Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux v9: Installation fails with 'manifest.spec' error

  • Article ID: 118733
  • Updated: 04 Jan 2013

Issue
Installing Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux on an unsupported distribution results in an error, such as:

***Unable to copy /tmp/sophos_distribution_fQCa8iw/sophos-av/sav-linux/manifest.spec to /opt/sophos-av/update/manifest.spec: no such file or directory
terminated install
[Errno 2] no such file or directory: '/tmp/sophos_distribution_fQCa8iw/sophos-av/sav-linux/manifest.spec'

The installation is corrupt and subsequent updates fail:

"/opt/sophos-av' already exists and isn't a valid installation directory.

First seen in

Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux 9.1.1
Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux 9.1.0
Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux 9.0.0

Operating systems
Linux


What To Do

Workaround

Follow these steps:

  1. Uninstall Sophos Anti-Virus:  /opt/sophos-av/uninstall.sh
  2. Re-install Sophos Anti-Virus with On-Access scanning disabled.  Select 'N' when prompted for on-access scanning during the installation wizard.

Adding on-access capabilities

By default On-Access scanning is not available on unsupported distributions.  On-access can be enabled after installation if the required compilation tools are installed.

To enable on-access scanning:

  1. Compile a Talpa Binary Pack:  
    /opt/sophos-av/engine/talpa_select select
  2. Enable On-Access:
    /opt/sophos-av/bin/savconfig set EnableOnStart true
  3. Restart the daemon:
    /etc/init.d/sav-protect restart

Further information

Sophos plan to resolve the installation error in the February 2013 release of Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux.  However, enabling on-access scanning still only takes affect if the required compilation tools are installed.

Platform support

We recommend to install Sophos Anti-Virus on supported distributions only. For more information see the product system requirements.

 
If you need more information or guidance, then please contact technical support.

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