RT is an enterprise-grade issue tracking system. It allows organizations
to keep track of what needs to get done, who is working on which tasks,
what's already been done, and when tasks were (or weren't) completed.
RT doesn't cost anything to use, no matter how much you use it; it is
freely available under the terms of Version 2 of the GNU General Public
License.
RT is commercially-supported software. To purchase support, training,
custom development, or professional services, please get in touch with
us at <sales@bestpractical.com>.
Jesse Vincent
Best Practical Solutions, LLC
March, 2011
REQUIRED PACKAGES
-----------------
o Perl 5.8.3 or later (http://www.perl.org).
Perl versions prior to 5.8.3 contain bugs that could result in
data corruption. RT won't start on older versions.
o A supported SQL database
Currently supported: Mysql 4.1 or later with InnoDB support.
Postgres 8.1 or later.
Oracle 9iR2 or later.
SQLite 3.0. (Not recommended for production)
o Apache version 1.3.x or 2.x (http://httpd.apache.org)
with mod_perl -- (http://perl.apache.org)
or with FastCGI -- (www.fastcgi.com)
or other webserver with FastCGI support
RT's FastCGI handler needs to access RT's configuration file.
o Various and sundry perl modules
A tool included with RT takes care of the installation of most
of these automatically during the install process.
The tool supplied with RT uses Perl's CPAN (http://www.cpan.org)
to install modules. Some operating systems package all or some
of the modules required, and you may be better off installing
the modules that way.
GENERAL INSTALLATION
--------------------
1) Unpack this distribution other than where you want to install RT.
To do this cleanly, run the following command:
tar xzvf rt.tar.gz -C /tmp
2) Run the "configure" script. To see the list of options, run:
./configure --help
Peruse the options, then rerun ./configure with the flags you want.
RT defaults to installing in /opt/rt4 with MySQL as its database. It
tries to guess which of www-data, www, apache or nobody your
webserver will run as, but you can override that behavior. Note
that the default install directory in /opt/rt4 does not work under
SELinux's default configuration.
If you are upgrading from a previous version of RT, please review
the upgrade notes for the appropriate versions, which can be found
in docs/UPGRADING-* If you are coming from 3.8.6 to 4.0.x you should
review both the UPGRADING-3.8 and UPGRADING-4.0 file. Similarly, if
you were coming from 3.6.7, you would want to review UPGRADING-3.6,
UPGRADING-3.8 and UPGRADING-4.0
It is particularly important that you read the warnings at the top of
UPGRADING-4.0 for some common issues.
RT stores the arguments given to ./configure at the top of the
etc/RT_Config.pm file in case you need to recreate your previous use
of ./configure.
3) Make sure that RT has the Perl and system libraries it needs to run.
Check for missing dependencies by running:
make testdeps
4) If the script reports any missing dependencies, install them by
hand, or run the following command as a user who has permission to
install perl modules on your system:
make fixdeps
Some modules require user input or environment variables to install
correctly, so it may be necessary to install them manually.
If you are installing with CPAN module older than 1.84, you will
need to start CPAN (by running perl -MCPAN -e shell) and upgrade the
CPAN shell with:
install CPAN
If you are unsure of your CPAN version, it will be printed when you
run the shell.
If you are having trouble installing GD or Graphviz, you should
install gd-devel and the graphviz libraries using your
distribution's package manager.
5) Check to make sure everything was installed properly.
make testdeps
It might sometimes be necessary to run "make fixdeps" several times
to install all necessary perl modules.
6a) If this is a NEW installation (not an upgrade):
As a user with permission to install RT in your chosen directory,
type:
make install
To configure RT with the web installer, run:
/opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server
and follow the instructions. Once completed, you should now have a
working RT instance running with the standalone rt-server. Press
Ctrl-C to stop it, and proceed to Step 7 to configure a recommended
deployment environment for production.
To configure RT manually, you must setup etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm in
your RT installation directory. You'll need to add any values you
need to change from the defaults in etc/RT_Config.pm
As a user with permission to read RT's configuration file, type:
make initialize-database
If the make fails, type:
make dropdb
and re-run 'make initialize-database'.
6b) If you are UPGRADING from a previous installation:
Before upgrading, always ensure that you have a complete current
backup. If you don't have a current backup, upgrading your database
could accidentally damage it and lose data, or worse.
If you are using MySQL, please read the instructions in
docs/UPGRADING.mysql as well to ensure that you do not corrupt
existing data.
First, stop your webserver. You may also wish to put incoming email
into a hold queue, to avoid temporary delivery failure messages if
your upgrade is expected to take several hours.
Next, install new binaries, config files and libraries by running:
make upgrade
This will also prompt you to upgrade your database by running:
make upgrade-database
You should back up your database before running this command.
When you run it, you will be prompted for your previous version of
RT (such as 3.6.4) so that the appropriate set of database
upgrades can be applied.
Finally, clear the Mason cache dir:
rm -fr /opt/rt4/var/mason_data/obj
You may then start your web server again.
7) Configure the web server, as described in docs/web_deployment.pod,
and the email gateway, as described below.
NOTE: The default credentials for RT are:
User: root
Pass: password
Not changing the root password from the default is a SECURITY risk!
Once you've set up the web interface, consider setting up automatic
logout for inactive sessions. For more information about how to do
that, run:
perldoc /path/to/rt/sbin/rt-clean-sessions
8) Set up users, groups, queues, scrips and access control.
Until you do this, RT will not be able to send or receive email, nor
will it be more than marginally functional. This is not an optional
step.
9) Set up automated recurring tasks (cronjobs):
To generate email digest messages, you must arrange for the provided
utility to be run once daily, and once weekly. You may also want to
arrange for the rt-email-dashboards utility to be run hourly. For
example, if your task scheduler is cron, you can configure it as
follows:
crontab -e # as the RT administrator (probably root)
# insert the following lines:
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
10) Configure the RT email gateway. To let email flow to your RT
server, you need to add a few lines of configuration to your mail
server's "aliases" file. These lines "pipe" incoming email messages
from your mail server to RT.
Add the following lines to /etc/aliases (or your local equivalent)
on your mail server:
rt: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action correspond --url http://rt.example.com/"
rt-comment: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action comment --url http://rt.example.com/"
You'll need to add similar lines for each queue you want to be able to
send email to. To find out more about how to configure RT's email
gateway, type:
perldoc /opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate
If your webserver uses SSL, rt-mailgate will require several new
Perl libraries. RT can detect and install these for you automatically
if you include --enable-ssl-mailgate when running configure and then
run make fixdeps as described in step 4. It is safe to rerun configure
and make fixdeps after you have installed RT, you should be sure to include
all the arguments you used in step 2 plus --enable-ssl-mailgate.
GETTING HELP
------------
If RT is mission-critical for you or if you use it heavily, we recommend
that you purchase a commercial support contract. Details on support
contracts are available at http://www.bestpractical.com or by writing to
<sales@bestpractical.com>.
If you're interested in having RT extended or customized or would like
more information about commercial support options, please send email to
<sales@bestpractical.com> to discuss rates and availability.
MAILING LISTS AND WIKI
----------------------
To keep up to date on the latest RT tips, techniques and extensions, you
may wish to join the rt-users mailing list. Send a message to:
rt-users-request@lists.bestpractical.com
with the body of the message consisting of only the word:
subscribe
If you're interested in hacking on RT, you'll want to subscribe to
<rt-devel@lists.bestpractical.com>. Subscribe to it with instructions
similar to those above. Address questions about the stable release to
the rt-users list, and questions about the development version to the
rt-devel list.
The RT wiki, at http://requesttracker.wikia.com/ , is also a potential
resource.
SECURITY
--------
If you believe you've discovered a security issue in RT, please send an
email to <security@bestpractical.com> with a detailed description of the
issue, and a secure means to respond to you (such as your PGP public
key). You can find our PGP key and fingerprint at
http://bestpractical.com/security/
BUGS
----
RT's a pretty complex application, and as you get up to speed, you might
run into some trouble. Generally, it's best to ask about things you run
into on the rt-users mailinglist (or pick up a commercial support
contract from Best Practical). But, sometimes people do run into
bugs. In the exceedingly unlikely event that you hit a bug in RT, please
report it! We'd love to hear about problems you have with RT, so we can
fix them. To report a bug, send email to <rt-bugs@bestpractical.com>.
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