How to Recover RAR, 7z and ZIP Password with RarCrack in Linux

RarCrack is a program that uses brute force algorithm to find and recover the correct password for compressed archive in .rar (WinRAR), .7z (7-Zip) and .zip (WinZip) format in any POSIX compatible operating system. As such, RarCrack is useful when you have forgotten or lost the password for the compressed archive package in the supported format. To make bruteforce password breaking faster, RarCrack supports specifying a selection of characters and digits to be used in password generations in order to crack the password.

The guide below is a brief explanation on how to use RarCrack to recover and retrieve back the password for .rar, .7z or .zip files. Note that RarCrack requires glibc 2.4, pthreads and libxml2 libraries in order to work. Use rpm, pkg_add, apt-get and other commands to install the dependencies if it’s not installed yet.

  1. Download RarCrack by using the one of the following commands (just the difference of downloading mirror) in terminal:

    wget http://superb-east.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/rarcrack/rarcrack-0.2.tar.bz2
    wget http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/rarcrack/rarcrack-0.2.tar.bz2
    wget http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/rarcrack/rarcrack-0.2.tar.bz2

  2. Extract the RarCrack archive:

    tar -xjf rarcrack-0.2.tar.bz2

  3. Change directory into the extracted RarCrack folder:

    cd rarcrack-0.2

  4. Install the RarCrack with the following command:

    make
    sudo make install (so simply make install if already login as root)

  5. To crack or break the RAR, 7z or ZIP file Password, use the following syntax:

    rarcrack encrypted_archive.ext [--threads thread_num] [--type rar|zip|7z]

    The switch in [] is optional. RarCrack can autodetect the archive type, so the –type parameter only require if auto-detection of file type is wrong. And by default, RarCrack launches two cracking threads if no thread number is specified.

    For example,

    rarcrack example.rar
    rarcrack forgetpassword.zip

  6. After starting the process to break and crack the password, RarCrack will print and save the current status of cracking to a XML status file. Any valid good password to open the archive, if found, will be printed as good_password variable. An example of the XML file is as follow:

    <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
    <rarcrack>
    <abc>0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ</abc>
    <current>uU</current>
    <good_password></good_password>
    </rarcrack>

    Tip: If you can barely remember the password but pretty confident that only certain characters or digits are used, modify the “abc” character set to include those characters or numbers only. On first use, run the RarCrack to generate the XML status file, then edit then file and rerun the RarCrack again.

To unlock a protected or locked RAR archive, use WinRAR Unlock instead.


9 Responses to “How to Recover RAR, 7z and ZIP Password with RarCrack in Linux”

  1. Bear
    September 14th, 2009 14:13
    9

    You can try some softwares ,such as Password Unlocker ,Zip Password unlocker,Rar Passowrd unlocker and so on.
    You can find them though google.
    I hope this information will be helpful.Thanks.

  2. bear
    August 28th, 2009 16:38
    8

    You also can transfer your linux .rar file and .zip file to Windows xp and crack them

  3. PacoBell
    May 21st, 2009 07:29
    7

    shankar & Antispam are complete imbeciles. Have you seen the source code? It’s completely innocuous apart from being a rudimentary brute-forcing utility. Seriously, get your collective heads out of your arses!

  4. jeicrash
    March 2nd, 2009 03:53
    6

    rarcrack and several other linux programs work great to recover lost archive passwords. For those saying “Bullshit” are probably those who either have not tried it, or tried it and gave up after a few minutes. These programs attempt to use as many combinations of letters and number as possible so for an 8 char. password using upper/lower case letters and numbers you could spend years trying to recover it. Other then that rarcrack works perfect for password recovery, especially when its for someone who can’t remember which dictionary based word they used.

  5. Ragnar
    January 30th, 2009 23:36
    5

    No Bullshit. It doesn’t claim to break the protection it uses bruteforce (shall I google that for you?) to which NO crypto-algorhythm is safe against, since it emulates a user typing in ALL passwords possible. If you implement a time penalty or limit of tries, thats another matter, but has nothing to do with the crypto-algorhythm.

  6. Antispam
    January 23rd, 2009 02:49
    4

    Bullshit. There’s no such thing as ‘break rar/zip passwords’.

    Bunch of idiots. You’re all spending the time of everyone.

  7. Bernard
    January 7th, 2009 02:21
    3

    I tried this in Ubuntu 8.04, didn’t work. It halted on the first ‘make’.

  8. shankar
    January 6th, 2009 09:21
    2

    WinRAR unlock is a spyware stealing credit card information. This spyware doesnot detected even in VirusTotal, but after installation, the spyware springs up. beware. Kasperky detected that way.

  9. WinRAR Unlock Free Download to Unlock Locked Protected RAR Archive (Support SFX EXE) » My Digital Life
    January 6th, 2009 02:02
    1

    [...] To recover and break the password of RAR in Linux, use RarCrack. [...]

Leave a Reply

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Subscribe to comments feature has been disabled. To receive notification of latest comments posted, subscribe to My Digital Life Comments RSS feed or register to receive new comments in daily email digest.
Custom Search

New Articles

Incoming Search Terms for the Article

rar password cracker linux - linux rar password recovery - linux rar password cracker - rarcrack - rar password recovery linux - 7 zip password cracker - 7z password cracker - rarcrack ubuntu - crack rar password linux - 7z password recovery - 7zip password cracker - crack rar password ubuntu - 7zip password recovery - RAR Password Recovery ubuntu - ubuntu rar password cracker - zip password cracker linux - 7z password - linux zip password recovery - rar crack linux - zip password recovery linux - wget http://superb-east.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/rarcrack/rarcrack-0.2.tar.bz2 - rar password cracker ubuntu - linux zip password cracker - linux rar password - ubuntu rar password crack - rar password linux - how to use rarcrack - 7zip password - 7-zip password cracker - rar cracker linux - 7 zip password recovery - crack rar linux - 7z password crack - 7zip password crack - crack 7z password - ubuntu rarcrack - password recovery rar ubuntu - ubuntu rar password recovery - crack 7zip password - rar password crack linux - 7zip Password Unlocker - linux zip password - rar password crack ubuntu - 7z password remover - rar password cracker for linux - 7zip bruteforce - ubuntu crack rar password - linux crack zip password - rar password crack - rar password -