Anti-virus Scan Exclusions

Anti-virus products can cause problems with Geo SCADA Expert unless certain file exclusions have been configured.

You can exclude certain files from anti-virus software to prevent unnecessary scanning of files and/or network traffic that degrades Geo SCADA Expert performance.

Consider excluding the following files:

• Files or directories that can be executed from real-time scanning
• Application names or services if they access network resources
• All TCP/IP and UDP port numbers that are used by ViewX, Virtual ViewX, or Original WebX.

  For information about TCP and UDP port numbers that are registered with the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) for particular protocols, see the relevant driver-specific guide in Geo SCADA Expert online Help.

The 'on access' scan in anti-virus products can lock files used by Geo SCADA Expert, usually having the effect of slowing down Geo SCADA Expert whilst it waits for the scan of that file to finish.

If an anti-virus program locks a database file whilst it is being written to, then after retries, it can cause the Geo SCADA Expert server to enter the invalid state with an error stating the inability to write to the database file. Use a suitable utility such as Process Monitor from Sysinternals to locate the processes that are accessing these files.

Archive times can be drastically improved by reducing occurrences of anti-virus products scanning each file it creates and reads.

We recommend adding the following files and general directories to any anti-virus products. The names of the directories listed below are the default names - different names might be used on your system. To locate the specific directories that are used on your system (other than for the installation files mentioned below), see the Location section within the System Configuration branch of the Server Configuration Tool (see Locations of the Database Folders).

• ClearSCADA installation (x64) directory (on 64-bit operating systems) (see Windows 64-Bit File Locations)
• The ClearSCADAMetadata.xml file (which is stored in the root Database directory by default)
• Config directory (including the ClearSCADAConfig*.dat files and any temp files that are in the directory)
• Data directory (including the ClearSCADAData*.dat files and any temp files that are in the directory)
• History directory (including files and subdirectories)
• Journal directory (including files and subdirectories)
• HisFiles directory (including files and subdirectories)
• DataFiles directory (including files and subdirectories)
• The ClearSCADAArchive.dat file (also known as the Archive Index) (this file is stored in the root Database directory by default)
• AlarmSummary directory (including files and subdirectories)
• ConfigChanges directory (including files and subdirectories)
• UpgradeDatabaseBackup directory (including files and subdirectories).

Archive Volumes

Where archiving is concerned, you might also want to apply anti-virus exclusions to the directory (including files and subdirectories) where the archives themselves are stored. These are defined by the individual Archive database items. However, given that archiving is designed for use with removable storage (such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray discs) then excluding a removable drive might be an unacceptable security risk, as any disc could be inserted into such a drive.

The directories that are created on the archive volume have these fixed names:

• EventJournal

• AlarmSummary

• ConfigChanges

• For historic data, each aggregate has its own directory, named using the following syntax:

  <AggregateName> <######>

  where ###### is the database item's unique ID.

   

  On an archive volume, the directories that contain historic data might have names such as:

  • Historic 000077

  • High1ProfileHistoric 000762

  • Low1ProfileHistoric 000762

As an alternative to applying anti-virus exclusions to the directories themselves, you could consider just applying anti-virus exclusions to the following file types:

*.MWJ, *.CCS, *.ALS, *.HRD, *.HSD

Where:

*.MWJ = Event Journal files

*.CCS = Configuration Change files

*.ALS = Alarm Summary files

*.HRD = Historic Raw Data files

*.HSD = Historic Suppression Data files.

If your anti-virus product does not support wildcards in exclusions, given that the historic data is likely to be spread over thousands of directories, it will not be viable to set up an exclusion for each directory individually. Therefore, consider adding the parent directory and its subdirectories to the exclusion list (although this might well comprise the entire drive). Alternatively, do not have any exclusions and allow for longer archives durations.