Getting Cisco Packet Tracer 7.1 to Run on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

The desktop version of Cisco Packet Tracer (CPT) is currently available in three flavours: 32-bit and 64-bit versions for Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 and a 64-bit version for Linux. There is no macOS version so I decided to install the 64-bit Linux version of CPT (7.1.0.0222)¹ on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS running on VMware Fusion (10.1.1).

UPDATE 2018-09-01: CPT 7.2 was released on 21st July 2018 which doesn’t appear to need libicui18n.so.52 as detailed in this article and runs without issue on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. However, there’s now an issue with CPT 7.2 running on Ubuntu 18.04 as it can’t locate libpng12.so.0. The answer from Lucas Almeida on StackExchange regarding installing libpng12.so fixed it for me.

I should mention that I have limited experience with Ubuntu and Linux in general. I merely enjoy dabbling when I need to and am unsure of the dangers or repercussions – if any – of the procedure detailed below which involves having two versions of the same library installed on one system. In my case, having Ubuntu on a VM solely for the purpose of running CPT presents little risk. Your situation may differ.

I followed the Installation section of these instructions to install CPT.

As part of the CPT installation I opted to have a symbolic link named packettracer – pointing to the file /opt/pt/packettracer – created in /usr/local/bin. /opt/pt is CPT’s default installation directory. However, when running packettracer very little appears to happen apart from being told that CPT is starting:

Dummy Tab

Dummy Content

Command

packettracer

Output

Starting Packet Tracer 7.1

Looking at /opt/pt/packettracer we can see that it executes PacketTracer7 located in /opt/pt/bin:

#!/bin/bash

echo Starting Packet Tracer 7.1

PTDIR=/opt/pt
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PTDIR/lib
pushd $PTDIR/bin > /dev/null
./PacketTracer7 "$@" > /dev/null 2>&1
popd > /dev/null

Executing /opt/pt/bin/./PacketTracer7 should give some clues:

Dummy Tab

Dummy Content

Command

/opt/pt/bin/./PacketTracer7

Output

/opt/pt/bin/./PacketTracer7: error while loading shared libraries: libQt5Script.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

There’s an error loading libQt5Script.so.5, but this message is a little misleading. You’ll notice in /opt/pt/packettracer on line 6 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable is temporarily set to /opt/pt/lib and tells CPT where to look for shared libraries. Let’s change the command to include setting the value of the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable:

Dummy Tab

Dummy Content

Command

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/pt/lib /opt/pt/bin/./PacketTracer7

Output

/opt/pt/bin/./PacketTracer7: error while loading shared libraries: libicui18n.so.52: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

There’s still an error loading a shared library, but this time it’s libicui18n.so.52. A quick search for libicui18n gives the following:

Dummy Tab

Dummy Content

Command

sudo updatedb; locate libicui18n

Output

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.55
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.55.1

It appears the correct library is installed, but CPT requires an older version – 52 instead of 55. A Debian package containing the older version of libicui18n is available at http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/i/icu/libicu52_52.1-3ubuntu0.8_amd64.deb.

To download the package type:

Dummy Tab

Dummy Content

Command

wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/i/icu/libicu52_52.1-3ubuntu0.8_amd64.deb

To install this package type:

Dummy Tab

Dummy Content

Command

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

sudo updatedb; locate libicui18n now lists the following:

Dummy Tab

Dummy Content

Command

sudo updatedb; locate libicui18n

Output

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.52
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.52.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.55
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.55.1

CPT should now start:

Dummy Tab

Dummy Content

Command

packettracer

Output

Starting Packet Tracer 7.1

Cisco Packet Tracer 7.1 running for the first time

In summary, the Linux version of CPT (7.1.0.0222)¹ requires an older version of the libicui18n library not available in Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS. CPT (7.1.0.0222)¹ will run on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS providing the older libicui18n.so.52 library is installed alongside the newer one. As a side note, I found that CPT (7.1.0.0222)¹ does run without issue on Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS where the required older version of the library is installed as default.

¹ CPT was updated to version 7.1.1 on 8th December 2017, but will still not run unless the older libicui18n.so.52 is installed.

Cancel reply

51 Comments

tejas says:

October 28, 2018 at 17:14

thank you sir

I__N says:

October 22, 2018 at 15:08

thanks bro, it’s worked for me…

rpallai says:

October 12, 2018 at 14:50

I just want to let you know that there is a new, more straightforward
way to install Packet Tracer on any Linux that supports Flatpak
(including Ubuntu) – check out at https://github.com/rpallai/flatpak-pt

I also have a hard time to get it working and keep it working over
dist-upgrades. This method may be the final answer to this issue. Please
share your opinion if you try it.

Girum says:

October 3, 2018 at 12:31

thank you it is working in my pc

Zsalim says:

July 2, 2018 at 11:56

Thanks your post is very helpful and it works for ubuntu 18.04 LTS

ndblo says:

July 1, 2018 at 02:13

Thank you

Paulo "JCranky" Siqueira says:

June 16, 2018 at 08:25

Thanks a bunch for this post, helped a lot. Now, you might want to update the file to be downloaded, since http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/i/icu/libicu52-dbg_52.1-3ubuntu0.7_amd64.deb is not there anymore, but http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/i/icu/libicu52-dbg_52.1-3ubuntu0.8_amd64.deb is, instead. Minor version change.

- gils says:
  
  June 25, 2018 at 22:22
  
  thank you for your revision. Helped me profoundly
  
- Steve says:
  
  June 16, 2018 at 10:04
  
  @Paulo,
  
  Thanks for the heads-up. Have updated the package name.
  
  Regards, Steve.
  
Robo says:

April 30, 2018 at 06:04

Hello,

my CPT starts but only via CLI. I tried to make Dash icon and I can actually see it there but its not starting when I click on it and its not normal icon, its just invisible picture. Can you help me to solve this?

- Steve says:
  
  April 30, 2018 at 07:36
  
  @Robo,
  
  The instructions I used to install CPT – and linked to at the beginning of this article – also contain details on how to create a Dash icon. I’ve just followed these and created an icon on the Desktop which successfully launches CPT. In my case, I replaced cp /opt/pt/bin/Cisco-PacketTracer.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/Cisco-PacketTracer.desktop shown in the instructions with cp /opt/pt/bin/Cisco-PacketTracer.desktop ~/Desktop/Cisco-PacketTracer.desktop to place the launcher on the Desktop.
  
  Regards, Steve.
  
  - gab says:
    
    June 1, 2018 at 20:14
    
    Thanks for linking my instructions Steve!
    
    Your site is great!
    
    gab
    
    - Steve says:
      
      June 2, 2018 at 10:47
      
      @gab,
      
      Credit where credit’s due. Your instructions were key to me successfully installing CPT on Ubuntu and helped focus my efforts in solving why CPT wouldn’t run. Thank you.
      
      Regards, Steve.
      
  - Robo says:
    
    April 30, 2018 at 10:08
    
    Finally solved 😀
    
    Thank you very much 🙂
    
Frank says:

April 26, 2018 at 18:53

I found this on other forum and it resolved my issue
Navigate to the directory where PacketTracer is installed (this is the default):

cd /opt/pt/bin

then run PacketTracer7

./PacketTracer7

Now, if it shows a list of “libqt5xxx” missing libraries, please install them all.

sudo apt install libqt5xxx*

Remember, just write everything that is behind the first . and to put the * in the end of the name of the package.

In my case, it was a package named “libQt5Script.so.5”, so I did this:

sudo apt-get install libQt5Script*

After that, running PacketTracer7

./PacketTracer7

Gabriel says:

April 4, 2018 at 22:37

Thanks a lot for this tutorial, Steve! Helped me a ton.

Diego says:

March 26, 2018 at 11:45

Thank you Steve, you are the real MVP

Antonio Ferraro says:

March 16, 2018 at 22:39

Thanks Steve,

This is a great post, useful and to the point. Thanks to you Packet Tracer 7.1.1 is now happily running on Xubuntu 16.04 64 bits in about 10 minutes.

Antonio

Chris says:

March 9, 2018 at 11:29

Cheers Steve!

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and the only thing I had to do was to install the old library libicui18n.so.52 and it started working. So just doing the following fixed the error:
1) wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/i/icu/libicu52_52.1-3ubuntu0.7_amd64.deb
2) sudo dpkg -i libicu52_52.1-3ubuntu0.7_amd64.deb

Regards, Chris

William says:

March 7, 2018 at 12:57

Hi Steve,

I’m running on Kali Linux and have the exact same issue except the file I need is libcrypto.so.1.0.0 and nothing seems to work for getting it. I’ll have to have another go at this when I’m less tired and see if I can sort it.

Kind regards,
William

- Steve says:
  
  March 7, 2018 at 17:48
  
  @William,
  
  This maybe of some help. It deals with Kali Linux, libcrypto.so.1.0.0 and CPT 6.
  
  Regards, Steve.
  
Robson Pedroso says:

March 3, 2018 at 21:18

Thank you Steven!

Wilfried Bounsi says:

February 28, 2018 at 05:59

Thanks!

Dan says:

February 19, 2018 at 18:52

Thanks Steve! CPT is working on Ubuntu 16.04! Much appreciated

Cesar says:

February 18, 2018 at 15:29

Hi, Steve.
I’m trying to install PacketTracer 7 and I followed all instructions you (and other ‘gurus’) provided but…It didn’t work.

My system is as follows:

NAME=”Ubuntu”
VERSION=”16.04.3 LTS (Xenial Xerus)”
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME=”Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS”
VERSION_ID=”16.04″
HOME_URL=”http://www.ubuntu.com/”
SUPPORT_URL=”http://help.ubuntu.com/”
BUG_REPORT_URL=”http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/”
VERSION_CODENAME=xenial
UBUNTU_CODENAME=xenial

Also, I have noticed that:
libQt5Script.so.5 => not found
libQt5ScriptTools.so.5 => not found

I really tried to install those libraries above, but I failed. Miserably. Can you help me?
My best regards

- Steve says:
  
  February 18, 2018 at 19:53
  
  @Cesar,
  
  Sorry you’re having trouble getting CPT to run. Both libQt5Script.so.5 and libQt5ScriptTools.so.5 are installed as part of the CPT installation in /opt/pt/lib/. If they’re not there, then I suspect CPT is not installed on your system. Remember, this article doesn’t cover how to install CPT, but does include a link to the installation instructions I used.
  
  If those files are present, then ensure you’re not trying to start CPT with PacketTracer7 in Terminal. You need to use either /opt/pt/packettracer or the symbolic link packettracer. See my reply to Momcilo’s comment further down the page.
  
  Regards, Steve.
  
  - Cesar says:
    
    February 21, 2018 at 01:05
    
    Hi, Steve.
    I did a complete re-install, from scratch and following your guidance, it finally worked.
    
    thanks a lot !!
    
Kenny says:

February 15, 2018 at 10:27

Thank you so much. I followed your instructions and finally made it on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

choibali says:

February 13, 2018 at 06:48

Thank you. After some tweaks here and there. Cisco Packet Tracer version 7.1.1 works in Loki. You are an extraordinary living legend. All the best for you!!!

Yuna says:

February 12, 2018 at 02:45

Hi,

I trying to install packettracer on my Manjora. When I execute /opt/pt/bin/PacketTracer7, it shows:

/opt/pt/bin/PacketTracer7
/opt/pt/bin/PacketTracer7: error while loading shared libraries: libQt5WebKitWidgets.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I tried to execute sudo updatedb, but no clue. Please help.

sudo: updatedb: command not found

- Steve says:
  
  February 12, 2018 at 09:27
  
  @Yuna,
  
  I’m not familiar with Manjaro nor Arch Linux in general. updatedb manages a database used by locate. The equivalent of locate in Manjaro appears to be mlocate. As for installing the package containing libicui18n mentioned in the article, this is a Debian package for Debian-based Linux distros such as Ubuntu. Not sure if it should – or can – be installed on Arch-based Linux distros. See here.
  
  Regards, Steve.
  
Alejandro says:

February 9, 2018 at 18:57

You are a god, really helpful, thanks

anand says:

February 9, 2018 at 05:15

Thanks for this , really helpful

Tejas says:

February 3, 2018 at 05:30

Thank you steve it worked..

Duong says:

January 31, 2018 at 16:20

thanks you a lot. Your article has helped me from wasting ton of times.

Milton Alonzo says:

January 27, 2018 at 22:53

Mister Big thanks!!!

joe says:

January 27, 2018 at 11:46

thanks Steve

Momcilo says:

January 26, 2018 at 13:29

I do this all:

sudo updatedb; locate libicui18n
/home/agudjav/Documents/eagle-8.4.1/lib/libicui18n.so.56
/opt/viber/lib/libicui18n.so.52
/snap/wordpress-desktop/31/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.55
/snap/wordpress-desktop/31/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.55.1
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.57
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.57.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.52
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.52.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.55
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.55.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.57
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.57.1

but after it didn’t start, i start the /opt/pt/bin$ ./PacketTracer7 file and become an error:
“error while loading shared libraries: libQt5WebKitWidgets.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory”

Can someone help me ?

- Steve says:
  
  January 26, 2018 at 14:40
  
  @Momcilo,
  
  You need to run /opt/pt/packettracer which first sets the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable to tell CPT where to find the shared libraries it requires and then executes PacketTracer7. If you run PacketTracer7 directly the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable is not set and will result in the errors you’re seeing.
  
  NOTE: If you had the CPT installation create a symbolic link named packettracer in /usr/local/bin you can run packettracer instead of /opt/pt/packettracer.
  
  Regards, Steve
  
Joseph says:

January 12, 2018 at 17:18

Thanks Steve for this post. Thumbs-up, it helped me bigtimes. This problem had stuck with me for a week now until I landed on your blog. huuuuuuuw!!!…Now I can breathe

Idoia says:

January 5, 2018 at 19:01

Great!!! Very clear and useful explanations

fmartap says:

December 30, 2017 at 08:59

Hi Guys,
I had an error the following day after installation. I was desperate and finally found your explanations. My problem was the system required me to join NETACAD. I entered
/opt/pt/bin/PacketTracer7
and redirected me to their web page when I log in and it currently up and running.
Thanks a lot,

- Steve says:
  
  December 30, 2017 at 11:36
  
  @fmartap,
  
  I think enrolling with the Cisco Network Academy (NetAcad) is a pre-requisite for downloading Packet Tracer from their site. It certainly is for running it.
  
  Regards, Steve.
  
  - Rezah says:
    
    February 1, 2018 at 12:57
    
    There are plenty of alternatives to download to avoid logins. I use this cisco.shamshid.com, where the guy updates on time.
    
    - Steve says:
      
      February 10, 2018 at 11:47
      
      @Rezah,
      
      I wasn’t aware that CPT could be downloaded from elsewhere. Thanks for that.
      
      Two things I noticed: 1. The version I downloaded form cisco.shamshid.com still won’t run until the older version of libicui18n has been installed. 2. It still presents a login prompt for NetAcad. So, IMHO there doesn’t seem any advantage to using this download location.
      
      Regards, Steve.
      
Calotreze says:

December 30, 2017 at 07:21

Hey this was very helpful. Big thanks!!!

ayoub says:

December 27, 2017 at 23:19

very helpful
thanks <3

Myasishchev says:

December 23, 2017 at 15:42

Thanks, it worked!

KostyaCh says:

December 9, 2017 at 23:43

Thank you!

faisal azeez says:

November 21, 2017 at 09:59

Great post i found it extremely useful, as it indeed helped get packet tracer7 run on my ubuntu 16.04 system

Diego says:

November 12, 2017 at 16:00

Great post there!

Extremely helpful and clear. Thank you very much for taking the time for this great contribution.

PD: From this post, I could not tell the fact you mentioned of you having limited experience with Ubuntu or Linux in general.

Regards,

Diego