Installation pain

RT Users
1

Hi all,

Such a beautifull software, so hard to install.

Eventhough the FAQ says Fedora is the easiest distro to install RT on, the
fact that is doesn’t support mysql 3 makes things so complicated.

As we don’t want upgrade mysql, we are trying to install RT on Postgres.
But lack of good information on installing RT on that Data base engine
makes it very difficult.

Does anyone has a setup documentation for RT starting with the database
and user creation on Postgres?

Best regards,

Francois

Random Thought:
Serfs up!
– Spartacus

2

What difficulties are you having? I had a bit of trouble to start
with, mostly due to some wrong perl packages versions, but that is
independent of the database type.

And I think I didn’t originally understand how the user permissions in
pg_hba.conf worked.

Do you know about the rt-setup-database binary? I think if you have your
RT_SiteConfig.pm set to postgres, you are pretty much all set.On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Francois Meehan wrote:

Hi all,

Such a beautifull software, so hard to install.

Eventhough the FAQ says Fedora is the easiest distro to install RT on, the
fact that is doesn’t support mysql 3 makes things so complicated.

As we don’t want upgrade mysql, we are trying to install RT on Postgres.
But lack of good information on installing RT on that Data base engine
makes it very difficult.

Does anyone has a setup documentation for RT starting with the database
and user creation on Postgres?

Best regards,

Francois

Random Thought:

Serfs up!
– Spartacus

The rt-users Archives

Be sure to check out the RT Wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com

3

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If you’re more comfortable with MySQL, you could always install and run another instance. If you’re running MySQL 3 from RPM, you could install the MySQL 4 linux tarball into /usr/local, for example.

-=| Ben

Hi all,

Such a beautifull software, so hard to install.

Eventhough the FAQ says Fedora is the easiest distro to install RT on, the
fact that is doesn’t support mysql 3 makes things so complicated.

As we don’t want upgrade mysql, we are trying to install RT on Postgres.
But lack of good information on installing RT on that Data base engine
makes it very difficult.

Does anyone has a setup documentation for RT starting with the database
and user creation on Postgres?

Best regards,

Francois

Random Thought:

Serfs up!
– Spartacus
http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-users

Be sure to check out the RT Wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com

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4

Francois Meehan wrote:

Hi all,

Such a beautifull software, so hard to install.

Eventhough the FAQ says Fedora is the easiest distro to install RT on, the
fact that is doesn’t support mysql 3 makes things so complicated.

IMO, FreeBSD is the easiest to install onto - but I haven’t tried
anything else in years. It’s simply the path of least resistance.
But if FCx is the only thing you know, it may be easier for you to
stay there.

Usually, people have reported most success after building their own
binaries of everything related to RT (apache, perl, mod_perl).

On FreeBSD, you can use the ports-system to do all that for you,
including installation of the database itself.
(All modules needed by RT are in the ports-system).

There are compelling reasons to use RHEL/SLES over FreeBSD - mainly drivers for enterprise-class storage HBAs and commercial system-management (hello cpq-health) or backup-software - but if all that doesn't apply to you, and you only intend to use open-source software anyway, FreeBSD might be the better long-term solution.

As we don’t want upgrade mysql, we are trying to install RT on Postgres.
But lack of good information on installing RT on that Data base engine
makes it very difficult.

Does anyone has a setup documentation for RT starting with the database
and user creation on Postgres?

I didn’t see any kind of show-stopper in the installation. See the
wiki.bestpractical.com for a guide on installing on PostgreSQL.
If you are also new to PostgreSQL, too, it probably wouldn’t hurt to
familiarize yourself with that database first.
The installation of RT is such that the tables are created as super-user
and the rt_user gets SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE privileges on them.
I used PostgreSQL 8.0.3, BTW. The 8.0-versions should provide a
significant performance improvement.

cheers,
Rainer

5

Dumb question but why not install it on Fedora Core3 and the latest
MySQL builds?

I have done 3 installs of RT on this platform and all three installs
went flawlessly. The documentation to get it to work is all there on the
web if you just use google and this list and it’s archives.

My 2 cents.From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Rainer
Duffner
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 10:37 AM
To: fmml@cedval.org
Cc: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Installation pain…

Francois Meehan wrote:

Hi all,

Such a beautifull software, so hard to install.

Eventhough the FAQ says Fedora is the easiest distro to install RT on,
the
fact that is doesn’t support mysql 3 makes things so complicated.

IMO, FreeBSD is the easiest to install onto - but I haven’t tried
anything else in years. It’s simply the path of least resistance.
But if FCx is the only thing you know, it may be easier for you to
stay there.

Usually, people have reported most success after building their own
binaries of everything related to RT (apache, perl, mod_perl).

On FreeBSD, you can use the ports-system to do all that for you,
including installation of the database itself.
(All modules needed by RT are in the ports-system).

There are compelling reasons to use RHEL/SLES over FreeBSD - mainly drivers for enterprise-class storage HBAs and commercial system-management (hello cpq-health) or backup-software - but if all that doesn't apply to you, and you only intend to use open-source software anyway, FreeBSD might be the better long-term solution.

As we don’t want upgrade mysql, we are trying to install RT on
Postgres.
But lack of good information on installing RT on that Data base engine
makes it very difficult.

Does anyone has a setup documentation for RT starting with the database
and user creation on Postgres?

I didn’t see any kind of show-stopper in the installation. See the
wiki.bestpractical.com for a guide on installing on PostgreSQL.
If you are also new to PostgreSQL, too, it probably wouldn’t hurt to
familiarize yourself with that database first.
The installation of RT is such that the tables are created as super-user

and the rt_user gets SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE privileges on them.
I used PostgreSQL 8.0.3, BTW. The 8.0-versions should provide a
significant performance improvement.

cheers,
Rainer
http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-users

Be sure to check out the RT Wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com

6

Dumb question but why not install it on Fedora Core3 and the latest
MySQL builds?

I have done 3 installs of RT on this platform and all three installs
went flawlessly. The documentation to get it to work is all there on the
web if you just use google and this list and it’s archives.

As near I can figure, Phil, it’s because he has an FC3 machine
already running with an already in-use MySQL 3 on it.

The old “componentized software” problem strikes again: it’s much
easier to support the package if you’re willing to strictly specify
what people are expected to run it on… but that restricts people from
running it on what they’ve already got going…

Cheers,
– jra
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

  If you can read this... thank a system administrator.  Or two.  --me
7

Well Jay,

as near as I can figure you have to balance what you have in place
with what it is you need and is it worth all the pain and time to get
it to install on something not typical or pay for some cheap hardware
and get it to work on the platform with the recommended
prerequisites…

One of my installs in installed inside a VMware session that is working
on my Windows XP machine.

It’s not worth all the time and unknown to get this software to work on
none typical setups, it’s just not.

PhilFrom: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Jay R.
Ashworth
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 12:49 PM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Installation pain…

Dumb question but why not install it on Fedora Core3 and the latest
MySQL builds?

I have done 3 installs of RT on this platform and all three installs
went flawlessly. The documentation to get it to work is all there on
the
web if you just use google and this list and it’s archives.

As near I can figure, Phil, it’s because he has an FC3 machine
already running with an already in-use MySQL 3 on it.

The old “componentized software” problem strikes again: it’s much
easier to support the package if you’re willing to strictly specify
what people are expected to run it on… but that restricts people from
running it on what they’ve already got going…

Cheers,
– jra
Jay R. Ashworth
jra@baylink.com
Designer Baylink
RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think
'87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727
647 1274

  If you can read this... thank a system administrator.  Or two.

–me
http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-users

Be sure to check out the RT Wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com

8

Thanks all for the replies,

Feels like I am in a bit of a dead end. For one, trying to use postgress,
I have all kinds of error just to get postgress running. I have create a
postgres user: rt with password: rt

Run rt ./configure with:

–with-db-type=Pg --with-db-dba postgres --with-db-rt-user=rt
–with-db-rt-pass=rt

ran make and make install

Get error:
DBI connect(‘dbname=template1;host=localhost’,‘yes’,…) failed: FATAL:
no pg_hba.conf entry for host “127.0.0.1”, user “yes”, database
“template1”, SSL off
at //opt/rt3/sbin/rt-setup-database line 101
Failed to connect to dbi:Pg:dbname=template1;host=localhost as yes: FATAL:
no pg_hba.conf entry for host “127.0.0.1”, user “yes”, database
“template1”, SSL off
make: *** [initialize-database] Error 255

So, looks like we would have to invest time in learning Postgres, not
trivial as we thought

I have seen all kind of compatibilities issues when installing Mysql 4
with RPMS, no sure we should go that route either.

If it wasn’t for the fact that a year ago I had install RT on Gentoo for a
customer, and saw how powerfull it was, I would have drop this and try to
use another Help Desk solution.

Maybe, if I really want it, I might have to change distro. That is very
drastic to me…

Francois

Well Jay,

as near as I can figure you have to balance what you have in place
with what it is you need and is it worth all the pain and time to get
it to install on something not typical or pay for some cheap hardware
and get it to work on the platform with the recommended
prerequisites…

One of my installs in installed inside a VMware session that is working
on my Windows XP machine.

It’s not worth all the time and unknown to get this software to work on
none typical setups, it’s just not.

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Jay R.
Ashworth
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 12:49 PM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Installation pain…

Dumb question but why not install it on Fedora Core3 and the latest
MySQL builds?

I have done 3 installs of RT on this platform and all three installs
went flawlessly. The documentation to get it to work is all there on
the
web if you just use google and this list and it’s archives.

As near I can figure, Phil, it’s because he has an FC3 machine
already running with an already in-use MySQL 3 on it.

The old “componentized software” problem strikes again: it’s much
easier to support the package if you’re willing to strictly specify
what people are expected to run it on… but that restricts people from
running it on what they’ve already got going…

Cheers,
– jra

Jay R. Ashworth
jra@baylink.com
Designer Baylink
RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think
'87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727
647 1274

  If you can read this... thank a system administrator.  Or two.

–me

The rt-users Archives

Be sure to check out the RT Wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com

The rt-users Archives

Be sure to check out the RT Wiki at http://wiki.bestpractical.com

Random Thought:
The world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. - Gloria Evangelina Anzaldua

9

I think I understand what people mean when they say
that installing RT is painful.

I’m now sucessfully running RT 3.4.0 on Fedore Core 2,
MySQL 4.1 but it wasn’t easy and it took me quite a while
to get it going.

One of the things that bothered me, but something I
see no way around, is the way RT is dependent on
so many external software package. Most are Perl modules,
true, but it’s hard to get a handle on how everything
interrelates. Just the interdependencies of the Perl
modules alone boggle my pea brain. The issue of
which version of mod_perl to use also took a lot
of head scratching.

Maybe the upcoming O’Reilly book about RT will help
all of us.

Jon Forrest
Computer Resources Manager
Civil and Environmental Engineering Dept.
305 Davis Hall
Univ. of Calif., Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-1710
510-642-0904
forrest@ce.berkeley.edu

10

The issue of which version of mod_perl to use also took a lot
of head scratching.

What made this one difficult? I thought the README was pretty direct on
the topic, but I’d be happy to rev it to help folks out.

11

Francois Meehan wrote:

Eventhough the FAQ says Fedora is the easiest distro to install RT on, the
fact that is doesn’t support mysql 3 makes things so complicated.

For the record, it says Fedora is the easiest RedHat distro. It also
points out that Debian and FreeBSD packages/ports pretty much Just Work
out of the box.

None of which helps with an existing Fedora install, of course; if
you’re stuck with a Fedora box running MySQL 3, your best bet is
probably to install a separate MySQL instance to a different location.

That, of course, is probably not the most efficient use of the hardware,
but really, MySQL 3 is old and lacks features upon which RT relies.

12

Jesse Vincent wrote:

The issue of which version of mod_perl to use also took a lot
of head scratching.

What made this one difficult? I thought the README was pretty direct on
the topic, but I’d be happy to rev it to help folks out.

This was back maybe 6 months when the Wiki said don’t use mod_perl2 but
there were a bunch of people using it successfully. Plus, it was hard to get
a clear answer on what the problems were with mod_perl2 because
it was changing all the time. In fact, back then it was very
confusing because mod_perl2 was actually using a 1.XXX version
number.

I haven’t tried with the official mod_perl2 release so maybe
things are better.

Jon

13

Maybe, if I really want it, I might have to change distro. That is very
drastic to me…

If you really want MySQL instead of Postgresql you might like Centos4
(free clone of Red Hat Enterprise) that comes with Mysql 4 standard.
RH just rolled their updates into a 4.1 release and I’d expect Centos
to match up in a few days. It’s not a huge jump from fedora, if that
is what you have now.

Les Mikesell
les@futuresource.com

14

as near as I can figure you have to balance what you have in place
with what it is you need and is it worth all the pain and time to get
it to install on something not typical or pay for some cheap hardware
and get it to work on the platform with the recommended
prerequisites…

One of my installs in installed inside a VMware session that is working
on my Windows XP machine.

It’s not worth all the time and unknown to get this software to work on
none typical setups, it’s just not.

RT is, admittedly, a touch cranky if you’re not using it’s stated
prereq’s… though I didn’t have all that much trouble getting it
running under Pg 7.4 and ModPerl 1.99rc4, though neither of those is
really recommended all that strongly.

But if you think RT is bad, go install WebGUI 5.5.4. On PostGres. I
dare you. :slight_smile:

Cheers,
– jra
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

  If you can read this... thank a system administrator.  Or two.  --me
15

Feels like I am in a bit of a dead end. For one, trying to use postgress,
I have all kinds of error just to get postgress running. I have create a
postgres user: rt with password: rt

Run rt ./configure with:

–with-db-type=Pg --with-db-dba postgres --with-db-rt-user=rt
–with-db-rt-pass=rt

ran make and make install

Get error:
DBI connect(‘dbname=template1;host=localhost’,‘yes’,…) failed: FATAL:
no pg_hba.conf entry for host “127.0.0.1”, user “yes”, database
“template1”, SSL off
at //opt/rt3/sbin/rt-setup-database line 101
Failed to connect to dbi:Pg:dbname=template1;host=localhost as yes: FATAL:
no pg_hba.conf entry for host “127.0.0.1”, user “yes”, database
“template1”, SSL off
make: *** [initialize-database] Error 255

So, looks like we would have to invest time in learning Postgres, not
trivial as we thought

Nope. Not really. That’s a common failing, and

[ looks around ]

a quick google://rt+pg_hba turns up

http://web.mit.edu/afs/sipb/service/rt/lore/rt-postgres-user-creation

as the fourth or fifth hit, which might solve your problem.

Cheers,
– jra
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

  If you can read this... thank a system administrator.  Or two.  --me
16

Jesse Vincent wrote:

The issue of which version of mod_perl to use also took a lot
of head scratching.

What made this one difficult? I thought the README was pretty direct on
the topic, but I’d be happy to rev it to help folks out.

This was back maybe 6 months when the Wiki said don’t use mod_perl2 but
there were a bunch of people using it successfully. Plus, it was hard to get
a clear answer on what the problems were with mod_perl2 because
it was changing all the time. In fact, back then it was very
confusing because mod_perl2 was actually using a 1.XXX version
number.

I haven’t tried with the official mod_perl2 release so maybe
things are better.

Ok, this one is hard.

:slight_smile:

2.0rc4 is ok cause I’m running it.

At rc5 or rc6 (I don’t recall which one), they renamed everything so
that it would not conflict with mod_perl1, and it caused major
namespace hell; which version of 2.0rc you need to use depends on …
well, I’m not sure what it depends on. It made the list here; check
the archives.

But rc4 works. :slight_smile:

Cheers,
– jra
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com
Designer Baylink RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates The Things I Think '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274

  If you can read this... thank a system administrator.  Or two.  --me
17

Jon Forrest wrote:

This was back maybe 6 months when the Wiki said don’t use mod_perl2 but
there were a bunch of people using it successfully. Plus, it was hard to
get
a clear answer on what the problems were with mod_perl2 because
it was changing all the time. In fact, back then it was very
confusing because mod_perl2 was actually using a 1.XXX version
number.

Jesse pointed to the README:

    mod_perl 2.0 isn't quite ready for prime_time just yet;
    We _strongly_ recommend that you use Apache 1.3 or FastCGI.

When mod_perl2 calms down and becomes stable and supportable, that
wording might just change…

18

Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

Jesse Vincent wrote:

The issue of which version of mod_perl to use also took a lot
of head scratching.

What made this one difficult? I thought the README was pretty direct on
the topic, but I’d be happy to rev it to help folks out.

This was back maybe 6 months when the Wiki said don’t use mod_perl2 but
there were a bunch of people using it successfully. Plus, it was hard to get
a clear answer on what the problems were with mod_perl2 because
it was changing all the time. In fact, back then it was very
confusing because mod_perl2 was actually using a 1.XXX version
number.

I haven’t tried with the official mod_perl2 release so maybe
things are better.

Ok, this one is hard.

:slight_smile:

2.0rc4 is ok cause I’m running it.

At rc5 or rc6 (I don’t recall which one), they renamed everything so
that it would not conflict with mod_perl1, and it caused major
namespace hell; which version of 2.0rc you need to use depends on …
well, I’m not sure what it depends on. It made the list here; check
the archives.

But rc4 works. :slight_smile:
Should be noted that it works only for those who know what they are
doing, because FC3 has only mod_perl-1.99_16-3.i386.rpm which is out of
the date.

19

Hi.

We’re running RT 3.4.1 on a Debian Sarge distro (using the Debian Sarge
RT package, I believe).

Funny thing happened … users used to be able to put attachments on
tickets when they create them … now they can’t and we cannot figure
out what we changed to break it!

Is there a permission hiding somewhere that is disabling this priv?

Also, we may have found a bug (hopefully already known) with an RT user
having privs and then becoming a non-priv’d user, but the privs were
still in effect … where should I report that to make sure it is a
known issue?

Thanks,
Sam

20

I meet the same problem.
User can’t add atachement on ticket creation, only on update.
I was suggested to upgrade to 3.4.2 but with this release the custom
fields are lost.
So I still use 3.4.1 with bugs on attachement

Sorry,
hug

Sam.Howard@GMxTechnologies.com a �crit :