Installing and Running Antivirus Software on QuantaStor Servers

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Introduction

Any Linux Anti-Virus software that is compatible with QuantaStor base OS's (RHEL+derivatives and Ubuntu 20.04 can be installed and operated on a QuantaStor system.

QuantaStor's base OS is either Ubuntu or RHEL/certain derivatives. Because of this, QuantaStor maintains 3rd party software compatibility with it's base OS's. For example, installation and use of any anti-virus software that is Ubuntu 20.04 compatible may be installed on a QuantaStor server.

Points of Interest

Performance

As with all production servers, care and consideration to performance should be given as anti-virus software does include overhead and steps should be taken to schedule scanning and other resource intensive operations in a such a way that they do not interfere with or have minimal impact during high-service periods.

Block Storage vs File Based Storage

QuantaStor can serve data via block storage (iSCSI & FC) or via NAS (NFS or SMB).  (We cannot view into block storage from the QuantaStor server.  Block storage is just a bunch of bits to QuantaStor.  Anti-virus for Storage Volumes / block storage would have to be run from the client.)

For QuantaStor Network Shares (NAS: NFS or SMB), the shares are mounted from QuantaStor's perspective in /export/<sharename>.  An anti-virus solution running on QuantaStor can directly read/scan /export/<sharename>.

Anti-Virus Software on QuantaStor High Availability Deployments

Care needs to be taken if anti-virus software is installed on a QuantaStor High Availability (HA) deployment.  In HA, one set of disks are shared in an active/passive mode by two QuantaStor HA servers.  During a failover event, the pool of disks is unmounted(exported) from one QuantaStor and imported(mounted) on the other.  Shares on the first host are torn down (ie no longer mounted in /export) and then stood up the second QuantaStor (mounted in /export).  There are pre/post failover scripts that can trigger stopping/restarting the anti-virus software as needed.  Note, the anti-virus software must not have any files open in /export for the failover to be successful.

(For more info regarding scripting, see: https://wiki.osnexus.com/index.php?title=QuantaStor_Custom_Scripting_/_Application_Extensions)

Testing

OSNEXUS provides trial licenses when requested. A VM solution can easily be setup to test both Standalone and HA QuantaStor deployments. It is recommended that the anti-virus solution be installed in a test environment to be tested for performance and functionality impact.

Support

Additionally, while anti-virus software can be installed and used on any QuantaStor system, OSNEXUS does not directly support (or endorse) that software and any installation or operation issues, concerns, or questions should be directed to the appropriate vendor for your software.

Installing Anti-Virus Software on QuantaStor

Installation should follow the anti-virus vendors instructions. Some example scripts that could be rewritten / update are provided in the QuantaStor deployment at:

/opt/osnexus/quantastor/bin

install-av-avast.sh

install-av-kaspersky.sh

QuantaStor includes scripts to automate the installation of some Anti-Virus products. Please note that these scripts are for the installation of 3rd party software and appropriate licensing must be obtained from the software vendor.

Use these scripts only for reference. Follow the vendors instructions.

List of Common Linux Anti-Virus Solutions / Companies (list sorted, does not contain all solutions)

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