Release signing

The hashes of the binary artefacts of the rclone release are signed with a public PGP/GPG key. This can be verified manually as described below.

The same mechanism is also used by rclone selfupdate to verify that the release has not been tampered with before the new update is installed. This checks the SHA256 hash and the signature with a public key compiled into the rclone binary.

Release signing key

You may obtain the release signing key from:

From KEYS on this website - this file contains all past signing keys also.
The git repository hosted on GitHub - https://github.com/rclone/rclone/blob/master/docs/content/KEYS
gpg --keyserver hkps://keys.openpgp.org --search nick@craig-wood.com
gpg --keyserver hkps://keyserver.ubuntu.com --search nick@craig-wood.com
https://www.craig-wood.com/nick/pub/pgp-key.txt

After importing the key, verify that the fingerprint of one of the keys matches: FBF737ECE9F8AB18604BD2AC93935E02FF3B54FA as this key is used for signing.

We recommend that you cross-check the fingerprint shown above through the domains listed below. By cross-checking the integrity of the fingerprint across multiple domains you can be confident that you obtained the correct key.

The source for this page on GitHub.
Through DNS dig key.rclone.org txt

If you find anything that doesn't not match, please contact the developers at once.

How to verify the release

In the release directory you will see the release files and some files called MD5SUMS, SHA1SUMS and SHA256SUMS.

$ rclone lsf --http-url https://downloads.rclone.org/v1.63.1 :http:
MD5SUMS
SHA1SUMS
SHA256SUMS
rclone-v1.63.1-freebsd-386.zip
rclone-v1.63.1-freebsd-amd64.zip
...
rclone-v1.63.1-windows-arm64.zip
rclone-v1.63.1.tar.gz
version.txt

The MD5SUMS, SHA1SUMS and SHA256SUMS contain hashes of the binary files in the release directory along with a signature.

For example:

$ rclone cat --http-url https://downloads.rclone.org/v1.63.1 :http:SHA256SUMS
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

f6d1b2d7477475ce681bdce8cb56f7870f174cb6b2a9ac5d7b3764296ea4a113  rclone-v1.63.1-freebsd-386.zip
7266febec1f01a25d6575de51c44ddf749071a4950a6384e4164954dff7ac37e  rclone-v1.63.1-freebsd-amd64.zip
...
66ca083757fb22198309b73879831ed2b42309892394bf193ff95c75dff69c73  rclone-v1.63.1-windows-amd64.zip
bbb47c16882b6c5f2e8c1b04229378e28f68734c613321ef0ea2263760f74cd0  rclone-v1.63.1-windows-arm64.zip
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iF0EARECAB0WIQT79zfs6firGGBL0qyTk14C/ztU+gUCZLVKJQAKCRCTk14C/ztU
+pZuAJ0XJ+QWLP/3jCtkmgcgc4KAwd/rrwCcCRZQ7E+oye1FPY46HOVzCFU3L7g=
=8qrL
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Download the files

The first step is to download the binary and SUMs file and verify that the SUMs you have downloaded match. Here we download rclone-v1.63.1-windows-amd64.zip - choose the binary (or binaries) appropriate to your architecture. We've also chosen the SHA256SUMS as these are the most secure. You could verify the other types of hash also for extra security. rclone selfupdate verifies just the SHA256SUMS.

$ mkdir /tmp/check
$ cd /tmp/check
$ rclone copy --http-url https://downloads.rclone.org/v1.63.1 :http:SHA256SUMS .
$ rclone copy --http-url https://downloads.rclone.org/v1.63.1 :http:rclone-v1.63.1-windows-amd64.zip .

Verify the signatures

First verify the signatures on the SHA256 file.

Import the key. See above for ways to verify this key is correct.

$ gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --receive-keys FBF737ECE9F8AB18604BD2AC93935E02FF3B54FA
gpg: key 93935E02FF3B54FA: public key "Nick Craig-Wood <nick@craig-wood.com>" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1

Then check the signature:

$ gpg --verify SHA256SUMS 
gpg: Signature made Mon 17 Jul 2023 15:03:17 BST
gpg:                using DSA key FBF737ECE9F8AB18604BD2AC93935E02FF3B54FA
gpg: Good signature from "Nick Craig-Wood <nick@craig-wood.com>" [ultimate]

Verify the signature was good and is using the fingerprint shown above.

Repeat for MD5SUMS and SHA1SUMS if desired.

Verify the hashes

Now that we know the signatures on the hashes are OK we can verify the binaries match the hashes, completing the verification.

$ sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS 2>&1 | grep OK
rclone-v1.63.1-windows-amd64.zip: OK

Or do the check with rclone

$ rclone hashsum sha256 -C SHA256SUMS rclone-v1.63.1-windows-amd64.zip 
2023/09/11 10:53:58 NOTICE: SHA256SUMS: improperly formatted checksum line 0
2023/09/11 10:53:58 NOTICE: SHA256SUMS: improperly formatted checksum line 1
2023/09/11 10:53:58 NOTICE: SHA256SUMS: improperly formatted checksum line 49
2023/09/11 10:53:58 NOTICE: SHA256SUMS: 4 warning(s) suppressed...
= rclone-v1.63.1-windows-amd64.zip
2023/09/11 10:53:58 NOTICE: Local file system at /tmp/check: 0 differences found
2023/09/11 10:53:58 NOTICE: Local file system at /tmp/check: 1 matching files

Verify signatures and hashes together

You can verify the signatures and hashes in one command line like this:

$ gpg --decrypt SHA256SUMS | sha256sum -c --ignore-missing
gpg: Signature made Mon 17 Jul 2023 15:03:17 BST
gpg:                using DSA key FBF737ECE9F8AB18604BD2AC93935E02FF3B54FA
gpg: Good signature from "Nick Craig-Wood <nick@craig-wood.com>" [ultimate]
gpg:                 aka "Nick Craig-Wood <nick@memset.com>" [unknown]
rclone-v1.63.1-windows-amd64.zip: OK

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