Encrypt Your Shell Scripts with gzexe: A Complete Step‑by‑Step Guide

gzexe is a simple utility that compresses a shell script and wraps it in a small executable, providing basic obfuscation of the script’s contents.

Link: https://www.cnblogs.com/sparkdev/p/8275221.html

Step‑by‑Step Encryption Process

Write your shell script , e.g., myscript.sh .

Make the script executable : chmod +x myscript.sh Encrypt the script with gzexe : gzexe myscript.sh This creates an encrypted version, typically named myscript.sh11 (the numeric suffix may vary).

The encrypted file appears as garbled binary data.

Verify the encrypted script : ls -l myscript.sh* Run the encrypted script just like a normal script: ./myscript.sh11 Decrypt the script (if needed) using the -d option: gzexe -d myscript.sh11 This restores the original myscript.sh file.

Security Considerations

gzexe’s encryption is lightweight, relying mainly on compression to hide the script, so it offers limited security. For stronger protection, consider tools such as shc.

Installation

If gzexe is not installed, you can obtain it via the uz80 package.

On Debian‑based systems:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install uz80

On Red Hat‑based systems: sudo yum install uz80 The uz80 package includes the gzexe utility, after which you can follow the steps above to encrypt your scripts.