Best setup for using RT with Gmail?

Hi list,
I’ve never set up or run a mail server before, but I need to get email working with RT. We use Gmail Apps at work, so everyone has an email address. Right now, tickets@domain.com is our ticket one, and I’ll use tickets+queueName@domain.com for email ticket creation.

What I’m wondering is which is the best mail server to use on the Debian 8 server that hosts RT? FastMail seems popular, but will it be best suited to Gmail, which requires encryption? Is there a better one? Any other notes on doing this I should know? Thanks in advance.

You don’t need to setup your own mail server, you can just use Gmail. There
are two components to it:

  • sending mail via gmail from RT
  • fetching mail from gmail and inserting it into RT queues

For sending mail via gmail from RT, start here:
How to make Request Tracker use an external SMTP mail server? - Server Fault.
The answer to that thread links to how-tos.

For fetching mail and inserting it into RT queues, you first need to
install either fetchmail or getmail (I use getmail), configure it to
collect mail from the gmail inbox allocated to the queue, and then hand off
mail it collects to rt-mailgate. rt-mailgate’s arguments direct mail to the
relevant queues.On Mon, 5 Sep 2016 at 02:30 Alex Hall ahall@autodist.com wrote:

Hi list,
I’ve never set up or run a mail server before, but I need to get email
working with RT. We use Gmail Apps at work, so everyone has an email
address. Right now, tickets@domain.com is our ticket one, and I’ll use
tickets+queueName@domain.com for email ticket creation.

What I’m wondering is which is the best mail server to use on the Debian 8
server that hosts RT? FastMail seems popular, but will it be best suited to
Gmail, which requires encryption? Is there a better one? Any other notes on
doing this I should know? Thanks in advance.

Sent from my iPhone

RT 4.4 and RTIR training sessions, and a new workshop day!
https://bestpractical.com/training

  • Boston - October 24-26
  • Los Angeles - Q1 2017

Thanks for the answers. I’m happy, and a bit surprised, to say that I have
my test RT instance sending out emails on ticket creation/activity using
postfix. It’s not a GUI like OSTicket is, but this took far less time to
get working. Indeed, the more I use RT, the happier I am that I switched to
it.

Anyway, I have a fetchmail question. I have to make the configuration file
for fetchmail, which I’ve done successfully. Testing with that file,
fetchmail works. I got the file syntax/setup from here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GmailPostfixFetchmail

However, the RT fetchmailrc file the wiki says to use looks very, very
different:
https://rt-wiki.bestpractical.com/wiki/Fetchmail

For one thing, there’s no interval, so how does fetchmail know to poll
every few minutes? Do I call fetchmail /path/to/myfetchmailrc as a cron job?

Second, there seems to be a lot of repetition. For instance, is there any
way to store my RT URL and domain as variables, so I could just do
username someAddress@$domain url $myURL
and so on? This isn’t a big deal, but the programmer in me cringes at the
re-use of what should be a static string. Thanks in advance. Oh, if there
are any reasons to use getmail instead, please let me know. I just found
more resources that use fetchmail, and fetchmail doesn’t need to be
compiled as getmail seems to, so fetchmail won. I’m not at all opposed to
switching if I should, though.On Sun, Sep 4, 2016 at 6:09 PM, Chris McClement chrisis@bosberaad.com wrote:

You don’t need to setup your own mail server, you can just use Gmail.
There are two components to it:

  • sending mail via gmail from RT
  • fetching mail from gmail and inserting it into RT queues

For sending mail via gmail from RT, start here: http://serverfault.com/
questions/204216/how-to-make-request-tracker-use-an-
external-smtp-mail-server. The answer to that thread links to how-tos.

For fetching mail and inserting it into RT queues, you first need to
install either fetchmail or getmail (I use getmail), configure it to
collect mail from the gmail inbox allocated to the queue, and then hand off
mail it collects to rt-mailgate. rt-mailgate’s arguments direct mail to the
relevant queues.

On Mon, 5 Sep 2016 at 02:30 Alex Hall ahall@autodist.com wrote:

Hi list,
I’ve never set up or run a mail server before, but I need to get email
working with RT. We use Gmail Apps at work, so everyone has an email
address. Right now, tickets@domain.com is our ticket one, and I’ll use
tickets+queueName@domain.com for email ticket creation.

What I’m wondering is which is the best mail server to use on the Debian
8 server that hosts RT? FastMail seems popular, but will it be best suited
to Gmail, which requires encryption? Is there a better one? Any other notes
on doing this I should know? Thanks in advance.

Sent from my iPhone

RT 4.4 and RTIR training sessions, and a new workshop day!
https://bestpractical.com/training

  • Boston - October 24-26
  • Los Angeles - Q1 2017

Alex Hall
Automatic Distributors, IT department
ahall@autodist.com

One more follow-up. Now that I have fetchmail working (my cron job question
still applies) what do I use for the username? I got “no permission to
create tickets in queue ‘General’” when I tried to use email creation.
Good, because it’s picking up emails correctly, but bad, because I’m not
sure who lacks the permission. I’m guessing either the user set in the
fetchmailrc file, or my email address? If the former, to what do I set the
value? If the latter, how do I allow users to create tickets via email
automatically? Thanks.On Mon, Sep 5, 2016 at 1:52 PM, Alex Hall ahall@autodist.com wrote:

Thanks for the answers. I’m happy, and a bit surprised, to say that I have
my test RT instance sending out emails on ticket creation/activity using
postfix. It’s not a GUI like OSTicket is, but this took far less time to
get working. Indeed, the more I use RT, the happier I am that I switched to
it.

Anyway, I have a fetchmail question. I have to make the configuration file
for fetchmail, which I’ve done successfully. Testing with that file,
fetchmail works. I got the file syntax/setup from here:
GmailPostfixFetchmail - Community Help Wiki

However, the RT fetchmailrc file the wiki says to use looks very, very
different:
Fetchmail - Request Tracker Wiki

For one thing, there’s no interval, so how does fetchmail know to poll
every few minutes? Do I call fetchmail /path/to/myfetchmailrc as a cron job?

Second, there seems to be a lot of repetition. For instance, is there any
way to store my RT URL and domain as variables, so I could just do
username someAddress@$domain url $myURL
and so on? This isn’t a big deal, but the programmer in me cringes at the
re-use of what should be a static string. Thanks in advance. Oh, if there
are any reasons to use getmail instead, please let me know. I just found
more resources that use fetchmail, and fetchmail doesn’t need to be
compiled as getmail seems to, so fetchmail won. I’m not at all opposed to
switching if I should, though.

On Sun, Sep 4, 2016 at 6:09 PM, Chris McClement chrisis@bosberaad.com wrote:

You don’t need to setup your own mail server, you can just use Gmail.
There are two components to it:

  • sending mail via gmail from RT
  • fetching mail from gmail and inserting it into RT queues

For sending mail via gmail from RT, start here: http://serverfault.com/q
uestions/204216/how-to-make-request-tracker-use-an-external-
smtp-mail-server. The answer to that thread links to how-tos.

For fetching mail and inserting it into RT queues, you first need to
install either fetchmail or getmail (I use getmail), configure it to
collect mail from the gmail inbox allocated to the queue, and then hand off
mail it collects to rt-mailgate. rt-mailgate’s arguments direct mail to the
relevant queues.

On Mon, 5 Sep 2016 at 02:30 Alex Hall ahall@autodist.com wrote:

Hi list,
I’ve never set up or run a mail server before, but I need to get email
working with RT. We use Gmail Apps at work, so everyone has an email
address. Right now, tickets@domain.com is our ticket one, and I’ll use
tickets+queueName@domain.com for email ticket creation.

What I’m wondering is which is the best mail server to use on the Debian
8 server that hosts RT? FastMail seems popular, but will it be best suited
to Gmail, which requires encryption? Is there a better one? Any other notes
on doing this I should know? Thanks in advance.

Sent from my iPhone

RT 4.4 and RTIR training sessions, and a new workshop day!
https://bestpractical.com/training

  • Boston - October 24-26
  • Los Angeles - Q1 2017


Alex Hall
Automatic Distributors, IT department
ahall@autodist.com

Alex Hall
Automatic Distributors, IT department
ahall@autodist.com

I use a cron job that runs fetchmail. Here’s my fetchmail config file. The credentials are for the mail server, not RT.

poll imap.gmail.com proto IMAP user “example@example.com” with pass “example1234” no idle ssl mda “/opt/rt4/bin/rt-mailgate --url https://requesttracker.example.com --queue General --action correspond”

To get fancier you could use the +queue part of the email and have Gmail put it in specific imap folders and then have the fetchmail configs go into different queues based on the imap folder by adding something like folder “queueName” to the above line.

For the no permission error, is it possible that the sending email address in the test is a disabled user in RT? I’ve had that happen before. Overall that sounds more like a permissions issue to the user or queue rather than an issue with fetchmail or rt-mailgate.

Aaron> On Sep 5, 2016, at 12:47 PM, Alex Hall ahall@autodist.com wrote:

One more follow-up. Now that I have fetchmail working (my cron job question still applies) what do I use for the username? I got “no permission to create tickets in queue ‘General’” when I tried to use email creation. Good, because it’s picking up emails correctly, but bad, because I’m not sure who lacks the permission. I’m guessing either the user set in the fetchmailrc file, or my email address? If the former, to what do I set the value? If the latter, how do I allow users to create tickets via email automatically? Thanks.

On Mon, Sep 5, 2016 at 1:52 PM, Alex Hall <ahall@autodist.com mailto:ahall@autodist.com> wrote:
Thanks for the answers. I’m happy, and a bit surprised, to say that I have my test RT instance sending out emails on ticket creation/activity using postfix. It’s not a GUI like OSTicket is, but this took far less time to get working. Indeed, the more I use RT, the happier I am that I switched to it.

Anyway, I have a fetchmail question. I have to make the configuration file for fetchmail, which I’ve done successfully. Testing with that file, fetchmail works. I got the file syntax/setup from here:
GmailPostfixFetchmail - Community Help Wiki https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GmailPostfixFetchmail

However, the RT fetchmailrc file the wiki says to use looks very, very different:
Fetchmail - Request Tracker Wiki https://rt-wiki.bestpractical.com/wiki/Fetchmail

For one thing, there’s no interval, so how does fetchmail know to poll every few minutes? Do I call fetchmail /path/to/myfetchmailrc as a cron job?

Second, there seems to be a lot of repetition. For instance, is there any way to store my RT URL and domain as variables, so I could just do
username someAddress@$domain url $myURL
and so on? This isn’t a big deal, but the programmer in me cringes at the re-use of what should be a static string. Thanks in advance. Oh, if there are any reasons to use getmail instead, please let me know. I just found more resources that use fetchmail, and fetchmail doesn’t need to be compiled as getmail seems to, so fetchmail won. I’m not at all opposed to switching if I should, though.

On Sun, Sep 4, 2016 at 6:09 PM, Chris McClement <chrisis@bosberaad.com mailto:chrisis@bosberaad.com> wrote:
You don’t need to setup your own mail server, you can just use Gmail. There are two components to it:

  • sending mail via gmail from RT
  • fetching mail from gmail and inserting it into RT queues

For sending mail via gmail from RT, start here: How to make Request Tracker use an external SMTP mail server? - Server Fault http://serverfault.com/questions/204216/how-to-make-request-tracker-use-an-external-smtp-mail-server. The answer to that thread links to how-tos.

For fetching mail and inserting it into RT queues, you first need to install either fetchmail or getmail (I use getmail), configure it to collect mail from the gmail inbox allocated to the queue, and then hand off mail it collects to rt-mailgate. rt-mailgate’s arguments direct mail to the relevant queues.

On Mon, 5 Sep 2016 at 02:30 Alex Hall <ahall@autodist.com mailto:ahall@autodist.com> wrote:
Hi list,
I’ve never set up or run a mail server before, but I need to get email working with RT. We use Gmail Apps at work, so everyone has an email address. Right now, tickets@domain.com mailto:tickets@domain.com is our ticket one, and I’ll use tickets+queueName@domain.com mailto:tickets+queueName@domain.com for email ticket creation.

What I’m wondering is which is the best mail server to use on the Debian 8 server that hosts RT? FastMail seems popular, but will it be best suited to Gmail, which requires encryption? Is there a better one? Any other notes on doing this I should know? Thanks in advance.

Sent from my iPhone

RT 4.4 and RTIR training sessions, and a new workshop day! https://bestpractical.com/training https://bestpractical.com/training

  • Boston - October 24-26
  • Los Angeles - Q1 2017


Alex Hall
Automatic Distributors, IT department
ahall@autodist.com mailto:ahall@autodist.com


Alex Hall
Automatic Distributors, IT department
ahall@autodist.com mailto:ahall@autodist.com

RT 4.4 and RTIR training sessions, and a new workshop day! https://bestpractical.com/training https://bestpractical.com/training

  • Boston - October 24-26
  • Los Angeles - Q1 2017