While installing packages from the source, you may encounter files in the RAR format.
So the question is how do you unrar a file in Ubuntu?
Well, in this tutorial, I will walk you through the following:
- How to unrar files in Ubuntu
- How to create a RAR file in Ubuntu
How to unrar files in Ubuntu
To unrar files in Ubuntu, you'd have to install a CLI tool called unrar
using the following command:
sudo apt install unrar
Once done, you can use the unrar command with the x
option and it will extract files in the original directory structure:
unrar x Filename.rar
For example, here, I extracted files from the Scripts.rar
file:
unrar x Scripts.rar

But you can do a lot more with the unrar command.
1. Unrar files to a different directory
By default, the unrar command will extract files in the current working directory but that's not always user want.
To unrar files to a different directory, all you have to do is append the path where the files need to be extracted as shown:
unrar x Filename.rar /path/to/extract
For example, here, I extracted to the subdirectory named New
:
unrar x Scripts.rar New/

2. List file contents of a RAR file
If you want to list the contents of a RAR file to verify file contents, it can be achieved using the l
flag:
unrar l Filename.rar

How to create RAR files in Ubuntu
Similar to unrar, you need a different CLI utility that will allow you to create and modify RAR files.
And for that purpose, you'd have to install rar
using the following:
sudo apt install rar
Once done, you can create a RAR file by using the rar command in the following manner:
rar Filename.rar File1 File2 File3 File4 FileN
For example, here, I created a RAR file named Scripts.sh
containing multiple scripts:
rar a Scripts cat.sh empty-string.sh length.sh lines.sh

And unlike unrar command, the rar command allows you to modify existing RAR files in various ways.
1. Delete a file from the RAR archive
There are times when you may want to remove some unnecessary files from a RAR file and in that case, you can use the d
option:
rar d Filename.rar File_to_remomve
For example, here, I removed cat.sh
from the Scripts.rar
file:
rar d Scripts.rar cat.sh

2. Add files to the existing RAR archive
Want to update the existing RAR file by adding some files to it? It can easily be done using the u
option as shown:
rar u Filename.rar File1 File2
For example, here, I added non-empty.sh
file to the Scripts.rar
:
rar u Scripts.rar non-empty.sh

To verify the process, you can list its contents:

3. Create password-protected RAR files
If you want to create a RAR file enabled with password protection, you'd have to use the -p
flag with the a
as shown:
rar a -p Filename.rar File1 File2 File3
Once you execute the rar command in the above manner, it will prompt you to enter the password (twice),
Let's say I want to create a password-protected RAR file named Hello.rar
with few files then, I will be using the following:
rar a -p Hello.rar read.sh length.sh

And now, if I try to unrar protected file, it will ask for the password:

Want to unzip gz files? Here you go
If you have no idea how to extract files from the gz files, here's a detailed guide to help you:

I hope you will find this guide helpful. Have any questions? Leave a comment.