UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am trying to zip a file with password protection.

I have read all or atleast most of the threads on the website, but couldn't come up with a solution.

I am running ZIP version 2.3 on HP-UX but I dont see the -P (password) option. I read somewhere that free versions of zip don't come with -P option. Can someone confirm this assumption. I have already wasted a weeks effort on this.

Can anyone suggest anyway of doing this, we are planning to send out an email (with attachment) to yahoo/gmail/outlook from our UNIX box but the file has to be password protected before it goes out. User will open the attachment from that email.

If it's just a single file, why not use pgp or gpg to encrypt it? You could also use vi with the -x option to encrypt the file.

Other than that, use the crypt command:

Encode:
crypt Password < filename > filename.encrypted

Decode:
crypt Password < filename.encrypted > filename

If I encode using pgp in UNIX, what software would the user have to use to open it in say MS-Word /Notepad ? Forgot to mention that the file is .txt.

From what I read, if I use crypt to encode the file, I have to use crypt to decode it too! cannot use that in Windows, or can I ?

just to confirm, when you look at
man zip
it doesn't have the -P option?

and when you try to use zip with the -P option, it doesn't work?

When I got a free hosting account with Joyent which uses the Bash shell, the zip program it comes with has the -P option in the man page.

I dont see the -P option when I check the man pages.

Thanks for your help zTodd

pgp (as GNU gpg or "gpg") is supported for Windows and unix. It is free for both platforms.

The GNU Privacy Guard - GnuPG.org