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 5.10.1 or later (http://www.perl.org).
19 RT won't start on versions of Perl older than 5.10.1.
21 o A supported SQL database
23 Currently supported: MySQL 5.1 or later with InnoDB support.
24 Postgres 8.4 or later; 9.0 or later suggested
26 SQLite 3.0 or later; for testing only, no
27 upgrade path guaranteed
29 o Apache version 1.3.x or 2.x (http://httpd.apache.org)
30 with FastCGI -- (http://www.fastcgi.com)
31 or mod_perl -- (http://perl.apache.org)
32 or another 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 4.0.x to 4.2.x you should
70 review both the UPGRADING-4.0 and UPGRADING-4.2 files. Similarly, if
71 you were coming from 3.8.x, you would want to review the UPGRADING-3.8,
72 UPGRADING-4.0 and UPGRADING-4.2 documents.
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, so as 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 having trouble installing GD, refer to "Installing GD libraries"
98 in docs/charts.pod. Ticket relationship graphing requires the graphviz
99 library which you should install using your distribution's package manager.
101 5) Check to make sure everything was installed properly.
105 It might sometimes be necessary to run "make fixdeps" several times
106 to install all necessary perl modules.
108 6a) If this is a NEW installation (not an upgrade):
110 As a user with permission to install RT in your chosen directory,
115 To configure RT with the web installer, run:
117 /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server
119 and follow the instructions. Once completed, you should now have a
120 working RT instance running with the standalone rt-server. Press
121 Ctrl-C to stop it, and proceed to Step 7 to configure a recommended
122 deployment environment for production.
124 To configure RT manually, you must setup etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm in
125 your RT installation directory. You'll need to add any values you
126 need to change from the defaults in etc/RT_Config.pm
128 As a user with permission to read RT's configuration file, type:
130 make initialize-database
132 If the make fails, type:
136 and re-run 'make initialize-database'.
138 6b) If you are UPGRADING from a previous installation:
140 Before upgrading, always ensure that you have a complete current
141 backup. If you don't have a current backup, upgrading your database
142 could accidentally damage it and lose data, or worse.
144 If you are using MySQL, please read the instructions in
145 docs/UPGRADING.mysql as well to ensure that you do not corrupt
148 First, stop your webserver. You may also wish to put incoming email
149 into a hold queue, to avoid temporary delivery failure messages if
150 your upgrade is expected to take several hours.
152 Next, install new binaries, config files and libraries by running:
156 This will also prompt you to upgrade your database by running:
158 make upgrade-database
160 You should back up your database before running this command.
161 When you run it, you will be prompted for your previous version of
162 RT (such as 4.0.23) so that the appropriate set of database
163 upgrades can be applied.
165 If 'make upgrade-database' completes without error, your upgrade
166 has been successful; you should now run any commands that were
167 supplied in version-specific UPGRADING documentation. You should
168 then restart your webserver.
170 7) Configure the web server, as described in docs/web_deployment.pod,
171 and the email gateway, as described below.
173 NOTE: The default credentials for RT are:
176 Not changing the root password from the default is a SECURITY risk!
178 Once you've set up the web interface, consider setting up automatic
179 logout for inactive sessions. For more information about how to do
182 perldoc /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-clean-sessions
184 8) Set up users, groups, queues, scrips and access control.
186 Until you do this, RT will not be able to send or receive email, nor
187 will it be more than marginally functional. This is not an optional
190 9) Set up automated recurring tasks (cronjobs):
192 To generate email digest messages, you must arrange for the provided
193 utility to be run once daily, and once weekly. You may also want to
194 arrange for the rt-email-dashboards utility to be run hourly. For
195 example, if your task scheduler is cron, you can configure it by
196 adding the following lines as /etc/cron.d/rt:
198 0 0 * * * root /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m daily
199 0 0 * * 0 root /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-digest -m weekly
200 0 * * * * root /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-email-dashboards
202 10) Configure the RT email gateway. To let email flow to your RT
203 server, you need to add a few lines of configuration to your mail
204 server's "aliases" file. These lines "pipe" incoming email messages
205 from your mail server to RT.
207 Add the following lines to /etc/aliases (or your local equivalent)
210 rt: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action correspond --url http://rt.example.com/"
211 rt-comment: "|/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action comment --url http://rt.example.com/"
213 You'll need to add similar lines for each queue you want to be able to
214 send email to. To find out more about how to configure RT's email
217 perldoc /opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate
219 11) Set up automatic backups for RT and its data as described in
220 the docs/backups.pod document.
226 If RT is mission-critical for you or if you use it heavily, we recommend
227 that you purchase a commercial support contract. Details on support
228 contracts are available at http://www.bestpractical.com or by writing to
229 <sales@bestpractical.com>.
231 If you're interested in having RT extended or customized or would like
232 more information about commercial support options, please send email to
233 <sales@bestpractical.com> to discuss rates and availability.
236 COMMUNITY FORUM AND WIKI
237 ------------------------
239 To keep up to date on the latest RT tips, techniques and extensions, you
240 may wish to join the RT Community Forum website. You can find it here:
242 https://forum.bestpractical.com
244 You'll find many different categories of discussion there including the
245 RT Users category for general RT topics. If you're interested
246 in customizing RT code, there is a category for RT Developers with more
249 The RT wiki, at https://rt-wiki.bestpractical.com, is also a potential
256 If you believe you've discovered a security issue in RT, please send an
257 email to <security@bestpractical.com> with a detailed description of the
258 issue, and a secure means to respond to you (such as your PGP public
259 key). You can find our PGP key and fingerprint at
260 https://bestpractical.com/security/
266 RT's a pretty complex application, and as you get up to speed, you might
267 run into some trouble. Generally, it's best to ask about things you run
268 into on the Community Forum (or pick up a commercial support
269 contract from Best Practical). But, sometimes people do run into
270 bugs. In the exceedingly unlikely event that you hit a bug in RT, please
271 report it! We'd love to hear about problems you have with RT, so we can
272 fix them. To report a bug, send email to <rt-bugs@bestpractical.com>.
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