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

47
votes

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?

10
linuxbashgziptar
Can you try unpacking a tar without the z ? – Inian
without the z flag I get the same error stdin: not in gzip format. Without both z flag and filename .tar (no .gz) I get " tar: This does not look like a tar archive " – ServerSideSkittles
leave out the -a flag during encryption (or use it also during decryption if you need to base64 process the data) and use -d to decrypt, not -e (in the example above, the file was encrypted twice) – ewcz
@ewcz With the -a flag removed and using -d as you said, the process worked flawlessly. Thankyou very much for solving the problem. – ServerSideSkittles

10 Answers

-13
votes

This probably because of your gzip version incompatibility.

Check these points first:

which gzip

/usr/bin/gzip or /bin/gzip

It should be either /bin/gzip or /usr/bin/gzip. If your gzip points to some other gzip application please try by removing that path from your PATH env variable.

Next is

gzip -V

gzip 1.3.5 (2002-09-30)

Your problem can be resolve with these check points.

61
votes

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.

49
votes

First check the type of compression using the file command:

file name_name.tgz

O/P- If output is " XZ compressed data"

Then use tar xf <archive name> to unzip the file, e.g.

  • tar xf archive.tar.xz

  • tar xf archive.tar.gz

  • tar xf archive.tar

  • tar xf archive.tgz

17
votes

Just click first on that link and go to HTML page where actual downloads or mirrors are.

Its really misleading to have full link which ends in .tgz when it actually leads to HTML page where real download links are. I had this problem downloading Apache Spark and wget-ing it into Ubuntu. 

https://spark.apache.org/downloads.html
4
votes

Initially, check the type of compression with the below command: file <file_name> If the output is a Posix compressed file, use the below command to uncompress: tar xvf <file_name>

1
votes

Sometimes the .gz extension is wrongfully appended to the filename.

  • Run file foo.csv.gz to know the actual file type.
  • Rename the file to foo.csv or whatever the actual file type is.
0
votes
cd /Whatever/Directory/Path/The/File/Is/In

chmod +x xampp-linux-x64-7.0.6-0-installer.run

sudo ./xampp-linux-x64-7.0.6-0-installer.run

It works

For more information refer https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=223639

0
votes

I had the same issue. It was damaged the archive file...

0
votes

Add "-O file.tgz" or "-O file.tar.gz" at the end wget command and extract "file.tgz" or "file.tar.gz"

Here is the sample code for google colab-

!wget -q  --trust-server-names  https://downloads.apache.org/spark/spark-3.0.0/spark-3.0.0-bin-hadoop2.7.tgz  -O file.tgz 
print("Download completed successfully !!!")
!tar zxvf  file.tgz

Note- Please ensure that http path for tgz is valid and file is not corrupted

-2
votes

sudo tar -xvzf ./PhpStorm-2018.3.4.tar.gz