Operation Principles

Dr.Web Network Checker allows to establish connection between one workstation and a set of other workstations which have <%SHRT_LIN%> installed on them. This will provide for a distributed file scanning. To create and configure a "scanning cluster", the component runs an instance of the distributed scanning agent Dr.Web Network Checker on each workstation that is to be included in the cluster.

On each of the workstations within the cluster, Dr.Web Network Checker enables automatic distribution of scanning tasks by sending all available workstations data to scan. At that, the agent balances the load caused by file scanning. The load balancing is based on the amount of available resources (that is, the number of child scanning processes of Dr.Web Scanning Engine on the workstation). The agent also considers the queue of files waiting for scanning. Data received for scanning over the network are transmitted to the scanning engine Dr.Web Scanning Engine, as it is shown in the picture below.

Picture 1. Component operation scheme

Any workstation within a "scanning cluster" can be both a client sending files for scanning and a server receiving files for scanning from other workstations. If required, Doctor Web agent for distributed scanning can be configured so as to assign a workstation only one role and set it to perform either the functions of the server or the functions of the scanning client.

On a local workstation, scanning can be started both at user's command specified via the command-line management tool and at requests received from some product components, for example, Dr.Web ClamD component, which provides the interface of clamd daemon included in ClamAV®. That is why the scheme contains an abstract "Client scanning module".