network permission to talk to VirusTotal).
FWIW, Lenspect is not capable of selecting a folder and scanning all of its contents[1] (yet). For that (and more), there is
vt-cli(source); maintained by (more or less) the same people that brought us VirusTotal. List of repos in which it’s found.
Like what you’d probably want to do after extracting an archive. ↩︎
clam-av is like an anti-virus condom – there are significantly better ways to protect yourself but if you’re not aware them, or don’t want to put in the effort, or just don’t want to bother for whatever reason; then it’s there and it’s better than nothing. lol
What better solution does exist if you want to have sex with strangers?
some of this
and some of that
Doxycycline is an antibiotic, they are famous for having no effect on viruses as e.g. HIV. And even if the other party involved is honest with you they might not know that they have an STD, some are already contagious without an positive test.
deleted by creator
I guess being severely allergic to doxycycline means I can just go fuck myself.
I have yet to have many issues with it, so far. So many people say you don’t need an antivirus on linux, but I am of the belief that you should have it regardless. Better safe to have a scanner just in case, especially if you download anything off the internet. Doesn’t matter if it’s from a supposedly safe source, it’s better IMO to just scan it just in case.
For ages it was safe to download and open random files on Linux, because they simply would not run. Now Linux is a very desirable target for criminals, so they learned to write multiplatform viruses.
The best option would be an automatic sandbox for running random crap downloaded who knows where, and Android does that automatically, but on desktop Linux you need to either create a new user (and remove world-readable permissions from your main account files), or create a custom Docker container, or create a chroot, or launch a VM, all of which require half a day of learning new tools, and then debugging why graphics would not work.
but on desktop Linux you need to either create a new user (and remove world-readable permissions from your main account files), or create a custom Docker container, or create a chroot, or launch a VM
You don’t need to do any of that stuff to achieve application sandboxing. bubblewrap or firejail exist for exactly this purpose. Firejail in particular can integrate with AppArmor (which most mainstream distros that aren’t RHEL or Fedora ship with) so you get MAC on top of sandboxing.
I’ll check them out
Have a look at the following from the Easy Linux Tips Project.
Excellent…! Thank you.
You do not need an antivirus
Can you expand further?
I did at https://lemmy.ml/post/51917327/27475152 hope it helps
