Release Date: 6/20/17
Q - We are thinking of installing McAfee End Point on the Elliott ERP server. Do you have any opinion about this anti-virus software?
A - Generally speaking, we don't recommend installing anti-virus software on the Elliott database server. Anti-virus software accounts for many support incidents involving Elliott Business Software not running. If you don't use your Elliott database (PSQL) server as a terminal server (which we don't recommend for security reasons), then the drawbacks of anti-virus software outweigh the benefits when it comes to the database server. There are actually many discussions on the Internet regarding why anti-virus software should not be installed on a database server.
On the other hand, we do recognize that anti-virus software is a necessary evil. It is necessary for regular desktops or any terminal servers. Any desktop that accesses email or is used to browse the Internet should be protected with anti-virus software. Unfortunately, there’s no way for us to support hundred of different anti-virus software on the market. Each one of them can make up their own rule to make Elliott not working.
In-house, we use Microsoft Windows Defender, which is free and comes with any Microsoft OS that is Windows 7 or higher. Over the past 10 years, Windows Defender functionality and reputation had grown. Our position is to recommend you to use Windows Defender as your anti-virus solution. Windows Defender is an anti-virus solution that we can support since we use it in-house. If it should have issue with Elliott, we would know with our in-house environment. We should be able to duplicate the issue and work with Microsoft to come up with a solution to address the problem. The bottom line is we can support Windows Defender. On the other hand, it is almost impossible for us to support hundred of other third party anti-virus software and each one of them can come up with their own unique rules.
If you do install anti-virus software on the database server, you should definitely do the following:
- White list the pervasive directories:
- PSQL 11 client will be installed in the following folders:
- 32-bit client: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pervasive Software\PSQL\bin
- 64-bit client: C:\Program Files\Pervasive Software\PSQL\bin
- PSQL 12 client will be installed in the following folders:
- 32-bit client: C:\Program Files (x86)\Actian\PSQL\bin
- 64-bit client: C:\Program Files\Actian\PSQL\bin
- White list the Elliott application executables and dlls in <ElliottRoot> and <ElliottRoot>\Bin folders.
- White list he Elliott data directories in <ElliottRoot>\DATA...etc.
Apply the same principle to your desktop and other servers where the anti-virus software is installed. After installing it, you should monitor it for the first couple weeks for any performance issue or errors, as you might need to white list additional directories/files.
EMK