Hiberden for Linux
Hiberden on Linux, two ways: the full desktop application, and the command-line tools built for a headless or air-gapped server. Both write the same archive format and read the same catalog as the Windows app.
Install the desktop app
The full graphical workflow: projects, archives, verification, restore, the built-in virtual tape drive, and the bundled AI connector. Built on Ubuntu 22.04, so it runs on Ubuntu 22.04 and later, Debian 12 and later, and equivalents, on x86_64.
Grab the .deb (or the AppImage) from the download page, then verify the checksum and install:
# in your download folder
curl -fsSLO https://cdn.hiberden.app/downloads/hiberden-desktop-linux-x86_64.deb.sha256
sha256sum -c hiberden-desktop-linux-x86_64.deb.sha256
sudo apt install ./hiberden-desktop-linux-x86_64.deb
Then launch Hiberden from your applications menu. The full product is free for 30 days from your first archive; restore and verify always work, license or not, and a license from hiberden.app/register activates on Linux the same way it does on Windows.
Prefer a portable build? The AppImage is on the same download page: verify against the checksum, chmod +x, run.
Install the command-line tools
For a headless or air-gapped server: catalog your archives, write them, and verify and restore them with no desktop and no network. Same install floor as the desktop app.
# the CLI: catalog, archive, verify, restore
curl -fsSLO https://cdn.hiberden.app/downloads/hiberden-cli-linux-x86_64
curl -fsSLO https://cdn.hiberden.app/downloads/hiberden-cli-linux-x86_64.sha256
sha256sum -c hiberden-cli-linux-x86_64.sha256
chmod +x hiberden-cli-linux-x86_64
sudo mv hiberden-cli-linux-x86_64 /usr/local/bin/hiberden
hiberden --version
hiberden --help
The MCP connector, for driving Hiberden from an AI assistant, is the same download with hiberden-mcp in place of hiberden-cli. Setup is in the connector repository.
What the command-line tools do
- Catalog and archive.
hiberden archive <dir> --to-tape <mount>writes a verifiable TAR with a signed sidecar. - Verify and restore. Read a copy back, recompute its hash, and confirm it still matches what was written. Restore never depends on a license.
- Cloud destinations, headlessly.
hiberden set-cloud-credentialreads the secret from standard input, never the command line, so it is not exposed to other processes on the box or captured in shell history.
Signing and custody
Each archive is signed by a per-install Ed25519 key kept under ~/.hiberden/keys/, readable only by your user. It is the same kind of custody the operating-system keyrings provide on other platforms: it protects the key from other users on the machine, and it is not hardware-backed. If no signing key is available, the tool refuses to write rather than quietly producing an unsigned archive; pass --allow-unsigned to override that deliberately.
Verify what you downloaded
The published SHA-256 for the current builds. sha256sum -c checks it for you; these are here so you can confirm out of band.
Tape
Evaluate the whole tape workflow before you spend a dollar on hardware: the desktop app's virtual tape drive is built in, and the command-line tools honor HIBERDEN_TAPE_FAKE=1, so write, span, verify, and restore all run with no drive attached. On real hardware, tape on Linux targets the open-source LTFS implementation; validating it against a drive is the next beta milestone, and this page will say so plainly the day it lands.
On Windows? The desktop application with a signed installer is at hiberden.app/download.