signmessage

signmessage -- Command to create a signature from this node

SYNOPSIS

signmessage message

DESCRIPTION

The signmessage RPC command creates a digital signature of message using this node's secret key. A receiver who knows your node's id and the message can be sure that the resulting signature could only be created by something with access to this node's secret key.

  • message (string): Less than 65536 characters long message to be signed by the node.

RETURN VALUE

On success, an object is returned, containing:

  • signature (hex) (always 128 characters): The signature.
  • recid (hex) (always 2 characters): The recovery id (0, 1, 2 or 3).
  • zbase (string): signature and recid encoded in a style compatible with lnd's [SignMessageRequest](https://api.lightning.community/#grpc-request- signmessagerequest).

AUTHOR

Rusty Russell [email protected] is mainly responsible.

SEE ALSO

lightning-checkmessage(7)

RESOURCES

Main web site: https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning

SignMessageRequest

EXAMPLES

Example 1:

Request:

lightning-cli signmessage -k "message"="this is a test!"
{
  "id": "example:signmessage#1",
  "method": "signmessage",
  "params": {
    "message": "this is a test!"
  }
}

Response:

{
  "signature": "b313a7ef5cec27f8be4e6389d208a5646ce3fa8fde4c5a2b84cf5d92e2c997f14f1c53fd72897f2025add34939d918a2abd2e2f675c4402b106f7777b364f85b",
  "recid": "00",
  "zbase": "d63t8j9xmusnx6f6j3tauwoewi1g3a94t9xrastmou8i5rzn3gm9nuahkx6zfnm9ry145w4j88ctteim4mtxc7qreyity55zq63sj6n5"
}

Example 2:

Request:

lightning-cli signmessage -k "message"="message for you"
{
  "id": "example:signmessage#2",
  "method": "signmessage",
  "params": {
    "message": "message for you"
  }
}

Response:

{
  "signature": "a797422126bb3ecee680e2edc8a4c5afc6ebaf2a05a03c37e5ab62214ea5edc05a7db3b45ee8db4c022e6765b7258c82d0c769c8798e0c6baeb94f6fa9275302",
  "recid": "01",
  "zbase": "rnu3qotbr47u7uzgodtq51fraszhp47xfen4yxbzhsisrekqwzshysu7sq4f74g5jobnh35fsh1a3ysoa7who6cqbti47qkxp6w1qwan"
}

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© 2026 Core Lightning, a Blockstream project.
All rights reserved.

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