Packettracer 7.0 in Fedora 25

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 PacketTracer 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 25:

$ wget  http://www.deltaeridani.com/openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc25.i686.rpm
$ sudo rpm -Uvh openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc25.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.fc25.x86_64.rpm
$ sudo rpm -Uvh openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc25.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.fc25.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:

cheers!!!

10 comments

  1. I want to to thank you for this very good read!!
    I certainly loved every little bit of it. I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff
    you post…

  2. Hi Guys.
    Thanks for your post but I do all of that but when I run packet tracer nothings appear as do as ‘packettracer’ command in terminal.
    Can you help me to fix my problem

    1. Ok, maybe the environment is not updated, change/restart the terminal or review if /opt/pt/bin is in the $PATH 🙂

  3. Thanks for the instructions. I built and installed the libcrypto library but get this message:

    /lib64/libcrypto.so.1.0.0: no version information available (required by ./PacketTracer7)

    1. I fixed the problem I described:

      1. I downloaded the source code for openssl 1.0.0t

      2. I created a file openssl.ld that contained the following code:
      OPENSSL_1.0.0 {
      global:
      *;
      };

      3. I ran the following commands:
      ./config shared -Wl,–version-script=openssl.ld && make clean && make

      Now PacketTracer7 just fails with the message “Segmentation fault (core dumped)” 🙁

      Still, I feel like I’m making progress 🙂

  4. hello friend thank you for me is not necessary compile anything because I just need:
    dnf install zlib-devel ncurses-devel gtk2 glibc glibc-devel \\
    dnf install libstdc++ libX11-devel libXrender libXrandr libusb libXtst nss \\
    dnf install qt qtwebkit

    and after that

    $ wget http://bt0.ninja/rpm/openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc25.x86_64.rpm
    $ sudo rpm -Uvh openssl-lib-compat-1.0.0i-1.fc25.x86_64.rpm

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

    and ready but i must thank you so much because i found out that i only need install the things that I mentioned

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