[Clamav-users] Problem with internal logger

[Philip Hachey]

> Author: Peter Luttrell
> Date:  
> To: clamav-users
> Subject: [Clamav-users] Problem with internal logger
> I recently upgraded clamav to version 0.88.2 in order to support 
> amavisd-new, which I'm using with postfix.
> 
> Since then, many times the day my root account receives this message:
> 
> > From: root@[mydomain] (Cron Daemon)
> > Date: May 29, 2006 6:24:01 PM CDT
> > To: root@[mydomain]
> > Subject: Cron <root@[myserver]> /usr/share/clamav/freshclam-sleep
> >
> > ERROR: Problem with internal logger.
> 
> After googling a bit, I wasn't able to find any info...or any place 
> to start looking for a problem. Can anyone point me in the right 
> direction?
> 
> thanks in advance.
> -peter

A similar problem is happening on my MailScanner server.  I've been using 
ClamAV combined with MailScanner since before ClamAV version 0.80 and this 
is a first.  On May 1st, I upgraded to ClamAV 0.88.2 (local build from 
source) from 0.88.1.  On the same day, I also upgraded MailScanner to 
version 4.53.6-1.  On a regular interval, MailScanner calls freshclam as 
it always has by using "/usr/local/bin/freshclam --quiet -l 
/var/log/freshclam.log"[1].  Twice now since May 1st, ClamAV has stopped 
updating because MailScanner's invocation of freshclam hangs ('ps -ef' 
shows '/usr/local/bin/freshclam...').  Calling 'freshclam -v' returns the 
"Problem with internal logger" error -- I assume because the log file has 
been locked by the hung process.  Killing the freshclam process allows 
'freshclam -v' to run successfully.  MailScanner's use of freshclam then 
functions fine for a few days until it happens again.

It's inconsistent and I'm not sure what to do about it.  Have there been 
changes in the 0.88.2 code to freshclam?  I'm considering rebuilding 
ClamAV to see if that increases stability.

Philip Hachey

[1] Yes, I know MailScanner normally has freshclam write to 
'/tmp/ClamAV.update.log', but I changed that in the clamav-autoupdate 
script ages ago.