OK, after screaming every time I got a copy of MyDoom in e-mail, I've finally done something about it and thought that others running linodes might like to share in the knowledge.

The solution I found uses ClamAV which is a pretty sweet Open Source virus scanner. The current virus database detects 20687 viruses! It even includes a utility that updates the virus database automatically.

It was really easy to install (just follow the documentation found at the site) and it seems to be really fast.

If anyone has questions or need help installing, drop me a line. I'm no expert, but I did manage to get it working (after realizing that my sendmail is reading /etc/mail/sendmail.cf and not /etc/sendmail.cf)

--James

You may also want to look into...

amavis which is an email virus scanning tool. Your MTA sends each email to amavis daemon which scans and quaratines viruses. It searches for existing anti-virus software on your system and uses that, as well as its own internal one. So if you have clamAV or f-prot, it will double check each email. Virus emails I don't even see anymore.. if it has a virus, amavis sends it to /dev/null. You can set it up to notify you, or send it to an existing email addy if you want. really flexible.