Is RT 3.x on unmodified OS X 10.3.x possible?

Has anyone been able to “natively” install a 3.x version of RT on a
“native” Mac OS X 10.3.x (I’m at 10.3.7) without having to update Perl
and compile your own apache, etc.? I was unable to find any indication
of an install on unmodified OS X in the archives.

I know that there’s a risk with attachments, but we don’t attach any
(binary) files and only use English, so I assume we’d be at minimal risk
with OS X’s Perl 5.8.1 and the DSO mod_perl given that OS X’s Perl is now
using a multi-threaded model (or maybe that’s too much of a leap). Our
use is very low-volume and quite specific, so I’m willing to take some
risk.

I gave a quick RT 3.2.2 install attempt, but received compile errors, so
thought I’d see whether this is a known waste of time before going
further. I currently have 3.0.3 installed, but can’t afford the
Herculean effort and associated time it took to get that version up 'n
running on OS X 10.2.x.
Bryan Derman Derman Enterprises Incorporated
http://www.derman.com/

Compile errors? What is there to compile? Do you mean Perl or
Apache?

If you want to install RT quick and dirty, you could try running
the standalone_httpd in $RT_HOME/bin

-ToddOn Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 02:13:36AM -0800, B. Derman wrote:

Has anyone been able to “natively” install a 3.x version of RT on a
“native” Mac OS X 10.3.x (I’m at 10.3.7) without having to update Perl
and compile your own apache, etc.? I was unable to find any indication
of an install on unmodified OS X in the archives.

I know that there’s a risk with attachments, but we don’t attach any
(binary) files and only use English, so I assume we’d be at minimal risk
with OS X’s Perl 5.8.1 and the DSO mod_perl given that OS X’s Perl is now
using a multi-threaded model (or maybe that’s too much of a leap). Our
use is very low-volume and quite specific, so I’m willing to take some
risk.

I gave a quick RT 3.2.2 install attempt, but received compile errors, so
thought I’d see whether this is a known waste of time before going
further. I currently have 3.0.3 installed, but can’t afford the
Herculean effort and associated time it took to get that version up 'n
running on OS X 10.2.x.


Bryan Derman Derman Enterprises Incorporated
http://www.derman.com/


The rt-users Archives

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

I gave a quick RT 3.2.2 install attempt, but received compile errors,
so
thought I’d see whether this is a known waste of time before going
further.

Bryan,

I’m running RT 3.2 on OS X 10.2 (not 10.3), and furthermore I compiled
perl, apache and mod_perl myself.

I do recall this being rather a pain.

Below are my notes from a year ago (thanks, RT!), in case they are
helpful in supplementing other instructions. Take my notes with a
grain of salt, because I am not really a professional sysadmin, and
furthermore, software changes all the time.

Kevin Murphy


To prepare for this, I took a snapshot of my current perl modules using
CPAN’s
autobundle command:

perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan> autobundle

which in this case created a file: /Users/murphy/.cpan/Bundle/
Snapshot_2004_01_20_00.pm

After installing 5.8.3, I probably won’t have to use this bundle, but
it might be safest to
to so, by: ‘install Bundle::Snapshot_2004_01_20_00’ from inside perl
-MCPAN.

-1) First, I installed perl 5.8.3 from source; just follow instructions.

[post hoc note: I usually say good-bye to Apple’s version of Perl; not
sure if this is a good idea or not. I install perl into /usr/local
(the default) and rename /usr/bin/perl to something else to avoid
complications.]

-1b) I actually did a restore of the snapshot bundle of installed
modules I took before
the 5.8.3 upgrade. (‘install Bundle::Snapshot_whatever’ on the CPAN
module command
line) – note that this did not actually get everything, I’m not sure
why: see step 1)
below.

  1. I installed mod_perl by following the instructions, i.e.:
    perl Makefile.PL APACHE_SRC=…/apache_x.x.x/src USE_APACI=1 DO_HTTPD=1
    EVERYTHING=1
    make && make test && make install

Then cd …/apache-3.1.29/, and I ran the following script (.
./config.kevin):

CC=“cc”
CFLAGS=" -pipe -fno-common -DPERL_DARWIN -no-cpp-precomp
-fno-strict-aliasing"

./configure
“–with-layout=Apache”
“–enable-module=so”
“–activate-module=src/modules/perl/libperl.a”
“–disable-rule=EXPAT”
“–disable-shared=perl”
“–without-execstrip”
“–enable-module=proxy”
“–disable-shared=proxy”
“–enable-module=rewrite”
“–disable-shared=rewrite”

  1. Taking a snapshot of currently installed modules via the CPAN module
    and restoring
    it after upgrading to perl 5.8.3 did not seem to include all the module
    dependencies of
    RT. To get everything, I had to do:

sudo perl sbin/rt-test-dependencies --with-postgres --with-modperl1
–install

(and then do a plain: perl sbin/rt-test-dependencies --with-postgres
–with-modperl1
to make sure everything worked).

1b) REMEMBER to put /usr/local/apache/bin at the FRONT of your path
before installing
any perl modules that might try to interact with Apache, i.e. before
running perl -
MCPAN -e shell or using the rt-test-dependencies script.

[post hoc note: if you do a standard apache install from source into
the default location (/usr/local), always remember that you have
/usr/sbin/apachectl and /usr/sbin/httpd hanging around to trip you up -
maybe best to rename them and create links into /usr/local.]

  1. Everything did NOT work in the rt-test-dependencies step.

2a) In particular, I had to install Apache::TestRun by hand (I wound up
doing a force
install) – but that was before I caught onto the trick of putting
/usr/local/apache/bin at
the front of my path. There might have been a problem of using the
actual httpd.conf
file - which requires that apache be run as root. These Apache perl
modules that
require running httpd to test are a pain, because they don’t work so
well if you run them
as root.

2b) I had to install libapreq (obtained from CPAN) by hand. Mother,
what a pain. The
key was realizing I had to read INSTALL.MacOSX and clue into using:
./configure --with-apache-includes=/usr/local/apache/includes
make
sudo make install

and then

perl Makefile.PL -apxs /usr/local/apache/bin/apxs
make
make test
sudo make install

I haven’t tried to use the native apache, but there are one or two
things that I came across that may save you some trouble:

  1. One of the perl modules XML::RSS I think, has a dependency on
    libexpat which isn’t present on a standard install of panther and has to
    be manually added.

  2. Apache::request / libapreq requires a two step install under OS
    X, probably, :wink: - The docs refer to libapreq 1.1 - current = 1.3 see
    README in the libapreq distribution.

  3. If you are using MySQL make sure that /path/to/mysql_config is
    included in your path - a nast glitch here is that if you use a symlink
    to achieve this it will return incorrect values. (Using MySQL 4.1.7. OS
    X installer) Modify your path statement to include the actual directory
    instead. Without this, and some --with this --with that options
    DBI::MySQL will not pass make test.

  4. Mac OS X has postfix installed but not active by default. You can
    enable it courtesy of this chap:
    http://www.reitter-it-media.de/software/osxpostfix.html

I am still investigating RT on OS X but have elected to start again from
scratch. I think it may well be easier to commit heresy (Enable the root
user.) and do everything as root rather than using sudo, particularly
when using CPAN.

Regards

John-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of B. Derman
Sent: 04 January 2005 10:14
To: rt-users@lists.fsck.com
Subject: [rt-users] Is RT 3.x on unmodified OS X 10.3.x possible?

Has anyone been able to “natively” install a 3.x version of RT on a
“native” Mac OS X 10.3.x (I’m at 10.3.7) without having to update Perl
and compile your own apache, etc.? I was unable to find any indication
of an install on unmodified OS X in the archives.

I know that there’s a risk with attachments, but we don’t attach any
(binary) files and only use English, so I assume we’d be at minimal risk
with OS X’s Perl 5.8.1 and the DSO mod_perl given that OS X’s Perl is
now
using a multi-threaded model (or maybe that’s too much of a leap). Our
use is very low-volume and quite specific, so I’m willing to take some
risk.

I gave a quick RT 3.2.2 install attempt, but received compile errors, so
thought I’d see whether this is a known waste of time before going
further. I currently have 3.0.3 installed, but can’t afford the
Herculean effort and associated time it took to get that version up 'n
running on OS X 10.2.x.
Bryan Derman Derman Enterprises Incorporated
http://www.derman.com/
The rt-users Archives

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

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I asked a similar question ( I’m running server as opposed to simply
running 10.3) about a month ago. The reply from Jesse was:

Two small problems:

  1. Apple’s mod_perl is busted with regard to form POSTs.
  2. Apple only ships perl 5.8.1

I am curious as to which of the following approaches make the most
sense:

I can create a user for RT and let them install a different
Perl and mod_per locally for RTs use. This creates two new projects on
top of an RT install.

I can use an older version of RT that will work with 5.8.1. This would
be fine if I can get away with it.

I can wait for Apple to update their perl to 5.8.3 – though I don’t
know when and if it is planned. (They are supposed to upgrade to 10.4
very soon, but I’m not active enough in the development community to
know if they have even started on 5.8.3.) I don’t want to adopt the
first option only to find I could do nothing for six weeks and achieve
the same goal.

That said I would very much like to know what seems the sanest
option and especially to here from anyone who has installed RT on OSX
Panther Server while making notes they’d be willing to share.On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 02:13:36AM -0800, B. Derman wrote:

Has anyone been able to “natively” install a 3.x version of RT on a
“native” Mac OS X 10.3.x (I’m at 10.3.7) without having to update Perl
and compile your own apache, etc.? I was unable to find any indication
of an install on unmodified OS X in the archives.

Josh Kuperman
josh@saratoga.lib.ny.us