signal-server

Setup Guide: Signal Server

This guide is written by using Signal v2.92.

Requirement

• Java SE 14
• Domaine name
• Google Recaptcha
• Firebase Cloud Messaging (It used to be GCM)
• Twilio
• AWS

Installation Steps

1. First clone the project source code:

git clone https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.git && cd Signal-Server

2. Create your own config.yml, put it inside signal-server/service/config/. You can take a look at the example here.
3. Remove @Length(min = 72,max= 72) from service/src/main/java/org/whispersystems/textsecuregcm/controllers/ProfileController.java
4. Build the server

mvn clean install -DskipTests

3. Generate value for UnidentifiedDelivery

You will get key pair using this command (keep the keypair, you will need it for Android and for the next step)

java -jar service/target/TextSecureServer-2.92.jar certificate -ca

Use the Private key to generate certificate (id can be random, i use 1234)

java -jar service/target/TextSecureServer-2.92.jar certificate --key <priv_key_from_step_above> --id 1234

4. Run postgres, redis, coturn (I suggest you use signal-docker)
5. Create databases ()
6. Migrate databases:

java -jar service/target/TextSecureServer-2.92.jar accountdb migrate service/config/config.yml
java -jar service/target/TextSecureServer-2.92.jar keysdb migrate service/config/config.yml
java -jar service/target/TextSecureServer-2.92.jar messagedb migrate service/config/config.yml
java -jar service/target/TextSecureServer-2.92.jar abusedb migrate service/config/config.yml

6. Run the server

java -jar service/target/TextSecureServer-2.92.jar server service/config/config.yml

7. To run the server as daemon, use nohup

nohup java -jar service/target/TextSecureServer-2.92.jar server service/config/config.yml > /dev/null &

Nginx Reverse Proxy

1. Install nginx on your system

sudo apt install nginx     

2. generate a self signed certificate(change domain.com to your own domaine)

openssl genrsa -out /etc/nginx/cert.key 2048

Create the config file configuration.conf:

[req]
distinguished_name=req
[SAN]
subjectAltName=DNS:domain.com

And the certificate:

openssl req -new -x509 -key /etc/nginx/cert.key -out /etc/nginx/cert.crt -days 3650 -subj /CN=domain.com -extensions SAN -config 'configuration.conf'

3. Allow Nginx to be accessed from outside using Firewall.

sudo ufw allow 'Nginx HTTPS'

4. Next you will need to edit the default Nginx configuration file in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default, using the example nginx config

5. Update your nginx config to suits your need, you can take a look at the example here.

6. Check if your configuration is correct

sudo nginx -t

7. If there's no error, you can reload your nginx to apply the new configuration

sudo nginx -s reload

FAQ

Q: How do I get Recapthca?

A: You register for Google Recaptcha v3, put your server's domain there.

Q: How do I get GCM?

A: Setup Firebase Cloud Messaging, you will get the key from there.

Q: What AWS service do i need?

A: CDN Cloudfront, S3 Bucket, SQS FIFO type, and IAM for the key.

Q: How do I disable AccountCrawler Error?

A: Disable accountDatabaseCrawler logging by commenting environment.lifecycle().manage(accountDatabaseCrawler); it is located in service/src/main/java/org/whispersystems/textsecuregcm/WhisperServerService.java. Rebuild the server then rerun it after you did the modification.

...

apnSender.setApnFallbackManager(apnFallbackManager);
environment.lifecycle().manage(apnFallbackManager);
environment.lifecycle().manage(pubSubManager);
environment.lifecycle().manage(pushSender);
environment.lifecycle().manage(messagesCache);
// environment.lifecycle().manage(accountDatabaseCrawler);

...

Q: I got an error from updating profile name / avatar.

A: Some error presumebly caused by constant change in client or server, starting fresh by reseting database & storage usually stopped this. Some people reported that modifying nginx configuration by adding $uri to the end of proxy_pass, but unfortunately I can't reproduce the desired result.