I am currently evaluating the use of Avast (and ADNM) in an environment that due to various security restrictions out of my control must remain completely isolated from the internet at all times. The question I have is that specifically with ADNM, it appears to require a live internet connection for it to work correctly (creating install packages, deploying updates, etc.) which is not possible in my environment. My only solution is to manually download updates and apply them manually via a thumb drive into the environment and i’m curious if there’s a way to do this with the ADNM as well so that I only have to update the central point and push down from there (I would even accept an unsupported method if it comes to that) - manually updating all the servers and workstations individually in this environment is a handful to say the least (20+ servers and just as many workstations) so any help is appreciated.
the reason ADNM needs a live connection is only for the updates.
At installation it needs to mirror the avast packages and updates and for the rest it only needs a connection to once in a while download the latest updates.
is there a possibility to temperary give that station a proxied connection to download the mirror once and then test everything?
for creating installation packages u dont need to have the connection
Sadly, even a one-time connection to the internet is not possible due to IS policy in this case - I have to connect through multiple remote sessions just to get remote desktop access (i.e. remote into one central server, then start an RDP session from that secure connection and it must be from a hard line in the building and is heavily firewalled) or work from a secured lab with badge access - ridiculous I know, but it’s corporate policy due to the sensative nature of the data. Even if it were for the initial setup, how could future updates be handled in such an isolated environment?
well since u wanted to test it i was thinking about the one time connection to get everything initialised…
nomather what there always have to be one server that accesses internet to get updates, this also goes for all the other anti-virus solutions
manually updating is not an option if you want fast response to the lastest (and thus most dangerous) threats, i believe…
if there cant be made an initial setup on another machine (which basicly only means downloading) then how are u downloading anything ?
on the other hand you can do this:
download the netclient here: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-adnm.html
its the last link on the page, containing both server and workstation client (read the text that is below the download link)
(also download the manual)
deploy avast and then download updates from here: http://www.avast.com/eng/updates.html
maybe u can make anything with this parts?
edit: after reading your inital posting i can only guess that you already looked it up this way and u are wondering if this process can be done via the ADNM
tho maybe its still some help to you
Thank you for the input. Yes, setting up a test system purely for evaluation that is connected to the internet is possible but that is not too useful once I either pull it off the internet for use in our lab (if possible) or install on a system already existing and never on the internet. I realize that to keep up to date is key to detecting new threats, and it sucks to have to keep on this manually but I can only operate within the confines of policy - for better or worse. I will investigate alternate means of accomplishing my goal, which hopefully will produce some kind of fruit as updating each individual server and client is tedious while the update package available does not appear to work within the confines of ADNM from what I have noticed.
well
you could use ADNM as a reporting service only and be able to do managed scans on the clients…
the update package could be automated with scripts everyday, just download it everyday and put it in the shared location
when the user logs in you let the update package run from the shared location
im goin to see if i can test some idea i have right now in my mind, within my virtual enviroment, let u know later
Thanks, I was thinking along the same lines of scripting the update from a share but haven’t had a chance to see if the update package can be run “silently” from a command line.
If you can plug thumb drive into the environment - environment is not fulli isolated.
Is it possible in this case plug laptop? You can install AMS mirror on that laptop, syncronise it being online, plus it into your environment and update you local server from this mirror on your laptop.