Burned by clamavmodule, Mail-ClamAV, symlinks

[Jeff A. Earickson]

Julian,

I just realized in the course of the 4.39.6 upgrade that I've
been badly burned by clamavmodule and the Mail-ClamAV perl module
for a while.  This is due to my way of doing things, and it took a
while to figure out.  But it is also due to how Mail-ClamAV installs.
To those using clamavmodule, BEWARE!

I install ClamAV into /opt, into a subdirectory clamav-[version].
Then I have a symlink for /opt/clamav -> /opt/clamav-[version].
I refer to the symlink in my MailScanner.conf settings.

The problem:  When I built and installed a new version of Mail-ClamAV,
(specifying -I/opt/clamav/include and -L/opt/clamav/lib in the
Makefile.PL), it followed the link and built its perl code with
references to the version number.  So, while I thought that I could
move the symlink to point to a new version of ClamAV, the perl module
was looking at the old version.  Since MailScanner's virus updates
put my update files in /opt/clamav and clamavmodule was looking in
an old version directory, my Clam virus updates were way out of date.
==> Ouch!!

I found this problem when I zapped old /opt/clamav-[version] directories
and MailScanner started complaining about ClamAV missing.  The issue
seems to be in the building and installation of Mail-ClamAV.  I
haven't detected similar issues with sophossavi (I use the same symlink
setup with Sophos versions too).  Would this be a problem with Sophos?

I've changed back from clamavmodule to clamav in my MS settings.

Jeff Earickson
Colby College

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