SIGNALD(7)

NAME
%%PKGBASE%% - Daemon to facilitate communication via Signal Private Messenger

SYNOPSIS
pkg install %%PKGBASE%%

DESCRIPTION
Signald is an unofficial utility for interacting with Signal. It is a Java based daemon that is running in the background and is communicated to over a socket.

This man page documents how the FreeBSD port is installed and how to get started. It assumes that the %%PKGBASE%% package was already installed, e.g., from the FreeBSD package repo as described in SYNOPSIS.

GETTING STARTED
To enable and start the service, run as root

    service %%PKGBASE%% enable
    service %%PKGBASE%% start

Check log output:

    cat /var/log/%%PKGBASE%%/%%PKGBASE%%.log

Install signaldctl, a command line tool that allows interacting with the service:

    pkg install go
    go install gitlab.com/signald/signald-go/cmd/signaldctl@latest

LINKING A DEVICE
To link an existing device (phone), first enter

    ~/go/bin/signaldctl account link

then do "Select Linked Devices -> Link New Device" in the Signal smartphone app's menu and scan the QR code shown on your terminal.

REGISTERING A DEVICE
WARNING: This disconnects other devices using the same MSISDN.
•   Open your web browser and enable developer mode
•   Go to https://signalcaptchas.org/registration/generate.html
•   Solve the captcha
•   Depending on your browser you are redirected to a URL starting with "signalcaptcha://" or it can be seen in the web developer console - everything after "//" is the captcha.

Register your device using the captcha copied above:

    ~/go/bin/signaldctl account register [msisdn] --captcha [captcha]

msisdn is your full mobile phone number with country code, e.g., +123456789.

You will receive a text message containing a verification code on the MSISDN specified in the registration call above. Use this verification code

    ~/go/bin/signaldctl account verify [msisdn] [code]

to complete the registration.

SENDING A MESSAGE
Use this command to send a message

    ~/go/bin/signaldctl message send -a [msisdn_from] [msisdn_to] [msg]

You can also send a message to yourself when using a linked device, which will show up in "Note to Self", but not cause a notification, e.g.,

    ~/go/bin/signaldctl message send -a +123456789 +123456789 "Beep beep"

FILES
/var/db/signald
    Signald database.
/var/log/signald/signald.log
    Signald log output.
/var/run/signald/signald.sock
    Socket to communicate with signald, world writable.

SEE ALSO
ports(7), daemon(8), service(8)

Signald project website, https://signald.org.

AUTHORS
-nosplit This manual page was written by Michael Gmelin <grembo@FreeBSD.org>.