Our aim is to install Request Tracker (RT) 4.4.2 on Debian GNU/Linux 8.6 with less pain
Note: This won't work with Debian GNU/Linux 9.x.
At the time of writing…
- There is no nice and clean setup guide
- There is no Debian package for RT's 4.4 branch
- RT's README and its Makefile "help" are controversial
- A typical installation often leads to Perl's CPAN dependency hell
Install Debian GNU/Linux 8.6 or higher.
Install needed distribution packages:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential apache2 libapache2-mod-fcgid mariadb-server-10.0 mariadb-client-10.0 libssl-dev libexpat1-dev
wget https://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-4.4.2.tar.gz
tar xzvf rt-4.4.2.tar.gz
cd rt-4.4.2
./configure --with-web-user=www-data --with-web-group=www-data
sudo /usr/bin/perl -MCPAN -e shell # Quit with CTRL+D
sudo make testdeps
sudo make fixdeps # Press ENTER when needed
sudo make install
Test your installation with the built-in Web server: sudo /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server --port 8080
. Hit CTRL-C to stop the process.
We choose Apache2 Web Server and FastCGId. RT will be available under the URL /rt
.
Edit RT's local configuration file /opt/rt4/etc/RT_SiteConfig.d/myissues.pm
:
# sudo nano /opt/rt4/etc/RT_SiteConfig.d/myissues.pm
Set($WebPath, "/rt");
Create a new VirtualHost:
# sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/myissues.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName myissues.example.com
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
ScriptAlias /rt /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server.fcgi/
<Location /rt>
Require all granted
Options +ExecCGI
AddHandler fcgid-script fcgi
</Location>
</VirtualHost>
Replace default VirtualHost with your new one and restart Apache Web server:
sudo a2dissite 000-default
sudo a2ensite myissues
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
Open http://myissues.example.com/rt/
(or something similar) in a Web browser to test everything runs smoothly.
From RT's README:
- Set up users, groups, queues, scrips and access control
- Set up automated recurring tasks (cronjobs)
- Configure the RT email gateway
- Set up full text search
- Set up automatic backups
…and keep your operating system clean and updated.
Update/upgrade RT! Oh my gosh…
- RT's README
- RT's Web deployment
- CPAN Issue Tracker: Bug #105189 for Net-SSLeay: Net::SSLeay fails to build on perl-5.22.0
- Stack Overflow: How to install XML::Parser without expat-devel?
Hi Benjamin! Just happy to leave a quick note that so far I have made it through this little recipe with only one minor issue that came up:
sudo make fixdeps # Press ENTER when needed
execute cpan install -f GnuPG::Interface
sudo make fixdeps #all good
sudo make install
Now I'm just trying to come up to speed with the configuration bits which are also a bit cryptic but I'll get there eventually...
Thanks again for putting this together though!