I’ve heard this over and over… what’s the difference security-wise between sudo running some install script and sudo installing a .deb (or whatever package format) ?
A deb is just a zip file that gets unpacked to where your binaries go. A shell script you curl pipe into shell could contain literally any instructions
Binary packages have scripts (IIRC for .deb they are preinst/postinst to be run before/after installation and prerm/postrm before/after removal) that are run as root.
BTW the “unzip” part is also run as root, and a binary package can typically place stuff anywhere in your system (that’s their job after all)… even if you used literal zip files they could still install a script in ways that would cause the OS to execute it.
I’ve heard this over and over… what’s the difference security-wise between sudo running some install script and sudo installing a .deb (or whatever package format) ?
A deb is just a zip file that gets unpacked to where your binaries go. A shell script you curl pipe into shell could contain literally any instructions
Binary packages have scripts (IIRC for .deb they are preinst/postinst to be run before/after installation and prerm/postrm before/after removal) that are run as root.
BTW the “unzip” part is also run as root, and a binary package can typically place stuff anywhere in your system (that’s their job after all)… even if you used literal zip files they could still install a script in ways that would cause the OS to execute it.
Yeah I’m over simplifying on purpose here. The bottom line is piping into
shis dangerous