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NAME

signify — cryptographically sign and verify files

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The signify utility creates and verifies cryptographic signatures. A signature verifies the integrity of a message. The mode of operation is selected with the following options:

-C

Verify a signed checksum list, and then verify the checksum for each file. If no files are specified, all of them are checked. sigfile should be the signed output of sha256(1).

-G

Generate a new key pair.

-I

Inspect the specified keys or signature and print their fingerprint.

-S

Sign the specified message file and create a signature.

-V

Verify the message and signature match.

The other options are as follows:

-c comment

Specify the comment to be added during key generation.

-e

When signing, embed the message after the signature. When verifying, extract the message from the signature. (This requires that the signature was created using -e and creates a new message file as output.)

-m message

When signing, the file containing the message to sign. When verifying, the file containing the message to verify. When verifying with -e, the file to create.

-n

Do not ask for a passphrase during key generation. Otherwise, signify will prompt the user for a passphrase to protect the secret key.

-p pubkey

Public key produced by -G, and used by -V to check a signature.

-q

Quiet mode. Suppress informational output.

-s seckey

Secret (private) key produced by -G, and used by -S to sign a message.

-x sigfile

The signature file to create or verify. The default is message.sig.

The key and signature files created by signify have the same format. The first line of the file is a free form text comment that may be edited, so long as it does not exceed a single line. The second line of the file is the actual key or signature base64 encoded.

EXIT STATUS

The signify utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. It may fail because of one of the following reasons:

• Some necessary files do not exist.
• Entered passphrase is incorrect.
• The message file was corrupted and its signature does not match.
• The message file is too large.

EXAMPLES

Create a new key pair:

Sign a file, specifying a signature name:

Verify a signature, using the default signature name:

Verify a release directory containing SHA256.sig and a full set of release files:

$ signify -C -p /etc/signify/openbsd-56-base.pub -x SHA256.sig

Verify a bsd.rd before an upgrade:

$ signify -C -p /etc/signify/openbsd-56-base.pub -x SHA256.sig bsd.rd

SEE ALSO

fw_update(1), pkg_add(1), sha256(1)

HISTORY

The signify command first appeared in OpenBSD 5.5.