Howto Install clamav on OSX with brew

install-clamav-osx.md

Howto Install clamav on OSX with brew

Note: on legacy intel system the path may be /usr/local/etc/clamav instead of /opt/homebrew/etc/clamav/

$ brew install clamav
$ cd /opt/homebrew/etc/clamav/
$ cp freshclam.conf.sample freshclam.conf

Open freshclam.conf and comment the "Example" (in new version it may be "FooClam") line:

# Comment or remove the line below.
# Example

Update database:

 $ freshclam

Run scan on all your files:

$ clamscan -r --bell -i /

Looks like line 1 should be:

$ brew install clamav

I had to set "DatabaseDirectory /usr/local/homebrew/var/lib/clamav/" in both

/usr/local/homebrew/etc/clamav/freshclam.conf
/usr/local/homebrew/etc/clamav/clamd.conf

and then
sudo chown _clamav /usr/local/homebrew/var/lib/clamav/

@flickerfly you shouldn't have to use sudo with brew package.

@lucascantor thanks I fixed this typo.

Thank you, this helped!

This was very helpful, many thanks.

The initial scan takes forever.

I have an 1 TB drive, running on macOS Sierra 10.12.6.

brew link clamav fails on macOS High Sierra.

Had to run following commands to get ClamAV working:
sudo mkdir /usr/local/sbin
sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)/* (standard brew fix does not work anymore on OS X 10.13)
brew link clamav

The OP worked as is for me, when the "Example" was changed to "FooClam" or similar (Anything =/= Example).
No other changes made to freschclam.conf.

Why is it the first time I had to install Clamav with such effort, and with brew?

All the other versions till Sierra were nicely installed without any need to configure with a nice UI and reporting to console.

thanks @flickerfly !

Thank you!

By default the database dir is /usr/local/share/clamav/, it is symlinked to Cellar/... and get cleared on update. It might be a good idea to change DatabaseDirectory to /usr/local/var/lib/clamav in freshclam.conf & clamd.conf.

for Homebrew 2.2.2 on macOS 10.14.6 I found clamav symlink at
/usr/local/var/homebrew/linked/clamav

There seems to be an error with version 0.102.2 on macOs 10.15.4, I get the same error as below on two machines with fresh install of clamav via homebrew:

bytecode database available for download (remote version: 331)
Time: 0.4s, ETA: 0.0s [=============================>] 289.44KiB/289.44KiB
Testing database: '/usr/local/var/lib/clamav/tmp.b4247/clamav-7fa84ca4faf4b1f913f1a8f88d439f21.tmp-bytecode.cvd' ...
ERROR: Database load killed by signal 11
ERROR: Database test FAILED.
ERROR: Unexpected error when attempting to update database: bytecode
WARNING: fc_update_databases: fc_update_database failed: Test failed (8)
ERROR: Database update process failed: Test failed (8)
ERROR: Update failed

I am having problems to stop the ClamAV service in macOs 10.15.4. The process is running as you can see.

** 0 119 1 0 4:09PM ?? 0:33.27 /usr/local/sbin/clamd --foreground**

But when I try top stop it I get this error:

$ /usr/local/sbin/clamd stop
ERROR: LOCAL: Socket file /usr/local/var/run/clamav/clamd.sock is in use by another process.

Do I have to change something in the socket file?

do yourself a favor. switch to macports.

@gagarine: Great instructions. Thanks so much for posting this. It's working great for me.

do yourself a favor. switch to macports.

please don't. Installation via homebrew was so much easier than via macports where I had to chown multiple files to get clamav up and running.

@tomasi-o actually, I agree with kunthar, macports is much more stable as a package manager. A particular port/package may have a bug, but the package manager is better for me. I do not use brew anymore.

Thanks @gagarine

minor update - the clam conf files are now located at /opt/homebrew/etc/clamav/ after installing with homebrew.

do you guys find the socket file that should be generated after installing clamav. I can not find one. help me :)

This worked!!!!!!!!!!!!