The New Cisco Packet Tracer 7.0 on Fedora 24

Note: For Fedora 25 see this post http://www.bt0.ninja/packettracer-7-0-in-fedora-25/

Note: For Fedora 26 see this post http://www.bt0.ninja/packettracer-7-in-fedora-26

Note: For Fedora 27 see this post http://www.bt0.ninja/cisco-packettracer-7-1-on-fedora-27

Cisco Packet Tracer 7.0 is created by Cisco SystemsTM and is now provided for free distribution. Self learners are now able to download Cisco Packet Tracer after registering on Cisco Netacad website. A free Packet Tracer 101 (English), a 1-hour self-paced online course is also offered to every registered (free) student to help them get started with Pracer 7.0, So you can register and download from here.

The cisco packettracer 7.0 is available for GNU/Linux under the next requirements:

  • nss and ssl libraries.
  • QT4 script-tools, WebKit  and QT3 backward support.
  • Cisco NetSpace account. (Mandatory)

We need install some libraries as follows:

$ sudo dnf install zlib-devel ncurses-devel gtk2 glibc glibc-devel \\
 libstdc++ libX11-devel libXrender libXrandr libusb libXtst nss \\
 qt qtwebkit

This time we have x86 (32bits) and x86_64(64bits) Packet Tracer packages, to be sure what is our version, run:

$ uname -m

i686 (32bits)

Still we have the ugly openssl-1.0.0 dependency, so if we have a i686 (32bits) version of Fedora 24:

$ wget  http://www.deltaeridani.com/openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc24.i686.rpm
$ sudo rpm -Uvh openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc24.i686.rpm

x86_64 (64bits)

Today most people have a x86_64 machine and this time we have two options for resolve the OpenSSL dependency:

1.- Just download the package generated by me and simply trust me  (I call this the ugliest method because i don’t provide any warranty):

$ wget  http://bt0.ninja/rpm/openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc24.x86_64.rpm
$ sudo rpm -Uvh openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc24.x86_64.rpm

2.- Compile your own version (I call the “just ugly” method because you can check the source):

First get the code:

$ wget http://archives.fedoraproject.org/pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/17/Everything/source/SRPMS/o/openssl-1.0.0i-1.fc17.src.rpm
$ sudo dnf install @development-tools fedora-packager krb5-devel
$ sudo rpm -Uvh openssl-1.0.0i-1.fc17.src.rpm

For the build process we need super user access:

$ su -
# cd rpmbuild/SPECS/
# wget http://bt0.ninja/rpm/openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0.spec
# rpmbuild -bb openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0.spec
# rpm -i ../RPMS/x86_64/openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc24.x86_64.rpm
# exit

So many thanks to Yves L’ECUYER owner of http://www.deltaeridani.com, the original spec and the example are all from him.

Cisco Packet Tracer 7.0 will be downloaded from Cisco Networking Academy Portal,

$ tar -xzf PacketTracer70_linux.tar.gz && cd PacketTracer70
$ chmod +x install
$ sudo ./install

After accept the EULA, the installation begins, we need set the environment variables with the next command:

$ sudo /opt/pt/set_ptenv.sh

Graphical Launcher on Gnome

At this point packettracer is ready to use but another useful thing to do is create a desktop Cisco Packet Tracer icon to launch it, first download the icon:

$ wget http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/Cisco_Packet_Tracer_Icon.png
$ sudo mv Cisco_Packet_Tracer_Icon.png /usr/share/icons/

With our favorite plain text editor we will create the file /usr/share/applications/packettracer.desktop as follows:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name= PacketTracer 7.0 Comment=Networking Cisco GenericName=Cisco PacketTracer 7 Type=Application Exec=/opt/pt/packettracer Icon=/usr/share/icons/Cisco_Packet_Tracer_Icon.png Categories=Education; StartupNotify=true

Now we will run Cisco Packet Tracer 7.0 from our Desktop:

Screenshot from 2016-08-04 10-43-19 Screenshot from 2016-08-04 10-43-35

cheers!!!

25 comments

  1. Great Article! 🙂 Can you guide me how to install it in Fedora 23 x64? With rpm provided from it’s not working 🙁

  2. Thanks, thanks, thanks a lot!!!
    The openssl issue with Fedora is really a s**t but fortunately this post is the solution.
    Thanks!

  3. FINALLY…!!! Someone write somethnig about Packettracer Dependencies…!!! I’m gonna wive it a shot on Tumbleweed, cause last time I tried, I wasn’t able to run it and had to change to Manjaro (on AUR they are not showing SSL as a dependency, or QT3 backward compat).

  4. Thanks for this. When doing the rpmbuild I also needed an extra dependency of krb5-devel but other than that it works great

  5. Thanks for this. Another app I’ll need to install in its own container or vm to avoid compromising the security of my machine!

  6. hola no se porque cuando uso fedora esta manera de instalar packettracer parace que a veces no punciona, pero despues de 2 horas de tando instalar algunas cosas ya se ejecuta, ya para ejecutarlo de modo grafico yo uso e instalo alacarte que es el menu grafico.

  7. Much appreciated; I downloaded PT 7 and when it wouldn’t work right after installing, your guide came up first and was the one that did the trick. Always a fan of one-and-done. Excellent job!

    Mike

  8. This definately works for 7.0. Thank you so much! I did not want to go back to Ubuntu or run a VM! There is an issue with 7.1 though if anyone is trying to run it on Fedora 25. The app says it is starting but just exits.
    Not sure what the exact issue is but FYI:
    ________________
    open(“/usr/local/bin/packettracer”, O_RDONLY) = 3
    ioctl(3, TCGETS, 0x7ffee2f511e0) = -1 ENOTTY (Inappropriate ioctl for device)
    lseek(3, 0, SEEK_CUR) = 0
    read(3, “#!/bin/bash\n\necho Starting Packe”…, 80) = 80
    lseek(3, 0, SEEK_SET) = 0
    fcntl(255, F_GETFD) = -1 EBADF (Bad file descriptor)
    dup2(3, 255) = 255
    close(3) = 0
    fcntl(255, F_SETFD, FD_CLOEXEC) = 0
    fcntl(255, F_GETFL) = 0x8000 (flags O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE)
    fstat(255, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=179, …}) = 0
    lseek(255, 0, SEEK_CUR) = 0
    read(255, “#!/bin/bash\n\necho Starting Packe”…, 179) = 179
    fstat(1, {st_mode=S_IFCHR|0620, st_rdev=makedev(136, 0), …}) = 0
    write(1, “Starting Packet Tracer 7.1\n”, 27Starting Packet Tracer 7.1
    ) = 27
    ______________

  9. cabllero no se que debe ejecutarce en el comando

    sudo /opt/pt/set_ptenv.sh

    pero me dice que el comando no existe apesar que el archivo existe en la carpeta mencionada
    y quede hay en la version 71 de packet tracert

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