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May become the "Signal [Modular] Community Edition"
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Signal Installation Steps

Author: Luca Conte luca@riseup.net

first draft: 20160327 ("now" in the following text)

released: 20160408

status: DRAFT

Abstract

This paper would be a quickstart for anyone aims to setup a working installation of OpenWhisperSystems (OWS) Signal software either the backend part (Server) and the frontend one (Android, iOS and Chrome/Chromium extension).

What Is Signal

Signal is a messaging software (aka App) like, for example, the well known WhatsApp (or Telegram) built with security and privacy in mind. It implements an Ent-To-End encryption [1] (Curve25519, AES-256 and HMAC-SHA256) and it would represent (and probably do) [...]the current state of the art in private messaging (as OWS says)[1].

The server part

The original server components could be found here:

https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Server

and here:

https://github.com/WhisperSystems/PushServer

"components" and not "component" because actually the OWS Signal backend is an ecosystem built over two (technically) decoupled "players": TextSecure-Server (TSS) which expose the API used by clients and a PushServer (PS) which perform APN and GCM notifications. In reality there is/was a third player, the RedPhoneServer, responsible for VOIP Encrypted communications, but its sources are not available so every functionality relate to it at the moment must be disabled (see later).

Prerequisites

Let's start with the code

Due to some tricks that anyone need to perform in order to have a working server I've forked some OWS repositories and pushed my local modifications into them. So If you are impatient it's better for you perform clone (or fork) operations from my forks:

https://github.com/lucaconte/TextSecure-Server

and here:

https://github.com/lucaconte/PushServer

Than

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lucaconte/TextSecure-Server.git

and 

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lucaconte/PushServer.git

Probably here you're interested in changing the APN invocation from production environment to sandbox one or vice versa. In this case go to "org.whispersystems.pushserver.senders.APNSender" class, method "public void start()" and edit this part uncommenting the right service's instantiation:

//[LC] uncomment for production releases (with the right certificate)
// this.pushApnService = APNS.newService()
//                          .withCert(new ByteArrayInputStream(pushKeyStore), "insecure")
//                         .asQueued()
//                        .withProductionDestination().build();

this.pushApnService = APNS.newService()
        .withCert(new ByteArrayInputStream(pushKeyStore), "insecure")
        .asQueued()
        .withSandboxDestination().build();

Now start with compiling PushServer:

cd PushServer
mvn clean install

If you try now to perform a build of TSS You obtain a broken dependency error related to WebSocket-Resources project (also forked by me):

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal on project TextSecureServer: Could not resolve dependencies for project org.whispersystems.textsecure:TextSecureServer:jar:0.92: Failed to collect dependencies at org.whispersystems:websocket-resources:jar:0.3.2: Failed to read artifact descriptor for org.whispersystems:websocket-resources:jar:0.3.2: Could not find artifact org.whispersystems:parent:pom:0.3.2 in gcm-server-repository (https://raw.github.com/whispersystems/maven/master/gcm-server/releases/) -> [Help 1]

To bypass this error clone WebSocket-Resource separately:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lucaconte/WebSocket-Resources.git

build it:

cd ../WebSocket-Resources
mvn clean install

It will fail with an error relate to JavaDoc:

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-javadoc-plugin:2.8.1:jar (attach-javadocs) on project websocket-resources: MavenReportException: Error while creating archive:
[ERROR] Exit code: 1 - javadoc: error - invalid flag: -Xdoclint:none

but anyway the artifact we need has been built: ./library/targer/websocket-resources-0.3.2.jar Now it's necessary to install it into our local Maven repository with correct "names":

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=./library/target/websocket-resources-0.3.2.jar -DgroupId=org.whispersystems -DartifactId=websocket-resources -Dversion=0.3.2 -Dpackaging=jar

After this finally we are able to compile TSS

cd ..
cd TextSecure-Server
mvn install

Troubleshooting: if you have some problem in building related to "tests" add -DskipTests

The configuration files

Configurations files provided by OWS in yml format doesn't work! Mainly for two reasons:

  1. They are empty and practically every param inside them is mandatory
  2. (heavier) Some fields are misspelled.

Here a working TextSecure server file filled with fake values. You have to provide your own values:

# This is the sample config/textsecure.yml file for the TextSecure Server
# Pay attention! To start TextSecur server you will need to install and start PushServer

twilio: 
  accountId: AZ8acwec7fc5eaf209a69f05e50a8b2675 #fake
  accountToken: 556658d1458f8852ed183a64c40ec5d1 #fake
  numbers:
    -
      +33756796138 #fake
  localDomain: foo.org

push:
  host: localhost
  port: 9090
  username: 123
  password: 123

s3:
   accessKey: ABCDEFGCUFYDHVM2LXXX #fake
   accessSecret: W0UfGDddfAbqYyCTIIbSQlDtreTGokOs0OTpL0SE #fake
   attachmentsBucket: thenameofyouts3buket #fake

directory:
  url: "redis://localhost:6379/0"

cache:
  url: "redis://localhost:6379/1"

server:
  applicationConnectors:
    - type: http
      port: 8080
      #keyStorePath: config/example.keystore
      #keyStorePassword: example
      #validateCerts: true
  adminConnectors:
    - type: http
      port: 8081
      #keyStorePath: config/example.keystore
      #keyStorePassword: example
      #validateCerts: true

websocket:
  enabled: true

messageStore: # Postgres database configuration for message store
  driverClass: org.postgresql.Driver
  user: "signal"
  password: "thepassword"
  url: "jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/messagedb"

database:
  driverClass: org.postgresql.Driver
  user: "signal"
  password: "thepassword"
  url: "jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/accountsdb"
  properties:
    charSet: UTF-8

#federation: # is disabled

logging:
  level: INFO
  appenders:
    - type: file
      currentLogFilename: /tmp/textsecureshserver.log
      archivedLogFilenamePattern: /temp/textsecureserver-%d.log.gz
      archivedFileCount: 5
    - type: console

redphone:
  authKey: 1234567890 #fake

Here a working PushServer server file filled with fake values. You have to provide your own values:

redis:
  url: redis://localhost:6379/2

authentication:
  servers:
    -
      name: 123
      password: 123
gcm:
  xmpp: false
  apiKey: AIzaSyAsviyMy0kIe8uhCEfo8NbeqGoku7oOCi4 #fake
  senderId: 888789650296 #fake
  redphoneApiKey: AIddSyAsviyMy8jKe8chCEfr8NbeqGghy7oOCi4 #fake

apn:
  feedback: false
  pushKey: /path/to/your/apnpushcertificates/apns-dev-key-noenc.pem #fake
  voipKey: /path/to/your/apnpushcertificates/apns-dev-key-noenc.pem #fake
  voipCertificate: /path/to/your/apnpushcertificates/apns-dev-cert.pem #fake
  pushCertificate: /path/to/your/apnpushcertificates/apns-dev-cert.pem #fake

server:
    applicationConnectors:
    - type: http
      port: 9090
    adminConnectors:
    - type: http
      port: 9091
    gzip:
        enabled: true

logging:
  level: INFO
  appenders:
    - type: file
      currentLogFilename: /tmp/pushserver.log
      archivedLogFilenamePattern: /tmp/pushserver-%d.log.gz
      archivedFileCount: 5
    - type: console

The Database

Once you have PostresSQL Up&Running with username, password, messagesdb and accountsdb (two db can be the same one) and these parameters are well coded inside TSS' yml file as seen above as jdbc string , you can now create data structures needed by the application. Note that you'll not fine any sql script into the projects' sources because TSS is based on Dropwizard[3] and Dropwizard[3] uses Liquibase[4] as «open source database-independent library for tracking, managing and applying database schema changes» so DB infos are into xml files under "src/main/resources" folder. For executing those scripts use:

java -jar TextSecureServer-<VERSION>.jar accountdb migrate config/textsecure.yml

and

java -jar TextSecureServer-<VERSION>.jar messagedb migrate config/textsecure.yml

ATTENTION use my[5] repository scripts because those hosted into OWS now doesn't work because of a duplicate table definition.

APN activation

Do this step if you plan to use iOS clients

Obtain a certificate from Apple for APN service (probably a *.cer), import in a Key Tool and export it splitted into two p12 file (apns-dev-cert.p12 and apns-dev-key.p12 for example); one for the certificate and the other for the related key. Now go to terminal and execute:

openssl pkcs12 -clcerts -nokeys -out apns-dev-cert.pem -in apns-dev-cert.p12

Do NOT digit a password! and:

openssl pkcs12 -nocerts -out apns-dev-key.pem -in apns-dev-key.p12

At the first time Do NOT digit a password! at the second one type a password should doesn't matter which. Now:

openssl rsa -in apns-dev-key.pem -out apns-dev-key-noenc.pem

copy apns-dev-cert.pem and apns-dev-key-noenc.pem somewhere into the File System reachable from PushServer and use them into PushServer's yml files

(Temporary) APN deactivation

useful part if you plan to test Android only as first

Remove @NotEmpty annotation above "private ApnConfiguration apn;" field definition into org.whispersystems.pushserver.PushServerConfiguration class, so into yml PushServers's file the APN related params become optional.

Into org.whispersystems.pushserver.PusServer's "run" method comment every row with apnSender var and pass null in the jersey Controller registration of the PushController:

environment.jersey().register(new PushController(null, gcmSender));

intead of

environment.jersey().register(new PushController(apnSender, gcmSender));

Let's start the servers

Use:

java -jar Push-Server-<VERSION>-capsule-fat.jar server YourPushServerConfigFile.yml

and, in a separated console (servers are not daemonized so you have to open another console or send them in background using (in *nix systems) "\&"):

java -jar TextSecureServer-<VERSION>.jar server config/textsecure.yml

It doesn't matter the order. Take note about server's IP

The Android part

This paper starts with Android because it's simpler than iOS and it is simpler because Android doesn't require SSL (HTTPS) for work. Only for debug purposes, as you can see in TSS configuration file snippet, the SSL related parameters are commented. Additional informations will be available later in this paper because in a production environment SSL matter!!!

Start with cloning my Signal-Android repo:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lucaconte/Signal-Android.git

Now into build.gradle find "TEXTSECURE_URL" and change it with your server's IP. Mind the protocol!!!

Locate org.thoughtcrime.securesms.jobs.GcmRefreshJob and change REGISTRATION_ID static field value with senderId specified into TSS confi file. In our case: "888789650296"

It's not mandatory but if you wish to use Geo Localization probably you need to change AndroidManifest.xml setting these lines:

 <meta-data
        android:name="com.google.android.geo.API_KEY"
        android:value="AIudSyGzY1S2RcjRQh6IrUhiW5FWZEj36uRMnQs"/>

with a KEY value obtained int he Google Cloud Console. If requested, in API activation, you have to specify the package indicated at the beginning of AndroidManifest.xml, in our case: "org.thoughtcrime.securesms"

That's all! Now you shold be able to play with your own Signal installation.

SSL protection

"Play" is funny but not serious, in a real situation SSL is a MUST. So let's start with generating certificates. Create "gencerts" bash script with the following content:

#/bin/bash
#This script creates root CA and server certificates to be used by the client and the server.
# rootCA.crt needs to be copied to the client to replace the system-wide root CA set
# example.keystore needs to be referenced by keyStorePath in the server's config file
#
#TO EXECUTE FROM THE OUTSIDE WITH:
#ALTNAME=DNS:signal.foo.org ./gencerts
#
#IF YOU HAVE A DOMAIN OR IP if U are in a lan
#ALTNAME=IP:10.1.4.218 ./gencerts
#
#
# Create private key for root CA certificate
openssl genrsa -out rootCA.key 4096

# Create a self-signed root CA certificate
openssl req -x509 -new -nodes  -days 3650 -out rootCA.crt -key rootCA.key

# Create server certificate key
openssl genrsa -out whisper.key 4096

# Create Certificate Signing Request
openssl req -new -key whisper.key -out whisper.csr

# Sign the certificate with the root CA

openssl x509 -req -in whisper.csr -CA rootCA.crt -CAkey rootCA.key -CAcreateserial -days 365 -out whisper.crt -extensions extensions -extfile <(cat <<-EOF
[ extensions ]
basicConstraints=CA:FALSE
subjectKeyIdentifier=hash
authorityKeyIdentifier=keyid,issuer
subjectAltName=$ALTNAME
EOF
)

# Export to host key and certificate to PKCS12 format which is recognized by Java keytool
openssl pkcs12 -export -password pass:example -in whisper.crt -inkey whisper.key -out keystore.p12 -name example -CAfile rootCA.crt

# Import the host key and certificate to Java keystore format, so it can be used by dropwizard
keytool -importkeystore -srcstoretype PKCS12 -srckeystore keystore.p12 -srcstorepass example -destkeystore example.keystore -deststorepass example

#whisper.store bust be placed into  Android client
keytool -importcert -v -trustcacerts -file whisper.crt -alias IntermediateCA -keystore whisper.store -provider org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider -providerpath ~/data/java/Signal_prj/bcprov-jdk15on-154.jar -storetype BKS -storepass whisper

#for iOS client you have to convert  whisper.crt in  DER format and install whisper.cer in Signal-iOS
openssl x509 -in whisper.crt -out whisper.cer -outform DER

Execute this script as explained in the first lines of it. You can find the original version of this script here (Thanks to the author for sharing it):

https://github.com/janimo/textsecure-docker

Again, reading the comments, should be clear that:

If you change the password ("whisper") in whisper.store generation command you have to use the same used into the org.thoughtcrime.securesms.push.TextSecurePushTrustStore.java If you change the password ("example") in example.keystore generation command you have to use the same used into the TSS yml config file

The iOS part

Remember if didn't done before to perform APN activation (see APN activation) and related following step

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lucaconte/Signal-iOS.git

Go to TSConstants.h and change server's urls with your own:

#define textSecureWebSocketAPI @"wss://your_server:8080/v1/websocket/"
#define textSecureServerURL @"https://your_server:8080/"

Edit Release.m by changing this:

andServerPort:31337
andMasterServerHostName:@"master.whispersystems.org"
andDefaultRelayName:@"relay"
andRelayServerHostNameSuffix:@"whispersystems.org"

With:

andServerPort:8080
//andServerPort:31337
andMasterServerHostName:@"yourserver.foo"
//andMasterServerHostName:@"master.whispersystems.org"
andDefaultRelayName:@"relay"
andRelayServerHostNameSuffix:@"yourserver.foo"
//andRelayServerHostNameSuffix:@"whispersystems.org"

Remember to substitute "whisper.cer" (see SSL part in previous steps) with your own.

Into VertionMigrations.m change this:

// VOIP Push might need to be enabled because 1) user ran old version 2) Update to compatible iOS version
if (VOIPRegistration && [TSAccountManager isRegistered]) {
    [self nonBlockingPushRegistration];
}

in this (added a PushRegistration call):

// VOIP Push might need to be enabled because 1) user ran old version 2) Update to compatible iOS version
if (VOIPRegistration && [TSAccountManager isRegistered]) {
    [self nonBlockingPushRegistration];
}

[self nonBlockingPushRegistration];

If you plan to perform a pods update go into SDatabaseSecondaryIndexes.m and change:

//[AC 21/03/2016] Modificato perché le librerie sono state aggiornate e il metodo era deprecated
//    YapDatabaseSecondaryIndexWithObjectBlock block =
//    ^(NSMutableDictionary *dict, NSString *collection, NSString *key, id object) {
//        
//        if ([object isKindOfClass:[TSInteraction class]]) {
//            TSInteraction *interaction = (TSInteraction *)object;
//            
//            [dict setObject:@(interaction.timestamp) forKey:TSTimeStampSQLiteIndex];
//        }
//    };

YapDatabaseSecondaryIndexWithObjectBlock block =
    ^(YapDatabaseReadTransaction *transaction, NSMutableDictionary *dict, NSString *collection, NSString *key, id object) {

      if ([object isKindOfClass:[TSInteraction class]]) {
          TSInteraction *interaction = (TSInteraction *)object;

          [dict setObject:@(interaction.timestamp) forKey:TSTimeStampSQLiteIndex];
      }
    };
YapDatabaseSecondaryIndexHandler *handler = [YapDatabaseSecondaryIndexHandler withObjectBlock:block];

Now you can update the pods

That's All!!

Many thanks to anyone that helped me in reaching the end

All feedbacks are welcome

1: http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/212477768 "OWS security"

2: Originally https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Server/issues/44 but it has been removed

3: http://dropwizard.io

4: http://www.liquibase.org/

5: https://github.com/lucaconte/TextSecure-Server/tree/master/src/main/resources