McAfee VIRUSSCAN 4.5 -, Administrator'S Manual

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Updating and Upgrading VirusScan Software
108 McAfee VirusScan Anti-Virus Software
• Emergency .DAT files . VirusScan software includes an Emergency Disk
utility you can use to create a bootable floppy disk to start your computer
in a virus-free environment. The Emergency Disk you create uses
specialized .DAT files that target boot-sector and memory-resident viruses,
which pose the greatest infection risk to software if they activate before
your anti-virus software can. McAfee provides updates for these files that
you can download directly from the AVERT website at:
http://www.mcafeeb2b.com/asp_set/anti_virus/avert/tools.asp
McAfee recommends that you download these files directly to a virus-free
computer, then extract them to an Emergency Disk you’ve created. To learn
more about creating an Emergency Disk, see
“Using the Emergency Disk
Creation utility” on page 47 . To learn how to use the Emergency Disk to
scan your system, see “If you suspect you have a virus...” on page 71 .
Understanding the AutoUpdate utility
The AutoUpdate utility is the principle method McAfee recommends that you
use to update your .DAT files. The utility runs exclusively as a task from
within the VirusScan Console. To use it to update your VirusScan software,
you must:
• Set a schedule for the AutoUpdate task, and enable it to run
• Set a password to protect your configuration settings, if you wish
• Configure the task to download new files from a specific location on your
network, or on the Internet
By default, the AutoUpdate task included with VirusScan Console comes
configured to download the most recent .DAT file updates directly from the
Network Associates FTP site. This configuration can make administration
simple and straightforward for small networks or individual VirusScan
installations. If you have a large network, however, retaining this
configuration can severely tax your external bandwidth if, as will happen if
you leave the default configuration enabled, each network node tries to
update its .DAT files at once.
Instead, McAfee recommends that you use AutoUpdate in conjunction with
its companion service, the Enterprise SecureCast channel, in an efficient
“push-pull” arrangement. Once you install its client software on an
administrative server, the SecureCast service can send, or “push,” updated
files to you automatically, as soon as McAfee makes them available on its
servers. To learn more about the SecureCast service, see
Appendix D, “Using
the SecureCast Service to Get New Data Files” or visit the McAfee website at:
http://www.mcafeeb2b.com/asp_set/anti_virus/securecast/enterprise.asp