VPN: Connect to Pulse Secure | Linux (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS)

These instructions are for installing Pulse Secure VPN on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS specifically. For any distribution other than Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, only steps: 1, 2, and 3.1 through 3.2 are needed.

To get started, download the appropriate VPN - Pulse Secure application based on your OS found under the VPN section of the OIT Software Download Site.

1. Copy the 64-bit .deb installer file to the Downloads folder (from the OIT download site).
2. Install all the latest updates for Ubuntu (this is very important, and everything else could fail if Ubuntu updates are not current).
3. Open Terminal and use the following commands:
   1. sudo dpkg -i <.deb file name>
      Note: In the case of a different distribution (i.e. Red Hat Linux), the above command would be replaced with the package name for the format of that distribution (.rpm file for Red Hat, etc.)
   2. Enter your password and hit Enter (the package gets unpacked to /usr/local/pulse/ path).
   3. sudo -i (set context to root to run remaining commands).
   4. cd /usr/local/pulse && tar zxvf pulse.tgz  (change to the directory and unpack pulse.tgz archive)
   5. apt install libenchant1c2a
   6. [y]  (answer ‘Yes’)
   7. mv libicui18n.so.60{.2,}
   8. mv libicudata.so.60{.2,}
   9. mv libicuuc.so.60{.2,}
      Note: The three above commands rename those files to remove the ‘.2’ portion of the file name
   10. sudo chmod u+s /usr/local/pulse/pulsesvc   (change ownership so that the current user can run the app as the root user)

Launch the Pulse Secure VPN desktop application and set up the connection to access.utk.edu, connect, and complete 2FA verification.