Scan Linux Servers Using Sophos Antivirus

In this blog post , I have explained how to install sophos free antivirus tool on the Ubuntu system and then we will also learn to Scan Linux servers using Sophos antivirus.

Linux is considered to be the secure system that the other operating systems.

As we are using Linux servers for majority of purposes such as hosting websites , applications , databases and file servers , And at the same time the attacks are increasing day by day.

With the help of this free tool , Sophos Antivirus for Linux , We can perform On-demand or Scheduled scanning.

It is a virus scanner and also a virus removal tool . Its main feature is that It has a real-time scanner which detects a threats immediately and reports us on the fly.

If you’re looking for an alternative tool , Check this article to scan servers using ClamAV.

Install Sophos Antivirus On Ubuntu

In this article , I will show you how to Install sophos antivirus on Ubuntu operating system.

But the installation procedure is the same for all the linux distributions.

In order to download the sophos antivirus , You need to register on the below link to download the Sophos Antivirus tarball.

https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-linux.aspx

If you are unable to download the file , or If It is not available to download as the trail , You can download the file from the link below.

Sophos-Antivirus-Files

After the sophos tarball is downloaded , You can extract it using the below command.

tar -xvzf sav-linux-free-9.tgz

If you have download the files from the Google drive link , You will be having the extracted files in place.

Now Go to the folder , Where you have stored all the Sophos antivirus files and then run the below command.

make sure you have root or sudo privileges to execute the following commands.

sudo sh ./install.sh

When you run the above command , You will get the License details , keep pressing Enter until you see the line to Accept License Agreement.

I accept the Sophos End User License Agreement and acknowledge the Sophos Privacy Policy. Yes(Y)/No(N) [N]

Type Y and then hit Enter

then It asks for the installation directory for the sophos antivirus , You can manually type the folder or keep the default directory (/opt/sophos-av)

next It asks whether to enable on-access scanning or not , This is the very important feature that It will detect the virus or malwares on the fly.

For example , If you are uploading files to the server and the sophos antivirus performs live scanning and reports us If any malwares or viruses found.

So I would recommend enabling this feature.Type Y and hit Enter

Next, Sophos recommends us to configure Sophos Antivirus to auto-update either from the Sophos website directly or from the server itself.

Which type of auto-updating do you want? From Sophos(s)/From own server(o)/None(n) [s]

I chose ‘s’ – to directly update from the Sophos website.

Then , Type ‘f’ to install the free version of Sophos antivirus on the server , But we won’t get any support from Sophos.

Do you wish to install the Free (f) or Supported (s) version of SAV for Linux? [s]

I choose ‘N’ for proxy ,

Do you need a proxy to access Sophos updates? Yes(Y)/No(N) [N]

After the installation is completed , You should see the below response.

To check the status of the Sophos Antivirus & On-access Scanning , Run the below command.

/opt/sophos-av/bin/savdstatus

To enable and start the Sophos Antivirus , Run the below commands.

/opt/sophos-av/bin/savdctl enable
/opt/sophos-av/bin/savdctl disable

To enable or disable Sophos antivirus On-access Scanning mode,

/opt/sophos-av/bin/savdctl enable
/opt/sophos-av/bin/savdctl disable

Scanning A Server Using Sophos Antivus

To perform On-demand scanning of files and folder using Sophos antivirus , Run the below command.

savscan /Downloads

After the scanning is completed , You will get the results with the details such as number of files scanned , time taken to scan the files and infected files If found any.

We have successfully installed Sophos Antivirus on the server and scanned the server for malwares or viruses.

Thanks for reading.Hope you find it helpful.

Please do check out my other articles.