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>.
17 o Perl 5.8.3 or later (http://www.perl.org).
19 Perl versions prior to 5.8.3 contain bugs that could result in
20 data corruption. RT won't start on older versions.
22 o A supported SQL database
24 Currently supported: MySQL 4.1 or later with InnoDB support.
25 Postgres 8.1 or later.
27 SQLite 3.0. (Not recommended for production)
29 o Apache version 1.3.x or 2.x (http://httpd.apache.org)
30 with mod_perl -- (http://perl.apache.org)
31 or with FastCGI -- (www.fastcgi.com)
32 or other webserver with FastCGI support
34 RT's FastCGI handler needs to access RT's configuration file.
36 o Various and sundry perl modules
38 A tool included with RT takes care of the installation of most
39 of these automatically during the install process.
41 The tool supplied with RT uses Perl's CPAN (http://www.cpan.org)
42 to install modules. Some operating systems package all or some
43 of the modules required, and you may be better off installing
50 1) Unpack this distribution other than where you want to install RT.
51 To do this cleanly, run the following command:
53 tar xzvf rt.tar.gz -C /tmp
55 2) Run the "configure" script. To see the list of options, run:
59 Peruse the options, then rerun ./configure with the flags you want.
61 RT defaults to installing in /opt/rt4 with MySQL as its database. It
62 tries to guess which of www-data, www, apache or nobody your
63 webserver will run as, but you can override that behavior. Note
64 that the default install directory in /opt/rt4 does not work under
65 SELinux's default configuration.
67 If you are upgrading from a previous version of RT, please review
68 the upgrade notes for the appropriate versions, which can be found
69 in docs/UPGRADING-* If you are coming from 3.8.6 to 4.0.x you should
70 review both the UPGRADING-3.8 and UPGRADING-4.0 file. Similarly, if
71 you were coming from 3.6.7, you would want to review UPGRADING-3.6,
72 UPGRADING-3.8 and UPGRADING-4.0
74 Any upgrade steps given in version-specific UPGRADING files should
75 be run after the rest of the steps below; however, please read the
76 relevant documentation before beginning the upgrade, soas to be
77 aware of important changes.
79 RT stores the arguments given to ./configure at the top of the
80 etc/RT_Config.pm file in case you need to recreate your previous use
83 3) Make sure that RT has the Perl and system libraries it needs to run.
84 Check for missing dependencies by running:
88 4) If the script reports any missing dependencies, install them by
89 hand, or run the following command as a user who has permission to
90 install perl modules on your system:
94 Some modules require user input or environment variables to install
95 correctly, so it may be necessary to install them manually.
97 If you are installing with CPAN module older than 1.84, you will
98 need to start CPAN (by running perl -MCPAN -e shell) and upgrade the
103 If you are unsure of your CPAN version, it will be printed when you
106 If you are having trouble installing GD or Graphviz, you should
107 install gd-devel and the graphviz libraries using your
108 distribution's package manager.
110 5) Check to make sure everything was installed properly.
114 It might sometimes be necessary to run "make fixdeps" several times
115 to install all necessary perl modules.
117 6a) If this is a NEW installation (not an upgrade):
119 As a user with permission to install RT in your chosen directory,
124 To configure RT with the web installer, run:
126 /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server
128 and follow the instructions. Once completed, you should now have a
129 working RT instance running with the standalone rt-server. Press
130 Ctrl-C to stop it, and proceed to Step 7 to configure a recommended
131 deployment environment for production.
133 To configure RT manually, you must setup etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm in
134 your RT installation directory. You'll need to add any values you
135 need to change from the defaults in etc/RT_Config.pm
137 As a user with permission to read RT's configuration file, type:
139 make initialize-database
141 If the make fails, type:
145 and re-run 'make initialize-database'.
147 6b) If you are UPGRADING from a previous installation:
149 Before upgrading, always ensure that you have a complete current
150 backup. If you don't have a current backup, upgrading your database
151 could accidentally damage it and lose data, or worse.
153 If you are using MySQL, please read the instructions in
154 docs/UPGRADING.mysql as well to ensure that you do not corrupt
157 First, stop your webserver. You may also wish to put incoming email
158 into a hold queue, to avoid temporary delivery failure messages if
159 your upgrade is expected to take several hours.
161 Next, install new binaries, config files and libraries by running:
165 This will also prompt you to upgrade your database by running:
167 make upgrade-database
169 You should back up your database before running this command.
170 When you run it, you will be prompted for your previous version of
171 RT (such as 3.6.4) so that the appropriate set of database
172 upgrades can be applied.
174 Finally, clear the Mason cache dir:
176 rm -fr /opt/rt4/var/mason_data/obj
178 If 'make upgrade-database' completes without error, your upgrade
179 has been successful; you should now run any commands that were
180 supplied in version-specific UPGRADING documentation. You should
181 then restart your webserver.
183 7) Configure the web server, as described in docs/web_deployment.pod,
184 and the email gateway, as described below.
186 NOTE: The default credentials for RT are:
189 Not changing the root password from the default is a SECURITY risk!
191 Once you've set up the web interface, consider setting up automatic
192 logout for inactive sessions. For more information about how to do
195 perldoc /path/to/rt/sbin/rt-clean-sessions
197 8) Set up users, groups, queues, scrips and access control.
199 Until you do this, RT will not be able to send or receive email, nor
200 will it be more than marginally functional. This is not an optional
203 9) Set up automated recurring tasks (cronjobs):
205 To generate email digest messages, you must arrange for the provided
206 utility to be run once daily, and once weekly. You may also want to
207 arrange for the rt-email-dashboards utility to be run hourly. For
208 example, if your task scheduler is cron, you can configure it as
211 crontab -e # as the RT administrator (probably root)
212 # insert the following lines:
213 0 0 * * * /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m daily
214 0 0 * * 0 /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m weekly
215 0 * * * * /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-dashboards
217 10) Configure the RT email gateway. To let email flow to your RT
218 server, you need to add a few lines of configuration to your mail
219 server's "aliases" file. These lines "pipe" incoming email messages
220 from your mail server to RT.
222 Add the following lines to /etc/aliases (or your local equivalent)
225 rt: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action correspond --url http://rt.example.com/"
226 rt-comment: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action comment --url http://rt.example.com/"
228 You'll need to add similar lines for each queue you want to be able to
229 send email to. To find out more about how to configure RT's email
232 perldoc /opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate
234 If your webserver uses SSL, rt-mailgate will require several new
235 Perl libraries. RT can detect and install these for you automatically
236 if you include --enable-ssl-mailgate when running configure and then
237 run make fixdeps as described in step 4. It is safe to rerun configure
238 and make fixdeps after you have installed RT, you should be sure to include
239 all the arguments you used in step 2 plus --enable-ssl-mailgate.
245 If RT is mission-critical for you or if you use it heavily, we recommend
246 that you purchase a commercial support contract. Details on support
247 contracts are available at http://www.bestpractical.com or by writing to
248 <sales@bestpractical.com>.
250 If you're interested in having RT extended or customized or would like
251 more information about commercial support options, please send email to
252 <sales@bestpractical.com> to discuss rates and availability.
255 MAILING LISTS AND WIKI
256 ----------------------
258 To keep up to date on the latest RT tips, techniques and extensions, you
259 may wish to join the rt-users mailing list. Send a message to:
261 rt-users-request@lists.bestpractical.com
263 with the body of the message consisting of only the word:
267 If you're interested in hacking on RT, you'll want to subscribe to
268 <rt-devel@lists.bestpractical.com>. Subscribe to it with instructions
269 similar to those above. Address questions about the stable release to
270 the rt-users list, and questions about the development version to the
273 The RT wiki, at http://requesttracker.wikia.com/ , is also a potential
280 If you believe you've discovered a security issue in RT, please send an
281 email to <security@bestpractical.com> with a detailed description of the
282 issue, and a secure means to respond to you (such as your PGP public
283 key). You can find our PGP key and fingerprint at
284 http://bestpractical.com/security/
290 RT's a pretty complex application, and as you get up to speed, you might
291 run into some trouble. Generally, it's best to ask about things you run
292 into on the rt-users mailinglist (or pick up a commercial support
293 contract from Best Practical). But, sometimes people do run into
294 bugs. In the exceedingly unlikely event that you hit a bug in RT, please
295 report it! We'd love to hear about problems you have with RT, so we can
296 fix them. To report a bug, send email to <rt-bugs@bestpractical.com>.
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