UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

We currently take files (via FTP) off of a mainframe and save them as a text file on our server. This is done via a script. The next thing that is done to that text file is it gets zipped (using ZIP). This all works fine, but it doesn't appear that ZIP (the free version) has any way to password protect or encrypt the file. Does anyone know of a package or anything that will allow me to either encrypt or password protect the file through my Unix script? I'm sure my company won't want to pay for a product, so if there's any free ones out there, please let me know (and where to find them). Thanks, in advance, for any help you can provide.

The freeware version of PGP is great to use for encryption, both symmetric and asymmetric. There is also the encryption tools in SSLEAY distributions. Both can be found from a google search on the net.

PGP / GnuPG is the way to go, if you want security. If you only want a passworded zip file, you can use the `zipcloak` utility. Keep in mind that zip passwords can be broken fairly easily.