Reading PKGBUILD won’t save you if you don’t read the code or if the PKGBUILD installs a prebuilt bin.
Same as Slackbuild or a third-party APT repository: you need to understand what a supply-chain attack is and do your duly work to prevent it, or stick with the consequences.
But if you read the PKGBUILD, you would see that it downloads and runs a black-box binary and should therefore not install it. It’s a little harder with PPAs I think. The build files are not so easily found.
And you can check the shasum of the binary to see if it actually matches that provided by the developers of the application.
A malicious PKGBUILD, which is what is being talked about, you would see that it downloads a binary that does not come from the developers and so you should not install that.
If the attack happens on the developers repo, not even Linux repository packages would be safe at that point (eg, the xz heist).
If the attack happens on the developers repo, not even Linux repository packages would be safe at that point
I figured this is the type of attack you were referring to, but then you say you yourself don’t really live by that safety measure.
I don’t either. I don’t have enough time, patience, or knowledge to check the source of everything I install to see if it suddenly has malware. That’s where I draw my line in the security sand. 😅
Reading PKGBUILD won’t save you if you don’t read the code or if the PKGBUILD installs a prebuilt bin. Same as Slackbuild or a third-party APT repository: you need to understand what a supply-chain attack is and do your duly work to prevent it, or stick with the consequences.
But if you read the PKGBUILD, you would see that it downloads and runs a black-box binary and should therefore not install it. It’s a little harder with PPAs I think. The build files are not so easily found.
You never ever install a -bin package from the AUR?
Rarely, but I check the PKGBUILD to see if the binary is what I expect it to be.
Yet, to quote:
And you can check the shasum of the binary to see if it actually matches that provided by the developers of the application.
A malicious PKGBUILD, which is what is being talked about, you would see that it downloads a binary that does not come from the developers and so you should not install that.
If the attack happens on the developers repo, not even Linux repository packages would be safe at that point (eg, the xz heist).
I figured this is the type of attack you were referring to, but then you say you yourself don’t really live by that safety measure.
I don’t either. I don’t have enough time, patience, or knowledge to check the source of everything I install to see if it suddenly has malware. That’s where I draw my line in the security sand. 😅