[ale] Antivirus for Linux Servers

[Cordell, Ron]

Hi all,

I'd like to get some practical advice about putting antivirus on linux
servers. In my specific instance, I've got about 40 servers behind a
firewall that run different applications, such as Jboss, IMAP, LDAP,
etc. Each of the servers behind this firewall run specialized
applications. Users interact with these applications via a web server
farm in a DMZ or via a telephone voice interface. We are running
iptables on all the servers and only open ports we need, plus we have
ACLs around the routers that bridge the firewall between the DMZ and the
applications. All of the application servers run under their own
non-privileged user account (not root) with the exception of the IMAP
and SMTP server(s).

So - the reason that I ask this is that we have been resisting putting
on A/V products on the Linux servers that are not in the DMZ and behind
the firewall and are not running Samba or anything like that, which is
almost all of the machines. However, there is some pressure to install
A/V on all machines. I'd like to get information from other people's
experiences and advice to help in making a more informed decision.

Thanks,

Ron Cordell