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Run Cisco Webex on 64-bit Ubuntu 16.04

Run Cisco Webex on 64-bit Ubuntu 16.04

With Audio and Screen Sharing Enabled

Enable support for 32-bit executables

Add the i386 architecture to the list of dpkg architectures :

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Install the libraries required to execute ELF-32 executables:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386

Install Firefox 52 ESR (32-bit)

Beginning with Firefox 52 (released March 2017), plug-in support is limited to Adobe Flash, and drops support for NPAPI, impacting plugins for Java, Silverlight, and other similar NPAPI based plugins. Hence you need the ESR release. You can read more on that here: https://www.java.com/en/download/help/firefox_java.xml

Download Firefox ESR for Linux (32-bit) from here.

Unpack it to somewhere, for example to /opt/webex/:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/webex/
sudo tar -xjvf firefox*esr*.tar.bz2 -C /opt/webex/

Install the libraries required for Firefox (i386) to run smoothly:

sudo apt-get install \
    libgtk-3-0:i386 \
    libasound2:i386 \
    libdbus-glib-1-2:i386 \
    libxt6:i386 \
    libxtst6:i386 \
    libcanberra-gtk-module:i386 \
    libcanberra-gtk-3-module:i386 \
    topmenu-gtk3:i386

Install 32-bit JRE

Download Oracle JRE for Linux (a tar.gz archive for x86 architecture) from here.

Unpack it to /opt/webex/:

sudo tar -xzvf jre*linux-i586.tar.gz -C /opt/webex/
sudo mv /opt/webex/jre* /opt/webex/jre

Enable Java support in Firefox

Create symbolic links for the Java browser plugin libraries:

sudo mkdir /opt/webex/firefox/plugins/
ln -s \
    /opt/webex/jre/lib/i386/libawt.so \
    /opt/webex/jre/lib/i386/libjawt.so \
    /opt/webex/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so \
    /opt/webex/firefox/plugins

Install the libraries required for Webex to run

sudo apt-get install \
    libpangoxft-1.0-0:i386 \
    libxft2:i386 \
    libpangox-1.0-0:i386 \
    libxmu6:i386 \
    libxv1:i386 \
    libasound2-plugins:i386

Create a Firefox launch script

cat << 'EOF' | sudo tee /opt/webex/firefox.sh
#!/bin/bash

export ENV_HOME=/opt/webex
export FIREFOX_HOME=$ENV_HOME/firefox
export MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=$ENV_HOME/firefox/plugins
export JAVA_HOME=$ENV_HOME/jre
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

#export JPI_PLUGIN2_DEBUG=1

$FIREFOX_HOME/firefox --no-remote -P
EOF

This script will start a new instance of Firefox with the ProfileManager. Choose an existing Firefox profile or create a new one.

You might want to specify a specific profile to start with. Just add the profile name after the -P flag.

Don't forget to make the script executable:

sudo chmod a+x /opt/webex/firefox.sh

You might want to create a symlink, like this:

sudo ln -s /opt/webex/firefox.sh /usr/local/bin/firefox-i386

Start a Webex session

Launch the script and join a Webex session.

If webex.com sends you a jnlp file and Firefox asks what to do with it, just download it. Further, in the Firefox Preferences > Applications, set the action for JNLP files: they should be opened with javaws (Java Web Start) which can be found here:

/opt/webex/jre/bin/javaws

(Optional) Install the missing libraries required by Webex

Find out what required libraries are be missing (note that the session number may be different):

ldd ~/.webex/T30_MC/*.so | grep "not found"

You can use http://packages.ubuntu.com/ to find out which packages contain the libraries.

It is OK to have libjawt.so being not found.

i was not able to find libcanberra-gtk-3-module:i386 , but got libcanberra-gtk3-module:i386

thrau commented Aug 9, 2017

libawt.so and libnpjp2.so are not in the current oracle JDK 1.8.0-144, however copying the IcedTeaPlugin.so and making sure javaws points to the 32 bit binary seems to have done the trick.

thanks for this guide though!

i am getting
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "unity-gtk-module".
and webex is saying your browser is not supported

@thrau are you able to run webex on ubuntu, if yes can you please help me out , i am kinda stuck.

i am getting this on terminal when i click on Start meeting on webex.

Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "unity-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "unity-gtk-module"
1502279281845 addons.xpi-utils WARN Disabling foreign installed add-on ubufox@ubuntu.com in app-system-share
GLib-GIO-Message: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications.
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "unity-gtk-module"

(firefox:7662): Gtk-WARNING **: Error loading theme icon 'dialog-question' for stock: Icon 'dialog-question' not present in theme ubuntu-mono-dark
GLib-GIO-Message: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend. Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications.

(firefox:7662): Gtk-WARNING **: Error loading theme icon 'edit-clear' for stock:

(firefox:7662): Gtk-WARNING **: Error loading theme icon 'dialog-information' for stock: Icon 'dialog-information' not present in theme ubuntu-mono-dark

It worked i was able to join meeting but i was not able to share my screen. Share menu was disabled any workaround?

THANK YOU! This worked so, so, so, so well!

The one thing that tripped me up was that libcanberra-gtk-3-module:i386 package couldn't be found, and so all the other packages in that install didn't actually install.

But I figured it out and went back and removed that package, and re-ran the apt-get install

Now it's working and I can webex with my colleagues, which allows me to fully integrate into their workflow! THANK YOU!

varaga commented Sep 21, 2017

I tried this on ubuntu 17.04. The WebEx version is 3.2 and firefox on 52.0 32 bit as suggested here.
However logging into the meeting comes back with browser unsupported

Your browser, browser version, or operating system is currently unsupported.
For details, check the system requirements.

Above scripts not working on Ubuntu 17.04. I am facing same issues as written above by @varaga

Because Cisco detects on browser version >= 52 as needing javaws and ESR is already at 52.3.2, for this to work, you actually have to download Firefox 51.
FYI
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/51.0/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-51.0.tar.bz2

TimDorand commented Oct 3, 2017

I used to run the CiscoWebExServlet file with javaws. But I have audio issues.
When executing your firefox.sh script I have this error:

XPCOMGlueLoad error for file /opt/webex/firefox/libxul.so:
libdbus-glib-1.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Couldn't load XPCOM.
$ ldd ~/.webex/T30_MC/*.so | grep "not found"
	libjawt.so => not found
	libjawt.so => not found
	libpng12.so.0 => not found

EDIT:
Fixed with the 62bits Firefox verison

Guys, I've followed this topic How to get WebEx running on an Ubuntu smoothly

And it works

gzelck commented Nov 9, 2017

Nice post, al works except the microphone of my Plantronics C420M. It's automatically muted when webex opens. No idea how to fix this.

gzelck commented Nov 9, 2017

The previous attempt was with the webex test from oracle : https://oracleuniversity.webex.com.
Using Windows7 I get the same muted microphone though. So it might work.

Not sure if this changed at some point or is a typo, but the package libcanberra-gtk-3-module:i386 is found without a dash in gtk-3, so libcanberra-gtk3-module:i386.

After working through this tutorial, I've found that the only thing needed is 32-bit Java. Webex launches now in a Java Webstart, not a browser-based Java plugin. Thus, it does not matter which browser you use, as long as you use javaws from a 32-bit Java to run the jnlp file. You do not need 32-bit Firefox, and I'm not sure if you need any of those 32-bit dependencies either (unless some are dependencies for 32-bit Java).

pdykes commented Nov 18, 2017

Not to be lazy, but anyone create a docker image for this so we can all just run it? ;-) Also, seem that ubuntu post to make it work smoothly is not found any longer...

to play a recording:

sudo apt-get install libcurl3:i386

Thanks a lot for the instructions! Worked for me

tried this tutorial and everything works fine except audio plays slower than video when viewing a webex recording

Does anyone know how to test webex meeting before connecting to the one I really need to connect?
I mean test audio, screen share and so on. Basic webex test meeting does not provide connected host

aless80 commented Dec 13, 2017

Do you guys noticed that since a few days webex does not work anymore? I had it running on two linux mint 64 bit computers, then it stopped with the error in the browser console below. I followed the steps here and got the same error. From a post on stack overflow I understand that this can happen on the application launching java, i.e. webex

Loading failed for the <script> with source “https://js-agent.newrelic.com/nr-spa-1071.min.js”.
fowardAction.do:1
Content Security Policy: The page’s settings blocked the loading of a resource at https://js-agent.newrelic.com/nr-spa-1071.min.js (“default-src https://intersystems.webex.com 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval' sip: mailto: data: blob: mediastream: https://webex.com https://.webex.com https://webex.com.cn https://.webex.com.cn https://webexcc.com https://.webexcc.com https://cisco.com https://.cisco.com https://.rackcdn.com https://.google-analytics.com https://.websecurity.norton.com https://.paypal.com https://.verisign.com wss://.webex.com:* ws://.webex.com: wbx://.webex.com: https://ciscospark.com https://*.ciscospark.com wbx:”).

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