How To Install clamav-update on CentOS 8

clamav-update is Auto-updater for the Clam Antivirus scanner data-files

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install clamav-update on CentOS 8.

What is clamav-update

This package contains programs which can be used to update the clamav anti-virus database automatically. It uses the freshclam(1) utility for this task. To activate it use, uncomment the entry in /etc/cron.d/clamav-update. Use this package when you go updating the virus database regulary and do not want to download a >160MB sized rpm-package with outdated virus definitions.

We can use yum or dnf to install clamav-update on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install clamav-update.

Install clamav-update on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install clamav-update using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install clamav-update

Install clamav-update on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install clamav-update using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install clamav-update

How To Uninstall clamav-update on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the clamav-update package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove clamav-update

clamav-update Package Contents on CentOS 8

/etc/freshclam.conf
/etc/logrotate.d/clamav-update
/usr/bin/freshclam
/usr/lib/.build-id
/usr/lib/.build-id/31
/usr/lib/.build-id/31/088dcdf197eb8829e8a7109458d58452e51bba
/usr/lib/.build-id/35
/usr/lib/.build-id/35/944ee8e2f7629f08c2968cd95a3696b63ee47f
/usr/lib/systemd/system/clamav-freshclam.service
/usr/lib64/libfreshclam.so.2
/usr/lib64/libfreshclam.so.2.0.1
/usr/share/man/man1/freshclam.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man5/freshclam.conf.5.gz
/var/lib/clamav/bytecode.cld
/var/lib/clamav/daily.cld
/var/lib/clamav/main.cld
/var/lib/clamav/mirrors.dat
/var/log/freshclam.log

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install clamav-update on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.