thunderbird nntp - how to verify avast is scanning

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

How can I verify that Avast is scanning my NNTP traffic with Thunderbird? I don’t see anything happening in the mail shield, Mail.log, or EmailShield.txt (and I have it set to report all items).

My server is with news.mozilla.org:119.

With NNTP connection security set to “None” I see nothing.

With NNTP set to SSL I see the following in Mail.log:
4/15/2011 8:52:31 AM 000015E0: Cannot connect to NNTP server 216.196.97.169 (216.196.97.169:563), connect error 10060

Thanks,
dave

2

mail shield doesn’t scan nntp protocol, that’s by design. Just POP/IMAP/SMTP

oups sorry it does ;D

3

this said I’m not subscribed to any newsgroups, so I can’t test that.

4

If you have Mail Shield set up to scan NNTP, you should see any messages you read in the “last e-mail scanned” field in the Mail Shield. I am using Agent, not Thunderbird, but should work the same. See attachment. Your NNTP server is probably not using SSL; mine isn’t. These are public messages, so SSL is ???

5

Thank you for the screenshot, I can verify I am not seeing that. And I know Thunderbird is downloading new NNTP messages and to be sure I am even reading them inside Thunderbird.

I’ll add that with NNTP (vs IMAP from gmail), I really want to be sure the messages are being scanned.

Any other suggestions on how to troubleshoot?

Thanks,
dave

6

Other settings for NNTP:
Under Mail Shield/Expert Settings/SSL accounts be sure that your news server is listed, port 119, no encryption; under main setttings “scan nntp messages”
Under the main page Settings/Troubleshooting/Redirect Settings be sure port 119 is listed
You say everything looks normal in TB; you are downloading the headers as requested and able to read the messages? And your server settings there are port 119/no SSL?

7

Went ahead and set up a news.mozilla.org account in TB and downloaded a few messages. Avast! worked fine there too; maybe a settings problem? What OS are you using? Only the messages you actually read will show up as scanned; not the headers.

8

yes works fine here as well

9

Thank you for trying it out, I don’t know what I am missing.

I just started from scratch and am still seeing nothing in Avast:

  • Created a blank Thunderbird Profile (using -profilemanager option)
  • Created a Newgroup account for news.mozilla.org [attached image 12]
  • Subscribed to mozilla.dev.platform [attached image 13]
  • Downloaded the last 500 headers
  • Clicked on a few of the messages [attached image 14]

And still nothing in avast GUI or EmailShield.txt [attached image 15]

Versions:

Avast 6.0.10000
Avast Definitions 110415-0
Windows XP Pro SP3
Thunderbird 3.1.9

What else should I be trying here?

Thanks,
dave

10

Other image I couldn’t attach due to size limits.

11

And also screenshots of my avast settings [attached images 16, 17].

Hopefully all these images don’t get me banned (again :slight_smile:

12

After setting up nntp account: did you close & restart TB?
Thats what I had to do.

13

no restart needed here, as soon as subscriptions to groups are done, messages are flowing and get scanned…

14

Yeah, I had nntp-scanning disabled when creating the feed, so Avast did not pick up the server settings. I enabled nntp in Avast and then had to do a restart of TB to make Avast recognize it… thought it was worth a try.

15

What about the settings for mail shield/ssl accounts and main settings/redirects?

16

Oh, and remove your email address before posting things, so spammers everywhere won’t get acquainted with you. :slight_smile:

17

;D Your name is Dave?

Maybe you are running Avast on a HAL 9000 Computer… “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” ( <— clickable link) ;D

Sorry guys - I couldn’t resist this one…

18

I was about to say that I had rebooted Thunderbird (many times) and even rebooted windows. Just in case I decided to reboot windows and its now working. However, I did change one other thing though, I turned off SSL for my email in Thunderbird as well (it was on before). I’m not sure which one did it and don’t have time right now for another reboot.

I have turned SSL back on for Thunderbird email (I trust gmail’s virus scanning more than I trust me remembering to turn SSL back on if I uninstall Avast in the future), so next time I reboot I will see if it keeps working or if I need to turn off SSL for email again.

Thank you for help and suggestions!

PS, For the record I had NNTP scanning turned on the whole time in Avast.

d

19

“mail shield/ssl” attached in case its helpful. I don’t see a “main settings/redirects”.

20

go to Avast main settings, troubleshooting section