[Clamav-users] Problem with internal logger

[Steve Campbell]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Julian Field" <MailScanner at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: "MailScanner discussion" <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 12:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Clamav-users] Problem with internal logger


> On 2 Jun 2006, at 16:50, Anthony Peacock wrote:
>> I really am trying not to sound like a grumpy old man here, but I  do 
>> feel that running an internet connected mail server is something  that 
>> should be done by a person with a basic understanding of what  is going 
>> on.
>
> This is one of the few subjects which will get me ranting. So don't  get 
> me started :-)

Sounds like that came too late. And now ....
>
> <sermon>
> My position is that we all have to start learning somewhere. We also  have 
> a duty to get more people running software that protects  themselves and 
> everyone else from the hazards of spam, viruses, etc.  I also feel 
> strongly that we should encourage newbies to stick with  it, by producing 
> software that is as easy as possible to get going as  possible. Most 
> newcomers to Unix/Linux/whatever are very wary as they  are on new ground, 
> and have the assumption that it is all so much  harder than Windows.
>
> Try getting a company to install their very first Unix box when all  they 
> have ever used is Windows. There is good money to be made here  doing 
> system management for them as they admit that they don't know  what they 
> are doing and everything is going to break leaving their  company with no 
> electronic communication at all. Many companies who  suffer a complete 
> failure of their email system for any length of  time do not recover. This 
> stuff costs people real money, their jobs,  everything. If we don't put 
> lots of effort into making their life as  easy as possible, they will 
> never even start learning: they will  stick with what they are used to.
>
> Why do you think so many people have used Microsoft's SQL Server  instead 
> of DB2 or Oracle for small company systems? It's partly  because you can 
> put the CD in the drive, click on the setup icon and  end up with a 
> working database system. The last time I used DB2 or  Oracle, there were 
> fundamental bugs in their install scripts that  meant that it all just 
> broke outside of the USA. I know which one I  would go for: the one that 
> works out of the box.
> </sermon>
>
> -- 
> Julian Field
> www.MailScanner.info
> Buy the MailScanner book at www.MailScanner.info/store
> PGP footprint: EE81 D763 3DB0 0BFD E1DC 7222 11F6 5947 1415 B654
>

I agree, to some extent, with everything Julian said above. But my reasons 
are also a little selfish. I have too many tasks to perform, and sometimes 
cannot take time to RTFM or study the config options to learn what they 
really mean or do. Having something that works 'out-of-the-box' is really 
nice. Otherwise, it may never get installed.

But at this point, after installing the OOTB app, I would be an untrained 
admin, so I would worry alittle about problems that might show up. But then, 
I have a working config file to refer to. Sometimes having very good 
examples makes me understand better than the FM could ever do.

I am just suggesting that, just like in learning a programming language, 
referring to something that already works can become one of the best 
tutorials available. I seem to recall trying to figure out the clam conf 
file a while back before it was done for me, and some of the simplest 
options weren't simple to understand. (What is that saying about me?)

Steve

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