# signal-cli
-signal-cli is a commandline interface for [libtextsecure-java](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libtextsecure-java). It supports registering, verifying, sending and receiving messages. To be able to receiving messages signal-cli uses a [patched libtextsecure-java](https://github.com/AsamK/libtextsecure-java), because libtextsecure-java [does not yet support registering for the websocket support](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libtextsecure-java/pull/5). For registering you need a phone number where you can receive SMS or incoming calls.
-It is primarily intended to be used on servers to notify admins of important events. For this use-case, it has a dbus interface, that can be used to send messages from any programming language that has dbus bindings.
+signal-cli is a commandline interface for the [Signal messenger](https://signal.org/).
+It supports registering, verifying, sending and receiving messages.
+signal-cli uses a [patched libsignal-service-java](https://github.com/Turasa/libsignal-service-java),
+extracted from the [Signal-Android source code](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/main/libsignal-service).
+For registering you need a phone number where you can receive SMS or incoming calls.
-## Usage
+signal-cli is primarily intended to be used on servers to notify admins of important events.
+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))
+and D-BUS interface ([man page](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/master/man/signal-cli-dbus.5.adoc)) .
+For the JSON-RPC interface there's also a simple [example client](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/tree/master/client), written in Rust.
-usage: signal-cli [-h] [-u USERNAME] [-v] {register,verify,send,quitGroup,updateGroup,receive} ...
+signal-cli needs to be kept up-to-date to keep up with Signal-Server changes.
+The official Signal clients expire after three months and then the Signal-Server can make incompatible changes.
+So signal-cli releases older than three months may not work correctly.
-* Register a number (with SMS verification)
+## Installation
- signal-cli -u USERNAME register
+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. There's also a [docker image and some Linux packages](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Binary-distributions) provided by the community.
-* Register a number (with voice verification)
+System requirements:
- signal-cli -u USERNAME register -v
+- at least Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 21
+- native library: libsignal-client
-* Verify the number using the code received via SMS or voice
+ The native libs are bundled for x86_64 Linux (with recent enough glibc), Windows and MacOS. For other
+ systems/architectures
+ see: [Provide native lib for libsignal](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Provide-native-lib-for-libsignal)
- signal-cli -u USERNAME verify CODE
+### Install system-wide on Linux
-* Send a message to one or more recipients
+See [latest version](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/releases).
- signal-cli -u USERNAME send -m "This is a message" [RECIPIENT [RECIPIENT ...]] [-a [ATTACHMENT [ATTACHMENT ...]]]
+```sh
+export VERSION=<latest version, format "x.y.z">
+wget https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/releases/download/v"${VERSION}"/signal-cli-"${VERSION}".tar.gz
+sudo tar xf signal-cli-"${VERSION}".tar.gz -C /opt
+sudo ln -sf /opt/signal-cli-"${VERSION}"/bin/signal-cli /usr/local/bin/
+```
-* Pipe the message content from another process.
+You can find further instructions on the Wiki:
- uname -a | signal-cli -u USERNAME send [RECIPIENT [RECIPIENT ...]]
+- [Quickstart](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Quickstart)
-* Groups
+## Usage
- * Create a group
+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).
- signal-cli -u USERNAME updateGroup -n "Group name" -m [MEMBER [MEMBER ...]]
+Important: The ACCOUNT 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.)
- * Update a group
+* Register a number (with SMS verification)
- signal-cli -u USERNAME updateGroup -g GROUP_ID -n "New group name"
+ signal-cli -a ACCOUNT register
- * Send a message to a group
+ You can register Signal using a landline number. In this case, you need to follow the procedure below:
+ * Attempt a SMS verification process first (`signal-cli -a ACCOUNT register`)
+ * You will get an error `400 (InvalidTransportModeException)`, this is normal
+ * Wait 60 seconds
+ * Attempt a voice call verification by adding the `--voice` switch and wait for the call:
- signal-cli -u USERNAME send -m "This is a message" -g GROUP_ID
+ ```sh
+ signal-cli -a ACCOUNT register --voice
+ ```
-## DBus service
+ Registering may require solving a CAPTCHA
+ challenge: [Registration with captcha](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Registration-with-captcha)
-signal-cli can run in daemon mode and provides an experimental dbus interface.
-For dbus support you need jni/unix-java.so installed on your system (Debian: libunixsocket-java ArchLinux: libmatthew-unix-java (AUR)).
+* 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
-* Run in daemon mode (dbus session bus)
+ signal-cli -a ACCOUNT verify CODE
- signal-cli -u USERNAME daemon
+* Send a message
-* Send a message via dbus
+ ```sh
+ signal-cli -a ACCOUNT send -m "This is a message" RECIPIENT
+ ```
- signal-cli --dbus send -m "Message" [RECIPIENT [RECIPIENT ...]] [-a [ATTACHMENT [ATTACHMENT ...]]]
+* Pipe the message content from another process.
-### System bus
+ uname -a | signal-cli -a ACCOUNT send --message-from-stdin RECIPIENT
-To run on the system bus you need to take some additional steps.
-It’s advisable to run signal-cli as a separate unix user, the following steps assume you created a user named *signal-cli*.
-These steps, executed as root, should work on all distributions using systemd.
+* Receive messages
-```bash
-cp data/org.asamk.Signal.conf /etc/dbus-1/system.d/
-cp data/org.asamk.Signal.service /usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/
-cp data/signal.service /etc/systemd/system/
-sed -i -e "s|%dir%|<INSERT_INSTALL_PATH>|" -e "s|%number%|<INSERT_YOUR_NUMBER>|" /etc/systemd/system/signal.service
-systemctl daemon-reload
-systemctl enable signal.service
-systemctl reload dbus.service
-```
+ signal-cli -a ACCOUNT receive
-Then just execute the send command from above, the service will be autostarted by dbus the first time it is requested.
+**Hint**: The Signal protocol expects that incoming messages are regularly received (using `daemon` or `receive`
+command). This is required for the encryption to work efficiently and for getting updates to groups, expiration timer
+and other features.
## Storage
The password and cryptographic keys are created when registering and stored in the current users home directory:
- $HOME/.config/signal/data/
+ $XDG_DATA_HOME/signal-cli/data/
+ $HOME/.local/share/signal-cli/data/
## Building
-This project uses [Gradle](http://gradle.org) for building and maintaining
-dependencies.
+This project uses [Gradle](http://gradle.org) for building and maintaining dependencies. If you have a recent gradle
+version installed, you can replace `./gradlew` with `gradle` in the following steps.
1. Checkout the source somewhere on your filesystem with
- git clone https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli.git
+ git clone https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli.git
2. Execute Gradle:
- ./gradlew build
+ ./gradlew build
+
+ 2a. Create shell wrapper in *build/install/signal-cli/bin*:
+
+ ./gradlew installDist
-3. Create shell wrapper in *build/install/signal-cli/bin*:
+ 2b. Create tar file in *build/distributions*:
+
+ ./gradlew distTar
+
+ 2c. Create a fat tar file in *build/libs/signal-cli-fat*:
+
+ ./gradlew fatJar
+
+ 2d. Compile and run signal-cli:
+
+ ```sh
+ ./gradlew run --args="--help"
+ ```
+
+### Building a native binary with GraalVM (EXPERIMENTAL)
+
+It is possible to build a native binary with [GraalVM](https://www.graalvm.org). This is still experimental and will not
+work in all situations.
+
+1. [Install GraalVM and setup the environment](https://www.graalvm.org/docs/getting-started/#install-graalvm)
+2. Execute Gradle:
- ./gradlew installDist
+ ./gradlew nativeCompile
-4. Create tar file in *build/distributions*:
+ The binary is available at *build/native/nativeCompile/signal-cli*
- ./gradlew distTar
+## FAQ and Troubleshooting
-## Troubleshooting
-If you use a version of the Oracle JRE and get an InvalidKeyException you need to enable unlimited strength crypto. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6481627/java-security-illegal-key-size-or-default-parameters for instructions.
+For frequently asked questions and issues have a look at the [wiki](https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/FAQ).
## License
-This project uses libtextsecure-java from Open Whisper Systems:
+This project uses libsignal-service-java from Open Whisper Systems:
-https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libtextsecure-java
+https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libsignal-service-java
Licensed under the GPLv3: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
git.nmode.ca / signal-cli / blobdiff
