1 Topic by jbou (edited by jbou 2026-08-14 07:52:25)

  • jbou
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Topic: after installation freshclam is unabled to download the db files

==== REQUIRED BASIC INFO OF YOUR IREDMAIL SERVER ====
- iRedMail version (check /etc/iredmail-release):  1.8.4
- Deployed with iRedMail Easy or the downloadable installer? downloadable
- Linux/BSD distribution name and version: Rocky Linux 10.2
- Store mail accounts in which backend (LDAP/MySQL/PGSQL): Mysql
- Web server (Apache or Nginx): Nginx
- Manage mail accounts with iRedAdmin-Pro? not yet
- [IMPORTANT] Related original log or error message is required if you're experiencing an issue.
====

After installation, freshclam is unable to download its database files due to incorrect directory permissions. I temporarily fixed the issue by set clamupdate user owner of the /var/lib/clamav

chown clamupdate:clamupdate /var/lib/clamav
chmod 755 /var/lib/clamav
works fine, but I'm not sure if this is the best or recommended solution.

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2 Reply by bomarat219

  • bomarat219
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Re: after installation freshclam is unabled to download the db files

I think the ownership change is the correct approach if /var/lib/clamav was created with permissions that don't allow clamupdate to write the database files. 755 on the directory is fine as long as clamupdate is the owner.

I would also check the ownership and permissions of the files inside that directory, just to make sure there isn't an existing DB file still owned by root. After that, freshclam --verbose should make it pretty clear if anything else is blocking the update.

Did you see the permission error directly in the freshclam log, or did you determine it from the directory ownership?

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