RequestTrackerOnCentos5
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RequestTracker on CentOS 5
I recently assisted a friend in installing and configuring the latest Request Tracker issue tracking system. There didn't seem to be good instructions about this on the web so I've written up my notes as a walkthrough here. These notes are specific to installing RT on a CentOS 5 GoDaddy VPS running over SSL but there should be enough generic info to cover any RT install on a modern linux system.
Initial Download and Configuration
Run yum update
beforehand to ensure you have the latest versions of all the system packages.
Get the RT source from bestpractical. I followed these initial instructions although they are geared towards the older RT 3.
Next download needed perl updates via CPAN. Start the cpan shell with sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell
. Set cpan to auto-follow dependencies by entering this in the cpan shell:
o conf prerequisites_policy follow o conf commit
Then install Bundle::CPAN
to get all your perl dependencies current. reload cpan
and reload index
so your perl install is all current.
It seems to not matter if you use fastcgi or mod_perl.
I used mod_perl since it was already installed on the system, along with Apache 2.2. The default version of perl is the old 5.8.8 but upgrading looks too painful.
Untar the rt source package and configure it:
$ tar zxvf rt.tar.gz $ cd rt-4.0.1 $ ./configure
I just used the defaults for all the configure settings.
$ cd rt-4.0.1 $ make fixdeps $ make testdeps
If make testdeps
still complains, try running make fixdeps
again.
Finally run sudo make install
to actually install rt under /opt/rt4
.
RT-Specific Setup, Mail Setup
Edit /opt/rt4/etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm to configure your site-specific settings. Here's what I used:
Set($rtname , "example.com"); Set($Organization , "example"); Set($MinimumPasswordLength , "5"); Set($Timezone , 'US/Pacific'); Set($DatabaseType , 'mysql'); Set($DatabaseHost , 'localhost'); Set($DatabaseRTHost , 'localhost'); Set($DatabasePort , ''); Set($DatabaseUser , 'XXXXXXXX'); Set($DatabasePassword , 'YYYYYYYY); Set($WebPath , "/rt"); #Set($WebDomain, "example.com"); Set($WebPort , 443); Set($WebBaseURL , "https://example.com"); Set($WebURL , $WebBaseURL . $WebPath . "/"); Set($DatabaseName , 'rt4'); Set($RTAddressRegexp , '^rt(-\S+|-\S+-comment)?\@(www\.)?example.com$'); Set($CorrespondAddress , '[email protected]'); Set($CommentAddress , '[email protected]');
Set up your mysql database with sudo make initialize-database
. Enter password YYYYYYYY from above when prompted and the mysql database will be completely autoconfigured.
Next set up the root crontabs with sudo crontab -e
:
0 0 * * * /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m daily 0 0 * * 0 /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m weekly 0 * * * * /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-dashboards
Edit /etc/aliases and add:
rt: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action correspond --url https://rt.example.com/rt" rt-comment: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action comment --url https://rt.example.com/rt"
then run sudo newaliases
to regenerate the aliases database.
I had to fix up /etc/postfix/main.cf
because the stupid godaddy vps blocks outgoing port 25. GoDaddy sucks, use a different VPS service.
Assuming that your host is the authoritative mail sever for the domain, and the only server in your domain (no relaying), your main.cf should look something like this:
myhostname = www.example.com mydomain = example.com myorigin=$mydomain inet_interfaces = all mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain, localhost, $mydomain mynetworks_style = host # brackets to disable mx lookups! relayhost = [s2smtpout.secureserver.net]
Now it's time to fix up the host spamassassin configuration, by default it runs as user nobody and generates errors in logs because user nobody has homedir /.
first fix /etc/sysconfig/spamassin:
SPAMDOPTIONS="-d -c -m5 -u spamd -H /var/log/spamassassin -x"
then create a spamd user:
$ sudo /usr/sbin/groupadd spamd $ sudo /usr/sbin/useradd -g spamd -s /bin/false -d /var/log/spamassassin spamd
After that you need to restart spamassassin with /etc/init.d/spamd restart
With that mail should be flowing through spamassassin correctly. Check /var/log/maillog to confirm.
Don't forget to open port 25 to incoming mail in your firewall:
/sbin/iptables -I INPUT 5 -i eth0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 25 -j ACCEPT
Add that to /etc/sysconfig/iptables to make it permanent:
-A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 25 -j ACCEPT
Create /etc/httpd/conf.d/rt4.conf with following contents:
# RequestTracker <Location /rt> Order allow,deny Allow from all SetHandler modperl PerlResponseHandler Plack::Handler::Apache2 PerlSetVar psgi_app /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server </Location> <Perl> use Plack::Handler::Apache2; Plack::Handler::Apache2->preload("/opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server"); </Perl> # force rt over https always RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} rt RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R,L]
To test, point your web browser at http://example.com/rt
. You should see the location bar url magically turn into https.
Initial Login and User Setup
For your first login through the RT web interface, use username root, password password. Change it immediately!
Next in the RT web interface, create a real admin user through tools->configuration->users->create:
- username: user
email: [email protected]
- email address should be the users's real email address somewhere else.
- real name: Some User
- check Let This User Access RT
- check Let This User Be Granted Rights
- enter root's password
- enter new password twice for this user
- click save changes
Next make this user a super-user via tools->configuration->global->user rights.
- enter new user in user name field on left
- click on rights for administrators tab
- check Do Anything and Everything
- click save changes
Then you need to make a corresponding user on the system:
- log on to server
sudo /usr/sbin/useradd -c "Real Name" username
- (username must match RT username)
sudo /usr/bin/passwd usename
- set user password to match RT password
edit username/.forward
- add line pointing to user's real external email address
Creating A New Queue
You will probably want to create one or more ticket queues to use, although you can if you want skip this step and just use the default general queue for everything.
Log in as root and go to tools->configuration->queues->create. Create a queue as follows:
- queue name: Customer1
- description: Test Queue for Customer 1
- reply address: [email protected]
- comment address: [email protected]
Allow anyone to create new tickets in the queue via email, tools->configuration->queues->select.
- choose Customer1 queue
- click user rights tab
- go to everyone->general rights->create tickets
- click save changes
Now you need to create mail addresses for your new queue.
Edit /etc/aliases and add:
rt-customer1: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue Customer1 --action correspond --url https://rt.example.com/rt" rt-customer1-comment: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue Customer1 --action comment --url https://rt.example.com/rt"
then run sudo newaliases
to regenerate the aliases database.
</verbatim>
Obviously manually creating email aliases for every queue can be cumbersome. Various people have put together mechanisms to automate that step using procmail and such. Google it if you're interested as I can't find my link.
Conclusion
Ok there you have it - a complete RT setup on CentOS 5, over SSL, with a user and a couple queues. Should be enough to get you started. Please let me know if I missed anything in this guide.