"cargo install signal-backup-decode" fails ("failed to run custom build command")

[jaimet]

Hi. I'm trying to install signal-backup-decode on my up-to-date debian stretch box. When I run:

cargo install signal-backup-decode

I get:

~$ cargo install signal-backup-decode
    Updating registry `https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index`
  Installing signal-backup-decode v0.1.0
   Compiling libc v0.2.40
   Compiling remove_dir_all v0.5.1
   Compiling ansi_term v0.11.0
   Compiling rustc-serialize v0.3.24
   Compiling hex v0.3.2
   Compiling lazy_static v1.0.0
   Compiling cc v1.0.15
   Compiling strsim v0.7.0
   Compiling rustc-demangle v0.1.7
   Compiling bitflags v1.0.3
   Compiling vec_map v0.8.0
   Compiling byteorder v1.2.2
   Compiling gcc v0.3.54
   Compiling unicode-width v0.1.4
   Compiling cfg-if v0.1.2
   Compiling pkg-config v0.3.11
   Compiling rust-ini v0.11.0
   Compiling protobuf v1.5.1
   Compiling foreign-types-shared v0.1.1
   Compiling openssl v0.10.7
   Compiling atty v0.2.10
   Compiling rand v0.4.2
   Compiling time v0.1.39
   Compiling backtrace-sys v0.1.16
   Compiling textwrap v0.9.0
   Compiling log v0.4.1
   Compiling sqlite3-src v0.2.9
   Compiling openssl-sys v0.9.30
   Compiling rust-crypto v0.2.36
   Compiling foreign-types v0.3.2
   Compiling tempdir v0.3.7
   Compiling tempfile v3.0.1
   Compiling rand v0.3.22
   Compiling clap v2.31.2
   Compiling protoc v1.5.1
   Compiling protoc-rust v1.5.1
   Compiling backtrace v0.3.6
   Compiling signal-backup-decode v0.1.0
error: failed to run custom build command for `signal-backup-decode v0.1.0`
process didn't exit successfully: `/tmp/cargo-install.rH5pJHup5tUV/release/build/signal-backup-decode-321088517404bcbb/build-script-build` (exit code: 101)
--- stderr
thread 'main' panicked at 'protoc: Os { code: 2, kind: NotFound, message: "No such file or directory" }', libcore/result.rs:945:5
note: Run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` for a backtrace.

warning: build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish...
error: failed to compile `signal-backup-decode v0.1.0`, intermediate artifacts can be found at `/tmp/cargo-install.rH5pJHup5tUV`

Caused by:
  build failed

Unfortunately I know nothing about rust. If I can give you more info, please let me know.

PS: the crates page https://crates.io/crates/signal-backup-decode has a typo: the install command should be: cargo install signal-backup-decode not cargo install signal-backup-decoder HTH

[pajowu]

hey sorry for the long delay.

Can you try installing the package which contains protoc on your system. (From a quick search the package seems to be named protobuf-compiler).

If that works it would be great if you could update me so I can fix the documentation accordingly

[jaimet]

Success! I installed the protobuf-compiler package ("sudo apt install protobuf-compiler") and then re-ran cargo install signal-backup-decode - this time it installed correctly. I have also now successfully decoded my signal-backup file into a sqlite database and various directories of attachments and avatars etc. Thank you - I'm very grateful to you for getting my data out of signal.

[pajowu]

Great to hear it worked. I also updated the README to now contain instructions for protoc.