Installing signal-cli and scli within QubesOs

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1

Hello can I start by thanking those that take the time to read this message.

Since becoming more security conscience I’m trying to use Qubes Os for all my communications. I wish to use signal on my computer without a phone, so that I can still interact with normal people.

Ive spent a good few days now working on installing signal-cli and cli in Qubes OS and researching on the web and I’m running into a problem.

Here’s what I’m doing;
#Installed dependencies for signal-cli and cli in a whonix ws template vm.
#Created AppVM from the whonix ws template.
#Installed signal-cli and cli in the /home/user directory of the AppVM.
#Registered an account with signal using a sim in the cloud service.

I can both send and receive messages using the cli terminal user interface, I can also receive and send messages directly using signal-cli -a ACCOUNT receive command.

The problem is as soon as I close the terminal window and re-open, both the sent and the received messages are gone. Its seems that signal-cli is sending and receiving all messages, however it isn’t saving the conversations.

I suspect that this is a case of user error, the solution is probably very simple, that being said I’m stuck!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

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2

Hello after some frustration I’ve got this setup working, the information was available online however over multiple documents.
Posted below are the basic steps that I took, hopefully this will be useful to someone else.

3

TemplateVM - install pip + openjdk-17-jre
AppVM - install urwid (pip urwid) + urwid_readline (pip urwid_readline) / signal-cli + scli (download and unpack both in home directory)

			Edit file ~/.bashrc

export PATH="/home/user/scli:/home/user/signal-cli-0.11.6/bin:$PATH"

$ signal-cli -a ACCOUNT register --captcha 
	
	https://signalcaptchas.org/registration/generate.html

		$ signal-cli -a ACCOUNT verify CODE
		
		$ signal-cli -u USERNAME daemon
		    KILL once working

			Edit file ~/.config/sclirc

save-history = true

	$ scli 
		Should open the terminal user interface and start the signal-cli daemaon
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