Quarantine System - arlotalkington/Virus-Be-Gone GitHub Wiki

Virus Be Gone Wiki: Quarantine System

What is Quarantine?

Quarantine is a safety net for files that Virus Be Gone detects as suspicious or infected. Instead of deleting them right away—which can sometimes cause problems if the detection was a false positive—Virus Be Gone moves these files to a special Quarantine folder. There, they’re isolated and can’t harm your system, but you can still review, restore, or delete them later.

How Does Quarantine Work?

  1. Detection: When the scanner finds a file matching a virus signature, it flags it.

  2. Move to Quarantine: Instead of deleting, Virus Be Gone moves the infected file to the quarantine directory (quarantine/ folder inside the program directory).

  3. Log Entry: The action is logged in the quarantine log file, keeping track of when and what was quarantined.

  4. User Control: You can review quarantined files, restore safe ones, or permanently delete dangerous ones.

Quarantine Folder Location

By default, Virus Be Gone stores quarantined files here: <virus_be_gone_root>/quarantine/

Each quarantined file is renamed to avoid conflicts and includes metadata for tracking.

How to Use Quarantine

Viewing Quarantined Files

Run the Virus Be Gone command-line interface and type:

quarantines

This will display all quarantined files, along with info like:

Original file path

Date quarantined

Threat detected

Restoring a File

If you believe a file was flagged incorrectly, you can restore it:

restore <quarantine_file>

This moves the file back to its original location.

Permanently Deleting a File

To delete a quarantined file permanently:

delete <quarantine_file>

or

delete --all

Be careful—this cannot be undone.

Tips & Best Practices Regularly check quarantine so you don’t forget files piling up.

Backup important files before restoring, just in case.

Stay updated with Virus Be Gone signatures to reduce false positives.

Behind the Scenes: How It’s Implemented

Uses file system permissions to restrict access, preventing accidental execution.

Integrated into scanning routines: quarantining happens automatically when a match is found, based on your scan mode and settings.

Troubleshooting

If quarantine folder is missing or inaccessible, check permissions.

If restoring a file fails, verify the original directory still exists.

If you suspect Virus Be Gone quarantined a false positive, report it to the dev team!