clamonacc monitoring of Docker overlay2 file system from Linux VM host doesn't work
Tom Jordan via clamav-users <[email protected]> Tue, 11 Nov 2025 18:40:09 +0000
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.security.virus.clamav.user |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
HI, I've been trying to get clamonacc to monitor the overlay2 file system where Docker container file systems are mounted on my Linux (Ubuntu 24.04) VM, so that I can detect any malware which makes its way into a container (e.g., via downloaded). I am trying to do this by running clamonacc on the Linux host, since running clamonacc in each container would be too resource (memory) hungry, so I do not want to do it per container. What works: If I modify clamd.conf so that OnAccessMountPath points to /home/<my_username> (which is a directory on my host VM) and run sudo clamonacc --move=<directory_for_infected_files> it works as I expect, in that it immediately logs as malware and moves a eincar.txt test malware file that I place in any of /home/<my_username> and it subdirectories. What doesn't work: However, if I point OnAccessMountPath to /var/lib/docker/overlay2, which contains the merged overlay file system of a running Docker container in a subdirectory located on my host VM at /var/lib/docker/overlay2/<sha>/merged it doesn't detect any eincar.txt I copy anywhere into the container (I can see the eincar.txt when I shell into the container). Can anyone please tell me why this is? I'm a little surprised this doesn't work since by comparison I can set up an inotify watcher (using the inotifywatch command line command) on the Linux VM host to watch /var/lib/docker/overlay2/ and this inotify watcher will happily detect and report events if I create/modify/delete any file in the running container. Why does clamonacc not work across this Docker mount whereas inotify does and how do I fix it? Is there some config value that I have missed in clamd.conf? Any help would be very much appreciated. Thomas _______________________________________________ Manage your clamav-users mailing list subscription / unsubscribe: https://lists.clamav.net/mailman/listinfo/clamav-users Help us build a comprehensive ClamAV guide: https://github.com/Cisco-Talos/clamav-documentation https://docs.clamav.net/#mailing-lists-and-chat