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TranscriptImage of a man pointing a gun at his own foot.

Caption: Installing an AUR package without reading it's PKGBUILD.

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[-] call_me_xale@lemmy.zip 34 points 22 hours ago

I usually do, but I don't really know what I should be looking for. What are some red flags?

[-] akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone 44 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

This video taught me a lot.

Check the list of dependencies. If you really want to vet the package, look through all of the dependencies listed and read their package descriptions on their source page (github, gitlab, codeberg, whathaveyou). Check also the URL, from which makepkg (or yay or whatever) is going to pull some of the data. Is the URL legit?

PKGBUILD of localsend

# Maintainer: NourEddineX  
# Contributor: Nixuge  
# Contributor: Noah Vogt <noah@noahvogt.com>  
# Contributor: SpieringsAE (aarch64 addition)  

# Note: 
# using the .deb instead of the .tar.gz as it already contains the icons as well as the .desktop file.  

pkgname=localsend-bin  
pkgver=1.18.0  
pkgrel=1  
pkgdesc='An open source cross-platform alternative to AirDrop'  

LOOK HERE  
url=https://github.com/localsend/LOCALSEND  
LOOK HERE  

arch=('x86_64' 'aarch64')  
license=(Apache-2.0)  

LOOK HERE  
depends=(fuse2 xdg-user-dirs libayatana-appindicator)  
LOOK HERE  

conflicts=('localsend')  
provides=('localsend')  
options=(!debug)  
source_x86_64=("${url}/releases/download/v${pkgver}/LocalSend-${pkgver}-linux-x86-64.deb")  
source_aarch64=("${url}/releases/download/v${pkgver}/LocalSend-${pkgver}-linux-arm-64.deb")  
sha256sums_x86_64=('dae68192ad43a59a68df06454eb5fa4e9a9f86a343fe430165efd8b18863d0f4')  
sha256sums_aarch64=('eb24e724fbdf830c8fb07dfc66b76b8a649923d083278305a63d5d539db4b606')  
_pkgdesktop="localsend_app.desktop"  


prepare() {  
	tar -xf data.tar.zst  
}  

build() {  
	sed -i -E \  
		"s|Exec=localsend_app|Exec=localsend|" \  
		"${srcdir}/usr/share/applications/${_pkgdesktop}"  

	# Adjust .desktop to have it point to the correct icon  
	sed -i -E 's/^Icon=.+/Icon=localsend/' "${srcdir}/usr/share/applications/${_pkgdesktop}"  
}  

package() {  
	# Desktop  
	install -Dm644 "${srcdir}/usr/share/applications/${_pkgdesktop}" "${pkgdir}/usr/share/applications/${pkgname%-*}.desktop" 
	

	# Icons  
	install -dm644 "${pkgdir}/usr/share/icons/"  
	cp -a "${srcdir}/usr/share/icons" "${pkgdir}/usr/share"  
	# Dirty - rename icons to localsend  
	for res in "128x128" "256x256"; do  
		mv "${pkgdir}/usr/share/icons/hicolor/${res}/apps/localsend_app.png" "${pkgdir}/usr/share/icons/hicolor/${res}/apps/localsend.png"  
	done  


	# Executable  
	install -dm755 "${pkgdir}/opt/${pkgname%-*}/"  
	cp -a "${srcdir}/opt/localsend_app/." "${pkgdir}/opt/${pkgname%-*}"  
	# Same as icons - rename to localsend  
	mv "${pkgdir}/opt/${pkgname%-*}/localsend_app" "${pkgdir}/opt/${pkgname%-*}/localsend"  

	# Symlink executable  
	install -dm755 "${pkgdir}/usr/bin"  
	ln -s \  
		"/opt/${pkgname%-*}/${pkgname%-*}" \  
		"${pkgdir}/usr/bin/${pkgname%-*}"  
}  

[-] Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Yeah. There's also some others behaviours to look at.

Like, does the PKGBUILD install the package on some non-standard location? That's a suspicious behaviour, although it's not an automatic red flag by itself.

Does it execute arbitrary code or any external script (worse if it's Python, Lua or JS)? That's a HUGE red flag in most of cases.

Does it (ab)uses of AWK, sed and the like? That's also suspicious in a variety of cases.

[-] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I don't mean this in any mean way, but if you don't know what you should be looking for, you probably shouldn't install AUR packages. Just as I wouldn't recommend someone who has never climbed a mountain to try mt everest.

You need to be able to understand the build process before you install anything from the AUR. Everything else is the equivalent of installing random exe's you found on a forum on windows.

Luckily, there's a lot of different videos online regarding the AUR build process, and the archwiki has an excellent article aswell.

[-] call_me_xale@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 hours ago

To be clear, I have like... three? extremely popular AURs installed - I'm definitely not in the habit of grabbing random stuff.

[-] Malix@sopuli.xyz 26 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

as the other commenter said, but worth echoing:

  • is it suddenly using npm to install/run something? (iirc this was the attack vector for most packages that were infected)
  • suddenly added some weird extra wget/curl/whatever to packaging methods to fetch something weird?
  • are the package's sources (eg. github urls) legit?

Generally you should be aware of who'se software you're installing -> check if it's downloading the stuff from right place, and nothing extra. The PKGBUILD changes in the aur website are pretty good indicator if something has changed and how.

edit: npm itself, or it's usage isn't bad - but it is quite suspicious if the AUR package isn't for some webapp or so.

[-] dwt@feddit.org 12 points 21 hours ago

I think that the whole concept of sharing user repos to install packages is sadly not really good anymore. Because now it suddenly exposes that there is usually neither a trust anchor to that repo, nor an established review and fix process for such things.

Iโ€˜d say, just use the community maintained official package sources for now.

[-] First_Thunder@lemmy.zip 13 points 22 hours ago

Suddenly an npm command to some random package appearing in an update

[-] lung@lemmy.world -5 points 21 hours ago

Get AI to read it, it'll be 90% good enough

[-] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 6 points 20 hours ago

That might work until they realize people are doing it and then just add the right circumventions. After all I can test my exploit and see if Claude or Gemini can find it, and polish it until they don't.

[-] xylol@leminal.space 5 points 16 hours ago

Ask ai how to hide it from ai

this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
347 points (97.5% liked)

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