Request Tracker

Request Tracker (RT) is Article description::a battle-tested issue tracking system which thousands of organizations use for bug tracking, help desk ticketing, customer service, workflow processes, change management, network operations, youth counselling and even more. Organizations around the world have been running smoothly thanks to RT for over 10 years.

About This Guide
This guide was written using the latest version of RT available, which at the time of this writing is 4.2.9.

This guide assumes familiarity with Apache or Lighttpd and will not delve into the details of either.

Whether or not virtual hosting is used holds no bearing on the bulk of this guide. It will be noted if there's something significantly different that must be done in a virtual hosting environment.

Requirements
RT requires a database backend and works equally well with either MySQL or PostgreSQL. Enable at most one of their USE flags:

RT also requires a Web server. The default is to run on Apache, but lighttpd is also documented. To use lighttpd, you must enable its USE flag:

Emerge
Many of the packages RT depends on, including RT's own package, are keyword masked. Use the following command to have a patch automatically generated.

Once the previous command has finished, use to apply the patch:

Run emerge again:

When the  USE flag is enabled, run  to finish the installation:

Database
RT provides a script called which creates the initial database and a database user.

Configuring RT
RT uses an overlay system for configuration. This means that the default configuration is declared in, and that custom configurations are declared in. will not exist until manually created. Any custom configuration in will be preserved in upgrades, while the default configurations,, will be overwritten.

Either copy certain sections from to, or create a full config from scratch.

The configuration file is well documented, but the official documentation can also be consulted.

Sendmail Alternatives
When not using a full-blown SMTP server locally, use a lightweight client to send the emails instead as long as it provides a sendmail-compatible executable. Mail options are specified in RT_SiteConfig.pm.

Configuring the Web Server
Request Tracker can be run on any PSGI compliant server. However, Apache and Lighttpd are proven platforms.

Apache
Only information pertinent to RT will be covered. Additional information about Apache is covered elsewhere.

There's little information about which method works better for RT on Apache, and benchmarks have shown mod_perl and FastCGI to be nearly equal.

mod_perl
Save the following snippet within the individual  tags RT is installed to or :

Instruct Apache to start with mod_perl enabled:

It may be necessary to change the owner and group of RT's Mason data directory:

mod_fastcgi
NOTE: When using, instruct  to install   with appropriate permissions. Edit :

Save the following snippet within the individual  tags RT is installed to or.

Edit to instruct   to start with   and enabled:

To have apache start on boot:

Restart apache so that all changes made so far will take effect:

lighttpd (untested)
RT is able to run on  +. The ebuild will install an init script and a config file.

NOTE: To use, instruct  to install   with appropriate permissions. Edit :

Edit to set RTPATH to the root of the installation. Everything else in that file can be left at there defaults normally.

Also note that, under the default configuration, the socket in $FCGI_SOCKET_PATH is owned by rt:lighttpd, and is chmod-ded to g+rwx. This means that user  needs to be in the   group. One way to do that is to use. To change that behaviour, edit to suit.

Edit to enable  :


 * Uncomment  under
 * set
 * set  to something like this:

Be sure to set the correct path to socket (same as $FCGI_SOCKET_PATH in ).

Now, start  and  :

If things don't seem to be working, check the  logs in  and edit  as per the comments in the file to make the   daemon more verbose.

Note: this initscript should work with any -enabled webserver.

Feeding Emails Into RT
There are a variety of methods to feed email into RT. Use an MTA, such as Postfix, Exim, or the real Sendmail, whenever possible. Follow the MTA On Same Server portion of this section.

However, if the system is only fetching email from a remote server, an MTA is optional, just 2 or 3 smaller utilities are required. Follow the Without An MTA portion of this section.

MTA On Same Server
TODO

Without An MTA
There are 2 utilities needed: and. When using aliases delivered to the same email box, becomes necessary.

Log In
Use a browser to log into RT. Username is, and password is. Change the password.

Special Thanks
Thank you to all those who worked on the original version of this guide.

Additional

 * Password Reset