look in the man page for freshclam:
--on-outdated-execute=COMMAND
Execute COMMAND when freshclam reports outdated version. In the command string %v will be replaced by the new version number.
 
in the config file OnOutdatedExecute
 
I have a script that sends me an email when freshclam sees the new version, and it's not talking about the DB version
 
you will also see log lines like this even when the dbs are up todate:
 
Your ClamAV installation is OUTDATED!
Local version: x.xxx.x Recommended version: y.yyy.y
DON'T PANIC! Read https://www.clamav.net/documents/upgrading-clamav
Where x is the current version and y is the newest version
 
A very simple way to check is: freshclam --on-outdated-execute=">&2 echo %v" > /dev/null
which would return the new version if outdated and nothing otherwise.
 
My script parses the log and gets the Local version line for the email
 
Rick


From: clamav-users [mailto:clamav-users-bounces@lists.clamav.net] On Behalf Of Cliff via clamav-users
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2020 5:02 PM
To: clamav-users@lists.clamav.net
Cc: chayes@afo.net
Subject: [clamav-users] How to programmatically determine if I have latest clamd software

I am building a php dashboard.

I would like to be able to ping my servers and get notified if clamd software (not signatures) is out of date.

This is for situations where my normal update process breaks for whatever reason.

Is there a command that will give me a yes/no answer?

If not, is there a URL I can ping to return the latest version number?  Then I can run clamscan -V and compare the two.