Creating a self-extracting zip archive on a linux box

Question

Due to a number of constraints that I won't get into, I have to create a self-extracting ZIP archive on a linux box. The resulting archive should be executable on Windows only. Is this at all possible? If so, what tools would do the job?

Background: when the user downloads a setup package from my linux box, I need that setup package to be pre-populated with a certain key. I only know that key at runtime; my idea was to write a simple .xml file with that key, then zip up the .msi installer with that xml file into a self-extracting archive, and send that file to the browser. If you have alternative ideas on how to make it happen, I'd love to hear those, too

Answer 1

Your answer can be found at the following page: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=847329 Please note that I do not take credit for anything other than using Google and finding something that sounds logically like it would work. I do not guarantee that this information will work, or that you will be able to find the mentioned materials online anymore. I'm just a fan of Google. I hope this helps.

The problem A few days back I had to create a Win32 compatible self-extracting ZIP file for a friend. Sounds easy, right. The problem was that I didn't have a Windows machine nearby and I didn't want to install any archiving programs under Wine.

NOTE: A freeware ZIP program such as IZArc under Wine can be used to create a Win32 self-extracting ZIP file too. That will not be covered by this howto, sorry.

The "research" Googling around I found this forum post dated August 2003. Reading it I found out that self-extracting ZIP files are nothing more but a suitable unzip binary followed by a normal ZIP file. I used the unzipsfx.exe included in Info-ZIP UnZip 5.52.

The link on that post worked a few days ago so I got my hands on the unzipsfx.exe that I was looking for. Today, 2nd July 2008 I found the link dead. After some googling I didn't find a working link anywhere. I read the licence a few times and understood that I can redistribute the original unzipsfx.exe with a license included.

Please note that the unzipsfx-552_win32.tar.gz (80 kB) is not an official Info-ZIP package and it includes copyrighted software that I take no credit for. More info in the Info-ZIP license that is also included in the tarball. The source code for the binaries included can be found here.

The solution

Step one, getting the unzipsfx.exe and zip package: * open the Terminal (in Ubuntu press alt+f2 and type gnome-terminal) * type in the following commands Code:

wget http://kolmoskone.homelinux.org/~kaja/kamaa/unzipsfx-552_win32.tar.gz tar zxf unzipsfx-552_win32.tar.gz sudo apt-get install zip

Step two, creating a ZIP file in Ubuntu: * open the file manager (nautilus) and select the files you want to have zipped * right click and select Create an archive (or similar). Select a location for the ZIP file, using your home directory is the easiest. Select type .zip. See man zip for information on how to create a ZIP file in command line.

Step three, making the ZIP file self-extracting * type in the following commands Code:

cat unzipsfx-552_win32/unzipsfx.exe MYZIPFILE.zip > mysfxfile.exe zip -A mysfxfile.exe

mysfxfile.exe can now be opened in any Win32 compatible system (including for example Windows XP/2000/Vista and even Wine in Linux) or ANY ZIP COMPATIBLE archive program such as file-roller in Ubuntu.

Answer 2

I was able to make this work with unzipsfx. There's a newer version of it available - just came out in April 2009 - version 6.0. Version 5.52 didn't support the critical functionality that I needed - launching a particular setup file after the extraction is completed.

So I downloaded the source files for 6.0. I then modified them to exclude the "prompt to launch stuff" check that is there by default. I recompiled using Visual Studio 2008, tried the steps described in the tutorial above, and it all works like a charm now.