ZIP and UNZIP with Passwords in Java

Zip and Unzip are a very common activities for a computer user. A user normally uses the zip utility to compress a directory to create a zip file. There are many ready-made software such as winzip,7zip, and winrar that are available to achieve this. 

However, it is also possible to protect the zip file with a password so that the end user has to provide the password to unzip the zip file. This is the very common scenario that can be achieved by a zip utility tool. The significant part of my article is to provide you with the solution to achieve this using a Java program. While developing the project you may encounter a scenario in which you have to create a password-protected zip file that can be unzipped by any zip tool like winzip. Let me provide a complete scenario for your understanding.

In a system, some files are generated for a user and all the files are zipped with a password. The generated password protected zip file is sent to the user through email and the password for the zip file to open is sent to the particular user as an SMS to the user's mobile. 

 Similarly the end-user creates a password protected zip file and uploads to a online system with the user's password in a text field. In this case we have to develop a system where the system will be able to create a password protected zip file and should be able to extract all the files from a password protected zip file. Let me show you how you can achieve it.

Technicalities
However, Java provides the feature of creating a zip file and also provides the feature to unzip or decompress a zip file. But there is no default java API to create a password protected zip file and also there is no default java API to unzip a password protected zip file. To facilitate this feature of zip utility some developers have developed java API in this regard. We have to use their API to achieve this. We have to look into the following aspects of zip utility.

1. Java-enabled system should be able to generate a password protected zip file and that password protected zip file can be unzipped by any zip utility like winzip and others
2. Java-enabled system should be able to decompress or unzip a password protected zip file created by any zip utility like winzip and others.

The followings are the APIs you have to use for this objective:

1.To create a password protected zip file in java, you have to use “winzipaes”. It is avilable in Google code. You can download the .jar file and the source code from the following link.

"http://code.google.com/p/winzipaes/"

This API helps to add a password to a already created zip file. It means that if you want to create a password protected zip file, first you have to create a zip file and then you can add a password that zip file. It is a pure java API works with any operating system. You have to download the following jar file from the above URL.

passwordcompressor.jar

2.To unzip or decompress a password protected zip file, you have to use “sevenzipjbind”. It is available in sourceforge.net site. You can download the .jar files from the following link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzipjbind/files/. This API helps to extract all the files and folders from password protected zip file created by any zip utility tool. You have to download the following .jar files from the above URL.

sevenzipjbinding-AllPlatforms.jar
sevenzipjbinding.jar

3.For password protection, you have to use Bouncecastle cryptographic API. You can download the .jar file from the following link.
http://www.bouncycastle.org/
You have to download the following .jar files from the above URL.
bcprov-jdk15-145.jar

After downloading all the .jar files, put all the .jar files in your classpath. I have written a java program by using all these APIs to achieve all the above mentioned functionalities.

Have a look at the following code structure.

Code for ZipUtil.java