Linux

6515 readers

1349 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system

Also check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Ategon@programming.dev

anzo@programming.dev

dwraf_of_ignorance@programming.dev

280

Am in the only one who cringes at install instructions that require piping some curl output into bash? (programming.dev)

submitted 4 days ago by cschreib@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev

163 comments fedilink hide all child comments

curl https://some-url/ | sh

I see this all over the place nowadays, even in communities that, I would think, should be security conscious. How is that safe? What's stopping the downloaded script from wiping my home directory? If you use this, how can you feel comfortable?

I understand that we have the same problems with the installed application, even if it was downloaded and installed manually. But I feel the bar for making a mistake in a shell script is much lower than in whatever language the main application is written. Don't we have something better than "sh" for this? Something with less power to do harm?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 days ago

No, the point I am making is there are no additional security implications from executing a Bash script that someone sends you over executing a binary that they send you. I don't know how to make that clearer.