pg_snakeoil: The PostgreSQL Antivirus

Christoph Berg <[email protected]> Mon, 28 Jan 2019 14:43:04 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.db.postgresql.announce
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Running typical on-access antivirus software on a PostgreSQL server has severe
drawbacks such as severely affecting performance or making the filesystem
unreliable.  The failure modes are extremely problematic when a
non-PostgreSQL-aware scanner blocks access to a file due to viruses, or even
false-positives and bugs in the scanner software.

We typically recommend not to run such software on PostgreSQL servers, as
PostgreSQL knows how to discern between code and data and will not execute any
viruses stored in a database. However, running anti-virus software is sometimes
required by local policy.

pg_snakeoil provides ClamAV scanning of all data in PostgreSQL in a way that
does not interfere with the proper functioning of PostgreSQL and does not cause
collateral damage or unnecessary downtimes.

https://github.com/credativ/pg_snakeoil
https://github.com/credativ/pg_snakeoil/releases/tag/v1.0

postgres=# SELECT so_is_infected('X5O<...Eicar string...>');
 so_is_infected
----------------
 t
(1 row)

postgres=# SELECT so_virus_name('X5O<...Eicar string...>');
    so_virus_name
----------------------
 Eicar-Test-Signature
(1 row)

Christoph

PS: Examples redacted because this mail shouldn't get filtered out :)
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