How To Install Linux Malware Detect on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Linux Malware Detect on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Linux Malware Detect (LMD), also known as maldet, is a malware scanner designed specifically for Linux environments. It is particularly effective in shared-hosted environments, where threats are often unique and varied. LMD uses threat data from network edge intrusion detection systems to extract malware actively used in attacks and generate signatures for detection. It also incorporates user submissions and data from malware community resources to enhance its detection capabilities.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Linux Malware Detect on Ubuntu 22.04. You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• Access the terminal on your Ubuntu system, where we’ll execute the commands for a seamless Linux Malware Detect installation.
• An active internet connection. You’ll need an internet connection to download the necessary packages and dependencies for Linux Malware Detect.
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Linux Malware Detect on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish

Step 1.  First, update and upgrade your server to ensure that all packages are up-to-date. You can do this by running the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing Linux Malware Detect on Ubuntu 22.04.

Change your current working directory to a suitable location, such as /tmp, and download the latest LMD package using wget:

cd /tmp
wget http://www.rfxn.com/downloads/maldetect-current.tar.gz

Extract the downloaded tar.gz file:

tar -xvf maldetect-current.tar.gz

This will create a new directory with a name similar to ‘maldetect-1.6.4‘. Navigate into this directory:

cd maldetect-1.6.4

Inside the directory, you will find an installation script named ‘install.sh‘. Run this script to install LMD:

./install.sh

Upon successful installation, LMD will be installed to /usr/local/maldetect

Step 3. Configuring Linux Malware Detect (LMD).

After installation, you need to configure LMD for optimal performance. The configuration file is located at /usr/local/maldetect/conf.maldet.

Open the configuration file using a text editor of your choice. For instance, you can use nano:

nano /usr/local/maldetect/conf.maldet

Inside the configuration file, you can customize various settings according to your needs. For instance, you can set the ‘quarantine_clean‘ value to ‘1‘ to automatically clean detected malware.

Step 4. Using Linux Malware Detect.

With installation and configuration completed, Linux Malware Detect can now be leveraged to actively scan for malware threats. Here are some common usage examples:

• Run manual scan

maldet -a /home

• Schedule daily scans

echo "0 12 * * * maldet -a /" > /etc/cron.d/maldet-cron

• Monitor directory changes

maldet --monitor /home

• List quarantined files

maldet -l

• Restore quarantined file

maldet -w -i QUARANTINE_ID

• Update signatures

maldet -u

Congratulations! You have successfully installed LMD. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Linux Malware Detect on the Ubuntu system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Linux Malware Detect website.