Mailing List Archive

[clamav-users] usb boot drive
Hello, I recently made a bootable USB drive that runs Linux and I was
wondering if I could install ClamAV on it without issues or if it would
mess with any of the boot files. Sorry if this is a stupid question I
just want to make sure I don't accidentally cause irreparable harm to
the USB boot files or anything like them.
Re: [clamav-users] usb boot drive [ In reply to ]
On Fri, 8 Jan 2021, Kyjana via clamav-users wrote:

> Hello, I recently made a bootable USB drive that runs Linux and I was
> wondering if I could install ClamAV on it without issues or if it would mess
> with any of the boot files. Sorry if this is a stupid question I just want to
> make sure I don't accidentally cause irreparable harm to the USB boot files
> or anything like them.

1. Think through what you want clamav to do for you.
2. Have a general read of the archive of this list
https://lists.clamav.net/pipermail/clamav-users/
3. Think through what you want clamav to do for you.

To answer you question:
*installing* clamav wont harm the boot files;
*scanning* your USB drive wont harm it *unless*
you have enabled quarantining or cleaning of suspect files (don't).

If you enable on-access-scanning you *could* stop the drive from booting
- if you get a false positive on a boot file. But then you would get
equally inconvenient problems if genuine malware got into similar files.

My first thought on clamav in a bootable USB drive is that you may wish
you scan the main boot disk of the machine. The same comments would apply
to the main boot files if you did that ...

ClamAV is not like Norton, AVG or McAfee (or probably Kaspersky, I haven't
checked). It isn't a gui-based thing for novices to install and just turn
on. If you don't know why you are using ClamAV and what you want it to do,
don't use it.

--
Andrew C. Aitchison Kendal, UK
andrew@aitchison.me.uk

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