Create a Password Protected ZIP

By  on  

Have you ever wanted to put very basic security (a passphrase) on a file?  You can do so if you ZIP the file -- let's have a look at how you can password-protect a ZIP file!

Creating a password protected ZIP file from command line is done so via the following command:

# zip -er {file name to be created} {source directory or file}
zip -er my-generated-file.zip source-file.rtf

When someone tries to unzip the file, they'll be prompted for a password.

Don't be under any illusion that a password makes the ZIP file too secure:  ZIP files don't self-destruct after a given number of attempts so a brute force effort to crack the password would ultimately be effective.  If you do, however, want a very basic level of security for the contents of a file, this command will get you there.

Recent Features

  • By
    How I Stopped WordPress Comment Spam

    I love almost every part of being a tech blogger:  learning, preaching, bantering, researching.  The one part about blogging that I absolutely loathe:  dealing with SPAM comments.  For the past two years, my blog has registered 8,000+ SPAM comments per day.  PER DAY.  Bloating my database...

  • By
    fetch API

    One of the worst kept secrets about AJAX on the web is that the underlying API for it, XMLHttpRequest, wasn't really made for what we've been using it for.  We've done well to create elegant APIs around XHR but we know we can do better.  Our effort to...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    jQuery Countdown Plugin

    You've probably been to sites like RapidShare and MegaUpload that allow you to download files but make you wait a specified number of seconds before giving you the download link. I've created a similar script but my script allows you to animate the CSS font-size...

  • By
    MooTools Star Ratings with MooStarRating

    I've said it over and over but I'll say it again:  JavaScript's main role in web applications is to enhance otherwise boring, static functionality provided by the browser.  One perfect example of this is the Javascript/AJAX-powered star rating systems that have become popular over the...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!