ClamAV Command Reference

Prerequisites

The ClamAV tool has been installed. For details, see Installation the Tool.

Command Function

Performs a virus scan on the target path.

Syntax

clamscan [options] [file/directory/-]

Parameter Description

**Table 1** Parameter description
Parameter	Description	Commonly Used
-h/--help	Obtains help information.	Yes
-l FILE/--log=FILE	Saves the scan report to FILE.	Yes
-r/ --recursive[=yes/no(*)]	Performs recursive scanning, that is, scans subdirectories in the specified directory.	Yes
--copy=DIRECTORY	Copies infected files to DIRECTORY.	Yes
-i/--infected	Prints only infected files.	Yes
--quiet	Outputs only error information	Yes
--official-db-only[=yes/no(*)]	Loads only the official signature.	No
--max-filesize=#n	Skips files larger than this size and assumes them to be clean.	No
--max-scansize=#n	Maximum amount of data to scan in each container file.	No
--leave-temps[=yes/no(*)]	Not to remove temporary files.	No
-f FILE/--file-list-FILE	Scans files from FILE.	No
--bell	Audible alert for virus detection, which can be implemented using external scripts.	No
-cross-fs[=yes(*)/no]	Scans files and directories in other file systems.	No
--bytecode-timeout=N	Sets the bytecode execution timeout (in milliseconds).	No
--heuristic-alerts[=yes(*)/no]	Toggles heuristic alerts.	No
--alert-encrypted[=yes/no(*)]	Alert on encrypted archives and documents.	No
--nocerts	Disables authenticode certificate chain verification in PE files.	No
--disable-cache	Disables caching and cache checks for hash sums of scanned files.	No
-d FILE/DIR/--database=FILE/DIR	Uses the specified file as the virus database to replace the virus database file in the /var/clamav directory.	No
--move=DIRECTORY	Moves infected files to the specified directory.	No
--removes[=yes/no(*)]	Deletes infected files.	No

The ClamAV tool provides many parameters. This table lists only some of them. To view all parameters and their descriptions, run clamscan -h.

Example

After updating the virus database, the following example scans files in /var/log/ and outputs the scan report to clamav.log. Replace the example path with the actual path.

clamscan -i -r /var/log/ -l clamav.log

Figure 1 Virus scan result

Parent topic: Version Release