What is the Difference Between Full and Incremental Antivirus Updates?

Overview

When checking for new Antivirus updates manually or dynamically the type may show as an incremental or full update.

As long as the firewall is downloading and installing each antivirus version in order, then each new antivirus version shows as incremental.

If the firewall does not download and install a new antivirus version and later a check is performed in which there is an even newer version available, then the newest update will be a full update.

Details

Below is an example showing the behavior.

1. Dynamic Updates page before a "Check Now" was performed.

   

   Output from command line:

   admin@fw> request anti-virus upgrade info
   Version               Size          Released on Downloaded  Installed
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   932-1286              85MB 2013/01/24  17:46:10        yes   previous
   933-1289              30MB 2013/01/27  17:45:47        yes    current

2. Dynamic Updates page after a "Check Now" was performed.

   

   Output from command line:

   admin@fw> request anti-virus upgrade info
   Version               Size          Released on Downloaded  Installed
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   932-1286              85MB 2013/01/24  17:46:10        yes   previous
   934-1290              28MB 2013/01/28  17:28:00         no         no
   933-1289              30MB 2013/01/27  17:45:47        yes    current

    

   Notice 934-1290 is an incremental update on the web interface and the size of the file is relatively small from the command line output.

   Whether the update is incremental or full can be determined by the relative size of the update from this command.  The larger size is a full update.  The smaller size is an incremental update.

3. Dynamic Updates page after a "Check Now" was performed a day later without downloading and installing 934-1290.

   

   Output from command line:

   admin@fw> request anti-virus upgrade info
   Version               Size          Released on Downloaded  Installed
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   935-1291              98MB 2013/01/29  17:14:54         no         no
   932-1286              85MB 2013/01/24  17:46:10        yes   previous
   933-1289              30MB 2013/01/27  17:45:47        yes    current

    

   Notice 934-1290 was removed from the list and 935-1291 is showing as a full update.

owner: astanton