Installing Sophos Protection for Linux in a distribution without systemd

I don't want/need to remove support for systemd. I just want to have the possibility to install Sophos Protection for Linux in the case of a distribution without systemd as in the case of Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux (legacy). There are plenty of Linux distributions  without systemd.

My problem that was solved only in the case of Sophos is the universal installer without depending on .deb or .rpm packages or the existence of a graphical interface.

I haven't found another alternative for many years that I can use apart from Sophos!

Raising this as a feature request is a good idea.

I have no idea who the Sophos account manager is or if I have such a thing, but if there is a way to add a feature request I'd like to do it.

I hope this doesn't involve too much bureaucracy, I'm not good at that sort of thing, I'm only good at the technical aspects as a network administrator.

I will only need some details on the specifics in your environment to submit this through. I've reached out to you via PM now.

Kushal, I too would like to again use Sophos for Linux without SystemD requirement.  I was using the SAV-Linux 9 for about three years, but it is now EOL and for my few stand-alone desktops that don't have SystemD I'm unable to use SAV-Linux and have moved instead to ClamAV, with additional signatures.  I'm active on LinuxQuestions, which is a primary board for general Linux questions, and posted that SAV-Linux is EOL for stand-alone desktops, is that correct?. 

I realize that Sophos is a for profit company, focused more on corporate environment.  However, does the company have some responsibility to give back to the non-corporate environment also?  Maybe as a charity effort and to keep the FOSS and GPL environments alive and well protected? 

Thanks for your consideration.  There are many Linux users who would gladly pay a reasonable (I think the old SAV-L was $45/yr) to have a small footprint, well tested product like SAV-L, but who aren't in a corporate environment.  Even small businesses migrating to Linux, to rid themselves of the MS WAAS mess, are targets.  Cheers, BrianA_MN

Thanks for the support my friend (LinuxQuestions I guess on the forum for Slackware). You expressed very well what I tried to say!

I would like to know who is the Sophos Account Manager for me? Also who is the regional Sales Engineer?
I don't know what is so hard to understand, I just want to know if the support for System V (SysV) init system will be introduced or not!
Any answer is good (yes/no), but I want to know how to make my future plans and whether to continue buying the Sophos product in March 2023 or not!
I cannot make the purchase decision without knowing if I will be able to use it in my case, for operating systems without systemd!

Thanks for the help.
It remains to return to Sophos products if the operating system for my servers will include support for systemd.

I too would like to know who my local or area rep and account manager are?  I'm a single home multi desktop environment.  I had a paid license, but was never given a contact name, simply with SAV for Linux 9 that I would have to use the forums for support.  So here we are and we'd really like to know if SAV for Linux  and SAV for Unix are going to be supported going forward on environments where SystemD is not available?  I much prefer Sophos over ClamAV, which is designed fro mail servers not for individual desktops.   And since the list of Linux/UNIX/BSD anti-malware is getting smaller everyday the answer to the question really shouldn't be that hard to get.  Does Sophos abandon the standalone, non-corporate user, or support them?  Since SAV-Linux's latest version requires access to Central Server I might impute that the answer is Sophos is not interested in stand-a-lone desktops, only the corporate environment.  I don't plan to change my post on Linux Questions from what it is now, i.e. that Sophos no longer is supporting the Lilnux platform in non-corporate environments or without SystemD.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.  I really hope I'm wrong.

I received a reply privately that there are no plans in the Sophos product roadmaps to add support for distributions without systemd.
The only solution, but I think that in the short term, is the maintenance in the life cycle for Sophos Antivirus for Linux, which now has a deadline of July 20, 2023.

Thanks for the update.  It is very unforunate that Sophos has decided to only support SystemD Linux..  It is also unforunate that they have decided to only supoprt corporate installations.   I understand the corporate financial mind, to focus and support the corporate environment, because that is where the most financial reward for efforts is available.  But there are ten of thousands of Linux installations which are home and small business where the large corporate server isn't available also.  I have moved on to ClamAV, which is doing its best for my standalone system.  I'm probably going to investigate further how to get ClamAV to scan on access, in the meantime it will be scan all downloads first.

Well, with a bit of luck I came across IKARUS scan.server while looking for a solution for Squid eCAP.
It integrates very easily into Amavis and Securepoint/squid-ecap-av for SQUID and therefore can replace Sophos for operating systems without systemd.

The only problem is the price/year:
Sophos - $100
IKARUS scan.server - $850
with the mention that IKARUS is a professional Anti-Malware SDK and APIs for integration in any systems and environments and Sophos is just an antivirus.

Some news regarding the addition of support for System V (SysV) init system?
I noticed that the installation script (SophosSetup.sh) no longer gives an error due to the lack of systemctl, but the final installation fails because it cannot start the necessary services through systemd. The Sophos users created in the installation process still remain, even if it still fails and must be deleted manually.
I ask this because my license expires in March 2024 and it seems that I will have to give up Sophos after many years of successfully using the only commercial antivirus used on my servers.