[clamav-users] feedback on Installing ClamAV instructions

Mon Nov 28 17:56:53 UTC 2016

This is fantastic feedback.  I’ve incorporated the fixes (and missing pages!) you’ve suggested below.

Much of this content was migrated from our wiki that we took offline years ago, and despite my review, I’ve obviously missed a few pages and links.

Always feel free to send this feedback in, or, more directly, a pull request into the clamav-faq on GitHub.
--
Joel Esler | Talos: Manager | jesler at cisco.com<mailto:jesler at cisco.com>

On Nov 22, 2016, at 10:36 PM, timeless <timeless at gmail.com<mailto:timeless at gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi. Please forgive this long critique of Installing ClamAV [1].

I actually wanted to send an email about an error path using old
versions of ClamAV, but the mailing list [2]
subscription rules said to read the faq first.

I'm aware that the FAQ has some relation to a github repository, some
problems I've identified stem from that original, and some are
specific to the clamnav.net<http://clamnav.net> documents rendition.

Installing from source
Check Requirements [link: https://www.clamav.net/documents/installing-clamav#requirements]
Uninstall any old version, see UninstallClamAV [not a link!]

I can't find UninstallClamAV anywhere :/ -- note that it shouldn't be
part of the source since I haven't gotten the source

(Note: this isn’t essential, but removes sources of problems).
wget the source gzip file, see WhichVersion [not a link!]

The only "WhichVersion" I can find is
http://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html which is obviously not
relevant.

...
GMP [not a link!]: for digital signatures

I can't figure out what GMP is -- a google search for GMP + digital
signature is not fruitful

Debian has a  "gmp" package [3]:
GNU MP is a programmer's library for arbitrary precision
arithmetic (ie, a bignum package). It can operate on signed
integer, rational, and floating point numeric types.

I can't tell if this [4] is the right thing

You don’t necessarily need all packages. Please read ClamOverview [not a link!] carefully to understand which ones you need.

I can't find that anywhere either [5]

The line breaks for these are missing:
# apt-get update # apt-get install clamav
# yum install -y epel-release # yum install -y clamav
# yum install -y clamav clamav-update

There are a number of package maintainers for ClamAV on Solaris. The installation method differs for each.

I tried to figure out what this was saying a couple of times.
I've decided that it's trying to say that there are a couple of
competing packagings of ClamAV for Solaris. (Initially I thought it
was trying to say that there are multiple package management systems
for Solaris.)

Assuming I'm right, it would be better to say "Multiple groups have
packaged ClamAV for Solaris."
OTOH, if it's trying to talk about competing package management
systems, then, something like "There are a number of package
management systems for Solaris, and thus packages of ClamAV."

Would you like to download the latest virus pattern definitions during installation ? (This requires that you have a direct connection to the Internet. If you are behind a proxy server then skip this step.)

It feels like this is missing a section heading. (perhaps it should be
inside the block below?)
There's also something odd with the *space* before the `?`

The block itself /feels/ like output from one of the package
management systems, if so, it probably should identify which one...

Linuxpackages.net<http://Linuxpackages.net> provides third-party precompiled packages for Slackware.
You can find them with this [not a link!] search query [not a link!] on that site.

Various Installation Guides for OSX can be found on the Internet, two that we have seen are:
http://www.gctv.ne.jp/~yokota/clamav/ https://gist.github.com/zhurui1008/4fdc875e557014c3a34e

It would be helpful if the two urls were on separate lines, possibly
in a bulleted list.
It would also be nice if the urls were links (they are when rendered
by github [6])

# /etc/rc.d/rc.clamav start # /etc/rc.d/rc.sendmail restart

here, even the github version is mising the line break

[1] https://www.clamav.net/documents/installing-clamav
[2] http://lists.clamav.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/clamav-users
[3] https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-science/packages/gmp/trunk/debian/control?view=markup
[4] http://gmplib.org/
[5] https://github.com/vrtadmin/clamav-faq/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=ClamOverview
[6] https://github.com/vrtadmin/clamav-faq/blob/a2659f771f5d25af02fbdab9377c530add4135dc/faq/Installing.md
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