bheisig/install_rt4.4_on_debian8.6.md

## install_rt4.4_on_debian8.6.md

      
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              install_rt4.4_on_debian8.6.md
            
          
    Aim

Our aim is to install Request Tracker (RT) 4.4.2 on Debian GNU/Linux 8.6 with less pain
Note: This won't work with Debian GNU/Linux 9.x.
Problems

At the time of writing…

There is no nice and clean setup guide
There is no Debian package for RT's 4.4 branch
RT's README and its Makefile "help" are controversial
A typical installation often leads to Perl's CPAN dependency hell

Preparation

Install Debian GNU/Linux 8.6 or higher.
Install needed distribution packages:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential apache2 libapache2-mod-fcgid mariadb-server-10.0 mariadb-client-10.0 libssl-dev libexpat1-dev

Get it done

wget https://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/release/rt-4.4.2.tar.gz
tar xzvf rt-4.4.2.tar.gz
cd rt-4.4.2
./configure --with-web-user=www-data --with-web-group=www-data
sudo /usr/bin/perl -MCPAN -e shell # Quit with CTRL+D
sudo make testdeps
sudo make fixdeps # Press ENTER when needed
sudo make install

Test your installation with the built-in Web server: sudo /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server --port 8080. Hit CTRL-C to stop the process.
Configure Apache Web server

We choose Apache2 Web Server and FastCGId. RT will be available under the URL /rt.
Edit RT's local configuration file /opt/rt4/etc/RT_SiteConfig.d/myissues.pm:
# sudo nano /opt/rt4/etc/RT_SiteConfig.d/myissues.pm
Set($WebPath, "/rt");

Create a new VirtualHost:
# sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/myissues.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName myissues.example.com
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        DocumentRoot /var/www/html

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

        AddDefaultCharset UTF-8

        ScriptAlias /rt /opt/rt4/sbin/rt-server.fcgi/

        <Location /rt>
                Require all granted
                Options +ExecCGI
                AddHandler fcgid-script fcgi
        </Location>
</VirtualHost>
Replace default VirtualHost with your new one and restart Apache Web server:
sudo a2dissite 000-default
sudo a2ensite myissues
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service

Open http://myissues.example.com/rt/ (or something similar) in a Web browser to test everything runs smoothly.
Re-work

From RT's README:

Set up users, groups, queues, scrips and access control
Set up automated recurring tasks (cronjobs)
Configure the RT email gateway
Set up full text search
Set up automatic backups

…and keep your operating system clean and updated.
What's next?

Update/upgrade RT! Oh my gosh…
Sources that helped me


RT's README
RT's Web deployment
CPAN Issue Tracker: Bug #105189 for Net-SSLeay: Net::SSLeay fails to build on perl-5.22.0
Stack Overflow: How to install XML::Parser without expat-devel?