The availability of Anti-Virus products for Windows Home Server has been dominated since soon after the launch by Avast, with the only other fully integrated product coming from F-Secure. Manufacturers like HP have had a bundling deal with the likes of McAfee but this has not been available to the Home OEM Builder. Recent changes with the packaging of the Avast product has also resulted in ‘rumblings of dissatisfaction’ in the forums.
As WHS is a Server-class product, many of the AV options used in the home, particularly the increasingly good free products were not likely to make their way onto WHS. Some may argue that AV is not needed on the server if all the PC’s connecting to it are fully protected. However, there has been a steady move to have active elements running on the server, many of which result in internet access, whether they be torrent downloads, DVD & CD ripping (with access to cover artwork from various web sites) or even serving files out to family and friends via the web site. All these are potential ways on for a ‘nasty piece of work’.
ClamWin has been a popular free, open source AV product for many years. To quote the source website:-
ClamWin is a Free Antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 7 / Vista / XP / Me / 2000 / 98 and Windows Server 2008 and 2003.ClamWin Free Antivirus comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge. It features:
- High detection rates for viruses and spyware;
- Scanning Scheduler;
- Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database.
Standalone virus scanner and right-click menu integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer;
- Addin to Microsoft Outlook to remove virus-infected attachments automatically.
A number of We Got Served members had ventured to run ClamWin on WHS and discovered no ill effects. However, it had two major omissions for effective use:
- 1. There was no ability to have program control through the Console without adapting something like the Advanced Admin Console Add-In.
- 2. It does not perform real-time scanning as files are moved on and off the server.
Developer Al West had set to and managed to issue a beta of an Add-In with the aim of overcoming these deficiencies and bring another AV product to the WHS community in an easily managed form. The product – WHSClamAV – is still in ongoing development but this is a first look at the setup and operation in action.
Rather than repeat Al’s setup instructions and product aims here, please read our original release article for the background. The product is still moving forwards with 5 sub-releases in a little more than a month. The latest version can be downloaded here.
Having downloaded the single msi file, installation is as normal for a WHS Add-in. Drop the msi into the Add-ins folder of the Software share and then perform the installation through the Console. My initial Walk Through has been carried out on version 0.1.5.
Once the Console is restarted, WHS ClamAV has its own tab and Settings area.
As you can see, ClamWin was not installed on the Server to start with. The Add-In detects this and has the option to download the latest version and then install it.
It is an indication of the early stage of development that even though the download and installation had completed and was shown as such on the Settings tab, the WHS ClamAV Tab had not caught up with this – surely a minor issue. Closing and reopening the Console resolved this. The Scheduling and Settings for the Add-in are also blank at present and a sign of things to come. The Proxy Server settings are available should this be necessary for the download of updates from the web.
The Main Console Tab has a row of control buttons to trigger program operations such as various types of scan and the signature file update. There are also a number of tabs within the window to view the Scanning Log, Update Log, Config File and Version details. The relevant logs can be cleared as needed. The Scan and Update commands throw up ‘dos boxes’ while running, presumably as a legacy from the triggers sent to the underlying ClamWin program and it would be hoped that these will be tidied up later in development.
It does seem that the Config does not allow for any specific exclusions in the WHS environment and time will tell if that presents an issue to be resolved. My own recommendation would be to at least avoid the PC Backups Database area.
The author has also been totally clear that in this ‘work in progress’ there are a lot of elements to be included before this is a fully functional add-in. Without Scheduling working as a minimum, it will not be a fully viable inclusion on most users’ servers. The desire to add real-time scanning to an AV product that does not already include it should be a noble challenge and would throw this add-in to the fore-front.
I can certainly say that WHS ClamAV has appeared totally stable in the testing done so far but clearly has some way to go. Al West is to be encouraged in endeavours to bring a popular and effective open source AV product into the WHS arena.
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