this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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Am in the only one who cringes at install instructions that require piping some curl output into bash? (programming.dev)
submitted 2 years ago by cschreib@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev
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curl https://some-url/ | sh

I see this all over the place nowadays, even in communities that, I would think, should be security conscious. How is that safe? What's stopping the downloaded script from wiping my home directory? If you use this, how can you feel comfortable?

I understand that we have the same problems with the installed application, even if it was downloaded and installed manually. But I feel the bar for making a mistake in a shell script is much lower than in whatever language the main application is written. Don't we have something better than "sh" for this? Something with less power to do harm?

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[–] lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I think safer approach is to:

  1. Download the script first, review its contents, and then execute.
  2. Ensure the URL uses HTTPS to reduce the risk of man-in-the-middle attacks
[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you've downloaded and audited the script, there's no reason to pipe it from curl to sh, just run it. No https necessary.

[–] isaaclw@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The https is to cover the factthat you might have missed something.

I guess I download and skim out of principle, but they might have hidden something in there.

[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wat. All https does is encrypt the connection when downloading. If you've already downloaded the file to audit it, then it's in your drive, no need to use curl to download it again and then pipe it to sh. Just click the thing.

[–] lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah, https was for downloading it in the first place. My bad, I didn't get my thoughts out in the right order.

[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

That makes sense. I probably should have gotten it from context.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Install scripts are bad in general. ideally use officially packaged software.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But then they'd have to lay some guy 15$ to package it and thats like, spending money

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip -1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Distros do the packaging. Devs can not be trusted

[–] Aux@feddit.uk 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's how you end up without software.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's how you end up with a secure well tested system. Having the distro do software reviews adds another level of validation. Devs are bad about shipping software with vulnerable dependencies and stuff like that.

[–] Aux@feddit.uk 2 points 2 years ago

And then you install wordpress, lol.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Loads of distros have user packing like arch and nixos... also many distors accept donations to package your software either way so my point stands even then.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Meanwhile nix install instructions start of with a curl

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

?

[–] brian@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

the instructions for installing on not nixos https://nixos.org/download/

[–] Shareni@programming.dev -1 points 2 years ago

What part is confusing you?

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 3 points 2 years ago

Key being reduce. Https doesn't protect from loads of attacks. Best to verify the sig.

If its not signed, open a bug report

[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 2 points 2 years ago

If steam accidentally deleted someone's home directory in a bash script via a single error, I doubt I would catch that one myself.