Installing Antivirus for Linux

For full Linux-related documentation, see Avast Business Antivirus for Linux Technical Guide.

 

Avast Business Antivirus for Linux is a separately purchased, unmanaged solution that is not part of Avast's usual product lines. The protection has no GUI, and its installation and management is done via Terminal.

The product can be purchased through this link or the Avast sales team.

Before running the installation, make sure all Linux System Requirements are met.

Packages

The Avast Business Antivirus products for Linux include components that are distributed as standard software packages as well as software repositories so all the standard system management tools can be used to keep Avast programs up to date.

Avast

The avast package provides the core scanner service (avast) and a command-line scan utility (scan). It also contains a command-line license utility (avastlic). This allows for on-demand scanning and mail server integration using AMaViS.

The avast package is required by the avast-fss packages.

AMaViS is an interface between mailer (MTA) and content checkers, which is already prepared for integration with mail scanners. Section 8 of the technical guide describes how to integrate avast into AMaViS.

Avast-fss

The avast-fss package provides a fanotify-based "on write" file system shield designed for file server usage, usually SMB/NFS servers.

Avast-rest

The avast-rest package contains an HTTP server which provides REST API for the Avast scanner service.

Avast-license

The avast-license package contains the avastlic tool, which is a standalone command-line tool that helps with downloading the license file when you have an activation code or a wallet key.

Installation

Installation on any Linux system involves adding the Avast repository to the system repositories, and then retrieving the desired packages from the repository.

Debian/Ubuntu

Supported distributions ($DIST variable in commands for step #1):

• Debian 10 “buster”: debian-buster
• Debian 11 “bullseye”: debian-bullseye
• Ubuntu 18.04 LTS “Bionic Beaver”: ubuntu-bionic
• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS “Focal Fossa”: ubuntu-focal
• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS “Jammy Jellyfish”: ubuntu-jammy

1. Add the Avast repository to the system repositories:
   • root# DIST=$(. /etc/os-release; echo "$ID-$VERSION_CODENAME")
   • root# echo "deb https://repo.avcdn.net/linux-av/deb $DIST release" \ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/avast.list
2. Install the Avast public key and update package manager state:
   • root# cp /path/to/avast-gpg-key.asc /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/
   • root# apt update
3. Install the Avast package and optionally the Avast-fss and Avast-rest packages:
   • root# apt install avast
   • root# apt install avast-fss
   • root# apt install avast-rest
4. Copy the license file to the /etc/avast directory:
   • cp /path/to/license.avastlic /etc/avast

Once the license file is in the proper directory, you can start the Avast services. For more information about finding the license file, see Licensing Antivirus for Linux.

RHEL/CentOS

Supported distributions:

• RHEL 7, CentOS 7 or compatible: el7
• RHEL 8, AlmaLinux 8, Rocky Linux 8 or compatible: el8
• RHEL 9, AlmaLinux 9, Rocky Linux 9 or compatible: el9

Note that $releasever is a variable known to YUM, so it doesn’t need to be replaced manually in the avast.repo file, as long as the actual $releasever matches one of the above versions.

1. Add the Avast repository to the system repositories:
   • root# echo '[avast]
name=Avast
baseurl=https://repo.avcdn.net/linux-av/rpm/el$releasever/release
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
' > /etc/yum.repos.d/avast.repo
root#
2. Install the Avast public key:
   • root# rpm --import https://repo.avcdn.net/linux-av/doc/avast-gpg-key.asc
3. Install the Avast package and optionally the Avast-fss and Avast-rest packages:
   • root# yum install avast
   • root# yum install avast-fss
   • root# yum install avast-rest
4. Copy the license file to the /etc/avast directory:
   • cp /path/to/license.avastlic /etc/avast

Once the license file is in the proper directory, you can start the Avast services. For more information about finding the license file, see Licensing Antivirus for Linux.

The current virus definitions database (VPS) is downloaded during the installation of the avast package, so the installation may take some time. For more information about the Avast GPG public key (avast.gpg), see Updating Antivirus for Linux.

Starting Avast Service

Avast packages provide conventional init scripts for starting and stopping the services.

• Starting the service: root# systemctl start avast
• Stopping the service: root # systemctl stop avast

Reloading Configuration and VPS or Restarting

• Reloading the configuration: root# systemctl reload avast
• Restarting all daemons and recreating sockets: root# systemctl restart avast.target

Avast services use the system logger (syslog) to create log files, and the location is dependent on the host system. The most common log file paths are /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog.