How to Install Cisco Packet Tracer 8.1 (8.1.1) on Ubuntu 22.04

In this article, we will examine how to set up and use the Cisco Packet Tracer 8.1 (8.1.1) simulator software on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish), one of the most popular and widely used Linux distributions.

How to Install Packet Tracer 8.1.1 on Ubuntu

The person or people preparing for Cisco exams prefer Packet Tracer (PT) as a start. They start to make network designs by installing Packet Tracer network software on Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. Although it is easy to install this software on a Windows operating system, this may not be the case on Linux systems.

In order to install and run Cisco network simulator software or any program on an Ubuntu distribution, you must have some command of basic terminal commands. Because when installing a program on Linux, you may need to install additional dependent packages.

The setup files of the older versions of Packet Tracer, such as 7.1, had the extension tar.gz. The extension of the setup file was changed to .run in version 7.2. In the current latest version (8.1), the setup file is now published as a .deb extension.

Packet Tracer 8 version has the ability to cable network devices with physical appearance experience and network controller features to monitor and manage network devices on the project from the host machine.

How to Download and Install Packet Tracer

Before installing the Cisco network simulator software, you must register on the Netacad website and then download the software to your computer for Linux systems and start the installation process.

   Step 1

Open your web browser on your Ubuntu computer and after viewing the Netacad site, enter your registered user information and log in. Then, click Download Packet Tracer from the Resources drop-down list on the Cisco Networking Academy homepage.

   Step 2

After scrolling down the webpage a little bit, click on the 64 Bit Download link under the Ubuntu Desktop Version 8.1.1 English title and save the CiscoPacketTracer_811_Ubuntu_64bit.deb file to your computer.

   Step 3

To install the Packet Tracer setup file with the deb extension that you downloaded to your computer, first open the terminal by pressing the CTRL + Alt + T keys together, and then go to the location where you downloaded the file.

Then, execute the command “sudo dpkg -i CiscoPacketTracer_810_Ubuntu_64bit.deb” in the terminal to start the installation and continue by typing your root password.

sudo dpkg -i CiscoPacketTracer_811_Ubuntu_64bit.deb

NOTE: You can also install the PacketTracer.deb package using the command below.

sudo apt install ./CiscoPacketTracer_811_Ubuntu_64bit.deb

   Step 4

In the Configuring Packet Tracer window, press Enter to accept the software license agreement. If you want more information, you can visit Cisco’s official website as specified in the license agreement.

   Step 5

After confirming the software license agreement, press Enter on the Yes option to accept the EULA terms.

   Step 6

The files with Deb extension in Linux systems are extracted from the archive and installed with the dpkg command. However, when trying to install Packet Tracer or any other program, you may find that dependent packages need to be installed.

   Step 7

When you extract the installation file of Packet Tracer and see that the required dependent packages are not installed, first press Y to confirm the necessary packages such as “libgl1-mesa-glx or libxcb-xinerama0-dev” to be downloaded and installed from the Internet by executing the “sudo apt install -f” command in the terminal and then press Enter.

sudo apt install -f

   Step 8

After the packages required for Packet Tracer 8.1 are downloaded from Linux servers and installed on your system, run the simulator software by executing the packettracer command in the terminal.

packettracer

   Step 9

You can use the multi-user feature to connect the different networks that you have created in your Packet Tracer software with the software running on the same computer or on a different computer. So if you want to run the multi-user feature every time you start the application, click Yes.

   Step 10

In old versions of Packet Tracer, you had the right to register up to 3 projects without logging in to Cisco. However, in new versions, you now need to log in to your Netacad account.

In this step, when you try to log in to Netacad, the login screen where you enter your account information appears black or white and if you cannot log in, you can fix this problem by temporarily turning off your internet, or you should edit the cisco-pt.desktop file as a permanent solution.

To solve the login problem, open the terminal and execute the command “sudo nano /usr/share/applications/cisco-pt.desktop”. After viewing the contents of the cisco-pt.dektop file, change the Exec value as follows.

Change (Exec=/opt/pt/packettracer %f)
To (Exec=/opt/pt/packettracer --no-sandbox %f)

   Step 11

After clicking Cisco Networking Academy, type your registered email account and click Next.

   Step 12

Type your Netacad account password and click Log in.

   Step 13

To verify that you have installed the latest version of Packet Tracer, click Help / About to check the version number.

How to Create a Desktop Shortcut

After installing Cisco Packet Tracer on Ubuntu, a shortcut to the desktop location is not automatically created. So, you need to copy the shortcut to the desktop where the applications are located.

   Step 1

To copy the shortcut in the applications to the desktop, execute the command “cp /usr/share/applications/cisco-pt.desktop ~/Desktop/” in the terminal.

cp /usr/share/applications/cisco-pt.desktop ~/Desktop/

   Step 2

After copying the shortcut, execute the command “chmod +x cisco-pt.desktop” to make the file executable.

chmod +x ~/Desktop/cisco-pt.desktop

If the Packet Tracer desktop shortcut is still not active, right-click on it and click Allow Launching. After this process, you will see that the desktop shortcut is active.

How to Create a New Project

After installing Packet Tracer, you can now start creating new projects to prepare for your Cisco exams and to better understand network protocols.

As an example, let’s connect a desktop computer and a laptop computer with Cisco Switch.

   Step 1

After clicking the end-user devices from the device categories, you can see devices such as PC, Laptop, Server, phone, or TV. Add a PC and Laptop to the workspace.

   Step 2

To establish a network connection between the PC and Laptop, click on the Switch group from the network devices category and add the 2960 Switch to the workspace.

   Step 3

To connect the computers you have added to the Switch, click Automatically choose the connection type from the cabling category.

   Step 4

After connecting the computers to the Switch, click PC0 and click IP Configuration on the Desktop tab.

   Step 5

Type the static IP address 192.168.1.100 in the FastEthernet0 interface of PC0 and type 255.255.255.0 in the Subnet Mask field.

   Step 6

Likewise, configure Laptop0’s IP configuration as 192.168.1.200 / 255.255.255.0.

   Step 7

Open Command Prompt to ping PC0 from Laptop0.

   Step 8

Ping from Laptop0 to PC0 using the command ping 192.168.1.100 and check the network connection.

   Step 9

Likewise, ping Laptop0 using the ping 192.168.1.200 command in PC0’s command prompt and check the connection.

How to Uninstall Packet Tracer

If you want to uninstall the Packet Tracer software from your Ubuntu computer, you can do this with a single line command using the terminal.

   Step 1

Open Terminal and execute the sudo apt remove packettracer command and type Y and press Enter to confirm the removal of dependent packets that were automatically installed but no longer needed.

sudo apt remove packettracer

   Step 2

Execute the command below to delete the Cisco Packet Tracer desktop shortcut as well.

sudo rm -rf ~/Desktop/cisco-pt.desktop

   Step 3

Finally, after uninstalling a program in Ubuntu, execute the command below to delete the useless files of the packages received and prevent your system’s cache from growing.

sudo apt autoclean && sudo apt autoremove

   Video

Installing Old Versions

   Packet Tracer 7.2.2

1. To install Packet Tracer.run, first open the terminal and change the permission of the file with the chmod command as follows. Then, start the installation process with the command ./PacketTracer-7.2.2-ubuntu-setup.run.

   • chmod +x PacketTracer-7.2.2-ubuntu-setup.run
     ./PacketTracer-7.2.2-ubuntu-setup.run

2. When the PT Setup Wizard window opens, click the Next button to start the installation.
3. In the Installation Folder window, continue without changing the /opt/pt/ location that is selected by default.
4. Accept the PT license in the License Agreement window and click the Next button.
5. Click the Install button to confirm that 307.58 MB of disk space will be used for the installation in the Ready to Install window.
6. You will be prompted for the authorized password for your sudo account as soon as you click the Install button. Here, type your root password for your sudo account and click the OK button.
7. Wait while the necessary files for Packet Tracer are copied.
8. After the Wizard completes the installation, click the Finish button to run the program.
9. You will get an error when you try to open the simulator by executing the packettracer command in Terminal. The reason for this error is dependent packages that are not installed on your Linux system. One of the must-have packages for Packet Tracer is Libpng. Now, run the commands below in the terminal to download and install Libpng.

   • wget https://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libp/libpng/libpng12-0_1.2.50-2+deb8u3_amd64.deb
     sudo dpkg -i libpng12-0_1.2.50-2+deb8u3_amd64.deb

10. If you see that the multiarch package must be installed as well, you will need to install that package as well. Follow the commands below to install the Multiarch package on Ubuntu.

    • wget https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/g/glibc/multiarch-support_2.29-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb
      sudo dpkg -i multiarch-support_2.29-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

11. This time, if you encounter the error (unable to install new version of ‘/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0’: No such file or directory), you should extract the deb package to the folder and add the relevant package to /opt/pt/bin/. To copy the libpng12.so.0 file;

    • mkdir cpt; dpkg -x libpng12-0_1.2.50-2+deb8u3_amd64.deb ./cpt
      cp ./cpt/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0 /opt/pt/bin/

12. After fixing the libpng12.so.0 error, run the command again in the terminal and complete the installation. Then, to test the operability of the program, apply the packettracer command and check it.
13. You have to do this manually, as the shortcut for the program is not created automatically after installing PT 7.2.2.

    • cp /opt/pt/bin/Cisco-PacketTracer.desktop /home/user/Desktop/
      chmod +x Cisco-PacketTracer.desktop

   Packet Tracer 7.2.1

1. Open Terminal by pressing CTRL + Alt + T on the Ubuntu desktop and follow the commands below to extract the Packet Tracer.tar file to the folder.

   • mkdir CPT72
     tar -xvzf Packet\ Tracer\ 7.2.1\ for\ Linux\ 64\ bit.tar.gz -C CPT72

2. After extracting the installation files to the folder, run the install file in the CPT72 folder with the command below to start the installation. Then press Enter to complete the installation and continue.

   • ./install

3. Execute the cd /opt/pt/bin/ command in the terminal to go to the installation location, and then execute the ./PacketTracer7 command to run the program. If the program cannot start, you need to install libpng12.

   • .wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libp/libpng/libpng12-0_1.2.50-2+deb8u3_amd64.deb
     dpkg -i libpng12-0_1.2.50-2+deb8u3_amd64.deb

4. After installing the required package, execute the ./PacketTracer7 command to run the software again.
5. To create a desktop shortcut, open the /opt/pt/bin/ folder and copy the Cisco-PacketTracer.desktop file to the desktop as in the image below.
6. Open Terminal and execute the command gedit Cisco-PacketTracer.desktop.
7. Change the Exec part of the file to /opt/pt/packettracer and save the file.
8. Execute the chmod +x Cisco-Packet Tracer.desktop command to make the desktop shortcut executable.
9. To create a start menu shortcut, copy the desktop shortcut you created to /usr/share/applications.

   • sudo mv Packet\ Tracer\ 7.2.1.desktop /usr/share/applications

10. To run Packet Tracer 7.2.1, double-click on the file and click the Trust and Launch button in the window that opens.

   Packet Tracer 7.1.1

Installing the 7.1.x (7.1.1) versions of Packet Tracer on your Linux computer is almost the same as the above steps. However, as we said, you may need to install different dependent packages for the program. Download and install the dependent packages for version 7.1.1 using the commands below.

1. sudo apt-get install libqt5webkit5 libqt5multimediawidgets5 libqt5svg5 libqt5script5 libqt5scripttools5 libqt5sql5
   

2. wget https://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/i/icu/libicu52_52.1-3ubuntu0.8_amd64.deb
   

3. sudo dpkg -i libicu52_52.1-3ubuntu0.8_amd64.deb
   

4. wget https://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libp/libpng/libpng12-0_1.2.50-2+deb8u3_amd64.deb
   

5. sudo dpkg -i libpng12-0_1.2.50-2+deb8u3_amd64.deb
   

Installing Old Versions > Video

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