I have Ubuntu 12.04 and I found no vimrc file in home directory. Global vimrc file was in /etc/vim/vimrc.
There was almost nothing in this file. So for me it worked to add this 3 lines to the end of /etc/vim/vimrc
set autoindent
set cindent
inoremap { {<CR>}<up><end><CR>
When you will type { next time it will be changed by combination {, Enter, }, up, end, Enter. cindent and autoindent will add required amount of Tab’s.
P.S. I’m not good in tuning up vim so some explanations may be not so accurate. It’s how I think it works.