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 It is particularly important that you read the warnings at the top of
75 UPGRADING-4.0 for some common issues.
77 RT stores the arguments given to ./configure at the top of the
78 etc/RT_Config.pm file in case you need to recreate your previous use
81 3) Make sure that RT has the Perl and system libraries it needs to run.
82 Check for missing dependencies by running:
86 4) If the script reports any missing dependencies, install them by
87 hand, or run the following command as a user who has permission to
88 install perl modules on your system:
92 Some modules require user input or environment variables to install
93 correctly, so it may be necessary to install them manually.
95 If you are installing with CPAN module older than 1.84, you will
96 need to start CPAN (by running perl -MCPAN -e shell) and upgrade the
101 If you are unsure of your CPAN version, it will be printed when you
104 If you are having trouble installing GD or Graphviz, you should
105 install gd-devel and the graphviz libraries using your
106 distribution's package manager.
108 5) Check to make sure everything was installed properly.
112 It might sometimes be necessary to run "make fixdeps" several times
113 to install all necessary perl modules.
115 6a) If this is a NEW installation (not an upgrade):
117 As a user with permission to install RT in your chosen directory,
122 To configure RT with the web installer, run:
124 /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server
126 and follow the instructions. Once completed, you should now have a
127 working RT instance running with the standalone rt-server. Press
128 Ctrl-C to stop it, and proceed to Step 7 to configure a recommended
129 deployment environment for production.
131 To configure RT manually, you must setup etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm in
132 your RT installation directory. You'll need to add any values you
133 need to change from the defaults in etc/RT_Config.pm
135 As a user with permission to read RT's configuration file, type:
137 make initialize-database
139 If the make fails, type:
143 and re-run 'make initialize-database'.
145 6b) If you are UPGRADING from a previous installation:
147 Before upgrading, always ensure that you have a complete current
148 backup. If you don't have a current backup, upgrading your database
149 could accidentally damage it and lose data, or worse.
151 If you are using MySQL, please read the instructions in
152 docs/UPGRADING.mysql as well to ensure that you do not corrupt
155 First, stop your webserver. You may also wish to put incoming email
156 into a hold queue, to avoid temporary delivery failure messages if
157 your upgrade is expected to take several hours.
159 Next, install new binaries, config files and libraries by running:
163 This will also prompt you to upgrade your database by running:
165 make upgrade-database
167 You should back up your database before running this command.
168 When you run it, you will be prompted for your previous version of
169 RT (such as 3.6.4) so that the appropriate set of database
170 upgrades can be applied.
172 Finally, clear the Mason cache dir:
174 rm -fr /opt/rt4/var/mason_data/obj
176 You may then start your web server again.
178 7) Configure the web server, as described in docs/web_deployment.pod,
179 and the email gateway, as described below.
181 NOTE: The default credentials for RT are:
184 Not changing the root password from the default is a SECURITY risk!
186 Once you've set up the web interface, consider setting up automatic
187 logout for inactive sessions. For more information about how to do
190 perldoc /path/to/rt/sbin/rt-clean-sessions
192 8) Set up users, groups, queues, scrips and access control.
194 Until you do this, RT will not be able to send or receive email, nor
195 will it be more than marginally functional. This is not an optional
198 9) Set up automated recurring tasks (cronjobs):
200 To generate email digest messages, you must arrange for the provided
201 utility to be run once daily, and once weekly. You may also want to
202 arrange for the rt-email-dashboards utility to be run hourly. For
203 example, if your task scheduler is cron, you can configure it as
206 crontab -e # as the RT administrator (probably root)
207 # insert the following lines:
208 0 0 * * * /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m daily
209 0 0 * * 0 /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m weekly
210 0 * * * * /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-dashboards
212 10) Configure the RT email gateway. To let email flow to your RT
213 server, you need to add a few lines of configuration to your mail
214 server's "aliases" file. These lines "pipe" incoming email messages
215 from your mail server to RT.
217 Add the following lines to /etc/aliases (or your local equivalent)
220 rt: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action correspond --url http://rt.example.com/"
221 rt-comment: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action comment --url http://rt.example.com/"
223 You'll need to add similar lines for each queue you want to be able to
224 send email to. To find out more about how to configure RT's email
227 perldoc /opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate
229 If your webserver uses SSL, rt-mailgate will require several new
230 Perl libraries. RT can detect and install these for you automatically
231 if you include --enable-ssl-mailgate when running configure and then
232 run make fixdeps as described in step 4. It is safe to rerun configure
233 and make fixdeps after you have installed RT, you should be sure to include
234 all the arguments you used in step 2 plus --enable-ssl-mailgate.
240 If RT is mission-critical for you or if you use it heavily, we recommend
241 that you purchase a commercial support contract. Details on support
242 contracts are available at http://www.bestpractical.com or by writing to
243 <sales@bestpractical.com>.
245 If you're interested in having RT extended or customized or would like
246 more information about commercial support options, please send email to
247 <sales@bestpractical.com> to discuss rates and availability.
250 MAILING LISTS AND WIKI
251 ----------------------
253 To keep up to date on the latest RT tips, techniques and extensions, you
254 may wish to join the rt-users mailing list. Send a message to:
256 rt-users-request@lists.bestpractical.com
258 with the body of the message consisting of only the word:
262 If you're interested in hacking on RT, you'll want to subscribe to
263 <rt-devel@lists.bestpractical.com>. Subscribe to it with instructions
264 similar to those above. Address questions about the stable release to
265 the rt-users list, and questions about the development version to the
268 The RT wiki, at http://requesttracker.wikia.com/ , is also a potential
275 If you believe you've discovered a security issue in RT, please send an
276 email to <security@bestpractical.com> with a detailed description of the
277 issue, and a secure means to respond to you (such as your PGP public
278 key). You can find our PGP key and fingerprint at
279 http://bestpractical.com/security/
285 RT's a pretty complex application, and as you get up to speed, you might
286 run into some trouble. Generally, it's best to ask about things you run
287 into on the rt-users mailinglist (or pick up a commercial support
288 contract from Best Practical). But, sometimes people do run into
289 bugs. In the exceedingly unlikely event that you hit a bug in RT, please
290 report it! We'd love to hear about problems you have with RT, so we can
291 fix them. To report a bug, send email to <rt-bugs@bestpractical.com>.
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