ClamXAV is an anti-malware solution for macOS which uses the popular ClamAv antivirus engine, and designed to detect and quarantine all kids of threats (for both Mac and Windows) such as viruses, trojans, phishing and spyware. Robust antivirus solution with a clear-cut user interface and real-time. ClamXav is a free virus scanner for Mac OS X.Antivirus or anti-virus software is used to prevent, detect, and remove malware, including but not limited to computer viruses, computer worm, trojan horses, spyware and adware.
I'm running ClamXav Sentry as 'launch agent' with ClamAV antivirus scanning engine of my own custom build.
I've tested for building ClamAV (from version 0.90.x to version 0.103.x) on Mac OS X 10.4 through macOS 11.0 Big Sur.
I'm running the latest stable release ClamAV 0.103.0 on macOS 11.0 Big Sur now.
ClamAV 0.103.0 is available on the Download page of ClamavNet, and the release note is here!
When you want to build ClamAV-devel from the Git sources, autotools are now requied.
For further information, see the following section:
'How to install ClamAV®-devel from the Git sources on macOS'.
This memorandum contains as below:
・ Memorandum 1: Building ClamAV 0.103.x on OS X 10.10 Yosemite through macOS 11.0 Big Sur
・ Memorandum 2: Building ClamAV 0.99.x on OS X 10.10, 10.11, 10.12 and macOS 10.13 High Sierra
・ Memorandum 3: Building ClamAV 0.98.7 on OS X 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El Capitan
・ Memorandum 4: Building ClamAV on Mac OS X 10.4 (Intel)
・ Memorandum 5: Building ClamAV on Mac OS X 10.4 (PPC)
・ Memorandum 6: Building ClamAV on Mac OS X 10.6 through OS X 10.9 Mavericks
・ Memorandum 7: Running clamd and freshclam as daemon
・ Memorandum 8: Running ClamXav Sentry as 'launch agent' on Mac OS X 10.6 and later…
・ Memorandum 9: Update ClamXav's own Virus Database and running RunFreshclam as daemon
・ Memorandum 10: Running ClamXAV version 2.18.x with B.Y.O. ClamAV antivirus scanning engine
・ Links…
1. Requirements to build ClamAV 0.103.x is very much the same as building ClamAV 0.102.x.
2. Requirements to build ClamAV 0.102.x are almost the same as building ClamAV 0.101.x. and ClamAV 0.100.x.
The differences are as follows:
LLVM current version is 10.0.x, though ClamAV 1.02.x supports only LLVM =< 3.6.x.
The ClamAV team is not maintaining repackaged LLVM now, and they may drop the repackaged LLVM entirely
and deprecate support for system-installed LLVM in favor of the bytecode interpreter.
So LLVM Libraries are not necessarily required to build ClamAV 0.102.x, I think.
I am now configuring ClamAV 0.102.x to disable LLVM as follows:
Of course you can configure ClamAV 0.102.x to enable LLVM as before:
3. Requirements to build ClamAV 0.102.x and ClamAV 0.101.x are almost same as before.
・ PCRE Libraries
・ OpenSSL Libraries
・ LLVM Libraries (Only when enabling LLVM)
4. Differences
Thus making ClamAV 0.100.x fails with an error:
To build ClamAV 0.100.x enabling the LLVM Just-In-Time compiler for executing bytecode signatures,
use this configuration:
or simply use this configuration to disable LLVM Just-In-Time compiler:
ClamAV 0.99.x contains major new features such as YARA rules, PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions and so on.
To support YARA and ClamAV logical signatures, the Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) library is required.
If PCRE isn't installed on your system, you will get a warning message like this while running freshclam.
1. To ensure the PCRE library:
1) Install PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions.,
2) When compiling ClamAV 0.99.x, it fails with an error:
3) To avoid this failure, simply set CPPFLAGS:
4) And add this configuration option when configuring ClamAV: --with-pcre=/usr/local/pcre2.
2. To compile ClamAV 0.99.x on OS X 10.10 Yosemite or on OS X 10.11 El Capitan and macOS 10.12 Sierra,
1) LLVM Library is required on OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
2) LLVM Library and LibreSSL are required on OS X 10.11 El Capitan and macOS 10.12 Sierra.
Please readMemorandum 3 to learn more, and…
3) Install LLVM Library Binaries.
4) Install LibreSSL.
3. Configure ClamAV 0.99.x on OS X 10.10 Yosemite as follws:
4. Configure ClamAV 0.99.x on OS X 10.11 El Capitan and macOS 10.12 Sierra as follws:
Built-in LLVM of ClamAV 0.98.7 and 0.99.x are not compatible with GNU C++ on OS X 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El Capitan.
So ClamAV 0.98.7 and 0.99.x built on OS X 10.10 Yosemite or on OS X 10.11 El Capitan have major issues:
- Clamd crashes repeatedly throwing 'Segmentation Fault: 11'
- Clamscan also crashes and fails to scan…
- Freshclam fails to load new database logging:
These problems can be avoided by installing official LLVM.
Versions of LLVM beyond 3.6 seem not to be currently supported in ClamAV, so you should install LLVM 3.6.2.
1. Installing LLVM 3.6.2 Pre-built Binaries
2. To use LLVM installed into /usr/local as a system library instead of the ClamAV's built-in LLVM JIT,
add configuration option as following:
3. Configure ClamAV 0.98.7 on OS X 10.10.x Yosemite as follws:
Apple introduded a new security feature SIP: System Integrity Protection (rootless) to OS X 10.11 El Capitan, so in /usr directory
OS X 10.11 El Capitan has the different file composition from OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
While configuring ClamAV 0.98.7 on OS X 10.11 El Capitan, configuration fails with an error:
1. To solve this configuration issue, install LibreSSL.
Setting search path:
You can confirm the installation:
2. But it's not still sufficient to succeed building.
Building fails with an error:
3. To succeed building ClamAV 0.98.7 on OS X 10.11 El Capitan, set CPPFLAGS:
4. Configure ClamAV 0.98.7 on OS X 10.11 El Capitan as follws:
5. Notes
In macOS 10.13 High Sierra, Apple seems to switch SSL libraries from OpenSSL 0.9.8zh to LibreSSL 2.2.7.
LibreSSL is a version of the TLS/crypto stack forked from OpenSSL in 2014.
And it is know to build and work on Mac OS X (tested with 10.8 and later).
So I have changed OpenSSL for LibreSSL to build ClamAV.
Now you can use LibreSSL 2.7.x (the latest stable release).
If you want to use OpenSSL as before, ClamAV 0.100.x is compatible with OpenSSL 1.1.1x,
so you can use OpenSSL 1.1.1x.
If you use OpenSSL 1.1.1x to compile ClamAV 0.99.x, add more this configuration.
In last update, Clam AntiVirus developer team introduced JIT compiler to ClamAV® 0.96.
Apple gcc (version: 4.0.1 build: 5370) in Mac OS X 10.4 (aka Tiger) failed to build ClamAV 0.96.x and 0.98.x with JITcompiled in.
With a brief struggle I found a good solution that I will tell you here.
1) First, install LLVM (Low Level Virtual Machine) and LLVM-GCC 4.2 Front End.
2) Second, add this configuration option: --enable-llvm.
Then you can build ClamAV 0.96.x and 0.98.x with JIT compiled in and use new features included in anti-virus toolkit.
Install LLVM (Low Level Virtual Machine) and LLVM-GCC 4.2 Front End
1. Installing LLVM-GCC 4.2 Front End Binaries
2. Setting search path
3. Installing LLVM 2.3
Install MacPorts and the packages
1. Installing MacPorts
Ensure it's up to date by running:
2. Installing the packages: bzip2
3. Maintaining MacPorts and installed packages
Compile ClamAV 0.98.x and Install
1. Modify /shared/output.c & output.h to avoid compiling error. (Only needed for compiling ClamAV 0.98.1)
2. ./configure (version 0.98 and 0.98.1)
3. ./configure (version 0.98.3 or later)
4. Make, make check and install ClamAV
To compile ClamAV 0.96.3 or later, bzip2 (Version 1.0.6) that fixes CVE-2010-0405 is required.
Mac OS X has bzip2 (Version 1.0.5) built-inand it is outdated, so you get WARNING as follows while running configuration command.
To solve this problem on Mac OS X 10.4, you can install bzip2 (Version 1.0.6) using MacPorts and add this configuration option:
export LDFLAGS='-L/opt/local/lib' as follows.
Apple has patched the CVE-2010-0405 bug on Mac OS X 10.6.7 but not on Mac OS X 10.4.11.
To compile ClamAV 0.98.3 or later, OpenSSL (Version 0.98y or above including the X509_VERIFY_PARAM function) is required.
Mac OS X 10.4 has OpenSSL 0.9.7l built-in and MacPorts fails to build OpenSSL, so you have to install OpenSSL 0.9.8zh.
1. Install OpenSSL 0.9.8zh
2. Setting search path
Compile ClamAV 0.99.x and Install
To compile ClamAV 0.99.x on Mac OS X 10.4, in addition to installing LLVM Front End, MacPorts, bzip2 and OpenSSL the PCRE library is required as pointed out above.
1. Install PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions.
2. ./configure
3. Make, make check and install ClamAV
PPC users have to install LLVM-GCC 4.2 Front End Binaries for PPC and configure ClamAV 0.96.x and 0.98.x with different configuration.
Install LLVM (Low Level Virtual Machine) and LLVM-GCC 4.2 Front End
1. Installing LLVM-GCC 4.2 Front End Binaries
2. Setting search path
3. Installing LLVM 2.3
Install MacPorts and the packages
1. Installing MacPorts
Ensure it's up to date by running:
2. Installing the packages: bzip2
3. Maintaining MacPorts and installed packages
Compile ClamAV 0.98.x and Install
1. Modify /shared/output.c & output.h to avoid compiling error. (Only needed for compiling ClamAV 0.98.x)
2. ./configure
3. Make, make check and install ClamAV
GNU C++ and bzip2 (Version 1.0.6) are installed on Mac OS X and later, so you can simply build ClamAV 0.96.x and 0.98.x with JIT compiled in and use new features included in anti-virus toolkit.
1. On Mac OS X 10.7, after installing Xcode 4.3 in /Applications, you should install the Command Line Tools:developer.apple.com. and
2. Run these commands to make sure that everything is pointed in the right place.
Compile ClamAV 0.98.x and Install
1. ./configure
2. Make, make check and install ClamAV
Clamxav For Mac Os X 10.8
Compile ClamAV 0.99.x and Install1. To compile ClamAV 0.99.x, the PCRE library is required as pointed out above.
2. ./configure
3. Make, make check and install ClamAV
1. I'm running clamd and freshclam as 'launch daemon' managed by:
/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.clamav.freshclam.plist
2. Edit clamd.conf and freshclam.conf for using ' daemons'.
3. Set appropriate permissions for ClamXav and ClamXav Sentry.
4. Notes
uncheck 'Update virus definitions on launch' of ClamXav's 'General Preferences' section.
Updates of virus definitions gets executed automatically by 'freshclam daemon'.
1. When running ClamXav Sentry as 'launch agent', ClamXav Sentry keeps alive.
I'm running ClamXav Sentry as 'launch agent' managed by ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.clamXavSentry.plist
2. On Yosemite and El Capitan, I'm using this org.clamXavSentry.plist file to avoid ClamXav Sentry's annoying error:
3. Notes
uncheck 'Launch ClamXav Sentry when you log in to this computer' of 'ClamXav Sentry Preferences' section.
ClamXav Sentry automatically launches and keeps alive by 'launch agent' when logging in.
CFBundleExecutable name 'ClamXavSentry' was replaced by 'ClamXav Sentry' in ClamXav 2.7.x.
So you should replace 'ClamXavSentry' with 'ClamXav Sentry' in org.clamXavSentry.plist.
If you are running clamd as 'launch daemon' and running ClamXav Sentry 3.x as 'launch agent',
use this hidden preference setting:
And if you are running clamd as 'launch daemon' and running ClamXav Sentry 3.5.x as 'launch agent',
use this hidden preference setting:
1. Now ClamXav and ClamXav Sentry use combined official and its own virus database as below:
2. To get and update ClamXav Virus Database,
and place it into
ClamXav 2.8.9.4 requires empty file called 0.99.1_update_4 inside /usr/local/clamXav.
3. When you launch ClamXav 2.8.9.1 and update virus definitions, ClamXav logs follwing error:
For details, see 'Bug 11455 – [Clamav-devel] Patch to force freshclam download progress meter'.
To solve this issue, get and apply 'freshclam_show-progress.patch' before you build ClamAV 0.99.0.
--------
The patch has been checked in ClamAV 0.99.1 repository, so no need for patching to build ClamAV 0.99.1.
1. I'm now running RunFreshclam as 'daemon' instead of freshclam daemon managed by:
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.clamXav.runfreshclam.plist
2. Edit freshclam.conf for using RunFreshclam ' daemons'.
3. Set appropriate permissions for RunFreshclam (ClamXav version =< 2.8.x).
Notes:
As concerns appropriate permissions on ClamXav 2.9.x, see described below.
4. Checking and updating virus definitions:
'RunFreshclam' automatically (at regular time intervals, e.g. every 30minutes or every 1 hour as you set) executes checking and updating both ClamXav's own virus definitions and official ClamAV® virus definitions, so you need not run 'freshclam daemon'.
An example of freshclam.log:
1. ClamXav has a new engine install and uninstall mechanism since version 2.9.
When you fail to satisfy the requirements, ClamXav tries to repair /usr/local/clamXav, and all files and folders are changed to its own official engine.
To satisfy the requirements, the following files are needed at the very least in addition to B.Y.O. ClamAV files:
Clamxav Uninstall Mac Os X
2. Steps to satisfy the requirements for ClamXAV Version 2.19.3 (3715):
1) make empty file called 0.100.1_update_08 inside /usr/local/clamXav/
2) extract gfslogger and RunFreshclam from ClamXAV.app/Contents/Resources/clamavEngineInstaller.pkg
3) place those files into appropriate directory:
First run RunFreshclam completely, then you can place them at /usr/local/clamXav/share/clamav/ as follws:
5) Set appropriate permissions at /usr/local/clamXav for ClamXAV 2.19.x.
3. Now you can run ClamXAV Sentry 3.19.x as 'launch agent' and run RunFreshclam as 'launch daemon' with no issues.
An example of freshclam.log:
4. Important Notes
If you keep using B.Y.O. Engine, do that on your own risk.
Now ClamXAV 3 is available, thus ClamXAV 2 will not receive malware database updatesbeyond 31st October 2018.
Looking for antivirus scanner that is just right for your Mac OS X? Try ClamXav and see what it can do your Mac computer. Know more about this antivirus software tool for your Mac system and you will see that it is just the right virus scanner that is worth to try.
ClamXav Software Overview:
ClamXav was made basing from the ClamAV virus scanner which is an open source. What’s good about this application is that it is capable of real-time scanning such as emails and other files in your computer. It even supports multiple languages from Danish, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Korean and Polish. This supports the Mac OS X version 10.4 known as Tiger, 10.5 as Leopard and can support version 10.3 as Panther and 10.2 as Jaguar although it is only limited.
The fact that the application is based on ClamAV, it is capable also of detecting malware and other threats for Windows. Although, threats in Mac system is not quite an issue, but when it comes to up to date protection ClamXav is definitely one of the best recommended tool for Mac computers.
Software Disadvantage:
Using the software can be done easily, just simply designate the directory where you want the application to load every time you start the computer. Then perform the scanning process. However, Mac users will sometimes get disappointed because the manual scan using ClamXav is quite tedious and slow. The features and speed of the software is quite simple compared to other commercial antivirus programs. Although it is not the fastest antivirus scanner tool, the price of it is worth taking for and this is absolutely free for your Mac system.
ClamXav Advantage:
When it comes to its advantages, the application is capable of performing scanning process on mail servers making it as an email virus scanner. This was developed basically for Unix systems thus it also has other third party versions that runs on Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and even Microsoft Windows. Another thing, updates of the application are free of charge thus users can enjoy the benefit of using it.
ClamXav Utilities:
The application uses a lot of utilities such as command line scanner, scalable and multi-threaded daemon and database that is updated automatically. It runs on antivirus engine taken from library that is shared across the network. It has Milter features also that works on sending mail and on-demand scanning. It can support multiple file formats from Zip, RAR, Gzip, OLE2, Tar and other mail file formats. It even supports document files from office applications such as Microsoft Office, HTML documents and Portable Document Format (PDF).
When looking for antivirus software tool that can work on Mac OS X, ClamXav is one of the recommended tools for the system. With its real time scanning capabilities as well as email server side scanner, it offers an up to date protection for your computer. It even supports other operating system platform such as Windows and Linux. This is because the application is open source and free. However, the application might be slow in its scanning process, its capabilities and price is really worth trying for your Mac system.