Can search read gzip files?

Yes it can. https://docs.cribl.io/search/data-formats/#

Cribl Search supports the following data formats:

• Journal: Journal binary files are used for logging and storing system and application events. Cribl Search supports .journal and temporary .journal~ files, which are helpful when investigating unexpected process failures. LZ4 and ZSTD compressed data objects are supported.
• Parquet: See the Parquet section below for details on how Parquet files are processed.
• Splunk rawdata: Splunk rawdata journal files are used to store raw data ingested by indexers.
• TAR: See the tarballs section below for details on how tar files are processed.
• Text: Text files are a popular format that contains human-readable characters. E.g., JSON, CSV, and .log.

Compression formats are used to reduce the size of data to optimize storage space and speed up data transmission. The following are supported:

• Gzip
• Snappy