Everyone might have used RAR files in Windows, but using it on Linux is not straightforward. None of the Linux operating systems (by default) comes with an utility to process RAR files. It means, if you have downloaded any RAR file from internet and want that to be opened or extracted in Linux machine, then you need a ‘rar‘ and ‘unrar‘ utilities. This tutorial explains how to extract and create rar file in Linux.
Check if your Linux machine already has these utilities.
# whereis rar # whereis unrar
Install rar and unrar commands in Linux
On Ubuntu or Debian machines
# apt-get rar # apt-get unrar
On Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS machines…
# yum install rar unrar
In case, if apt-get or yum doesn’t find correct repositories containing rar and unrar utilities, then you may download the binaries as below:
# wget http://www.rarlab.com/rar/rarlinux-3.6.0.tar.gz # tar xvzf rarlinux-3.6.0.tar.gz # cd rar # cp rar unrar /bin
Using unrar to extract RAR archive
# unrar x demos.rar UNRAR 3.60 freeware Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Alexander Roshal Extracting from demos.rar Extracting xbpdemo.mov OK Extracting bpbdemo.mov OK Extracting drback.mov OK Extracting flaskbo3.mov OK Extracting q35fun.mov OK All OK
List files inside RAR archive
# unrar l demos.rar
Test the RAR file integrity
# unrar t demos.rar
To create a RAR archive in Linux
# rar a sample.rar files/
Here, command ‘a‘ is for creating an archive.
rar and unrar commands/options
Lookout for various commands or options by just typing the command.
# rar Usage: rar <command> -<switch 1> -<switch N> <archive> <files...> <@listfiles...> <path_to_extract\> <Commands> a Add files to archive c Add archive comment cf Add files comment ch Change archive parameters cw Write archive comment to file d Delete files from archive e Extract files to current directory f Freshen files in archive i[par]=<str> Find string in archives k Lock archive l[t,b] List archive [technical, bare] m[f] Move to archive [files only] p Print file to stdout r Repair archive rc Reconstruct missing volumes rn Rename archived files rr[N] Add data recovery record rv[N] Create recovery volumes s[name|-] Convert archive to or from SFX t Test archive files u Update files in archive v[t,b] Verbosely list archive [technical,bare] x Extract files with full path
Similarly, below are the options for ‘unrar’ command
# unrar Usage: unrar <command> -<switch 1> -<switch N> <archive> <files...> <@listfiles...> <path_to_extract\> <Commands> e Extract files to current directory l[t,b] List archive [technical, bare] p Print file to stdout t Test archive files v[t,b] Verbosely list archive [technical,bare] x Extract files with full path
