Antivirus stopped updating

[FutureTechSys]

Status:    Last update successful.
Date:    Thu Oct 28 09:00:02 2010
Signatures:    849149

This is what I see... Tried restarting the module.  All I've done with this box is apply updates to it; haven't made any config changes in quite some time.  Any ideas?

[Sam Graf]

No ideas, but same experience.

[FutureTechSys]

I'm really doubtful of the commercial viability of this product now to be honest... I literally make no changes and these things happen.  And then I get the same shpeel about how I need to pay money for a tech support contract etc.

The stability really seems to be an issue - everybody on the staff side says it isn't, but from a user's perspective, it just doesn't seem to be refined enough to feel comfortable selling to a customer.

[Sam Graf]

Problems (or apparent problems) with AV updates aren't new, but they are disconcerting. I understand completely if Zentyal is to be a subscription-based product. But make it all crystal clear to end users, so we can make intelligent decisions about how to proceed.

If nothing else, a "sometimes-it-works-sometimes-it-doesn't" experience significantly reduces my motivation to keep Zentyal subscription requests in front of management. If the base trial system seems to have issues, how can I make the business case that we should pay? This impacts not only perceptions of Zentyal as a leading open source solution, but also the very idea that outside a few big-company exceptions open source solutions are business class. SMBs in particular need it to just work, and they either will end up with a solution that does just work or they will just go with commodity solutions. Through no fault of their own.

[christian]

Your comments reflect one of the main "request for improvement" (that I fully support btw) that is to have more stable version rather than new features.

Depending on components that are deployed, platform maturity level has not yet reached the point where it can be deployed in prod.
I'm, like you, facing much more issues with this "package" than with similar technical platform made of components I configure on my side (btw I gave up already with Zentyal for the "internal" server) but that's a pity because the concept is very good and there is quite a lot of people making efforts, spending time and resource tom improve this product.

No doubt they will succeed (assuming there is one day at least frozen perimeter for a couple of month) but the question is when and what to do in the meantime. 

[Sam Graf]

Thankfully, in my case, Zentyal reliably does what I absolutely need it to do. My minimum configuration works. The AV thing is the chronic exception.

In the real world, I face a deadline. My first use of eBox was an open experiment, a test of whether or not we could deploy a Linux-based solution. That test continues today, in part because management remains unconvinced. But we are replacing our entire system during the first half of 2011, so as an organization we will commit to some solution package. I would love to see Zentyal included in that package. But first, it has to just work in the very basic deployment we have, let alone in the more complex setting we will have next year.

Even if there were no deadline, I cannot continue this trial forever. I have other things to do. So I'm at the point where I need it to just work. It needs to work across package updates, it needs to work across major releases, and it needs to do all that without a lot of hand-holding (which is not the case yet for major releases if nothing else). The RTO ROI gets uglier the more intervention a system needs. In the case of not-for-profit organizations, RTO ROI is even more critical.

But of course that all looks different if this is a community project that offers fee-based services rather than a strictly subscription-driven product. If this is a true community project, those of us that can't contribute patches can still make time to use and test and give feedback and community support, even if we have to do it on our home LANs. So a little clarity about how things like AV updates are supposed to work would help us all make decisions about going forward.

Or maybe the problem is that I'm a little overtired. I dunno. Whatever the case, I have to think about where to go from here. Time is running out.

EDIT: I clearly am overtired. Changed RTO (whatever that is) to the intended ROI.

[J. A. Calvo]

Just to let you know, after the release of Zentyal 2.0, we are completely focused in bugfixing instead of adding new features. We will start working on new features once we have a rock-solid 2.0, which has no due date yet.

On the other hand, you need to understand that we are prioritizing the fixing of critical bugs that directly affect our current customers and partners. Any contribution in fixing other bugs is very welcome and it will help accelerating the stabilization of Zentyal.

[sixstone]

Hi there,

I would like firstly to apologise for the antivirus thing... we are working very hard as J.A. Calvo says on stability of our product...

Regarding to this specific problem, I have just tested and I sadly says it works for me...

The installation is ebox-antivirus 2.0.3 and clamav 0.96.1. Could you paste here the last lines from /var/log/clamav/freshclam.log, Sam and FutureTechSys please?

Best regards,

[Sam Graf]

Just in case the time frame matters, here's what the GUI is reporting:

Status:    Last update successful.
Date:    Tue Oct 26 23:00:10 2010
Signatures:    849809

And here is the last entry from the log:

Fri Nov 12 10:37:31 2010 -> --------------------------------------
Fri Nov 12 11:37:31 2010 -> Received signal: wake up
Fri Nov 12 11:37:31 2010 -> ClamAV update process started at Fri Nov 12 11:37:31 2010
Fri Nov 12 11:37:31 2010 -> main.cvd is up to date (version: 52, sigs: 704727, f-level: 44, builder: sven)
Fri Nov 12 11:37:31 2010 -> daily.cld is up to date (version: 12239, sigs: 146312, f-level: 53, builder: ccordes)
Fri Nov 12 11:37:31 2010 -> bytecode.cld is up to date (version: 90, sigs: 10, f-level: 53, builder: edwin)
Fri Nov 12 11:37:31 2010 -> --------------------------------------

When I first installed 2.0 I had a period where it said that no update had occurred since the module was enabled/installed, and then after a set of updates it worked flawlessly . Now it's as you see it. Perhaps it's strictly a GUI problem?

For the record, I don't want to come across as saying I consider Zentyal unusable, because it certainly isn't from my point of view. We use it--we rely on it--in production every day. If it sounds like I'm saying otherwise, I apologize.

But just like you all, I have to prioritize. Even though we successfully rely on Zentyal day to day for mission critical work, Zentyal is not my job. My work is my job. Zentyal is just a part of that. So like you all, I have to make decisions based on my priorities, as well as on company priories and expectations. I can't help that or change that any more than you all can.

If I could offer fixes and patches just from a capability point of view (forgetting time and priorities, for a moment), I would. My Perl skills are just good enough to allow me to follow the drift of the code. My Linux skills are worse. The odds of me being able to help out in that important community way are slim to none.

Which is why I would like to get management to consider subscribing, and which is why I try to help here a little from time to time, when I might actually know enough to be able to do so. That's the best I can do, other priorities aside.

[acon]

Antivirus is updating without problem for me.
I have last updates installed.
I don't have trafic shaping installed. ¿May be the difference?

[Sam Graf]

I don't have traffic shaping installed either. And it did work, for weeks, so something has changed.

All my other machines are still eBox machines (so much to do, so little time!) so I can't compare directly. This particular machine is still in production, no known issues outside this.

[christian]

Just to let you know, after the release of Zentyal 2.0, we are completely focused in bugfixing instead of adding new features. We will start working on new features once we have a rock-solid 2.0, which has no due date yet.

On the other hand, you need to understand that we are prioritizing the fixing of critical bugs that directly affect our current customers and partners. Any contribution in fixing other bugs is very welcome and it will help accelerating the stabilization of Zentyal.

It definitely makes sense and, as I wrote, I've no doubt you will succeed with such goal.
I will spend some more time trying to report more accurately issues I'm facing on platform I currently use (permanent errors reported for network module while applying updated, however network works. Errors reported for mailfilter module although it looks like it works to. Error with log module - I need to investigate further here...).

I will not be able to report any error with LDAP and Samba because I gave up with such service and will give a try again only after I will have better understanding on how master/slave works.
However, even with no slave installed, there is a lot of messages in logs related to it. It's not a bug  - in term of feature - but could be avoided with configuration management storing whenever slave is deployed or not, and therefore triggering replication.
Same for missing indexes. This is not a bug, just annoying...

Yes, this can be changed by managing indexes. I could do that :-), changing configuration templates  (stubs) but next update will erase my customization :-(

Definitely, aside some - quite few btw - real bugs, I've 2 main concerns preventing me to "invest"  further on this platform:
- Zentyal is quite well designed for standalone deployment but not - for what I've experienced and understand - for multi boxes deployment. Sure one can deploy as many Zentyal servers as needed, in standalone mode, but when it comes to have service spread accross multiple boxes (like LDAP, DNS or mail) then it's much more difficult and doesn't work smoothly.
- change management: editing stubs permits to avoid customization when service restarts but does not permit to prevent this customization to be erased when update is published

I do realize that above statements fit better in the "new feature requests" than "bug fixing" area.
And do not misunderstand my point: Zentyal is really a nice piece of software: team and community working on it really deserve respect.
My point here above aims at pushing it a bit further in hwat I believe to be the right direction in order to reach platform suitable for the "M" of SMB. 

[Sam Graf]

After updating to Antivirus 2.0.4 (with some time passed after the update) the GUI displays:

Status:       Last update successful.
Date:    Tue Nov 16 09:37:49 2010
Signatures:    850778

Perfect! Thank you!