Previously I talked about why you need a ticketing system, this post (and the next) will cover installing Request Tracker 4 on Debian 7 using packages.
Install Request Tracker
This guide assumes you are installing a fresh install of Debian 7 onto a new computer (or virtual machine). I strongly recommend using 1GB+ of memory. Feel free to change settings to suit your environment and use your favorite text editor (vi, emacs, butterflies etc) instead of nano.
With a few minor changes these instruction should also work on any Debian based system with access to the Request Tracker 4 packages (Ubuntu 11.10/12.04).
Update Jan 2013 I have created an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Server version of this guide here.
Update July 2013 This document has been updated to support Debian 7 Wheezy.
I have used PostgreSQL over MySQL as it makes enabling fast full-text searching in RT4 much easier.
Requirements
You will need to have a few basic things before proceeding:
- Spare server (or VM) with 1GB+ RAM and at least 9GB HDD (more is better)
- Email account for RT (I have used rt@example.com)
- Email account for RT comments (I used rt-comments@example.com)
- A basic understanding of Linux, networking etc
Debian Install
Install Debian 7 using the net-inst .ISO image (choose settings that suit your environment)
- Select Language (English)
- Select Location
- Select Keyboard Layout
- Edit the Hostname (rt)
- Edit the Domain Name (example.com)
- Set the root password
- Add a normal user
- Set password
- Configure the clock
- Partition Disks
- Wait while the base system installs (make a coffee..)
- Select the nearest/fastest Debian package mirror
- Configure proxy if required
- Wait while the installer runs a few tasks
- Choose if you want to participate in the Debian popularity contest
- Select Packages – de-select Graphical Desktop and Print Server, but add SSH Server
- Wait while the installer downloads and installs packages
- Install the GRUB boot loader
- Finish install, remove CD, Continue to reboot
sudo Setup
Login as your root user and install sudo
apt-get install sudo
Add your normal user to the sudo security group
adduser youruser sudo
Logout and login as your regular user.
Network Setup
Configure a Static IP address and DNS resolution
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
Change the following two lines from:
allow-hotplug eth0 iface eth0 inet dhcp
To suit your environment:
auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.100 broadcast 192.168.1.255 gateway 192.168.1.1 dns-nameservers 192.168.1.1
Restart networking and test:
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart ping google.com
No covered here but now is a good time to configure SSH (preferably using certificates).
Continued in Part 2/2
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