gzip: stdin: not in gzip format tar: Child returned status 1 tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

Question

I have a bash script that creates a tar.gz and encrypts then sends to drive. However I cannot open the .tar.gz afterwards. Here is my process...

Bash Script that encrypts.

#!/bin/sh  # tar the automysqlbackup directory tar -zcf "red-backup-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d').tar.gz" /var/lib/automysqlbackup/  # encrypt the tar openssl aes-256-cbc -a -salt -in "red-backup-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d').tar.gz" -out "red-backup-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d').tar.gz.enc" -pass 'pass:MySecretPWD'  # remove the original tar rm -rf "red-backup-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d').tar.gz"  # upload to google drive gdrive upload --file "red-backup-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d').tar.gz.enc" -p "jofhriout849uioejfoiu09" 

then I download the file and use

sudo openssl aes-256-cbc -e -in red-backup-2016-09-22.tar.gz.enc -out red-backup-2016-09-22.tar.gz 

I then enter the passphrase for my file twice and I now get a file called

red-backup-2016-09-22.tar.gz 

When I then try

sudo tar -zxvf red-backup-2016-09-22.tar.gz 

and get

gzip: stdin: not in gzip format tar: Child returned status 1 tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now 

I have also tried renaming the file .tar and also trying

sudo tar xvf red-backup-2016-09-22.tar.gz 

and

sudo tar xvf red-backup-2016-09-22.tar  tar: This does not look like a tar archive tar: Skipping to next header tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors 

Any ideas where I am going wrong?

Answer 1

This means the file isn't really a gzipped tar file -- or any kind of gzipped file -- in spite of being named like one.

When you download a file with wget, check for indications like Length: unspecified [text/html] which shows it is plain text (text) and that it is intended to be interpreted as html. Check the wget output below -

[root@XXXXX opt]# wget --no-cookies --no-check-certificate --header "Cookie: gpw_e24=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oracle.com%2F; oraclelicense=accept-securebackup-cookie" "http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u144-b01/090f390dda5b47b9b721c7dfaa008135/jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz" --2017-10-12 12:39:40--  http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u144-b01/090f390dda5b47b9b721c7dfaa008135/jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz Resolving download.oracle.com (download.oracle.com)... 23.72.136.27, 23.72.136.67 Connecting to download.oracle.com (download.oracle.com)|23.72.136.27|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Not Allowed Location: http://XXXX/FAQs/URLFiltering/ProxyWarning.html [following] --2017-10-12 12:39:40--  http://XXXX/FAQs/URLFiltering/ProxyWarning.html Resolving XXXX (XXXXX)... XXX.XX.XX.XXX Connecting to XXXX (XXXX)|XXX.XX.XX.XXX|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 17121 (17K) [text/html] Saving to: ‘jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz’  100%[=========================================================================================================================================================================>] 17,121      --.-K/s   in 0.05s     2017-10-12 12:39:40 (349 KB/s) - ‘jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz’ saved [17121/17121] 

This sort of confirms that you haven't received a gzip file.

For a correct file, the wget output will show something like Length: 185515842 (177M) [application/x-gzip] as shown in the below output -

[root@txcdtl01ss270n opt]# wget --no-cookies --no-check-certificate --header "Cookie: gpw_e24=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oracle.com%2F; oraclelicense=accept-securebackup-cookie" "http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u144-b01/090f390dda5b47b9b721c7dfaa008135/jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz" --2017-10-12 12:50:06--  http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u144-b01/090f390dda5b47b9b721c7dfaa008135/jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz Resolving download.oracle.com (download.oracle.com)... XX.XXX.XX.XX, XX.XX.XXX.XX Connecting to download.oracle.com (download.oracle.com)|XX.XX.XXX.XX|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily Location: https://edelivery.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u144-b01/090f390dda5b47b9b721c7dfaa008135/jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz [following] --2017-10-12 12:50:06--  https://edelivery.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u144-b01/090f390dda5b47b9b721c7dfaa008135/jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz Resolving edelivery.oracle.com (edelivery.oracle.com)... XXX.XX.XXX.XX, 2600:1404:16:188::2d3e, 2600:1404:16:180::2d3e Connecting to edelivery.oracle.com (edelivery.oracle.com)|XXX.XX.XX.XXX|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily Location: http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u144-b01/090f390dda5b47b9b721c7dfaa008135/jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz?AuthParam=1507827127_f44251ebbb44c6e61e7f202677f94afd [following] --2017-10-12 12:50:07--  http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u144-b01/090f390dda5b47b9b721c7dfaa008135/jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz?AuthParam=1507827127_f44251ebbb44c6e61 Connecting to download.oracle.com (download.oracle.com)|XX.XX.XXX.XX|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 185515842 (177M) [application/x-gzip] Saving to: ‘jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz’  100%[=========================================================================================================================================================================>] 185,515,842 6.60MB/s   in 28s      2017-10-12 12:50:34 (6.43 MB/s) - ‘jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz’ saved [185515842/185515842] 

The above shows a correct gzip application file has been downloaded.

You can also file, head, less, view utilities to check the file. For example a HTML file would give below output -

[root@XXXXXX opt]# head jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz <!doctype html> <html lang="en">  <head>     <meta charset="utf-8">     <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">     <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">     <link href="/css/print.css" rel="stylesheet" media="print">     <link href="/css/main.css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen">     <link href="/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet"> 

The above shows it is indeed an HTML page which we are trying to unzip/untar - something that won't work. If it was indeed a correct zip file (binary in nature) the output of head would have produced garbage - something like below -

[root@XXXX opt]# head jdk-8u144-linux-x64.tar.gz  x�rY�[ms�F������ڍtіl���DR���Ŋ��j                                        $�$,`0�h�_����/��=�@Q�w+��ձ*�Hbfz�{�~�{�i�x��k����޾}����z���w����g�����{�޼�;{s����w���⹳�7�N����i� �����} �¿g��������ק���7��s�����폺î߹�����~i��j�/�����޿#���=��=>��߿{}��|�������������3���X���]9�ޠ����u�����%ğ�<^)�H�8�F�R�t�o�L�u��S%�ds5�2_EZn�t^��                                                                                                                                                  �N3��(��<��|'�q���R�N�gq�Uv!�ۻ�p���rL��M��u��.�Q�5�T��BNw�!$��<>�7G'$�,Mt4WY�Gi"�=��p�)�VIN3����\ek��0��G                                             �<L�c�ē�t-���2���G:Ϣia��I�<ʋg3���d�H����[2`�<I�A�6�W��<��C�������h��A0QL�2�4�-* �x���Е�t%t1��f�>+A͂�,Lr�                         �Fe:MBH��ɩ� C�Q�r�S��<M�b�<,5���@���s��݉c��sp�f�=g��?��k���4�}��kh)�¹Z��#d�*{���-�.N�)�e��s:�H(VQ��3*�$2󞖔��rϨv�"o�_��!A�������B�l=A�|��@��0��1��5��4g� � ���Se����H[2�����t��5�Df����$1���b$� h�Op����!Lvb!p��b�8^�Y���n�                                                                           O��Ԫ߱��|��lW�lu��*�N�M��� �/�^0~�~�#��q��������K��;�d���aw4����ݎ'�~�7��ky�o���������t�'k��f����!vo���'o���     �.�Pn\�                �+��K"FA{����n2����v��!/Ok��r4�c5�x$'�.�&w�!�%�ޠo������2���i                                                                                �a0��Ag�d����GH)G7~�g���b��%�b��rt�m~�   �����t0��   <������������5�q�t��K(��+Z<��=���:1�\�x�p=t�`��G@F��    i�����p8�����H.���dMLE��e[�`�'n��*h[��;�0w'��6A�١M�x�fpeB>&���MO�������`�@á/�"�����(��^���n��=����5��@�Mx��d:\YAn���]|�w>��S��FA9�J�k!�@� 

Try downloading from the official site and check if their download links have changed. Also check your proxy settings and make sure you have the right proxies enabled to download/wget it from the correct source.

Hope this helps.