How to do automatic scan with avast for Linux (Ubuntu 7.04)?

Hi everybody, i’m new of this forum. Apart of using cron application, it exist a script or something (maybe command or whatelse) that permit an automatic scan?
For example…if i want to use avast everyday in automatic mode, there is a way to do that?
Do you have any suggestions about that?
Thanks!
bye
Fabio
Italy

No one?

I don’t think so… I think only with server version you can use automated actions on Linux environment.
Of course, I’m just an user like you 8)
By the way, I use Kubuntu too 8)

so the only way is to use cron? do you know it? I’m not really practice with it…
bye and thanks!

Well, at least, avast does not offer this option.

Neither do I. Linux is my hobby, not my work environment.

An easy way to do it is to write a shell script that has all the options that you want Avast to scan with and where you want it to scan then add that shell script to your crontab and Linux will do everything else. (Google is your friend when it comes to learning things with Linux) http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-do-i-add-jobs-to-cron-under-linux-or-unix-oses/ here is a link to an FAQ page explaining how to install, uninstall, and list cron jobs in Linux and Unix.

Thank you very much vendion! I’ll read the link that you suggest me…! thanks and bye!

No problem

mmm…i’ve done it now, but there is no way to do it work…
i want to scan my pc everyday at 20:00
so i do:

0 20 * * * /home/avast

i save it
but it doesn’t work…
It seems that i have done all the things right…
I really don’t know… >:(

Try running which avast, on my system, openSUSE 10.2, it is telling me that avast is installed in /usr/bin/avast. So In I wanted to make a cron job that would run avast at 20:00 every day it should look like this

0 0 * * * /usr/bin/avast /

That will tell cron to run a program called avast located in /usr/bin at 00:00 (Midnight) everyday for the whole year.

The problem that I see with yours is that when it gets to 20:00 your time cron reads your cronjob list and trys to run avast from /home/avast. Try fixing that up and it should work for you.

yeah, your right…sorry…i was really stupid! >:(
i’ll se if now it’s work…
Thank you!

Its an easy mistake for some one just starting to use Cron and is understandable. Your welcome

Now i think to have done the right thing, but it doesn’t work! >:(

For example now i do:

30 18 * * * /usr/bin/avast /home

to scan my home directory at 18:30 but it doesn’t work, and i really don’t know where is the mistake…
i also try to omit /home directory…

Its not going to give you a summary or a report that it ran its task, if you want it to leave some kind of a log then try this

30 18 * * * /usr/bin/avast /home > /tmp/scanresaults

That would make a text file in /tmp with everything that avast prints out.

mmmm ??? unfortunately i have to say that it doesn’t work…
I have a doubt about that. My avast is in the /usr/bin directory, but i see now that there is something strange…
i take a picture of that…you can see that the avast icon have an arrow…what does that mean…
maybe is that the problem?
thanks


http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/5464/screenshotmh7.th.png

I think they are symbolic links. Checking the properties should show you where the executable actually resides.

Sorry I’m not a Linux user, curious though ;D

There are also a number of other icons with this arrow. I just wonder if this is similar to windows icons where they also have an arrow and that indicates that this is just a shortcut to the real program. Right clicking in windows and selecting properties shows the path to the actual program, I don’t know if the same is true of Linux.

i really don’t know…I’m really knew of ubuntu…But i think is the same…Now I’ll take a look where the executables resides… I’ll give you more details… bye and thank you very much!

Yes that is a symbolic link, otherwise known as a soft link. They work the same as a shortcut file in Windows, so doing as FreewheelinFrank said and checking the properties will show you where the real avast is hiding.

balckdiamond,
have you register avast as root user?

avast looks for ~/.avast/avastrc file, which is located in user’s home directory.
If you try to run avast from the cron as root user, the program looks for /root/.avast/avastrc file. If there isn’t the file, the program fails.

Please, try to run avastgui as root first and then reattempt automatic scanning from the cron daemon.