DebianSqueezeInstallGuide

The following guide describes the basic steps on how to install Request Tracker 4 (RT4) on Debian 6 (Squeeze).

This guide shows how to install RT4 using apt, this is done by using the squeeze-backports source in combination with the stable tree.

Requirements

To begin, make sure that you have a base system installed.

The actual installation of de Debian OS is something that I'll leave to your imagination. I have my own preferences but someone else will have their own.

So, in general you just need a Debian Squeeze installation somewhere (desktop even, deosn't matter much for this guide).

Repositories

The first thing, after having a working Debian Squeeze installation, is to setup the repositories. The stable repository only has RT 3.8, but ther'es a nifty Debian repository which will allow you to install the latest RT version.

This is the backports repository; you can find specific information about the backports repo on this page: http://backports-master.debian.org. It's officially supported by Debian, so it's a nice and clean way for installing RT 4.

And in Debian Squeeze, when you install something from the backports it will also update other packages from the backports repository.

Below are the steps of adding the repository to your sources.lst:

(login as root, or use sudo with the below commands)

# nano -w /etc/apt/sources.list
...
# Squeeze Backports (add at the bottom)
deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main

Now update your repositories:

# aptitude update

That's all for the repositories, the next step is using the backports to install RT 4.

Install RT 4

Since we already have the repositories setup you can install RT 4 with the following commands.

First pick a database

To begin, make sure you install one of the three database choices. The first package installs the actual database, the second installs the client dependensies for RT.

PostgreSQL

aptitude install postgresql rt4-db-postgresql

MySQL

aptitude install mysql-server rt4-db-mysql

Sqlite

aptitude install sqlite rt4-db-sqlite

This will install both the client and server modules needed for the database.

After installation make sure that your database is running:

# service postgresql [status|start|stop|restart]
# service mysql [status|start|stop|restart]

This part is important for the next steps, the DB server needs to be up and running.

Secondly, install RT4

And now install RT 4 itself, at the moment of this writing this means that you'll be installing RT 4.0.4.

aptitude install rt4-apache2
aptitude install request-tracker4

During the installation you'll be asked a bunch of questions, follow the steps and you'll be ok :-) This will create the RT database, configure the DB + the basics for RT.

The last step is to setup apache2 for RT, there are sample configuration files located under /etc/request-tracker4/.

Pick your config and configure it under /etc/apache2/sites-available, from there make a symlink from that file to /etc/apach2/sites-enabled.

open apache2 configuration file.

 vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

At the end of this file :

 Include /etc/request-tracker4/apache2-modperl2.conf
 RedirectMatch ^/$ /rt
 </VirtualHost>

Then restart apache (service apache2 restart) and see of RT is up and running.

And voila, you've now installed RT 4 on Debian Squeeze using apt :-)

• It might happen that aptitude complains about some perl dependencies being outdated. You can update those specific packets using the following command (these are the ones that were complaining on my end):

aptitude -t squeeze-backports install libdbix-searchbuilder-perl liblog-dispatch-perl libhtml-rewriteattributes-perl libplack-perl -y

This forces aptitude to update those packets using the backporst repository.

Or just install the package 'request-tracker4' via synaptic and everything will be smooth sailing.

Configuring RT 4

In general your installation should be done, but you probably want to know the location of your configuration files under Debian. Below a list of the locations that I know of:

• /etc/request-tracker4
• /usr/share/request-tracker4

The first contains the basic configuration files, like RT_SiteConfig.pm. The latter contains the actual application.

Also be sure to configure Mailgate if you plan to be able to submit tickets via email.