Bringing Zip and Unzip to i5/OS PASE and QShell Environments

Restriction: This procedure is not supported on the System i server by IBM. We provide these instructions for you to download a copy of zip and unzip and run these functions on your System i server.

Here are the steps to add the Unzip and Zip functions to your System i server:

1. Go to the following File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site and download the archives:
   
   http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/tools/zip/info-zip/UNIX/AIX/
   
   In our case, we download these files:
   
   zip23x-aix43.zip To compress (zip) files
   unz550x-aix5L.tar.gz To uncompress (unzip) files
   
   
2. Place these files somewhere on your System i server. In this example, we use /home/zip.
3. You will also need the gunzip tool to uncompress the unz550x-aix5L.tar.gz file. Download the tool from the following Web site:
   http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/enable/site/porting/iseries/overview/gnu_utilities.html
   
   Place the file in the same directory as the other two files.
   Review the license agreement for the downloaded tools.
   
   
4. Sign on to your System i server and start an i5/OS PASE terminal with the command:
   
   CALL QP2TERM
   
   
5. Change to the /home/zip directory:
   
   cd /home/zip
   
   
6. The unzip file is a compressed file. Uncompress this file:
   
   uncompress gzip.1.2.4a.tar.Z
   
   
7. “Untar” the gzip tar file:
   
   tar -xvf gzip.1.2.4a.tar
   
   It installs the executable files under the /usr/local/bin directory.
   
8. Update the PATH variable with the /usr/loca/bin directory by running this command:
   
   export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
   
   
9. Uncompress the unz550x-aix5L.tar.gz file using this command:
   
   gunzip unz550x-aix5L.tar.gz
   
   
10. “Untar” the uncompressed file:
    
    tar -xvf unz550x-aix5L.tar
    
    It creates the directory unzip-5.50.
    
11. Change to this directory:
    
    cd unzip-5.50
    
    
12. Enter the following command:
    
    unzip
    
    It shows you the command usage text.
    
13. To run the command from any directory and any terminal window, you have to copy the unzip file into the /QOpenSys/usr/bin directory:
    
    cp unzip /QOpenSys/usr/bin
    
    
14. Switch back to the directory to which you have downloaded the files:
    
    cd /home/zip
    
    
15. Now check whether unzip is really working. The Zip program on our system is packed in the zip file - zip23x-aix43.zip, so we can try on that one. Verify that you are in the directory in which the zip23x-aix43.zip file is located. Enter the following command:
    
    unzip -d ./zip zip23x-aix43.zip
    
    
16. This creates a directory named zip and places all files into that directory. Change to this directory:
    
    cd zip
    
    
17. Issue the following command to see if the program is working:
    
    zip
    
    This will show the usage notes.
    
    
18. To make the command available in every i5/OS PASE terminal session, copy the program into the /QOpenSys/usr/bin directory.
    
    cp zip /QOpenSys/usr/bin
    
    
19. To use both commands (zip and unzip) in QShell, make another copy of the programs into the /usr/bin directory by running 2 commands:

cp /QOpenSys/usr/bin/zip /usr/bin

cp /QOpenSys/usr/bin/unzip /usr/bin

Now zip and unzip are available for the next QShell terminal.