buttercup

maintainer Wraient · 0 votes · scanned 2026-08-03 00:08:14.047287

MEDIUM

Why flagged This PKGBUILD has two real but non-malicious concerns: (1) It downloads a precompiled binary from GitHub releases with sha256sums='SKIP', meaning no integrity verification of the binary being installed to /usr/bin. The binary is from a small personal project (Wraient/buttercup) with no checksum pinning. (2) The build() step runs 'npm install -g webtorrent-cli' which installs an npm package globally into the system (outside $pkgdir), bypassing pacman's package management entirely. webtorrent-cli is a legitimate well-known package, but installing it globally via npm in build() is non-standard and leaves untracked files on the system. Neither pattern constitutes active malware/RCE/exfiltration, but the combination of an unverified binary + a global npm install that escapes pacman's control is a genuine medium-severity packaging concern. The pkgver() function also fetches from the GitHub API at build time, which is unusual but not malicious.

Triggered rules

MEDIUM npm/yarn/pnpm install of an undeclared external package npm_install_external

Runs `npm/yarn/pnpm install <package>` for a package not in source=(), pulling unpinned, unreviewed code at build time. Severity downgraded: the package declares/looks like a Node.js consumer, where build-time installs are expected.

PKGBUILD:22 npm install -g webtorrent-cli

MEDIUM AI review llm_review

An AI model (anthropic/claude-4.6-sonnet-20260217) reviewed this and agrees it is MEDIUM (confidence 82%): This PKGBUILD has two real but non-malicious concerns: (1) It downloads a precompiled binary from GitHub releases with sha256sums='SKIP', meaning no integrity verification of the binary being installed to /usr/bin. The binary is from a small personal project (Wraient/buttercup) with no checksum pinning. (2) The build() step runs 'npm install -g webtorrent-cli' which installs an npm package globally into the system (outside $pkgdir), bypassing pacman's package management entirely. webtorrent-cli is a legitimate well-known package, but installing it globally via npm in build() is non-standard and leaves untracked files on the system. Neither pattern constitutes active malware/RCE/exfiltration, but the combination of an unverified binary + a global npm install that escapes pacman's control is a genuine medium-severity packaging concern. The pkgver() function also fetches from the GitHub API at build time, which is unusual but not malicious.

PKGBUILD

1 offending line(s) highlighted

      1# Maintainer: Wraient <rushikeshwastaken@gmail.com>
    
      2pkgname='buttercup'
    
      3pkgver=1.1.0
    
      4pkgrel=2
    
      5pkgdesc="Watch TV Shows / Movies from torrent."
    
      6arch=("x86_64")
    
      7url="https://github.com/Wraient/buttercup"
    
      8license=('GPL')
    
      9depends=('mpv' 'rofi' 'npm')
    
      10source=("buttercup::https://github.com/Wraient/buttercup/releases/latest/download/buttercup")
    
      11sha256sums=('SKIP')
    
      12
    
      13pkgver() {
    
      14    # Fetch the latest release tag from GitHub and set it as pkgver
    
      15    local latest_release
    
      16    latest_release=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Wraient/buttercup/releases/latest | grep -Po '"tag_name": "\K.*?(?=")')
    
      17    echo "${latest_release#v}"
    
      18}
    
      19
    
      20build() {
    
      21    # Install webtorrent-cli globally via npm
    
      22    npm install -g webtorrent-cli
    
      23}
    
      24
    
      25package() {
    
      26    # Install the precompiled binary into /usr/bin
    
      27    install -Dm755 "$srcdir/buttercup" "$pkgdir/usr/bin/buttercup"
    
      28}
    
      29

Scan history

Scanned at (UTC)	Severity	Rules
2026-08-03 00:08:14	MEDIUM	2
2026-08-02 00:16:08	MEDIUM	2
2026-08-01 00:11:18	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-31 00:14:10	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-30 00:17:23	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-29 00:25:53	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-28 00:07:28	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-27 00:24:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-26 00:07:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-25 00:13:44	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-24 00:02:28	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-23 00:14:47	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-22 00:29:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-21 00:24:15	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-20 00:19:49	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-19 00:17:08	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-18 00:14:48	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-17 00:06:16	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-16 00:05:41	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-15 00:09:25	MEDIUM	2