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Signal

What is Signal?

According to Wikipedia:

Signal is an encrypted instant messaging and voice calling application for Android and iOS. It uses end-to-end encryption to secure all communications to other Signal users. Signal can be used to send and receive encrypted instant messages, group messages, attachments and media messages. Users can independently verify the identity of their messaging correspondents by comparing key fingerprints out-of-band.

Signal is developed by Signal Technology Foundation and Signal Messenger LLC. The mobile clients for are published as free and open-source software under the GPLv3 license, while the desktop client and server are published under the AGPL-3.0-only license.

How to install Signal Desktop in Qubes

CAUTION: Before proceeding, please carefully read On Digital Signatures and Key Verification. This website cannot guarantee that any PGP key you download from the Internet is authentic. Always obtain a trusted key fingerprint via other channels, and always check any key you download against your trusted copy of the fingerprint.

The following adapts the official Linux (Debian-based) Install Instructions from Signal's website for Qubes.

  1. (Optional) Create a TemplateVM (debian-11 is used as an example, but can be debian-11-minimal, debian-10, etc.):

    [user@dom0 ~]$ sudo qubesctl --skip-dom0 --targets=debian-11 --show-output state.sls update.qubes-vm

  2. Open a terminal in Debian 11 (or your previously chosen template; note that gnome-terminal isn't installed by default in a minimal template, in that case replace gnome-terminal with uxterm):

    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-run -a debian-11 gnome-terminal

  3. Run the commands below in the terminal you've just opened.

    Install the curl program needed to download the Signal signing key:

    sudo apt install curl

    We need a notification daemon, otherwise Signal will hang the first time you receive a message when the window doesn’t have the focus (alternatively you could install xfce4-notifyd instead of dunst):

    sudo apt install dunst

    Download the Signal signing key (we need to pass the --proxy argument to curl as TemplateVMs can only access internet through a proxy at localhost/127.0.0.1 port 8082):

    curl --proxy 127.0.0.1:8082 -s https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee -a /usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg > /dev/null

    Add the Signal repository (Signal don't offer a buster/bullseye repository - they use xenial, but this doesn't affect Debian users):

    echo 'deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/signal-desktop-keyring.gpg] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-desktop.list

    Then fetch all repositories (now including the newly added Signal repository), bring the TemplateVM up-to-date, and finally install Signal:

    sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade && sudo apt install --no-install-recommends signal-desktop

  4. A bit more work is required in case you used a minimal template for the TemplateVM above:

    signal-desktop requires at least libatk1.0-0, libatk-bridge2.0-0, libcups2 and libgtk-3-0 to run. Those dependencies are automatically installed when installing xfce4-notifyd, but if you installed dunst you'll have to add them:

    sudo apt install libatk1.0-0 libatk-bridge2.0-0 libcups2 libgtk-3-0

    If you haven't done so already, qubes-core-agent-networking must be installed for networking to work in qubes based on minimal templates:

    sudo apt install qubes-core-agent-networking

    Then optionally install the following packages for convenience of handling files (zenity is needed by the Qubes OS functions in qubes-core-agent-nautilus to show the progress dialog when moving/copying files):

    sudo apt install nautilus qubes-core-agent-nautilus zenity

  5. Shutdown the TemplateVM (substitute your template name if needed):

    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-shutdown debian-11

  6. Create an AppVM based on this TemplateVM.

  7. With your mouse, select the Q menu -> Domain: "AppVM Name" -> "AppVM Name": Qube Settings -> Applications (or in Qubes Manager "AppVM Name" -> Settings -> Applications). Select Signal from the left Available column, move it to the right Selected column by clicking the > button and then OK to apply the changes and close the window.