safeinstall

The goal of safeinstall is to run some basic security checks before installing an R package from an online repository (like GitHub). This package is basically a wrapper of defender so that some security checks are done before running remotes::install_github.

Installation

remotes::install_github("Pakillo/safeinstall")

Usage

library(safeinstall)

safe_install_github is like remotes::install_github but will run some checks before installing the package. If nothing wrong is detected, the package is installed.

safe_install_github("Pakillo/safeinstall")

In contrast, if potentially unsafe code is detected (e.g. system calls), the package will not install and an error will be returned.

safe_install_github("ropenscilabs/testevil")
#> 
#> 
#> System calls found:
#>                path line_number                     call
#> 1   inst/root_sys.R           1            system2("ls")
#> 2   inst/root_sys.R           4             system("ls")
#> 3      R/exported.R           7            system2("ls")
#> 4      R/internal.R           4             system("ls")
#> 5      R/internal.R           8         system("ls -la")
#> 6      R/processx.R           3      processx::run("ls")
#> 7           R/sys.R           8 sys::exec_internal("ls")
#> 8 R/system_hidden.R           2            system2("lm")
#>        function_name
#> 1            system2
#> 2             system
#> 3            system2
#> 4             system
#> 5             system
#> 6      processx::run
#> 7 sys::exec_internal
#> 8            system2
#> 
#> 
#> Dangerous imports found:
#>       type        import  package
#> 1  package           sys      sys
#> 2  package      processx processx
#> 3 function processx::run processx
#> Error in safe_install_github("ropenscilabs/testevil"): There might be some unsafe code in this repository. It is advised to inspect it more thoroughly before installing (e.g. try defender package: https://github.com/ropenscilabs/defender).

Checking any git repository

To just scan a package (without installing), run check_package on the git repository:

check_package("https://github.com/Pakillo/safeinstall.git")
#> [1] TRUE

Will return TRUE if no problem is found, or FALSE (plus info on potential problems) otherwise:

check_package("https://github.com/ropenscilabs/testevil.git")
#> 
#> 
#> System calls found:
#>                path line_number                     call
#> 1   inst/root_sys.R           1            system2("ls")
#> 2   inst/root_sys.R           4             system("ls")
#> 3      R/exported.R           7            system2("ls")
#> 4      R/internal.R           4             system("ls")
#> 5      R/internal.R           8         system("ls -la")
#> 6      R/processx.R           3      processx::run("ls")
#> 7           R/sys.R           8 sys::exec_internal("ls")
#> 8 R/system_hidden.R           2            system2("lm")
#>        function_name
#> 1            system2
#> 2             system
#> 3            system2
#> 4             system
#> 5             system
#> 6      processx::run
#> 7 sys::exec_internal
#> 8            system2
#> 
#> 
#> Dangerous imports found:
#>       type        import  package
#> 1  package           sys      sys
#> 2  package      processx processx
#> 3 function processx::run processx
#> [1] FALSE

This works with any git repository (not only GitHub), e.g. on Gitlab:

check_package("https://gitlab.com/jimhester/covr.git")
#> 
#> 
#> System calls found:
#>         path line_number
#> 1   R/covr.R         332
#> 2   R/covr.R         349
#> 3 R/system.R          23
#> 4 R/system.R          49
#>                                                                              call
#> 1                                                                     system(cmd)
#> 2                                                                     system(cmd)
#> 3 system(full, intern = FALSE, ignore.stderr = quiet, ignore.stdout = quiet, ...)
#> 4                         system(full, intern = TRUE, ignore.stderr = quiet, ...)
#>   function_name
#> 1        system
#> 2        system
#> 3        system
#> 4        system
#> [1] FALSE