matlab-documentation

MEDIUM

maintainer vitaliikuzhdin 1 votes scanned 2026-09-17 00:27:14.276658

View on AUR

Why flagged

The PKGBUILD downloads a prebuilt ISO from mathworks.com (the official MathWorks vendor domain), so the host itself is legitimate. However, sha256sums=('SKIP') means there is no integrity verification of the downloaded ISO. More importantly, the package then executes a binary from inside that ISO (./mpm install-doc) during the build phase. Running an unverified binary from a downloaded image is a genuine supply-chain concern: if the ISO were tampered with in transit or the URL were redirected, arbitrary code would execute. The URL path (/doc-iso-${_release,,}-linux) is an unusual non-standard endpoint rather than a versioned release artifact, making it harder to independently verify. The combination of no checksum and execution of a downloaded binary justifies MEDIUM severity. The host being mathworks.com reduces but does not eliminate the risk since HTTPS without pinning and SKIP checksums still allows MITM or server-side substitution.

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:15 source=("${_pkgsrc}.iso::https://www.mathworks.com/doc-iso-${_release,,}-linux")

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 ISO from mathworks.com (the official MathWorks vendor domain), so the host itself is legitimate. However, sha256sums=('SKIP') means there is no integrity verification of the downloaded ISO. More importantly, the package then executes a binary from inside that ISO (./mpm install-doc) during the build phase. Running an unverified binary from a downloaded image is a genuine supply-chain concern: if the ISO were tampered with in transit or the URL were redirected, arbitrary code would execute. The URL path (/doc-iso-${_release,,}-linux) is an unusual non-standard endpoint rather than a versioned release artifact, making it harder to independently verify. The combination of no checksum and execution of a downloaded binary justifies MEDIUM severity. The host being mathworks.com reduces but does not eliminate the risk since HTTPS without pinning and SKIP checksums still allows MITM or server-side substitution.

PKGBUILD

1 offending line(s) highlighted

      1# Maintainer:  Vitalii Kuzhdin <vitaliikuzhdin@gmail.com>
    
      2
    
      3pkgname="matlab-documentation"
    
      4pkgver=R2025a+25.1.0.2934551
    
      5_release="${pkgver%%+*}"
    
      6_version="${pkgver##*+}"
    
      7pkgrel=1
    
      8epoch=1
    
      9pkgdesc="A high-level language for numerical computation and visualization (documentation)"
    
      10arch=('any')
    
      11url="https://www.mathworks.com/help/install/ug/install-documentation-on-offline-machines.html"
    
      12license=('custom:MATLAB EULA')
    
      13depends=("matlab-release=${_release}")
    
      14_pkgsrc="${pkgname}-${_release}"
    
      15source=("${_pkgsrc}.iso::https://www.mathworks.com/doc-iso-${_release,,}-linux")
    
      16sha256sums=('SKIP')
    
      17
    
      18prepare() {
    
      19  chmod -R ug+Xwr "${srcdir}"
    
      20}
    
      21
    
      22pkgver() {
    
      23  cd "${srcdir}"
    
      24  local rel ver
    
      25  rel="$(sed -n 's:.*<release>\(.*\)</release>.*:\1:p' VersionInfo.xml)"
    
      26  ver="$(sed -n 's:.*<version>\(.*\)</version>.*:\1:p' VersionInfo.xml)"
    
      27  echo "$rel+$ver"
    
      28}
    
      29
    
      30package() {
    
      31  cd "${srcdir}/bin/glnxa64"
    
      32  ./mpm install-doc --matlabroot="/opt/MATLAB/${_release}" --destination="${pkgdir}/opt/MATLAB/${_release}"
    
      33
    
      34  # cd "${pkgdir}"
    
      35  # find . -type f | while read -r filepath; do
    
      36  #   if [[ -e "${filepath#.}" ]]; then
    
      37  #     mv -v "$filepath" "$filepath.append"
    
      38  #   fi
    
      39  # done
    
      40}
    
      41

Scan history

Scanned at (UTC)	Severity	Rules
2026-09-17 00:27:14	Medium	2
2026-09-16 00:03:17	Medium	2
2026-09-15 00:25:31	Medium	2
2026-09-14 00:27:57	Medium	2
2026-09-13 00:19:54	Medium	2
2026-09-12 00:25:17	Medium	2
2026-09-11 00:19:22	Medium	2
2026-09-10 00:22:44	Medium	2
2026-09-09 00:04:09	Medium	2
2026-09-08 00:18:08	Medium	2
2026-09-07 00:30:15	Medium	2
2026-09-06 00:17:06	Medium	2
2026-09-05 00:16:27	Medium	2
2026-09-04 00:03:13	Medium	2
2026-09-03 00:15:47	Medium	2
2026-09-02 00:02:31	Medium	2
2026-09-01 00:11:19	Medium	2
2026-08-31 00:19:57	Medium	2
2026-08-30 00:04:14	Medium	2
2026-08-29 00:29:17	Medium	2