You can install siegfried by:

• compiling it with the go toolchain
• downloading pre-compiled executables
• or, installing it via your package manager (Ubuntu/Debian, Homebrew, FreeBSD).

For help using siegfried, start here.

You need the go toolchain to compile siegfried. If you haven’t already got go installed, follow these instructions.

Make sure to complete the step that puts the go/bin folder into your PATH e.g. with:

echo 'export PATH="$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin"' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc

Then install siegfried:

go install github.com/richardlehane/siegfried/cmd/sf@latest

And download the latest signatures:

sf -update

You can install siegfried from the pre-compiled executables on the releases page.

To install the executables:

• download the version for your platform (options are Windows x64, Linux x64 or Mac arm64)
• unzip the contents to a location in your system path.

The executables come in two build flavours, regular and static:

If you use the regular builds, you also need to download the latest signatures:

sf -update

The static builds include the latest PRONOM signatures within the executable. This means you don’t need a separate signature file or siegfried home directory. This is useful for running on servers, or as part of a system, but limits your options for more sophisticated workflows like modifying your signatures.

You can also install siegfried via package managers for these systems:

Ubuntu/Debian (64 bit)

curl -sL "http://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x20F802FE798E6857" | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/siegfried-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/siegfried-archive-keyring.gpg] https://www.itforarchivists.com/ buster main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/siegfried.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install siegfried

Mac Homebrew (or Homebrew on Linux)

brew install richardlehane/digipres/siegfried

(a fork of mistydemeo/digipres/siegfried)

FreeBSD

pkg install siegfried

Identify files and directories

sf file.ext // Identify a file
sf *.ext // Identify groups of files using a glob pattern
sf DIR // Identify all files in a directory and its subdirectories
sf -nr DIR // Identify all files in a directory but don't recurse into subdirectories

Save output

sf PATH > my_results.yaml // Use a redirect (">") to save your results. PATH means file.ext, *.ext or DIR
sf -csv PATH > my_results.csv // Get identification results in CSV format (default is YAML)
sf -json PATH > my_results.json // Get identification results in JSON format

Additional commands

sf -z PATH // Scan within zip, tar, gzip, warc or arc files
sf -hash sha1 PATH // Calculate md5, sha1, sha256, sha512, or crc hash
sf -multi 32 PATH // Scan many files at once
sf -setconf -multi 32 -hash md5 -csv // Save your preferred configuration
sf -setconf -csv -conf csv.conf // Save (or load) named configurations with -conf

Detailed information about installing siegfried, identifying file formats, as well as more advanced topics, is available on the wiki.

The roy tool builds siegfried signature files. For help using this tool, see this guide.

To view the source code, go to the project page on Github.

For a list of changes, see the CHANGELOG.

Please post any bugs or feature requests to the issues page.

No user data is received or stored by this site. “Try Siegfried” runs locally in your browser via siegfried’s WASM build.