Avast Business for Mac - file shield exclusions removed on reboot

Avast Mac Security
1

Hi everyone,

OS X’s Server.app has a virus scanner folder where it downloads virus definition files under /Library/Server/Mail/Data/scanner/[service-name]

Originally I tried to add the virus definition folder. Then I tried adding the scanner folder. Then I tried adding the entire /Library/Server/Mail/Data folder. Closing the program and opening it again still shows the exclusions. After a reboot, the exclusions disappear.

I’ve tested this on 20 machines with different OS X versions. I picked two machines to test further. Both of them have program 11.9 (46174) with definitions 16041300. One is 10.10.5 and one is 10.11.4.

Thinking this folder might be special, I tried adding folders and files under the root, /Applications, /Library, /System, and /Users. All of these go away on reboot.

I noticed this file has the exclusions in it:
/Library/Application\ Support/Avast/config/com.avast.fileshield.conf

After rebooting multiple times with all exclusions disappearing, I tried locking the file:
sudo chflags uchg /Library/Application\ Support/Avast/config/com.avast.fileshield.conf

The file remains the same, but the exclusions list is still empty.

Has anyone experienced this? Any ideas? I don’t see an option on the web console to push down exclusions.

Thanks
Shawn

P.S.
This is another reason why I want command-line options or some way to push things:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=174144.msg1306580#msg1306580

2

Looks like a bug in the business console, in the “consumer version”, the exclusions work fine.
(The business console version updates all the configuration according to the server settings
on startup) Please report the bug in the appropriate forum board:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=65.0

3

Thanks, I posted here:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=185478.0

Anyone looking – please go this page for new comments :slight_smile:

4

Found out – for future reference:
"Any exclusion changes made on the client are always overridden by the exclusion settings in the cloud console for the specific template assigned to the client.

To add exclusions, edit the appropriate settings template, select the Mac OS X tab then select Advanced top right, click on the File System Shield customise link and add the exclusions you need. Then save and propagate the the relevant clients.

Peter"