[rt-users] Reqest Tracker CentOS 5.3 setup

[jmoseley at corp.xanadoo.com]

First and foremost, please email your requests for assistance to the
mailing list.  With that said, the main installation guide is Unix-generic,
but if you know enough about your particular OS, you shouldn't have too
many problems.  Cent OS/RHEL (and other) guides do exist in the official RT
setup wiki (http://wiki.bestpractical.com/view/InstallationGuides), but
they quickly become a bit outdated because package names change, versions
change, etc, and some refer to third-party yum repos to install RT-required
software and even RT itself.

The obvious questions are what have you installed thus far and where are
you encountering problems?

I would say RT installation falls into four basic steps:

1. Installing necessary software that RT requires (perl, perl modules,
database software (both client and server), webserver, perl interpreter,
etc)
2. Installing RT (this is the point where most perl modules will be
installed)
3. Setting up RT database
4. Configuring RT (RT_SiteConfig.pm), webserver, and mail environment

I'll go ahead and start with numbers one and two above using Mysql, Apache,
and FastCGI.  In this example, RT itself will be installed from source,
supporting software will be installed via standard CentOS yum repositories,
and most perl modules via CPAN.  It's further assumed that Mysql will be
running on the same server as RT (I prefer separate servers as perfomance
will be better with a dedicated mysql server with fast disks and lots of
memory, preferably a 64-bit system to better take advantage of memory).
Perhaps you've already completed these steps:

1. Install the following via yum:

httpd, perl, mysql, mysql-server, mod_fcgid, ncftp

a) create entry in /etc/group for rt group: rt:x:501:apache

b) disable Selinux in /etc/selinux/config:

SELINUX=disabled

c) then execute the following from  a shell prompt: echo 0 >
/selinux/enforce

This way you don't have to reboot the box...  If for some reason this
doesn't work, simply reboot...

2. Download RT source; unzip, untar it, rename to 'rt-3.8.2.src'

a) CD into your source directory and then run the following command (you
can choose to install RT in any directory you want, of course):

./configure --prefix=/opt/rt3.8.2 --with-web-user=apache
--with-web-group=apache --with-mysql --with-web-handler=fastcgi

b) make testdeps

This will list all the perl modules you need to install

c) make fixdeps

This will automatically try to install all the required perl modules by
invoking CPAN.  If you haven't already invoked the CPAN shell environment,
there will be a set of setup questions CPAN will ask you.  There is a
strong possibly that 'make fixdeps' won't get all required modules
installed.  In this case, you will have to run 'cpan' from a shell prompt
and install one perl module at a time.  Be advised that many of the
required perl modules have dependencies, so the CPAN installer will attempt
to install those as well.  As a last resort if run into problems with CPAN,
you can install quite a few of the required perl modules from yum.  Look at
the wiki refereneced above for RHEL/Cent OS examples of what perl modules
are generally available via yum.  Keep performing 'make testdeps' to ensure
all perl modules have been installed.  When they have been:

d) make install

e) ln -s /opt/rt3.8.2 /opt/rt3

I do the following to keep upgrades sane.  For example, when I upgrade to
say, RT 3.8.3, it will be installed in /opt/rt3.8.3 and I will then delete
the existing /opt/rt3 soft link and repoint it at the new installation.
This way, I can install a new version of RT without upgrading/blowing away
the live version, which also means I can fall back to the previous version
if the new version doesn't work for some reason.

Hope this helps!

If you get passed this, then I will continue with the other steps.  I'll
then add to the RT wiki...



James Moseley




Grant Deters <gdeters at usd250.org> wrote:

Hello,

I was wondering if you had any good guides to installing RT on CentOS 5.3.
I have been unsuccessful in my first attempt as the guides for it on their
website where hard for me to follow as they don't provide one specifically
for this OS.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks