Password-Protected Archives

The archive represents ZIP File Version 5.2 with AES-256 encryption. Be aware that AES encryption is not widely supported by ZIP tools and archivers. For instance, Microsoft Windows Compressed Folders does not support AES encryption and isn’t able to open any AES-encrypted ZIP archive. Please consider using third-party software. We recommend you 7-Zip which is cross-platform and is free for commercial use (there are limitations, please refer to 7-Zip License for details).

Also, please note that we put one ZIP archive into another one. This is done to encrypt filenames inside an archive. Filename encryption is introduced in ZIP File Format Specification 6.2. We decided to keep version 5.2 for better compatibility.

ZIP archives without password protection

There is an option to disable archive encryption and switch to an unencrypted ZIP archive. This option is available for customer managed storage only. The Cloudback build-in storage is password-protected and this behavior can’t be changed.

WARNING: If you disable archive encryption, please take all necessary precautions to protect your backups inside your own storage from unauthorized access.

The option resides in the Storage Editor dialog and can be set when you create or edit your own customer managed storage:

Select archive type of the new Cloudback storage

Sample of an archive

You can download a sample password-protected archive by the link below:

password-protected archive encryption method

Password prompt

The archive is password protected in the same way as all Cloudback backups are. A new password is generated every time a new backup is created. Here is a password for this particular archive:

  • c8f42392e86e4f7fbe8b4adf7ec65694
password-protected GitHub repository backup

Archive content

For a brief description of content please refer Metadata Backups

GitHub repository backup structure

Learn more