Hi,

I was wondering what happens during an ongoing scan when the regular virus database updates happen. Does the update fail? Does it mess with the scanning process? Is it a security risk? Which database applies to the scan, the one at the time the scan started or does the detection ability change during the scan?

Thank you, Dan

ClamWin loads the signatures into memory during a scan, so if a signature database update occured during a scan, it would work off of the signatures loaded in memory. I don't know if the entire database is loaded or if it is paged a bit at a time. I have downloaded new signatures while a scan was going on with no problems noted. A good programmer will put in locks on the data when/if needed. I suppose the detection ability could change during a scan if the signature data is paged and new data is inserted into a section that has not yet been brought into memory.

I do not think there is any security risk. If still worried, you could make automatic updates 5 minutes before the hour and scheduled scans on the hour.

Regards,