Howto: Crack Rar, 7z, and zip files with RarCrack in Ubuntu Linux
Ever run into the problem where you created a password protected zip/rar file and you forgot the password or accidentally deleted it? Or just dont know the password at all? Well I have come across a nice solution for cracking zip/rar files. Its called rarcrack, If you forget your password for compressed archive (rar, 7z, zip), this program is the solution.
This program uses bruteforce algorithm to find correct password. You can specify which characters will be used in password generations.
Download RarCrack
Install RarCrack
Using RarCrack:
After the cracking started RarCrack will print the current status of cracking and save it's to a status file. If you want more specific password character set, you need to run RarCrack to create the XML status file (3 sec).
There will be a sample XML file, and you see there is a character set. If you want, you can modify this file and when you start RarCrack again the program will be use new variables.
Warning: Take care when you changing this file, make sure the current password don't have characters outside the abc[character set]!
Know of any other rar/zip/7z cracking tools worth mentioning?
This program uses bruteforce algorithm to find correct password. You can specify which characters will be used in password generations.
Download RarCrack
wget http://superb-east.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/rarcrack/rarcrack-0.2.tar.bz2
Install RarCrack
tar xvjf rarcrack-0.2.tar.bz2
cd rarcrack-0.2
sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev
make ; sudo make install
Using RarCrack:
rarcrack your_encrypted_archive.ext [--threads thread_num] [--type rar|zip|7z]
Everything in [] are optional, rarcrack default crack two threads and autodetect the archive type. If the detection wrong you can specify the correct file type with the type parameter. RarCrack currently crack maximum in 12 threads.After the cracking started RarCrack will print the current status of cracking and save it's to a status file. If you want more specific password character set, you need to run RarCrack to create the XML status file (3 sec).
There will be a sample XML file, and you see there is a character set. If you want, you can modify this file and when you start RarCrack again the program will be use new variables.
Warning: Take care when you changing this file, make sure the current password don't have characters outside the abc[character set]!
Know of any other rar/zip/7z cracking tools worth mentioning?
More information on rarcrack can be found here
Comments (30)

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· 885 weeks ago
http://rarcrack.sourceforge.net/
· 885 weeks ago
<a href="http://lifehacker.com/380365/rarcrack-opens-protected-archives-without-passwords
Thanks! ">http://lifehacker.com/380365/rarcrack-opens-protected-archives-without-passwords
Thanks!
· 884 weeks ago
· 884 weeks ago
· 884 weeks ago
richie · 882 weeks ago
Cheers!
harmzii · 880 weeks ago
bender · 875 weeks ago
sadpanda · 869 weeks ago
Christopher_P 1p · 866 weeks ago
mine too. (it's been doing it for 5 hours now)
Matt · 865 weeks ago
Jacques · 864 weeks ago
gnuman · 864 weeks ago
Josh · 863 weeks ago
after you unpack it, cd to the directory you just created and then type "sudo make" .. thats it. once you have the make file, THEN type "sudo make install" ... you need to make the installer first. from there the steps are the same.
Josh, again · 863 weeks ago
Phil · 861 weeks ago
K0stas · 853 weeks ago
App works great with my c2d 7500 at ~ 1300 pwd/sec but i have another trouble.
I need rarcrack to search for a keyphrase with windows-1253 or iso-8859-7 encoding. guess what, just writing the character set in the <abc> line, correcting the endoding value and saving the .xml with the correct charset has no influence. rarcrack immediately changes the endoding value written in the .xml back to utf-8.
Any thoughts? Is it a limitation of the application or is there something i don't get?
Thanks for reading
APK · 851 weeks ago
1. password complexity
2. length of time
3. your hardware
Twiny · 845 weeks ago
Using the free version of unrar instead of the non-free : from 0pwd/sec to ~1100pwd/sec
sussoger · 844 weeks ago
No files to extract
???
jmiguel77 · 843 weeks ago
Sycho · 842 weeks ago
I crack the test.rar at ~35pwds/sec and when i want to crack my own .rar file, ration fall to 0pwd/sec.
I have done below :
$ sudo apt-get remove unrar-nonfree
Shell tel me : unrar-nonfre is not installed so cant remove ....
But when I do bellow :
$ whereis unrar-nonfree
Shell respond :
unrar-nonfree: /usr/bin/unrar-nonfree /usr/share/man/man1/unrar-nonfree.1.gz
So I suspect that unrar-nonfree is wrongly removed.
Then, i did this :
$ sudo apt-get install unrar-free
without any effect ...
So i tried
$ sudo apt-get install unrar
(after removed unrar-free AND whitout removing it)
the rate of pwd/sec steading ...
Any suggestions ??
Sorry for my expression, I am French.
Please reply to me if you dont understand me.
jackblack · 836 weeks ago
it's very useful to me :D
good luck 4 your work
Michael Curran · 830 weeks ago
<rarcrack>
−
<abc>
0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
</abc>
<current>2</current>
<good_password>1</good_password>
</rarcrack>
What is the password I should try to use?
jan · 825 weeks ago
If you experience slow performance with rarcrack, just replace the version of unrar-nonfree programe with unrar-free, it is avaialble in repositiries. I have removed unrar-nonfree package and installed unrar-free and the perforamnce increased from 12 pwd/sec do 1100 pwd/sec !!!