Running Cisco ASDM on linux

I have been looking for some months on how to do this. Searching over the internet, there many old guides that most of them do not work, except this one.

By the way, I use Arch Linux.

So, first, you will need to download the latest x64 Oracle JRE for linux from here. In my case, Linux x64.

Create a new Java folder on your home directory and extract the Oracle JRE archive there:

mkdir ~/Java
tar -xvf ~/Download/jre-8u311-linux-x64.tar.gz -C ~/Java

In order to connect to an ASA system, you can run the following :

~/Java/jre1.8.0_311/bin/javaws https://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/admin/public/asdm.jnlp

where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the management IP of the ASA

If the connection is successful, a desktop shortcut will be created on ~/Desktop. You will, need to make a copy of this shortcut to bypass a security issue which disables the launcher after every use. Every successful connection, will create a desktop shortcut.

Here, there are two options. You just decide to live with this, or disable this option and create trusted entries for every system that you connect to. I have chosen the second option, I don’t want any desktop shortcuts.

So, we have to make some changes to our Java environment. First, we have to disable the shortcut creation on java console by running:

~/Java/jre1.8.0_311/bin/jcontrol

On tab Advanced, select Never allow in option Shortcut creation. Then on tab security, add the ASA url as an exception e.g. https://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

If you have to many systems, or you need to exclude a subnet, you can edit the following file:

~/.java/deployment/security/exception.sites

Lastly, you can create a command-line shortcut in order to easily execute ASDM. You can find some info here or here.

This is achieved by adding the following to your user’s .bashrc file:

# Cisco ASDM Launch Function
function asdm {
~/Java/jre1.8.0_311/bin/javaws -Xnosplash -wait https://$1/admin/public/asdm.jnlp
}

Good luck