1 RT is an enterprise-grade issue tracking system. It allows organizations
2 to keep track of what needs to get done, who is working on which tasks,
3 what's already been done, and when tasks were (or weren't) completed.
5 RT doesn't cost anything to use, no matter how much you use it; it is
6 freely available under the terms of Version 2 of the GNU General Public
9 RT is commercially-supported software. To purchase support, training,
10 custom development, or professional services, please get in touch with
11 us at <sales@bestpractical.com>.
14 Best Practical Solutions, LLC
21 o Perl 5.8.3 or later (http://www.perl.org).
23 Perl versions prior to 5.8.3 contain bugs that could result in
24 data corruption. RT won't start on older versions.
26 o A supported SQL database
28 Currently supported: Mysql 4.1 or later with InnoDB support.
29 Postgres 8.1 or later.
31 SQLite 3.0. (Not recommended for production)
33 o Apache version 1.3.x or 2.x (http://httpd.apache.org)
34 with mod_perl -- (http://perl.apache.org)
35 or with FastCGI -- (www.fastcgi.com)
36 or other webserver with FastCGI support
38 RT's FastCGI handler needs to access RT's configuration file.
40 o Various and sundry perl modules
42 A tool included with RT takes care of the installation of most
43 of these automatically during the install process.
45 The tool supplied with RT uses Perl's CPAN (http://www.cpan.org)
46 to install modules. Some operating systems package all or some
47 of the modules required, and you may be better off installing
54 1) Unpack this distribution other than where you want to install RT.
55 To do this cleanly, run the following command:
57 tar xzvf rt.tar.gz -C /tmp
59 2) Run the "configure" script. To see the list of options, run:
63 Peruse the options, then rerun ./configure with the flags you want.
65 RT defaults to installing in /opt/rt4 with MySQL as its database. It
66 tries to guess which of www-data, www, apache or nobody your
67 webserver will run as, but you can override that behavior. Note
68 that the default install directory in /opt/rt4 does not work under
69 SELinux's default configuration.
71 If you are upgrading from a previous version of RT, please review
72 the upgrade notes for the appropriate versions, which can be found
73 in docs/UPGRADING-* If you are coming from 3.8.6 to 4.0.x you should
74 review both the UPGRADING-3.8 and UPGRADING-4.0 file. Similarly, if
75 you were coming from 3.6.7, you would want to review UPGRADING-3.6,
76 UPGRADING-3.8 and UPGRADING-4.0
78 It is particularly important that you read the warnings at the top of
79 UPGRADING-4.0 for some common issues.
81 RT stores the arguments given to ./configure at the top of the
82 etc/RT_Config.pm file in case you need to recreate your previous use
85 3) Make sure that RT has the Perl and system libraries it needs to run.
86 Check for missing dependencies by running:
90 4) If the script reports any missing dependencies, install them by
91 hand, or run the following command as a user who has permission to
92 install perl modules on your system:
96 Some modules require user input or environment variables to install
97 correctly, so it may be necessary to install them manually.
99 If you are installing with CPAN module older than 1.84, you will
100 need to start CPAN (by running perl -MCPAN -e shell) and upgrade the
105 If you are unsure of your CPAN version, it will be printed when you
108 If you are having trouble installing GD or Graphviz, you should
109 install gd-devel and the graphviz libraries using your
110 distribution's package manager.
112 5) Check to make sure everything was installed properly.
116 It might sometimes be necessary to run "make fixdeps" several times
117 to install all necessary perl modules.
119 6a) If this is a NEW installation (not an upgrade):
121 As a user with permission to install RT in your chosen directory,
126 To configure RT with the web installer, run:
128 /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server
130 and follow the instructions. Once completed, you should now have a
131 working RT instance running with the standalone rt-server. Press
132 Ctrl-C to stop it, and proceed to Step 7 to configure a recommended
133 deployment environment for production.
135 To configure RT manually, you must setup etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm in
136 your RT installation directory. You'll need to add any values you
137 need to change from the defaults in etc/RT_Config.pm
139 As a user with permission to read RT's configuration file, type:
141 make initialize-database
143 If the make fails, type:
147 and re-run 'make initialize-database'.
149 6b) If you are UPGRADING from a previous installation:
151 Before upgrading, always ensure that you have a complete current
152 backup. If you don't have a current backup, upgrading your database
153 could accidentally damage it and lose data, or worse.
155 If you are using MySQL, please read the instructions in
156 docs/UPGRADING.mysql as well to ensure that you do not corrupt
159 First, stop your webserver. You may also wish to put incoming email
160 into a hold queue, to avoid temporary delivery failure messages if
161 your upgrade is expected to take several hours.
163 Next, install new binaries, config files and libraries by running:
167 This will also prompt you to upgrade your database by running:
169 make upgrade-database
171 You should back up your database before running this command.
172 When you run it, you will be prompted for your previous version of
173 RT (such as 3.6.4) so that the appropriate set of database
174 upgrades can be applied.
176 Finally, clear the Mason cache dir:
178 rm -fr /opt/rt4/var/mason_data/obj
180 You may then start your web server again.
182 7) Configure the web server, as described in docs/web_deployment.pod,
183 and the email gateway, as described below.
185 NOTE: The default credentials for RT are:
188 Not changing the root password from the default is a SECURITY risk!
190 Once you've set up the web interface, consider setting up automatic
191 logout for inactive sessions. For more information about how to do
194 perldoc /path/to/rt/sbin/rt-clean-sessions
196 8) Set up users, groups, queues, scrips and access control.
198 Until you do this, RT will not be able to send or receive email, nor
199 will it be more than marginally functional. This is not an optional
202 9) Set up automated recurring tasks (cronjobs):
204 To generate email digest messages, you must arrange for the provided
205 utility to be run once daily, and once weekly. You may also want to
206 arrange for the rt-email-dashboards utility to be run hourly. For
207 example, if your task scheduler is cron, you can configure it as
210 crontab -e # as the RT administrator (probably root)
211 # insert the following lines:
212 0 0 * * * /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m daily
213 0 0 * * 0 /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m weekly
214 0 * * * * /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-dashboards
216 10) Configure the RT email gateway. To let email flow to your RT
217 server, you need to add a few lines of configuration to your mail
218 server's "aliases" file. These lines "pipe" incoming email messages
219 from your mail server to RT.
221 Add the following lines to /etc/aliases (or your local equivalent)
224 rt: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action correspond --url http://rt.example.com/"
225 rt-comment: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action comment --url http://rt.example.com/"
227 You'll need to add similar lines for each queue you want to be able to
228 send email to. To find out more about how to configure RT's email
231 perldoc /opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate
233 If your webserver uses SSL, rt-mailgate will require several new
234 Perl libraries. RT can detect and install these for you automatically
235 if you include --enable-ssl-mailgate when running configure and then
236 run make fixdeps as described in step 4. It is safe to rerun configure
237 and make fixdeps after you have installed RT, you should be sure to include
238 all the arguments you used in step 2 plus --enable-ssl-mailgate.
244 If RT is mission-critical for you or if you use it heavily, we recommend
245 that you purchase a commercial support contract. Details on support
246 contracts are available at http://www.bestpractical.com or by writing to
247 <sales@bestpractical.com>.
249 If you're interested in having RT extended or customized or would like
250 more information about commercial support options, please send email to
251 <sales@bestpractical.com> to discuss rates and availability.
254 MAILING LISTS AND WIKI
255 ----------------------
257 To keep up to date on the latest RT tips, techniques and extensions, you
258 may wish to join the rt-users mailing list. Send a message to:
260 rt-users-request@lists.bestpractical.com
262 with the body of the message consisting of only the word:
266 If you're interested in hacking on RT, you'll want to subscribe to
267 <rt-devel@lists.bestpractical.com>. Subscribe to it with instructions
268 similar to those above. Address questions about the stable release to
269 the rt-users list, and questions about the development version to the
272 The RT wiki, at http://requesttracker.wikia.com/ , is also a potential
279 If you believe you've discovered a security issue in RT, please send an
280 email to <security@bestpractical.com> with a detailed description of the
281 issue, and a secure means to respond to you (such as your PGP public
282 key). You can find our PGP key and fingerprint at
283 http://bestpractical.com/security/
289 RT's a pretty complex application, and as you get up to speed, you might
290 run into some trouble. Generally, it's best to ask about things you run
291 into on the rt-users mailinglist (or pick up a commercial support
292 contract from Best Practical). But, sometimes people do run into
293 bugs. In the exceedingly unlikely event that you hit a bug in RT, please
294 report it! We'd love to hear about problems you have with RT, so we can
295 fix them. To report a bug, send email to <rt-bugs@bestpractical.com>.
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