[HowTo] Install the official Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client tarball using the AUR (UPDATED)

Hello All!

Before I begin, I’m posting this here since the Manjaro Forums (original place I posted this HowTo as I was using it 100% at the time) got destroyed in an update, as some of you already know. Thankfully, my thread got saved in the archive. However, in the event that another update process ruins the archive, I’m posting yet another backup HowTo guide here, since I’m a Reddit user now:

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| The Actual HowTo Guide |

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I created a new how-to guide for a few reasons:

  1. The cisco-anyconnect-tarball changes are now merged to cisco-anyconnect, making the old guide (and the old -tarball package) useless.

  2. I have new information regarding how to add the tarball to the package installer, for both the CLI and Pamac.

  3. I didn’t get edit permissions until very soon after I made this post public.

  4. Since I got flag/edit permissions after I made this post, I flagged the original post, and it’s now been unlisted.

For some users, there won’t be an option to include a link, so I’ll specify how to include the tarball locally instead.

With that in mind, here’s the new (updated) how-to guide for the tarball:

CLI:

If yay is not installed, do:

sudo pacman -S yay 

Then, run:

yay -S cisco-anyconnect 

This will fail, but that’s ok. You want to create the cisco-anyconnect directory. This can be found in:

/home/$USER/.cache/yay/cisco-anyconnect 

Copy the tarball here. Then, install again, but instead edit the PKGBUILD script within the installation command:

yay -S cisco-anyconnect --editmenu 

Say None (N) to CleanBuild, None (N) to showing diffs (or All (A) if you really want to see the diffs), and All (A) to editing the PKGBUILD.

At the top you’ll see:

_source="installer" # if installing from .sh installer #_source="tarball"     # if installing from .tar.gz package 

Change it to:

#_source="installer"   # if installing from .sh installer _source="tarball" # if installing from .tar.gz package 

Scroll down and you’ll see:

if [[ "${_source}" == "tarball" ]]; then     _filename="anyconnect-linux64-${pkgver}-predeploy-k9.tar.gz" 

Make sure the _filename variable is the same as your tarball. Yours may not be by default because Cisco, that’s why.

Save the PKGBUILD, close, and complete the installation process as normal.

Post-install

Finally, run the following command as root:

systemctl enable --now vpnagentd 

And that’s all there is to it!

If anyone needs Pamac instructions I’ll provide them in a separate comment. I don’t think anyone will need them, but if someone really needs to do this in Pamac I know how.

If there are any other questions feel free to ask either here or on the AUR page, linked above. I would ask here if it’s a simple question, but ask at the AUR page if it’s more complicated.

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I don’t know if this is necessarily the right place to post this HowTo guide but it’s in direct relation to the old Manjaro forum so from my understanding this counts. Please let me know, like before, if you have any questions!

I suggest just put that pamac way if you know.
:slight_smile:

Sure, it’ll probably take me a minute though as I’m on an outdated installer (as per the Guidelines of the place I use it)

Alright.

First you want to download your AnyConnect executable, then select the cisco-anyconnect package from the AUR in pamac. Then go to the “build files” section

From there the process is similar to using the shell, i.e.:

At the top you’ll see:

_source="installer" # if installing from .sh installer #_source="tarball"     # if installing from .tar.gz package  

Change it to:

#_source="installer"   # if installing from .sh installer _source="tarball" # if installing from .tar.gz package  

Scroll down and you’ll see:

if [[ "${_source}" == "tarball" ]]; then     _filename="anyconnect-linux64-${pkgver}-predeploy-k9.tar.gz"  

Make sure the _filename variable is the same as your tarball. Yours may not be by default because Cisco, that’s why.

One last step though, you’ll need to change this line:

source=("file://${_filename}" "vpnagentd.service" "anyconnect.sh" "anyconnect.csh" "AnyConnectLocalPolicy.xml")

to match your Cisco tarball location directory. i.e.:

source=("file:///home/$USER/Downloads/${_filename}" "vpnagentd.service" "anyconnect.sh" "anyconnect.csh" "AnyConnectLocalPolicy.xml")

(disclaimer, I don’t remember if the 3 /'s after file: is supposed to be one slash, but I left that in regardless!)

After that hit install! One thing to be mindful of is your Anyconnect version, if you’re on a lower version you’ll have to get one of the AUR packages and build the image from one of the downloadable image files, starting with version 4.7-00136 (the version I contributed to!)

btw I need some help related to Manjaro can you please help? quick help

What kind of help? In relation to the Tarball?

Nahh not related to tarball , actually I’m using Manjaro since 6 months.
I have Lenovo IdeaPad L340 I5 9th gen, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650, 8gb Ram. Now the problem is I like Gnome version the most but it lags while working. I think that I’m not using my CPU/GPU efficiently. Cause I can run like Unity Game engine + chrome fairly good on my window 10.

That is strange, GNOME is laggy, sure, but it’s not Win10 levels of laggy.

Also the specs you listed are more than enough for what you’re trying to do. Do you have the Closed-source NVIDIA Driver installed?

Also it definitely shouldn’t be your CPU. I’d try looking into what your GPU Driver is first, because with NVIDIA that’s my bottleneck 99.999…% of the time.

I’ve bumblebee as it was recommended everywhere.

Yup I tried KDE once but it got stucked onto black screen (it was long back so I didn’t know what to do and then installed xfce later on) . Is KDE better than Gnome Should I switch?

NOOOOOOhohoho Bumblebee is no longer recommended by conventional standard. You’re running a desktop version of the NVIDIA driver so I’d recommend the vanilla linux driver from NVIDIA, which is available through MHWD.

This is where I differ from 99% of my Linux user bretheren. Many will say that KDE has more features than you can ask for, but at what cost? required specs wise it’s similar to GNOME at least from what websites list, and they lack features like Screen readers for people with disabilities (go to Mate for that).

Honestly the way I see KDE is too much fancy fluff to get things set up when I can just use XFCE for my needs for 1/4 of the system power and have it all set up in less time and call it a day.

Please don’t crucify me comments section.

Ah shit so that’s where I Messed up. I’ll try and will let you know what happens

No sir! I’m very open minded. I’m still learning. Btw I will prefer Best Environment for us as having screen reader doesn’t matter much to me even though it’s a good feature. I liked Gnome because it had like good application panel like a MacOS fot easy fast access. Any ideas suggestions always welcome.