When managing compressed archives on enterprise RHEL-based systems, install the standard zip and unzip package utilities via yum or dnf to handle compression and extraction operations.

Installation

Install both the compression and extraction utilities from default system repositories:

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sudo yum install zip unzip -y

File Compression (Creating Archives)

1. Compress a Single File

Create a compressed archive containing a single file:

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zip archive_name.zip file1.txt

2. Compress Multiple Files

Combine multiple discrete files into a single ZIP archive:

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zip archive_name.zip file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt

3. Compress a Directory Recursively

Use the -r flag to traverse and include all contents, subdirectories, and hidden files within a directory:

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zip -r archive_name.zip /path/to/directory/

File Extraction (Uncompressing Archives)

1. Extract Archives to the Current Directory

Uncompress the contents of a ZIP file directly into the current working directory:

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unzip archive_name.zip

2. Extract Archives to a Specific Destination

Extract files into a target target directory using the -d option:

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unzip archive_name.zip -d /path/to/destination/

3. Inspect Archive Contents Without Unzipping

List all files contained within an archive before extraction using the -l flag:

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unzip -l archive_name.zip