clamd

What it is and what it does

clamd is a lightweight Python wrapper around the ClamAV antivirus daemon, enabling you to send files and byte streams to a running clamd service for malware scanning. It communicates with the daemon via Unix sockets or TCP and returns scan results indicating whether threats were found. The package has no runtime dependencies and is designed to be portable across operating systems.

You use it by instantiating a connection object (Unix socket or TCP), then calling methods like scan(), instream(), ping(), and version() to interact with the daemon. It is not a standalone scanner—it requires you to install and run the ClamAV daemon separately on your system or network. The package is dormant, with no releases since 2014, so it may not be tested against recent ClamAV versions or Python releases.

Use it for:

• Integrate antivirus scanning into a web application to check uploaded files before storage or processing.
• Build a file monitoring service that scans new files in a directory for malware in real time.
• Add malware detection to a data pipeline or ETL process to quarantine suspicious content.
• Scan email attachments or downloaded files in a desktop application before user access.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

clamd is a Python interface to the ClamAV antivirus daemon, allowing you to scan files and streams for malware on Windows, Linux, macOS, and other platforms.

Yes, if you need a simple Python interface to ClamAV and can tolerate dormant maintenance. The package is lightweight, dependency-free, and works for basic scanning tasks. However, verify compatibility with your ClamAV daemon version and Python release first, and be aware that no active development means bugs or incompatibilities will not be fixed upstream.

Install

clamd on PyPI

pip install clamd

uv add clamd

poetry add clamd

Installing clamd

Before you install

Installation is straightforward with no runtime dependencies. However, the package is dormant—last release was 2014-08-21 and last commit 2024-01-04—so expect no active maintenance or updates.

License in practice

Released under LGPL (copyleft), which requires that derivative works and modifications remain under the same license; acceptable for most projects but review your own licensing obligations before use.

Quickstart

import clamd
cd = clamd.ClamdUnixSocket()
cd.ping()
cd.scan('/path/to/file')

Requires a running ClamAV daemon (clamd) to be installed and started separately on the system; the Python module is only a client interface.

Verify before relying

• Whether the package works reliably with modern ClamAV daemon versions given the last release was 2014.
• Current Python version compatibility (requires_python is unspecified in the fact sheet).
• Whether Unix socket and TCP connection modes both remain functional.

Package facts

Evidence: clamd-1.0.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Keywords: python, clamav, antivirus, scanner, virus, libclamav, clamd

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