3 signal-cli is a commandline interface for
[libsignal-service-java](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libsignal-service-java). It supports registering, verifying, sending and receiving messages.
4 To be able to link to an existing Signal-Android/signal-cli instance, signal-cli uses a
[patched libsignal-service-java](https://github.com/AsamK/libsignal-service-java), because libsignal-service-java does not yet support
[provisioning as a linked device](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libsignal-service-java/pull/21).
5 For registering you need a phone number where you can receive SMS or incoming calls.
6 signal-cli is primarily intended to be used on servers to notify admins of important events. For this use-case, it has a dbus interface (
[man page](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/master/man/signal-cli-dbus.5.adoc)), that can be used to send messages from any programming language that has dbus bindings.
7 It also has a JSON-RPC based interface, see the
[documentation](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/JSON-RPC-service) for more information.
11 You can
[build signal-cli](#building) yourself, or use the [provided binary files](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/releases/latest), which should work on Linux, macOS and Windows. For Arch Linux there is also a
[package in AUR](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/signal-cli/) and there is a
[FreeBSD port](https://www.freshports.org/net-im/signal-cli) available as well.
14 - at least Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
11
15 - native libraries: libzkgroup, libsignal-client
17 Those are bundled for x86_64 Linux (with recent enough glibc, see #
643), for other systems/architectures see:
[Provide native lib for libsignal](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Provide-native-lib-for-libsignal)
19 ### Install system-wide on Linux
20 See
[latest version](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/releases).
22 export VERSION=<latest version, format "x.y.z">
23 wget https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/releases/download/v"${VERSION}"/signal-cli-"${VERSION}".tar.gz
24 sudo tar xf signal-cli-"${VERSION}".tar.gz -C /opt
25 sudo ln -sf /opt/signal-cli-"${VERSION}"/bin/signal-cli /usr/local/bin/
27 You can find further instructions on the Wiki:
28 - [Quickstart](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Quickstart)
29 - [DBus Service](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/DBus-service)
33 For a complete usage overview please read the
[man page](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/master/man/signal-cli.1.adoc) and the
[wiki](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki).
35 Important: The USERNAME is your phone number in international format and must include the country calling code. Hence it should start with a "+" sign. (See
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country_calling_codes) for a list of all country codes.)
37 * Register a number (with SMS verification)
39 signal-cli -u USERNAME register
41 You can register Signal using a land line number. In this case you can skip SMS verification process and jump directly to the voice call verification by adding the
`--voice` switch at the end of above register command.
43 Registering may require solving a CAPTCHA challenge:
[Registration with captcha](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Registration-with-captcha)
45 * Verify the number using the code received via SMS or voice, optionally add
`--pin PIN_CODE` if you've added a pin code to your account
47 signal-cli -u USERNAME verify CODE
51 signal-cli -u USERNAME send -m "This is a message" RECIPIENT
53 * Pipe the message content from another process.
55 uname -a | signal-cli -u USERNAME send RECIPIENT
59 signal-cli -u USERNAME receive
61 **Hint**: The Signal protocol expects that incoming messages are regularly received (using
`daemon` or
`receive` command).
62 This is required for the encryption to work efficiently and for getting updates to groups, expiration timer and other features.
66 The password and cryptographic keys are created when registering and stored in the current users home directory:
68 $XDG_DATA_HOME/signal-cli/data/
69 $HOME/.local/share/signal-cli/data/
73 This project uses
[Gradle](http://gradle.org) for building and maintaining
74 dependencies. If you have a recent gradle version installed, you can replace
`./gradlew` with
`gradle` in the following steps.
76 1. Checkout the source somewhere on your filesystem with
78 git clone https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli.git
84 3. Create shell wrapper in *build/install/signal-cli/bin*:
88 4. Create tar file in *build/distributions*:
92 ### Building a native binary with GraalVM (EXPERIMENTAL)
94 It is possible to build a native binary with
[GraalVM](https://www.graalvm.org).
95 This is still experimental and will not work in all situations.
97 1.
[Install GraalVM and setup the enviroment](https://www.graalvm.org/docs/getting-started/#install-graalvm)
98 2.
[Install prerequisites](https://www.graalvm.org/reference-manual/native-image/#prerequisites)
101 ./gradlew nativeCompile
103 The binary is available at *build/native/nativeCompile/signal-cli*
105 ## FAQ and Troubleshooting
106 For frequently asked questions and issues have a look at the
[wiki](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/FAQ)
110 This project uses libsignal-service-java from Open Whisper Systems:
112 https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libsignal-service-java
114 Licensed under the GPLv3: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-
3.0.html