It appears that regular unrar package is not available by default via apt-get on AWS Ubuntu servers. If you still need to unpack RAR files and prefer to install packages from default APT repositories only, the right package to install is unrar-free. It will do the job for you in most of the cases.
ubuntu@ip-10-0-0-38:/work/$ sudo apt-get install unrar-free Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Suggested packages: pike7.8 pike7.6 pike The following NEW packages will be installed: unrar-free 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 43 not upgraded. Need to get 24.8 kB of archives. After this operation, 101 kB of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://us-west-2.ec2.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/universe unrar-free amd64 1:0.0.1+cvs20071127-2 [24.8 kB] Fetched 24.8 kB in 4s (6,201 B/s) Selecting previously unselected package unrar-free. (Reading database ... 67423 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking unrar-free (from .../unrar-free_1%3a0.0.1+cvs20071127-2_amd64.deb) ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Setting up unrar-free (1:0.0.1+cvs20071127-2) ... update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/unrar-free to provide /usr/bin/unrar (unrar) in auto mode ubuntu@ip-10-0-0-38:/work$
Unfortunately, sometimes unrar-free is not enough – for example, when you have to unpack multipart archives. In this case you’ll have no choice but to obtain the original RAR for Linux software by enabling Multiverse repository. Alternatively, you can download the trial version directly from the official RARLAB site.
Doesn’t work as of 2020. The instances no longer have apt-get installed, only yum. And whatever repository is unrar-free is in, it is not added/activated on the instance.
Sorry to hear that… What worked for you? Please post it here, and I’ll be glad to update the article!