ZIP is a very popular compression and file packaging utility for Unix-like operating systems as well as Windows. While perusing through the zip man page, I discovered some useful options for protecting zip archives.

 

First, install zip utility in your Linux distribution using the package manager as shown.

$ sudo yum install zip    [On CentOS/RHEL]
$ sudo dnf install zip    [On Fedora 22+]
$ sudo apt install zip    [On Debian/Ubuntu]

 

How to Create Password Protected ZIP in Linux

 

 

Once installed, you can use the zip command with -p flag to create a password protected zip archive called ccat-command.zip from the directory of files called ccat-1.1.0 as follows.

$ zip -p pass123 ccat-command.zip ccat-1.1.0/

 

However, the above method is absolutely insecure, because here the password is provided as clear-text on the command line. Secondly, it will also be stored in the history file (e.g ~.bash_history for bash), meaning another user with access to your account (more especially root user) will easily see the password.

 

Therefore, try to always use the -e flag, it shows a prompt allowing you to enter a hidden password as shown.

$ zip -e ccat-command.zip ccat-1.1.0/

 

How to Unzip Password Protected ZIP in Linux

 

To unzip and decrypt the content of the archive file called ccat-command.zip, use the unzip program and provide the password you entered above.

$ unzip ccat-command.zip

 

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