I'm using the Unix tar command as follows to tar up a directory and its files:
tar cvzf fileToTar.tgz directoryToTarIs there a way to password protect the .tgz file? I've created password-protected ZIP files on Windows so I would assume Unix has the same capability. Any ideas?
06 Answers
Simple examples:
cat filename | crypt > filename.crypt
gpg -c –o filename.gpg filename
You can use command:
zip -P password file.zip fileOr better:
zip -e file.zip file
man zipYou can use gpg (=GnuPG):
gpg -o fileToTar.tgz.gpg --symmetric fileToTar.tgzThis will prompt you for a passphrase.
To decrypt the file later on, just do a:
gpg fileToTar.tgz.gpgThis will prompt you, again, for the passphrase.
1Neither the tar format nor the gz format has built-in support for password-protecting files.
The Windows zip format combines several different piece of functionality: compression (e.g. gzip), archiving multiple files into one (e.g. tar), encryption (e.g. gnupg), and probably others. Unix tends to have individual tools, each of which does one thing well, and lets you combine them.
The Unix equivalent of a password-protected .zip file would probably be called something like foo.tar.gz.gpg or foo.tgz.gpg.
And there are open-source zip and unzip tools for Unix, though they may not provide all the capabilities of the Windows versions (I'm fairly sure the newer .zipx format isn't supported).
You can use ccrypt.
Things can be encrypted by a pipe:
tar cvvjf - /path/to/files | ccrypt > backup.tar.bz2.cptOr in place:
ccrypt backup.tar.bz2For automating, you can save a passkey into a file and use this passkey to encrypt:
ccrypt -k ~/.passkey backup.tar.bz2To zip a file with password run the following command:
zip -er name.zip folder/
It will show a prompt to enter a hidden password.
To unzip the file, run:
unzip name.zip
And enter the password you added before.
