Re: anti-virus on Linux database server

This is something that I see with clients every once in a while.

The question that you should ask is: what is the technical reason for it.

In almost if not all cases the answer is: every computer system should have a virus scanner on it (…because the security officer demands it). So my immediate reaction then is: does every router and switch or any other system with an embedded OS running have a virus scanner running?

As others have pointed out: I can’t see a technical reason to run a virus scanner on a linux server running Oracle, provided it’s administered and configured reasonably from a technical perspective.

Don’t get me wrong: for every operating system there is software that classifies as malware/virus. But if a sensible approach is taken to security (not draconic: sensible), this should take care of most potential issues.

The point is that the downside of the AV software can be huge, most of us know about how it can interrupt and slow down database processing immensely. So one of the things, if it gets really pushed, that I insist on is having someone ONSITE that EXACTLY knows EVERYTHING the virus scanner does so in case of issues with the database it can be investigated immediately. This also means as a DBA you can work together to make sure nothing of the database processing is touched by the virus scanner during execution, doing disk IO and doing network IO.

...I yet have to see the first person with a client that has a deep knowledge of how a linux virus scanner actually works.

ps. this is not anarchistic ‘fighting the power’, this is fighting unreasonable and technically incorrect rules that have been created by people with an insufficient technical knowledge.

Frits Hoogland

http://fritshoogland.wordpress.com <http://fritshoogland.wordpress.com/> frits.hoogland_at_gmail.com <mailto:frits.hoogland_at_gmail.com> Mobile: +31 6 14180860

> On 14 Apr 2020, at 19:16, Jeffrey Beckstrom <JBECKSTROM_at_gcrta.org> wrote:
>
> Our tech team is thinking about putting anti-virus software on the database server? If you exclude the Oracle binaries and datafiles, is there really anything left to scan. Just wondering what other people do.

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