ClamAV/FreshClam Update Intervals

Question

Ubuntu 9.10

Silly question time: When the clamav-freshclam service is running, how often is clamav checking for updates? Or do I have to manually run freshclam via a cronjob?

Answer 1

how often is clamav checking for updates?

Unless you setup a cronjob it will not check for updates.

Do I have to manually run freshclam via a cronjob?

The purpose of a cronjob is to automate the process. You can decide to run it in the following:

/etc/cron.daily

/etc/cron.hourly

/etc/cron.weekly

/etc/cron.monthly

I recommend cron.daily and set it up via a shell script.

sudo gedit /etc/cron.daily/freshclam.sh

#!/bin/sh

/usr/bin/freshclam --quiet

This will now run with all your other cron.daily jobs

Save and exit

chmod 755 /etc/cron.daily/freshclam.sh