Install Avast

Introduction

Proxmox Mail Gateway ships and uses the open source ClamAV antivirus engine in its default installation.

Certain environments have the need for a better virus detection rate than the one achieved by ClamAV.

For these setups Proxmox Mail Gateway offers an integration with the Avast Antivirus for Linux.

Avast Antivirus for Linux is commercial software and you will need to purchase a license in order to use it.

The following facts are why it can be integrated with Proxmox Mail Gateway as an alternative to ClamAV:

• The licensing is based on the number of installations instead of other licensing schemes such as the number of processed mails or mailboxes.
• The software runs daemonized and thus reads and caches the AV definitions once upon startup instead of each time a file is scanned

The following HOWTO provides the necessary steps to install and configure Avast within a Proxmox Mail Gateway installation.

Installing Avast Antivirus for Linux

Proxmox Mail Gateway is based on Debian GNU/Linux - thus you need to follow the installation instruction for Debian systems.

To configure the Avast repository and install the software:

1. Create the appropriate sources.list entry:

   echo "deb http://deb.avast.com/lin/repo debian-buster release" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/avast.list

2. Verify the signing key for the repository from Avast:
   • Get the key

     wget https://files.avast.com/files/resellers/linux/avast.gpg

   • Read the checksum

     sha512sum avast.gpg

   • The result should be

     d9bb45d67664ad86f8d91a8f98657554b0550a8e467a5d6a3132de5d214b072470bf793ced9e3f13f774b5bfd061ce0ce7b192bf450bb68fc988072af17fb229 avast.gpg

   • Add the GPG key

     apt-key add avast.gpg

3. Update the apt package information and install the software

   apt update

   apt install avast

Registering license

Follow the instructions provided by Avast to activate your purchased license. Currently (02.07.2021) you'll get an activation code with your purchase and need to obtain the license file with the avastlic utility:

avastlic -f /etc/avast/license.avast -c <YOUR-ACTIVATION-CODE>

After enabling your license you need to restart the avast.service

 systemctl restart avast.service

Integration with Proxmox Mail Gateway

Enabling the Avast scanner in Proxmox Mail Gateway is achieved by editing the Promox Mail Gateway's configuration file /etc/pmg/pmg.conf and adding the line avast 1 to the admin section:

section: admin
	avast 1
	email admin@pmg.example

Finally you need to restart the pmg-smtp-filter service, or reboot your Promox Mail Gateway:

systemctl restart pmg-smtp-filter

Should you need further help, consider getting a enterprise support subscription