Clamav stops in /var/log

[Les Mikesell]

On Sat, 2006-01-14 at 04:58, George Hare wrote:
> Would anyone know why Clamav ran through almost my entire file system
> (FC4 64) for over an hour, just to freeze in the middle of /var/log?
> Maybe they are too bloated...can I delete what is in /var/log without
> damaging anything? Appreciate any thoughts or advice.

/var/log/lastlog is a 'sparse' dbm file that appears to be over a
terrabyte in size as a side effect of the user id number chosen
for nfsnobody on x86_64 boxes. Disk space isn't really allocated
for sparse files but programs that don't understand the sparse
concept (most of them...) go though the motions of reading
the whole thing - and if they copy it, they do use the space.
Other than being a good way to test how your backup scheme
handles (or fails to handle) sparse files, this setup seems
like a really bad idea, especially given that gdbm has been
around for ages and does the same thing without needing sparse
files.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell at gmail.com