EduSweep Status Update [October 2018]

[bizzel]

Hi. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, I have some news for you.

 

EduSweep goes back a long way; it was the project that taught me C# development back in 2007/2008. While I've been working as an embedded software engineer, EduSweep has been sitting quietly in the corner of my filesystem. Now I plan to sharpen my C# and .NET skills once again, drawing on the added experience to deliver a much better application.

 

I've seen the forum threads requesting an installer download link and/or the signature bundle for the last public release (2.2) or for the unfinished beta (2.5). I don't have either of those available today because younger me had a somewhat loose definition of version control. However, I've been working away on the project for the past month doing rework, cleanup and maintenance. I rewrote a lot of the code without throwing everything out the window. Currently I anticipate that I will make a 2.6 release of EduSweep in November.

 

Is EduSweep as interesting to you folks as it once was? Honestly, I'm not sure, and I've been out of the IT field for a full decade. With that said, I feel like I should at least tie up some loose ends with a polished and feature-complete version. The desktop app development practice is reason enough right now for me to resurrect it. At the very least it will benefit from about six additional years of skill building!

 

Here are the take-away points:

• The project will have source code, downloads and issue tracking hosted on GitHub
  
• The source will be available as GPLv3 code
  
• EduSweep 2.6 has a rewritten scan engine (much faster, multithreaded), a portable app mode, Windows 8/10 compatibility and ClamAV integration. Plus all the improvements from the unreleased 2.5 beta.
  
• Signatures no longer depend on an update server (which is long gone). Instead they are bundled with the application installer.
  
• Custom signature creation is now built right into the application
  

 

There are certainly many, many other items in the changelog but I'll save that for when development is fully locked down. If you have any questions or comments then I am here to receive them.

Edited February 13, 2019 by bizzel

[bizzel]

I plan to open up the GitHub repository and documentation around the same time as the first beta version is ready - probably early December at this point.

 

In the meantime, here are a few screenshots showing some of the changes and new features. Thanks for the interest so far.

 

The overhauled main window:

 

Editing target directories in a scan task:

 

Selecting signatures to add to a task:

 

The quarantine manager:

 

Options for quarantine cleanup:

 

Integration with a ClamAV server (clamd):

Edited November 14, 2018 by bizzel

[DJ-1701]

Stupid question... what exactly is EduSweep?

[mikeprice]

Stupid question... what exactly is EduSweep?

 

What do you mean - you don't know what EduSweep is??

 

It is clearly the best friend of EduSooty

[bizzel]

Stupid question... what exactly is EduSweep?

 

Good question! I suppose that I should have added a stickied summary thread while I was going through and updating this sub-forum.

 

EduSweep is a tool for finding and removing unwanted files based on their extension, their name, or their content. You could achieve some of that using the Windows search tools but EduSweep adds the ability to do all three at once, to save repeatable scan tasks that target a collection of directories, to quickly target groups of files using signatures, to produce HTML reports, to quarantine and research suspect files, and to integrate with ClamAV for automatic virus scanning of detected files.

 

For example, you might decide that you want to search users’ home directories for executable files and scripts. With EduSweep you would create a scan task and add the relevant directories to it. You could then select from some built-in signatures (or create your own) that target file extensions related to scripts and executable files. Running the scan will produce a summary of the results and a formatted report (for evidence gathering) and from there you can quarantine or remove files directly.

 

Since the scan task is stored you can re-run it quickly whenever you like. I’m considering adding automation features so that scan tasks can run in the background, on a schedule, and you simply get a report generated at regular intervals which you later review and act upon - but that’s for the future.

Edited November 15, 2018 by bizzel