Sophos AntiVirus

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S

sds

Is this rated very highly for home PC users?

We have it at work, and with the licenicing, it allows each copy to be
installed on an employee's home machine.

Only problem i can see is the auto updates, have to wait for the CD once a
month since theres no web updates, unless work installed the web dates on
the server to allow people to auto update (not likely).

It seems to be better than norton '03 which i currently have installed,
doesnt hog system resources as much.

Any comments?

Cheers
Steve
 
sds said:
Is this rated very highly for home PC users?
Click to expand...

Probably expensive. It's marketed for corporate use.
We have it at work, and with the licenicing, it allows each copy to be
installed on an employee's home machine.
Click to expand...

Same here.
Only problem i can see is the auto updates, have to wait for the CD once a
month since theres no web updates, unless work installed the web dates on
the server to allow people to auto update (not likely).
Click to expand...

I don't know what you mean. You can download the whole package. Your
company should supply a username and password. Updates are available
daily in the form of small text files (IDEs) without the need to log
in.
It seems to be better than norton '03 which i currently have installed,
doesnt hog system resources as much.
Click to expand...

I've never used Norton, but I use Sophos. It's good software.
 
Ant said:
"sds" <[email protected]> wrote...
Click to expand...
I don't know what you mean. You can download the whole package. Your
company should supply a username and password. Updates are available
daily in the form of small text files (IDEs) without the need to log
in.
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate on this? provide a link to some info or something? from
what i read there are no online updates available for users at home?
 
sds said:
Is this rated very highly for home PC users?

We have it at work, and with the licenicing, it allows each copy to be
installed on an employee's home machine.

Only problem i can see is the auto updates, have to wait for the CD once a
month since theres no web updates, unless work installed the web dates on
the server to allow people to auto update (not likely).

It seems to be better than norton '03 which i currently have installed,
doesnt hog system resources as much.

Any comments?

Cheers
Steve
Click to expand...


Steve,

The smallest license Sophos offers is a 5 user license.

Your company's corporate site license should also include use of the
Remote Update tool. RU is a Windows utility. I suggest that you ask
your company IT dept if they have a webshare setup for RU use. RU is an
agent that will run on your PC, check of updates once an hour, DL and
automatically install all engine updates and IDE's. RU must point to a
company-provided Sophos directory. It will not pull updates directly
from Sophos.

JB
 
JB said:
Steve,

The smallest license Sophos offers is a 5 user license.

Your company's corporate site license should also include use of the
Remote Update tool. RU is a Windows utility. I suggest that you ask
your company IT dept if they have a webshare setup for RU use. RU is an
agent that will run on your PC, check of updates once an hour, DL and
automatically install all engine updates and IDE's. RU must point to a
company-provided Sophos directory. It will not pull updates directly
from Sophos.

JB
Click to expand...
What my company does is send me an email every month with a password
(changes every time) incorporated into a URL to their AV downoad page in the
internet. This allows me to download the update file and which I then have
to run like I was using the CD-ROM. The file is typically 14 or 15 MB but as
I have ADSL that's no problem to me. Ask your company if they provide a
similar service.

There apparently are two ways to automatically update Sophos; RU Tools and
SAVAdmin. I'm not sure about the difference between them nor have I managed
to understand how to set up automatic updating inside my home LAN where a
number of family members' machines now monthly require my personal
attention. The LAN consists of W98SE peer to peer networked PC's and a
laptop. Any helpfull suggestions appreciated!

Paul
 
Your company's corporate site license should also include use of the
Remote Update tool. RU is a Windows utility. I suggest that you ask
your company IT dept if they have a webshare setup for RU use. RU is an
agent that will run on your PC, check of updates once an hour, DL and
automatically install all engine updates and IDE's. RU must point to a
company-provided Sophos directory. It will not pull updates directly
from Sophos.
Click to expand...

You can get automatic updates (called IDE-files) for the installed
version with Sweep Update. It is available from my homepage
http://home.htp-tel.de/drackow and free for personal use. The
IDE-updates are small and available on a daily basis for engines
(monthly editions) which are not older than 3 months.

Sweep update allows you to keep Sophos Sweep as current as possible,
because Sophos releases small IDE-updates as soon as new viruses
require them. Since they are very small (appx. 10-30KB for all the
IDEs, zipped), you can update daily or even more often if the need
arises.

Regards,

Detlev
 
You can get automatic updates (called IDE-files) for the installed
version with Sweep Update. It is available from my homepage
http://home.htp-tel.de/drackow and free for personal use. The
IDE-updates are small and available on a daily basis for engines
(monthly editions) which are not older than 3 months.

Sweep update allows you to keep Sophos Sweep as current as possible,
because Sophos releases small IDE-updates as soon as new viruses
require them. Since they are very small (appx. 10-30KB for all the
IDEs, zipped), you can update daily or even more often if the need
arises.

Regards,

Detlev
Click to expand...

loads of info on the sophos site on how to update

company license lets people who are licenced to use it at work, use it
at home - simple logic - prevents me bringing a virus in from home.

My solution - the following batch file using url2file - google search
will find it

cheers

CD C:\SOPHIDE
DEL *.IDE
DEL IDES.EXE
Url2File http://www.sophos.com/downloads/ide/ides.exe ides.exe
IDES.EXE
COPY /Y *.IDE C:\Progra~1\Sophos~1\
NET STOP SWEEPSRV.SYS
NET START SWEEPSRV.SYS
 
loads of info on the sophos site on how to update

company license lets people who are licenced to use it at work, use it
at home - simple logic - prevents me bringing a virus in from home.

My solution - the following batch file using url2file - google search
will find it

cheers

CD C:\SOPHIDE
DEL *.IDE
DEL IDES.EXE
Url2File http://www.sophos.com/downloads/ide/ides.exe ides.exe
IDES.EXE
COPY /Y *.IDE C:\Progra~1\Sophos~1\
NET STOP SWEEPSRV.SYS
NET START SWEEPSRV.SYS
Click to expand...

Hello Alastair,

that is the classical way to do it and recommended by Sophos - btw:
They offer sget.exe which works similar to Url2file. However, your
batch does not care about the installed release of Sweep, so you have
to care about the exact date when Sophos switches ides.exe's content
to that of the newest version. Sweep Update will determine the
installed version and download the specific IDEs for this version. It
contains information about the releasedates as far as Sophos documents
them on their webpage in advance and remind the user that there is a
new version, but continue to download the corresponding IDEs for the
installed version as long as Sophos offers updates for it.

Not every company offers their users the latest version the moment
they receive it from Sophos or download it with EM.

Bye,

Detlev
 
Not every company offers their users the latest version the moment
they receive it from Sophos or download it with EM.

Bye,

Detlev
Click to expand...

My company is implementing a system so whenever I log into my work
email, (even from home through web access) it will let me download the
new AV engine from our work fileserver

Handy, knowing the IT manager fairly well
 
What my company does is send me an email every month with a password
(changes every time) incorporated into a URL to their AV downoad page in the
internet. This allows me to download the update file and which I then have
to run like I was using the CD-ROM. The file is typically 14 or 15 MB but as
I have ADSL that's no problem to me. Ask your company if they provide a
similar service.

There apparently are two ways to automatically update Sophos; RU Tools and
SAVAdmin. I'm not sure about the difference between them nor have I managed
to understand how to set up automatic updating inside my home LAN where a
number of family members' machines now monthly require my personal
attention. The LAN consists of W98SE peer to peer networked PC's and a
laptop. Any helpfull suggestions appreciated!
Click to expand...
Paul, if you want to install only once per month, you need one machine
that is always turned on and able to act as a server. This machine
holds a shared folder with the installation ressource, called a "CID"
by Sophos.

There is a comprehensive guide for this at

http://www.sophos.com/sophos/docs/eng/instguid/95_ien.pdf

RemoteUpdate is for Users with Internetaccess to a CID on the
company's webserver, and SAVADMIN works best in a domain environment
with NT/2000/XP on the clients. If you don't want to have one machine
running all the time, you can install the program once per month on
each machine and keep them current with Sweep Update from
http://home.htp-tel.de/drackow , but this would require Internetaccess
from every machine. It does not produce much traffic, because the
zipped IDEs are typically about 20KB large.

Bye,

Detlev
 
My company is implementing a system so whenever I log into my work
email, (even from home through web access) it will let me download the
new AV engine from our work fileserver

Handy, knowing the IT manager fairly well
Click to expand...

This is great in your case, however there are lots of people who do
not get that much attention from the IT-staff at work. For them, using
Sweep Update is an easy and intuitive way.

Btw: I'm not unhappy with my IT-staff at work, I'm part of it :-)
Therefore, I care about a userfriedly way to keep Sophos current at
home.

Bye,

Detlev
 
This is great in your case, however there are lots of people who do
not get that much attention from the IT-staff at work. For them, using
Sweep Update is an easy and intuitive way.

Btw: I'm not unhappy with my IT-staff at work, I'm part of it :-)
Therefore, I care about a userfriedly way to keep Sophos current at
home.

Bye,

Detlev
Click to expand...

My way is fairly user friendly - as I understand it, you can update
using my methods for around 3 months, before worrying about a new
engine - Sophos guarantee that the ide files work for a quarter year -
I think !

cheers
 
Alastair Smeaton said:
My way is fairly user friendly - as I understand it, you can update
using my methods for around 3 months, before worrying about a new
engine - Sophos guarantee that the ide files work for a quarter year -
I think !
Click to expand...

They provide updates for the last three releases of Sweep, but they
provide them in different archives for each month. ides.zip or .exe
contains only the signatures missing in the current CD-release,
webides.zip those for the current downloadable release, and
xxx_ides.zip for Version x.xx.

If you download ides.zip for an older version, some IDEs will be
missing.

Sweep Update gets the installed version from the registry and
downloads xxx_ides.zip for the installed version with two mouseclicks
- the first starts the program, then another click on the only button
in the program's window starts the download.

Bye,

Detlev
 
Detlev Rackow said:
Paul, if you want to install only once per month, you need one machine
that is always turned on and able to act as a server. This machine
holds a shared folder with the installation ressource, called a "CID"
by Sophos.

There is a comprehensive guide for this at

http://www.sophos.com/sophos/docs/eng/instguid/95_ien.pdf

RemoteUpdate is for Users with Internetaccess to a CID on the
company's webserver, and SAVADMIN works best in a domain environment
with NT/2000/XP on the clients. If you don't want to have one machine
running all the time, you can install the program once per month on
each machine and keep them current with Sweep Update from
http://home.htp-tel.de/drackow , but this would require Internetaccess
from every machine. It does not produce much traffic, because the
zipped IDEs are typically about 20KB large.

Bye,

Detlev
Click to expand...

You really should check Sophos Enterprise Manager, which is composed
of EM Library, RemoteUpdate, SAVAdmin and EM Reporter. EM Library
automatically downloads the Sophos Engine monthly (or whenever there
is an update), same for the IDE's (Identity files). Once installed EM
Library, you can forget about the AV; it works smooooooth and quiet!!
 
You really should check Sophos Enterprise Manager, which is composed
of EM Library, RemoteUpdate, SAVAdmin and EM Reporter. EM Library
automatically downloads the Sophos Engine monthly (or whenever there
is an update), same for the IDE's (Identity files). Once installed EM
Library, you can forget about the AV; it works smooooooth and quiet!!
Click to expand...

That is true, but the license does not allow for a home-based
EM-Installation. The company has to set up the web-accessible CID on a
public webserver.

Bye,

Detlev
 
In
Detlev Rackow said:
That is true, but the license does not allow for a home-based
EM-Installation. The company has to set up the web-accessible CID
on a public webserver.
Click to expand...

EM Library isn't designed for home use, which is why the license doesn't
allow for it. You can purchase a license and use it at home though. Also,
it's not a difficult task to publish a couple of directories on your public
webserver.

Steve :)
--
 
Obviously. Their company should have to install EM Library on one of
their servers, and then, he could use RemoteUpdate. That's the only
thing he needs.
 
Obviously. Their company should have to install EM Library on one of
their servers, and then, he could use RemoteUpdate. That's the only
thing he needs.
Click to expand...
Not every company wants to do this - installing EM in such a way as to
update a publicly available Webserver requires access from EM into the
demilitarized zone, and for licensing reasons, the folder on the
website should be passwordprotected as well. These things can be
solved, but these days, admins are chronically hardworking guys as
IT-budgets are under pressure.

That's why I wrote sweep update :-)

Bye,

Detlev
 
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