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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: iga on March 03, 2009, 11:07:47 PM

Title: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: iga on March 03, 2009, 11:07:47 PM
Hi guys

In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?

Any help?
Thanks!
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: DavidR on March 03, 2009, 11:23:09 PM
Why would you want to do that ?

It is just reading in historical data from a file, C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log\nshield.log, the last 10 entries in that log. You could empty it using notepad but you would first have to disable the self-defence module or that would block you.

You could also disable Logging in the Network Shield, Customize, Settings, but I thing that would be a mistake.

This information that is stored and displayed could help us to help you if you experience a problem and you would be saving very little is space is the motivating factor.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: Lisandro on March 03, 2009, 11:31:56 PM
Indeed, you can't remove the list... it would be a good thing to implement.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: DavidR on March 04, 2009, 12:06:55 AM
You can remove it if you wish (though I can't think of a reason why anyone would want to) by disabling logging in the network shield, no data is collected so no list.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: Lisandro on March 04, 2009, 12:32:08 AM
You can remove it if you wish (though I can't think of a reason why anyone would want to) by disabling logging in the network shield, no data is collected so no list.

The data already collected is not removed...
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: DavidR on March 04, 2009, 12:34:42 AM
Yes, then the option I gave previously of editing the log file is the way to go, but again I can't see why it is necessary.

But all our ping pong doesn't get us to why iga might want to do this though.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: Lisandro on March 04, 2009, 01:40:57 AM
I want because I want... configurability, housekeeping... I don't need more reasons.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: iga on March 04, 2009, 09:34:18 AM
As Tech was saying i just want to be able to
do some house cleaning if i wish too!

And i did try to delete from C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log\nshield.log

but i can not delete the log it will not let me and i did disable logging in the network shield
before i try to delete and also terminated network shield.

it's asking me to save the blank noteped in my documents but when i do that the log with the data
is still in C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\log\nshield.log.

It would be good if we could remove the data that is all ready there. Because the data already collected is not removed.

Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: alanrf on March 04, 2009, 10:04:01 AM
I think I understand the desire  ... I do not know your case but this is a less than 1Kb file on my system.  It seems (at least to me) this file is hardly worth considering.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: igor on March 04, 2009, 01:23:26 PM
The logs are open/locked when avast! is running.
So, you'd have to kill all the services (or boot into safe mode) to edit those files.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: RejZoR on March 04, 2009, 01:33:51 PM
It's just a log of blocked stuff by Network Shield. Unless you're getting hammered daily by attacks prevented by Network Shield it shouldn't really be a problem. I have around 10 lines in it and it accumulates 2KB of space. So even if you have 100 lines, that would still be around 20KB, 1.000 would be 200KB, 10.000 would still be just 2MB. With hard drives beyond even 50GB this means exactly nothing.
So stop worrying and enjoy your life a bit :P
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: Lisandro on March 04, 2009, 01:51:17 PM
The logs are open/locked when avast! is running.
So, you'd have to kill all the services (or boot into safe mode) to edit those files.
Man... like we need a bomb or torpedo to kill a fly... ::)

So stop worrying and enjoy your life a bit :P
We're not worried  :)
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: DavidR on March 04, 2009, 03:46:58 PM
The logs are open/locked when avast! is running.
So, you'd have to kill all the services (or boot into safe mode) to edit those files.
Man... like we need a bomb or torpedo to kill a fly... ::)

Well I disabled self-defence, used unlocker to break the locking by ashServ.exe that allowed me to rename the file drag it out of the log folder edit it and rename it and copied back into the avast4\data\log folder.  No need to boot into safe mode but a right palaver if you wanted to do it, which under normal circumstances I wouldn't.

I have lots of entries in the nshield.log, mainly checking out sites mentioned in the forums and that amounted to only 5KB. I chopped a lot out reducing that to 2KB a massive saving of 3KB barely less than one 4KB cluster on my NTFS formatted drive.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: Lisandro on March 04, 2009, 04:23:46 PM
Well I disabled self-defence, used unlocker to break the locking by ashServ.exe that allowed me to rename the file drag it out of the log folder edit it and rename it and copied back into the avast4\data\log folder.  No need to boot into safe mode but a right palaver if you wanted to do it, which under normal circumstances I wouldn't.
And would you call this housekeeping method a bomb or a torpedo? ;D

I have lots of entries in the nshield.log, mainly checking out sites mentioned in the forums and that amounted to only 5KB. I chopped a lot out reducing that to 2KB a massive saving of 3KB barely less than one 4KB cluster on my NTFS formatted drive.
Privacy could be another reason to have a way to get rid of them.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: DavidR on March 04, 2009, 04:32:31 PM
I wouldn't call it anything as I wouldn't do it for a small file, my only test was to see if it could be done without having to boot into safe mode, which is even more of a bombshell.

I'm not sure how this could be considered a privacy issue as invariably you weren't trying to access the sites that the network shield blocked. Since I have nothing to hide ;D as they say.
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: alanrf on March 05, 2009, 06:23:24 AM
Tech,

this is a crusade for a few Kb.  Yes, I think and I hope we all get your point (and support it) about flexibility and customer choice but for 2 or 3 kb, is this a crusade worth fighting? Would you not agree that this should be a low priority in the tasks for the avast team?
Title: Re: In Network Shield is there a way to Delete the Last Attacks log files?
Post by: Lisandro on March 05, 2009, 01:57:22 PM
this is a crusade for a few Kb. 
No, no, no...
I'm not fighting against disk space, c'mon...
It's about the way avast handle the logs, the user temporary files, the dump files... all of them placed inside of avast folder and can't be cleaned, deleted, etc. without disabling the self-defense module... avast log restriction (size) does not work for all logs (for instance, setup.log)... Housekeeping is very bad...