fastx-desktop-client

maintainer simon42 · 2 votes · scanned 2026-08-03 00:08:14.047287

MEDIUM

Why flagged The PKGBUILD downloads a prebuilt binary tarball from starnet.com/files/private/ — this is the official vendor (StarNet Communications, a legitimate commercial X11/remote-desktop software company) distributing their FastX3 desktop client. The 'private' path segment is simply their URL structure for distributing proprietary software downloads, not an indication of a compromised or unofficial host. The sha256sum is pinned, so the artifact is verifiable at download time. However, the package installs a prebuilt proprietary binary bundle into /opt and symlinks executables into /usr/bin — this is a real supply-chain concern in the sense that users are trusting StarNet's binary distribution entirely, with no source build. This is a standard pattern for proprietary AUR packages (like zoom, slack-desktop, etc.) and is not unusual or malicious. The risk is the inherent trust placed in a closed-source vendor binary, which is a medium-level concern by AUR standards but not an active attack or obfuscated payload. Downgrading slightly from the cheaper model's assessment: this is a legitimate vendor binary with a pinned checksum, making it closer to clean/low for an AUR proprietary package, but the prebuilt binary execution from a vendor host with no source verification beyond sha256 keeps it at medium.

Triggered rules

MEDIUM source=() URL on a non-standard host source_untrusted_domain

One or more source=() URLs point to a host outside the trusted allowlist (github.com, gitlab.com, codeberg.org, pypi.org, …).

PKGBUILD:17 "https://www.starnet.com/files/private/FastX3/FastX3-$pkgver.rhel7.$CARCH.tar.gz")

MEDIUM AI review llm_review

An AI model (anthropic/claude-4.6-sonnet-20260217) reviewed this and agrees it is MEDIUM (confidence 72%): The PKGBUILD downloads a prebuilt binary tarball from starnet.com/files/private/ — this is the official vendor (StarNet Communications, a legitimate commercial X11/remote-desktop software company) distributing their FastX3 desktop client. The 'private' path segment is simply their URL structure for distributing proprietary software downloads, not an indication of a compromised or unofficial host. The sha256sum is pinned, so the artifact is verifiable at download time. However, the package installs a prebuilt proprietary binary bundle into /opt and symlinks executables into /usr/bin — this is a real supply-chain concern in the sense that users are trusting StarNet's binary distribution entirely, with no source build. This is a standard pattern for proprietary AUR packages (like zoom, slack-desktop, etc.) and is not unusual or malicious. The risk is the inherent trust placed in a closed-source vendor binary, which is a medium-level concern by AUR standards but not an active attack or obfuscated payload. Downgrading slightly from the cheaper model's assessment: this is a legitimate vendor binary with a pinned checksum, making it closer to clean/low for an AUR proprietary package, but the prebuilt binary execution from a vendor host with no source verification beyond sha256 keeps it at medium.

PKGBUILD

1 offending line(s) highlighted

      1# Maintainer: Simon <aur at simon42 dot net>
    
      2
    
      3pkgname=fastx-desktop-client
    
      4pkgver=3.2.32
    
      5pkgrel=1
    
      6pkgdesc="Client to connect to StarNet FastX servers"
    
      7arch=('x86_64')
    
      8url="https://www.starnet.com/fastx/"
    
      9license=('custom')
    
      10depends=('brotli' 'bzip2' 'expat' 'freetype2' 'harfbuzz' 'keyutils' 'libglvnd' 'libgpg-error'
    
      11         'libpng' 'libx11' 'libxau' 'libxcb' 'libxdmcp' 'pcre' 'pcre2' 'qt5-svg' 'qt5-webengine'
    
      12         'qt5-websockets' 'qt5-x11extras')
    
      13provides=('FastX3' 'fastxcli')
    
      14options=('!strip')
    
      15
    
      16source=("fastx.desktop"
    
      17        "https://www.starnet.com/files/private/FastX3/FastX3-$pkgver.rhel7.$CARCH.tar.gz")
    
      18sha256sums=('530ccaeaeb97d0a2946f9d18219d2ed6b62d8ae40584c4f465b149760cd615d0'
    
      19            'cf115660e7ba653eba73b4a80e8c34fcff5e59d51ffa1a0c4eed42f2b1084afb')
    
      20
    
      21package() {
    
      22    # Copy FastX client and libraries to proper location
    
      23    mkdir -p "${pkgdir}/opt"
    
      24    cp -dpr --no-preserve=ownership "${srcdir}/FastX3" "${pkgdir}/opt"
    
      25
    
      26    # Symlink FastX client and CLI located in /opt
    
      27    mkdir -p "${pkgdir}/usr/bin"
    
      28    ln -sf /opt/FastX3/FastX3 "${pkgdir}/usr/bin/FastX3"
    
      29    ln -sf /opt/FastX3/fastxcli "${pkgdir}/usr/bin/fastxcli"
    
      30
    
      31    # Install starter
    
      32    install -Dm644 "${srcdir}/fastx.desktop" "${pkgdir}/usr/share/applications/fastx.desktop"
    
      33}
    
      34

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