Verify NVRC release artifacts

This guide shows how to verify the tarball, the extracted binary, the
SBOM, and the SLSA provenance for a given release.

Prerequisites

Cosign v2+ (signature & bundle verification)
SLSA Verifier v2.7.1+
(Optional) GitHub CLI gh to download assets

1) Set variables

# Choose your target architecture:
export TARGET=x86_64-unknown-linux-musl   # or: aarch64-unknown-linux-musl

# Set the release tag and repository:
export TAG="vX.Y.Z"
export REPO="NVIDIA/nvrc"

Example:

export TARGET=x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
export TAG="v0.1.0"
export REPO="NVIDIA/nvrc"

2) Download the release assets

The release contains a tarball per target architecture and a
per-artifact SLSA provenance file.

gh release download "$TAG" --repo "$REPO" \
  --pattern "NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz" \
  --pattern "NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz.*" \
  --pattern "NVRC-${TARGET}.intoto.jsonl" \
  --dir .

You should now have:

NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz
NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz.sig
NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz.cert
NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz.bundle.json

NVRC-${TARGET}.intoto.jsonl

3) Verify the tarball

These commands assert the tarball was signed by this repository's GitHub
Actions workflow on main and is recorded in Rekor.
(Online verification talks to Rekor; offline verification uses the embedded
bundle.)

# Online verification (Rekor)
cosign verify-blob \
  --rekor-url https://rekor.sigstore.dev \
  --certificate "NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz.cert" \
  --signature   "NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz.sig" \
  --certificate-identity-regexp "^https://github.com/$REPO/.github/workflows/.+@refs/heads/main$" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  "NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz"

# Offline verification (bundle)
cosign verify-blob \
  --bundle "NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz.bundle.json" \
  --certificate-identity-regexp "^https://github.com/$REPO/.github/workflows/.+@refs/heads/main$" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  "NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz"

Extract files for further checks:

tar -xf "NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz"

After extraction, you should see:

NVRC-${TARGET}
NVRC-${TARGET}.sig
NVRC-${TARGET}.cert
NVRC-${TARGET}.bundle.json

sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json
sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json.sig
sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json.cert
sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json.bundle.json

4) Verify the binary and SBOM (online with Rekor)

# Binary
cosign verify-blob \
  --rekor-url https://rekor.sigstore.dev \
  --certificate "NVRC-${TARGET}.cert" \
  --signature   "NVRC-${TARGET}.sig" \
  --certificate-identity-regexp "^https://github.com/$REPO/.github/workflows/.+@refs/heads/main$" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  "NVRC-${TARGET}"

# SBOM (SPDX JSON)
cosign verify-blob \
  --rekor-url https://rekor.sigstore.dev \
  --certificate "sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json.cert" \
  --signature   "sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json.sig" \
  --certificate-identity-regexp "^https://github.com/$REPO/.github/workflows/.+@refs/heads/main$" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  "sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json"

(Optional) Offline verification using bundles

cosign verify-blob \
  --bundle "NVRC-${TARGET}.bundle.json" \
  --certificate-identity-regexp "^https://github.com/$REPO/.github/workflows/.+@refs/heads/main$" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  "NVRC-${TARGET}"

cosign verify-blob \
  --bundle "sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json.bundle.json" \
  --certificate-identity-regexp "^https://github.com/$REPO/.github/workflows/.+@refs/heads/main$" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  "sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json"

Tip: if you later switch to tag-triggered builds, change the regex to:
^https://github.com/$REPO/.github/workflows/.+@refs/tags/$TAG$

5) Verify SLSA provenance

Releases are built from main, so verify against the branch.

slsa-verifier verify-artifact "NVRC-${TARGET}" \
  --provenance-path "NVRC-${TARGET}.intoto.jsonl" \
  --source-uri "github.com/$REPO" \
  --source-branch "main"

6) (Optional) Rekor references

If the release includes REKOR-REFERENCES.md and rekor-references.json,
they list each artifact's UUID and logIndex in Rekor:

https://rekor.sigstore.dev/api/v1/log/entries/<uuid>

These are extracted from the published bundle files for precise,
reproducible auditing.

7) Advanced: strict identity pinning (recommended)

For maximum assurance, pin additional GitHub-specific claims embedded in
the Fulcio certificate. If you know your workflow file and branch, use:

WF_FILE="release.yaml"              # workflow filename under .github/workflows/
WF_REF="refs/heads/main"            # release branch
WF_REPO="$REPO"                     # e.g., NVIDIA/nvrc

# Tarball (same flags also apply to binary/SBOM verifies)
cosign verify-blob \
  --rekor-url https://rekor.sigstore.dev \
  --certificate-identity "https://github.com/$WF_REPO/.github/workflows/$WF_FILE@$WF_REF" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  --certificate-github-workflow-repository "$WF_REPO" \
  --certificate-github-workflow-ref "$WF_REF" \
  "NVRC-${TARGET}.tar.xz"

# Binary
cosign verify-blob \
  --rekor-url https://rekor.sigstore.dev \
  --certificate-identity "https://github.com/$WF_REPO/.github/workflows/$WF_FILE@$WF_REF" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  --certificate-github-workflow-repository "$WF_REPO" \
  --certificate-github-workflow-ref "$WF_REF" \
  "NVRC-${TARGET}"

# SBOM
cosign verify-blob \
  --rekor-url https://rekor.sigstore.dev \
  --certificate-identity "https://github.com/$WF_REPO/.github/workflows/$WF_FILE@$WF_REF" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  --certificate-github-workflow-repository "$WF_REPO" \
  --certificate-github-workflow-ref "$WF_REF" \
  "sbom-NVRC-${TARGET}.spdx.json"

Don't know the exact workflow filename? Stick with the regex form used
above (it already pins to your repo and branch).

If you run releases via workflow_dispatch, you can also pin the trigger:

--certificate-github-workflow-trigger "workflow_dispatch"

Notes & troubleshooting

If identity check fails, ensure REPO and the regex
(@refs/heads/main vs @refs/tags/$TAG) match how the release was built.
If NVRC-${TARGET}.intoto.jsonl is missing, confirm the release includes
per-target provenance.
For more detail, add --verbose and optionally set COSIGN_EXPERIMENTAL=1
when experimenting locally.

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