f-prot and tmpfs ( was Re: incoming directory)

[Leland J. Steinke]

Nerijus Baliunas wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 19:10:33 +0000 Julian Field <mailscanner at ECS.SOTON.AC.UK> wrote:
>
>
>>By putting the directories into a ramdisk, you are forcing the OS to use a
>>fixed amount of ram for this. In general, it is better to leave the OS to
>>manage system resources itself, as it's usually better at it than the
>>"fixed" value you give by having it in a ram disk.
>
>
> Linux 2.4 has tmpfs filesystem, which does not have ramdisk problems. For
> example, User-mode Linux can place virtual memory files in tmpfs:
>

We are using MailScanner 4.04-1 with f-prot.  When we migrated our
incoming directory to a tmpfs filesystem earlier this week, all virus
scanning stopped, though spam, embedded HTML, and filename scanning
continued unabated.

We have found that f-prot does not descend directory hierarchies on
tmpfs partitions.  We don't know if it sees the zero size of the
directory and passes or what.  It is a bit frustrating.

We are getting ready to call f-prot, but wanted to see if anybody else
has seen this behavior.

We are using RedHat8.0 with the 2.4.19-grsec kernel, but have also seen
this on RH7.3 with a 2.4.18 kernel.


Thanks,
Leland