Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@mshkrebtan
Last active October 28, 2022 15:23
Show Gist options
  • Star 84 You must be signed in to star a gist
  • Fork 31 You must be signed in to fork a gist
  • Save mshkrebtan/407786e334847544b40e7d6a8a53d247 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save mshkrebtan/407786e334847544b40e7d6a8a53d247 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
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-semog
Copy link

i-semog commented May 26, 2018

So, flash, java machine ok. I installed firefox esr x64, x86 and when opening wbxstart it does not find libcurl.so

[linux @ ArchLinux ~] $ ldd ~ / .webex / 500 / . so | grep "not found"
ldd: /home/linux/.webex/500/
.so: No such file or directory

[linux @ ArchLinux 500] $ ls -la
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 linux users 4096 May 24 21:35.
drwxr-xr-x 3 linux users 4096 May 24 21:35 ..

[linux @ ArchLinux .webex] $ ls
500 wbxstart wbxstart.1.32.9.1

I'm starting on linux, hopefully I've done all the testing and research googlers before abusing them.

@sysrq-reisub
Copy link

It works but the audio is crackling so much

Copy link

ghost commented Jul 12, 2018

Hello tovarish Shkrebtan,
Thank you so much for this how-to, I forked it to adapt for Fedora 28 and It works well !!!
Thank you from France !

@xavery
Copy link

xavery commented Aug 30, 2018

Hey there, just wanted to report that this - surprisingly - also works without a glitch with the current 64-bit version of Firefox. Of course you still need Java installed in the system, but the whole process from the browser's point of view is the same - the site simply hands you a JNLP file that you later run with javaws.

@e-orz
Copy link

e-orz commented Nov 10, 2018

Hi,
I recently posted a blog post (similar to this one) describing how to install WebEx on Linux (I think it's similar to this one).
https://e-orz.github.io/linux/2018/03/15/webex-on-linux.html

@edebuhr
Copy link

edebuhr commented Nov 28, 2018

Hello,
Will this allow a user of WebEx to take control of another shared screen?

@rwagnergit
Copy link

Works perfectly on 16.04. Thanks much!

@Vitalii-001
Copy link

Works perfectly on 18.04. Thanks much!

@LTepliakov
Copy link

LTepliakov commented Oct 2, 2019

Worked fine for me on Ubuntu 16.04 with below corrections:
libcanberra-gtk-3-module:i386 -> libcanberra-gtk3-module:i386

Needed also to install:
sudo apt install libatomic1:i386

Thank you for very in-detail instructions!

@proski
Copy link

proski commented Mar 24, 2020

From my experience, I can use any browser with Webex, but only once. If I don't sign out, I would get this unhelpful message next time:

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

The fix it to clear a cookie named ticket from webex.com to use Webex in that browser again.

@yige-hu
Copy link

yige-hu commented Apr 27, 2020

Not working with 18.06, still getting 'Your browser, browser version, or operating system is currently unsupported' with the Cisco online test meeting.

BTW, I didn't install topmenu-gtk3:i386 since it's deprecated and not in the apt cache, though no errors returned on that.

@proski
Copy link

proski commented Apr 27, 2020

I ended up with adding four URLs to "Cookies and Site Data" -> "Manage Permissions":

https://webex.com/ Allow for Session
http://webex.com/ Allow for Session
https://mycompany.webex.com/ Allow for Session
http://mycompany.webex.com/ Allow for Session

That works even with the current 64-bit Firefox. However, I need to exit Firefox between the calls. Logging out at the end of the session makes Firefox restart unnecessary, but it's easy to forget.

I guess another approach would be to write a Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey script that would replace "Your browser, browser version, or operating system is currently unsupported" with a page that at least allows to log out (remove the bad cookies). Maybe it's even possible to make the connection just work.

I suspect Webex detects some trivial issue but calls the "nuclear" handler on unsupported systems even though a graceful workaround is available on supported systems.

@RitamChakraborty
Copy link

Instead of installing Java 8 32 bit manually, you can use a tool called IcedTea.

I followed this tutorial, and used the tool to open the jnlp file from Firefox. But keep in mind some libraries are not found in apt repository. So you gotta do some digging to get the tool installed. I mean add some lines in source.list.

@djkerya
Copy link

djkerya commented Mar 29, 2021

Is this tutorial works for 20.04?

@RitamChakraborty
Copy link

RitamChakraborty commented Mar 30, 2021

@djkerya It worked for me in Deepin 20.1. As all the packages needed are available in apt repository, you should not have any problem. In case if some package is not available, you can always add the ppa in the source.

@proski
Copy link

proski commented Mar 30, 2021

I would not use this tutorial on any distro now, even if it works. I have never had any success with Java Webex, although I only tired this tutorial on Ubuntu 18.04. The version of Firefox needed to enable Java support is too old and insecure.
In the meantime, the Web version of Webex has greatly improved on Linux. I don't even need to set up exceptions for the cookies. Last time I saw the "currently unsupported" error it was a few months ago, and it was after multiple meetings involving personal rooms. Restarting Firefox fixed the issue.

@Aakash-sanandiya
Copy link

Hello everyone, first of all, great tutorial and it helps a lot. I am using ubuntu 18.04 and Webex running perfectly!! Just not able to take the control of participant's screen. Can anyone instruct what could be missing and should I expect it to work with the given installation? Thanks in advance and it would be great help.

@jamesmhbarry
Copy link

I use Ubuntu 18.04 64 bit and have been using Webex for a while on Firefox 88, no problems. Today suddenly the screen sharing is broken, it says "Use operating system settings" instead of giving me a list of windows I would like to share.

Funnily enough I installed the new Ubuntu Webex App and screen sharing is also not possible for me.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment