Jerry wrote:
The bottom line is:
1) You and you alone are responsible for your system. You failed to
keep it up-to-date and are now suffering the consequences. Trying to
off-load that onto someone else's plate just isn't going to cut it.
Please stop telling me what I said - at least until you get it right !
Where did I say it's anyone's responsibility but my own if I'm not
running the latest version ? I'm not complaining that no-one came and
updated my system for me - but I am complaining that someone who was
watering the plants for me, one day fed them a strong dose of
weedkiller !
Perhaps they left a post it, at the back of a cupboard where I don't
go very often (if at all) telling me they were going to kill my
plants - does that make it right that they did so (even if I'm not
paying them to water my plants) ?
2) There were notices of the change (read EOL) posted. If you are too
busy to keep current for a system that you apparently are
administering, they you have a serious problem. Either the job is
beyond you or you are not attending to it seriously enough. That is not
to be taken as an insult, but rather as a statement of fact.
And as already pointed out. 1) I am not alone in thinking that the
notices weren't as obvious as they could have been. 2) There were
other options besides killing my system.
Right now you should be backing up your precious configuration files,
etc. If you suddenly had a catastrophic HD failure, what would you do;
bitch to the HD manufacturer? Even if you did, it would accomplish
nothing. The hardest part of any OS installation, at least in my
opinion, is the configuration. If I have a complete backup of those
files and settings, the rest is usually uneventful. The added bonus is
I get (in most cases) better software and a chance to further optimize
settings that I might have long ago forgotten about, or are now
deprecated.
I go one further, I have multiple backups of all my servers, so I can
restore them from bare metal to the last state they were backed up.
So yes, I can recover from a disk failure - and indeed have had the
opportunity to do so. What I wasn't expecting was someone nipping in
and killing the software !
As it is, using the backups that sometimes do seem like a lot of
hassle, I've been able to roll back the AV database to yesterday and
carry on. Yes I know I won't get updates, but scanning with
yesterdays database is better than not at all.
As to restoring settings to a fresh install. I generally find that to
be a whole load of hassle - unless the versions are reasonably close,
so much tends to change that I end up having to go and sort things
out. I wouldn't consider that as an acceptable DR solution due to the
time required to get the new system plus old settings to be fully
working and tested.
YMMV as they say.
Anyway, I've had my say, others have said theirs, I don't think
there's anything new to be said.
Francis Stevens wrote:
It is possible to build clam on Sarge (I've just verified that is true).
If your going to try this next week the following may help...
Thanks, that's possibly the most constructive thing written all day !
--
Simon Hobson
Visit http://www.magpiesnestpublishing.co.uk/ for books by acclaimed
author Gladys Hobson. Novels - poetry - short stories - ideal as
Christmas stocking fillers. Some available as e-books.
_______________________________________________
Help us build a comprehensive ClamAV guide: visit http://wiki.clamav.net
http://www.clamav.net/support/ml
