From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 5 12:51:24 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C2F4516A4BF for ; Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:51:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pgh.nepinc.com (pgh.nepinc.com [66.207.129.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BED1C43FEA for ; Fri, 5 Sep 2003 12:51:23 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from durham@jcdurham.com) Received: from jimslaptop.pitt.nepinc.com (jimslaptop.pitt.nepinc.com [192.100.100.107]) (authenticated) by pgh.nepinc.com (8.11.4/8.11.3) with ESMTP id h85JpL625047; Fri, 5 Sep 2003 15:51:22 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from durham@jcdurham.com) From: Jim Durham Organization: JC Durham Consulting To: Lee_Shackelford@dot.ca.gov, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 15:51:18 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.3 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200309051551.18424.durham@jcdurham.com> Subject: Re: virus scan programs X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: durham@jcdurham.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 19:51:24 -0000 On Friday 05 September 2003 12:32 pm, Lee_Shackelford@dot.ca.gov wrote: > Dear freeBSD enthusiast, > Greetings. I am a newcomer to the BSD/Unix world. My place > of employment is a large agency with thousands of client machines. > Most of the clients use Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional > operating system. Most of the servers use either Novell operating > system, or I.B.M. Domino operating system. A very important ritual > that each client computer performs every morning at boot-up time is > to run a virus scan application program. This program is run > whether or not the user desires it, because it runs before the user > us granted a log-on screen. In my reading of Unix and BSD > literature, I have found no mention of virus scan programs for > these operating systems. Do such programs not exist? Alternately, > is the Unix/BSD approach to this problem in a different > philosophical and/or procedural sphere? If so, could you describe > the Unix/BSD approach to locating and eradicating these invaders of > one's hard drive? If the issue is already explained in either > printed literature, or posted at a world wide web site, it is > sufficient to cite the location. Many thanks for your response. As mentioned by others, *nix systems are highly virus-imune and also most viruses are written for Windows. Sophos is one virus software supplier that has a native freebsd version of their virus scanning engine. (www.sophos.com). If you wished to scan for viruses at system boot time, you could put a startup script in /usr/local/etc/rc.d to start Sophos sweep. There are other virus software companies that support *nix, but Sophos was one that I know has a FreeBSD version. -Jim