3 signal-cli is a commandline interface for the
[Signal messenger](https://signal.org/).
4 It supports registering, verifying, sending and receiving messages.
5 signal-cli uses a
[patched libsignal-service-java](https://github.com/Turasa/libsignal-service-java),
6 extracted from the
[Signal-Android source code](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/main/libsignal/service).
7 For registering you need a phone number where you can receive SMS or incoming calls.
9 signal-cli is primarily intended to be used on servers to notify admins of important events.
10 For this use-case, it has a daemon mode with JSON-RPC interface (
[man page](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/master/man/signal-cli-jsonrpc.5.adoc))
11 and D-BUS interface (
[man page](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/master/man/signal-cli-dbus.5.adoc)) .
12 For the JSON-RPC interface there's also a simple
[example client](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/tree/master/client), written in Rust.
16 You can [build signal-cli](#building) yourself or use
17 the
[provided binary files](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/releases/latest), which should work on Linux, macOS and
18 Windows. There's also a
[docker image and some Linux packages](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Binary-distributions) provided by the community.
22 - at least Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
17
23 - native library: libsignal-client
25 The native libs are bundled for x86_64 Linux (with recent enough glibc), Windows and MacOS. For other
27 see:
[Provide native lib for libsignal](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Provide-native-lib-for-libsignal)
29 ### Install system-wide on Linux
31 See
[latest version](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/releases).
34 export VERSION=<latest version, format "x.y.z">
35 wget https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/releases/download/v"${VERSION}"/signal-cli-"${VERSION}".tar.gz
36 sudo tar xf signal-cli-"${VERSION}".tar.gz -C /opt
37 sudo ln -sf /opt/signal-cli-"${VERSION}"/bin/signal-cli /usr/local/bin/
40 You can find further instructions on the Wiki:
42 - [Quickstart](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Quickstart)
46 For a complete usage overview please read
47 the
[man page](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/master/man/signal-cli.1.adoc) and
48 the
[wiki](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki).
50 Important: The ACCOUNT is your phone number in international format and must include the country calling code. Hence it
51 should start with a "+" sign. (See
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country_calling_codes) for a list
52 of all country codes.)
54 * Register a number (with SMS verification)
56 signal-cli -a ACCOUNT register
58 You can register Signal using a landline number. In this case you can skip SMS verification process and jump directly
59 to the voice call verification by adding the
`--voice` switch at the end of above register command.
61 Registering may require solving a CAPTCHA
62 challenge:
[Registration with captcha](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Registration-with-captcha)
64 * Verify the number using the code received via SMS or voice, optionally add
`--pin PIN_CODE` if you've added a pin code
67 signal-cli -a ACCOUNT verify CODE
72 signal-cli -a ACCOUNT send -m "This is a message" RECIPIENT
75 * Pipe the message content from another process.
77 uname -a | signal-cli -a ACCOUNT send --message-from-stdin RECIPIENT
81 signal-cli -a ACCOUNT receive
83 **Hint**: The Signal protocol expects that incoming messages are regularly received (using
`daemon` or
`receive`
84 command). This is required for the encryption to work efficiently and for getting updates to groups, expiration timer
89 The password and cryptographic keys are created when registering and stored in the current users home directory:
91 $XDG_DATA_HOME/signal-cli/data/
92 $HOME/.local/share/signal-cli/data/
96 This project uses
[Gradle](http://gradle.org) for building and maintaining dependencies. If you have a recent gradle
97 version installed, you can replace
`./gradlew` with
`gradle` in the following steps.
99 1. Checkout the source somewhere on your filesystem with
101 git clone https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli.git
107 2a. Create shell wrapper in *build/install/signal-cli/bin*:
109 ./gradlew installDist
111 2b. Create tar file in *build/distributions*:
115 2c. Create a fat tar file in *build/libs/signal-cli-fat*:
119 2d. Compile and run signal-cli:
122 ./gradlew run --args="--help"
125 ### Building a native binary with GraalVM (EXPERIMENTAL)
127 It is possible to build a native binary with
[GraalVM](https://www.graalvm.org). This is still experimental and will not
128 work in all situations.
130 1.
[Install GraalVM and setup the enviroment](https://www.graalvm.org/docs/getting-started/#install-graalvm)
131 2.
[Install prerequisites](https://www.graalvm.org/reference-manual/native-image/#prerequisites)
134 ./gradlew nativeCompile
136 The binary is available at *build/native/nativeCompile/signal-cli*
138 ## FAQ and Troubleshooting
140 For frequently asked questions and issues have a look at the
[wiki](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/FAQ).
144 This project uses libsignal-service-java from Open Whisper Systems:
146 https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libsignal-service-java
148 Licensed under the GPLv3: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-
3.0.html