Installing Packet Tracer on a Mac v2

Installing Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 A Very Brief Introduction Play On Mac is a Wine packager, Wine means ‘Windows Emulator’ and comes from the Linux community. The Play on Mac packager makes use of the Mac’s X11 GUI environment latent in many *nix based operating systems. It is worth reading the material on the following link and make your own choices before reading any further. http://www.winehq.org/docs/winelib-guide/mfc-legal-issues This does work on both Snow Leopard and Lion, but please do read the footnote at the end of this document. Before you start STOP : read this, rushing ahead to the next section will be somewhat pointless unless you have taken the time to prepare for the installation of Packet Tracer. 1. Make sure you have downloaded the Windows .exe file from the packet tracer portal on the Cisco Academy website. 2. Go to http://www.playonmac.com register as a user and download the latest version of Play On Mac. ○ The author is assuming that you can install applications on your Mac, with this in mind, please install Play On Mac, its not a difficult process. ○ Please note the download is around 160+ Megabytes, lower bandwidth connections may mean this is a natural break for a nice cup of coffee. ○ You may need to set up the environment for Play On Mac once installed, Play On Mac uses additional applications such as xQuartz, which you may (or may not) already have installed. If you have to install additional components, this may be time for your second cup of coffee, if you are blessed with a slow connection. This pack was written for v4.0.14 of Play On Mac, there is always the chance that there will be minor (and some major) changes. Please do share on the Cisco Academy Facebook portal of any changes that may affect the use of this guide.

Page … 1 of 8 Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 is provided for the Cisco Academy Community by Andrew Smith and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Installing Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 Installing Packet Tracer Once you have downloaded everything, and installed Play On Mac you will need to start the application. It is worth reading through this section before racing ahead, the process is not difficult but anyone could easily make a mistake. Once started, you will be greeted with a menu similar to figure 1.

Figure 1, Play On Mac, Menu. Click on the install ‘+’ option, now you will have to hunt, down to the bottom left in the current version is the install a non-listed program option (figure 2).

Figure 2, installing a non listed program The manual installation wizard will then appear (figure 3).

Figure 3, the manual installation wizard You will need to create a virtual drive, here will reside the Wine system as well as Packet Tracer Page … 2 of 8 Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 is provided for the Cisco Academy Community by Andrew Smith and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Installing Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 (Figure 4).

Figure 4, Installing a program in a new virtual drive. You will be asked to give the virtual drive a name, keeping it obvious at this point is probably a very good idea (Figure 5). You will note from the example there is a space, the software does remove these, but to be sure, leave them out.

Figure 5, naming the virtual drive


Installing Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 You will be asked a technical question, regarding your installation, as seen in figure 6, it’s best to leave this one alone.

Figure 6, leave it alone, it could cause upset Now you can install packet tracer application, if you had been sensible and read the ‘before you start’ section, you will have already downloaded Packet Tracer and know where you have saved it (Figure 7)

Figure 7, by now, you should know where your copy of the packet tracer installation .exe is Now, Packet Tracer will install … as seen in figure 8, you will have a Packet Tracer installation window running in Play On Mac within your Mac (eerie but fun).

Figure 8, installation a go go Now just go ahead and install Packet Tracer, its just like you are using windows, sure some Page … 4 of 8 Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 is provided for the Cisco Academy Community by Andrew Smith and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Installing Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 of you may feel a little tainted, leaving the world of Windows behind for your shiny pretty Mac, but alas there is still some software around that encourages you to work with this pervasive operating system. Allow Packet Tracer to launch on installation, there are a couple of dialogue boxes that will ask if you want to allow external communication from both Packet Tracer and the WineServer, please click yes for both. Then behold, a wonderful sight, Packet Tracer, apparently native on a Mac (figure 9).

Figure 9, Packet Tracer running on the shiny Mac You will now need to close your instance of Packet Tracer down, you can use File/Exit. The installation wizard will detect this and then move to the ‘Short Cut’ option (figure 10)

Figure 10, picking a short cut. You will be asked to name the short cut, it is sort of obvious. If you are a Lion user, you may wish to read the foot note at the end of this document. Page … 5 of 8 Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 is provided for the Cisco Academy Community by Andrew Smith and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Installing Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 At this point you can ‘next’ out of the wizard and close Play On Mac. You will have on your desktop (Figure 11) a short cut to Packet Tracer.

Figure 11, its a short cut Click on it, it won’t bite, at least we hope not. Now Packet Tracer is running, all by itself, with the Wine Play On Mac system hidden away (Figure 12).

Figure 12, Packet Tracer ...


Installing Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 Multiuser Yes, since version 4.0.14 of Play On Mac, YOU CAN use multi-user. You MUST therefore ... 1. Make sure that the X11, preferences are set to allow incoming connections (preferences/ security) 2. Check that WineServer allows incoming connections in your firewall (settings/security/ firewall/advanced) as seen in figure 13

Figure 13, WineServer Incoming connections When you have successfully set up the security settings on your system, PlayOnMac will use your host IP address for the connection, it is no different between using Packet Tracer on a Mac to using it on a Windows native system (Figure 14).

Figure 14, Andrew Smith is now an excited chap


Installing Packet Tracer on a Mac v2 Using the Exploration or Discovery curriculum By default on a Windows installation, the curriculum will launch the .PKA when clicked and open the Packet Tracer application. For a Mac, it is simpler to save the .PKA with a suitable filename to your desktop and open this with Packet Tracer on a Mac.

Using the online skills based assessment Sorry, this does not currently appear to work.

Obligatory Stuff Play On Mac is a Wine packager, the information in this pack is for guidance, the creators of this resource infer no liability from any experiences you may have when referring to the content therein. The content creators do not boast any affiliation with Cisco Systems in the creation of this resource.

Footnotes At the time of testing, we managed to get this to work on both Snow Leopard and Lion. It was slow to complete the steps between figures 10 and 11 on Lion. On Lion, the author stopped the process and instead using the Play On Mac configure tool to create a short cut for Packet Tracer which then worked with no apparent issues.
