mcidasv-bin

maintainer Gaming4JC · 0 votes · scanned 2026-08-03 00:08:14.047287

MEDIUM

Why flagged The PKGBUILD downloads and directly executes a prebuilt installer shell script (McIDAS-V_1.6_linux_x86-64_installer.sh) from ssec.wisc.edu during the package() phase. While ssec.wisc.edu is the official University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center domain (legitimate upstream), executing a downloaded binary installer script at build time is a genuine supply-chain concern: the script runs with whatever privileges makepkg uses, can do arbitrary things to the build system, and the sha512sum provided (which appears to be 127 hex chars — an odd length, valid sha512 is 128 hex chars, suggesting a possible truncation/typo in the checksum). The version mismatch is also notable: pkgver=2.5.0 but the source fetches version 1.6, indicating the PKGBUILD is stale/inconsistent. The combination of executing an opaque binary installer script plus a potentially malformed checksum keeps this at MEDIUM rather than clean, though there is no evidence of malicious intent.

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:11 source=("http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/software/v/stable/1.6/McIDAS-V_1.6_linux_x86-64_installer.sh")

MEDIUM AI review llm_review

An AI model (anthropic/claude-4.6-sonnet-20260217) reviewed this and agrees it is MEDIUM (confidence 78%): The PKGBUILD downloads and directly executes a prebuilt installer shell script (McIDAS-V_1.6_linux_x86-64_installer.sh) from ssec.wisc.edu during the package() phase. While ssec.wisc.edu is the official University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center domain (legitimate upstream), executing a downloaded binary installer script at build time is a genuine supply-chain concern: the script runs with whatever privileges makepkg uses, can do arbitrary things to the build system, and the sha512sum provided (which appears to be 127 hex chars — an odd length, valid sha512 is 128 hex chars, suggesting a possible truncation/typo in the checksum). The version mismatch is also notable: pkgver=2.5.0 but the source fetches version 1.6, indicating the PKGBUILD is stale/inconsistent. The combination of executing an opaque binary installer script plus a potentially malformed checksum keeps this at MEDIUM rather than clean, though there is no evidence of malicious intent.

PKGBUILD

1 offending line(s) highlighted

      1# Maintainer: Luke R. <g4jc@openmailbox.org> GPG: rsa4096/3EAE8697
    
      2
    
      3pkgname=mcidasv-bin
    
      4pkgver=2.5.0
    
      5pkgrel=1
    
      6pkgdesc="free, open source software for 3D geophysical data analysis and visualization"
    
      7url="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/software/v/"
    
      8license=('GPL3')
    
      9arch=('x86_64')
    
      10depends=("java-environment")
    
      11source=("http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/software/v/stable/1.6/McIDAS-V_1.6_linux_x86-64_installer.sh")
    
      12sha512sums=('8b579859119baff43467763b9b516b48f39275152991d67574140134c8a1aba4d785822244e1bf466c1919ebd8ea0d6abb025f443b157c9f93b142bd3764f44a')
    
      13
    
      14package() {
    
      15   mkdir -p $pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System
    
      16   echo "Note: If questioned, use $pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System' as install dir!"
    
      17   chmod 0755 McIDAS-V_1.6_linux_x86-64_installer.sh
    
      18   PATH=$PATH:$pkgdir/opt/ ./McIDAS-V_1.6_linux_x86-64_installer.sh
    
      19   sed -i '/Exec=/d' "$pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/Configure McIDAS-V.desktop"
    
      20   sed -i '/Name=Configure McIDAS-V/a Exec=/bin/sh \"/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/runMcV-Config\"' "$pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/Configure McIDAS-V.desktop"
    
      21   sed -i '/Exec=/d' $pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/mcidasv.desktop
    
      22   sed -i '/Icon=/d' $pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/mcidasv.desktop
    
      23   sed -i '/Name=mcidasv/a Icon=/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/mcidasv/mcidasv.png' $pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/mcidasv.desktop
    
      24   sed -i '/Name=mcidasv/a Exec=/bin/sh \"/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/mcidasv\"' $pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/mcidasv.desktop
    
      25   sed -i '/Exec=/d' $pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V.desktop
    
      26   sed -i '/Name=McIDAS-V/a Exec=/bin/sh \"/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/runMcV\"' $pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V.desktop
    
      27   mkdir -p $pkgdir/usr/bin/
    
      28   ln -s /opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/runMcV $pkgdir/usr/bin/mcidasv
    
      29  # Install a desktop entry
    
      30  ## TODO: Get the icon
    
      31  install -Dm644 $pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V.desktop "${pkgdir}/usr/share/applications/McIDAS-V.desktop"
    
      32  install -Dm644 "$pkgdir/opt/McIDAS-V-System/McIDAS-V-System/Configure McIDAS-V.desktop" "${pkgdir}/usr/share/applications/Configure McIDAS-V.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