Cart

    Sorry, we could not find any results for your search querry.

    Exim antivirus protection with ClamAV in Ubuntu & Debian

    Viruses are often distributed by email. It is therefore important to use an anti-virus scanner for the security of your mail server. In this article, we show you how to use ClamAV as a virus scanner for a mail server with Exim and Dovecot in Ubuntu or Debian.

    • The steps in this article require a VPS with Ubuntu or Debian which has Exim and Dovecot installed. In this tutorial, we explain how to set up Exim and Dovecot.
       
    • Install ClamAV in advance with the option to scan automatically, see our ClamAV tutorials for Ubuntu and Debian. Please note that ClamAV is a RAM-intensive program and will easily use +- 1GB.
       
    • Execute the commands in this article using sudo, or as a root user.

     

    Step 1

    Connect to your VPS via SSH or the VPS console in the TransIP control panel.


     

    Step 2

    Open the Exim configuration:

    nano /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template

     

    Step 3

    Look for the piece called 'av_scanner'. Exim is automatically configured to use ClamAV but has set the wrong socket location for this. Adjust the value so that it looks like this:

    av_scanner = clamd:/var/run/clamd.scan/clamd.sock

    Then look for 'acl_check_data' and remove the # for the lines below:

    deny    
      malware    = *
      message    = This message was detected as possible malware ($malware_name).

     

    Step 4

    Then, add the ClamAV user to the Exim group so ClamAV can scan Exim files, and the Exim user to the virus group so it can use the ClamAV socket:

    usermod -aG Debian-exim clamav
    usermod -aG clamav Debian-exim

     

    Step 5

    Finally, update the Exim configuration and restart ClamAV and Exim to process all changes (the restart of clamd@scan may take a while):

    update-exim4.conf
    systemctl restart clamav-daemon
    systemctl restart exim4

     

    This brings us to the end of this guide. In addition to a virus scanner, we highly recommend that you also add a malware scanner to your mail server, see this article.

    Should you have any questions left regarding this article, do not hesitate to contact our support department. You can reach them via the ‘Contact Us’ button at the bottom of this page.

    Need help?

    Receive personal support from our supporters

    Contact us