Re: I want to use ClamAV on one computer to scan mail received by Postfix on another computer

  Hi

This should work

clamdscan -c /path/to/clamdscan.conf  /email.file

clamdscan.conf  contents

TCPSocket 3310

TCPAddr  remote clamd IP address


On 22/09/2025 00:04, Zakaria via clamav-users wrote:
> Maybe settig up a webserver can help, and post to the content of email 
> when received to scan. I think this would work fine if you accept the 
> email anyways or scan post receiving, and wont cause few seconds 
> delay, also you might need to store attachments in files and include 
> it in the post request to server.
>
> On 2025-09-21 23:09, Paul Kosinski via clamav-users wrote:
> > For many years now (well before Cisco's involvement) I have been 
> scanning email just before delivery by Postfix using procmail (not a 
> Milter). Up until now, I have been running ClamAV on the same computer 
> as Postfix, and scanning using clamdscan to stream (not fdpass) the 
> mail contents to clamd. (I do this using clamscan-procfilter.pl, 
> originally developed by A G Basile in 2004 and modified by me in 2007 
> and 2017.)
> >
> > Unfortunately, ClamAV has changed so much from 0.103.x to 1.0.9 (not 
> to mention 1.4.3 and 1.5.0) that I can't currently run ClamAV in the 
> same OS environment as Postfix.
> >
> > But I can't afford to have no email during the time that would be 
> needed to upgrade the OS, Dovecot, Postfix, Samba, etc. and test 
> everything on my current server. Nor can I afford to buy another 
> computer with similar power and storage (including software RAID0 and 
> redundant backup disks), set it up with new software versions, fully 
> test everything and then cut over almost atomically (as if that would 
> immediately work without problems).
> >
> > So, what I am doing is setting up ClamAV on a small (but powerful) 
> computer and running clamd on it so as to receive the mail contents to 
> be scanned via a TCP port. (This might not be practical for a 
> commercial email service, but the email volume associated with home 
> use is pretty small.)
> >
> > The problem I run into is that, although clamd.conf allows one to 
> specify a port number and even an an IP address for clamd to bind to, 
> there seems to be no way -- such as a command-line option -- to 
> specify what IP address clamdscan should talk to. (This makes the 
> clamd binding address almost irrelevant, I think.)
> >
> > The only thing I can think of, other than modifying clamdscan's 
> internals (a possibly risky business), is to replace the regular clamd 
> on the Postfix computer by a trivial mechanism that simply listens on 
> localhost:3310 (for example) and forwards the TCP (via netcat or 
> xinetd) to the ClamAV computer running the real clamd which listens on 
> 10.23.45.67:3310 (for example).
> >
> > Might there be a better way to do this? (I briefly thought of 
> setting up a VM or a "container" on the current server running Postfix 
> et al, and running the latest ClamAV therein, but that would still 
> require a quite disruptive upgrade of the software environment.)
> >
> > Thanks
> > Paul Kosinski
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