Recommended configuration for a stable working RT3deployment

Due to the nit picky dependencies and required compiler options of all
the various components, IMHO the best way to handle this is to download
and compile all the various bits and pieces and installed them in a
local tree (such as /usr/local.) When I say “all the bits and pieces”,
I’m referring to perl, apache, mod_perl, and all the perl modules. You
might get away with the version of MySQL that comes with the OS however.

I haven’t tried it yet myself, but RH9 should work with the stock
programs if you install RT3 to run under fastcgi instead of
mod_perl. RH7.3 should also work with a copy of perl 5.8.x
compiled in /usr/local/ and used for fastcgi execution. You
want the latest rpm updates of course, and perl modules from
CPAN. Mysql or postgres can be replaced with newer releases
with available RPMs.

It seems like a large task (and IS to a certain extent) but it’s well
worth it in the long run. You are creating a stable environment so that
it’s MUCH less likely that OS changes / upgrades will break your RT
environment. If you are creating a production installation, this is what
I would recommend.

On the flip side doing that means you will have to repeat the process
for every update to perl, apache, mod_perl, etc. instead of just
running up2date, apt-get, yum, or whatever handy method is
available for stock system programs.

Les Mikesell
les@futuresource.com

I’ll second that. I have been watching all the noise on the list about
RH, (seems like particularly RH9) but didn’t want to fan the OS wars
flame. Our experience with FreeBSD 4.8 (now 4.9) and Postgres 7.3 has
been extremely smooth and stable. We’re currently on 3.06.

Also, the ports system in FreeBSD can alleviate the burden
in installing most of the RT dependencies, including RT itself,
with very few commands. In theory, just a "cd /usr/ports && make install rt3"
downloads and installs everything needed.

Alex

Jim Rowan wrote:

I’ll second that. I have been watching all the noise on the list about
RH, (seems like particularly RH9) but didn’t want to fan the OS wars
flame. Our experience with FreeBSD 4.8 (now 4.9) and Postgres 7.3 has
been extremely smooth and stable. We’re currently on 3.06.

Being the author/maintainer of said FreeBSD ports, I’d also like
to second that.

All our production level RT servers run FreeBSD4 + MySQL; most of my
clients also run FreeBSD 4/5 + (Pg|MySQL) – the rest of them are on
Win32, due mostly to inertia. :wink:

Thanks,
/Autrijus/

Also, the ports system in FreeBSD can alleviate the burden
in installing most of the RT dependencies, including RT itself,
with very few commands. In theory, just a “cd /usr/ports && make install
rt3” downloads and installs everything needed.

Pedantic correction – it’s:

cd /usr/ports/www/rt3
make install

The command you typed above would inadvertantly install everything
into the ports collection. :slight_smile:

Thanks,
/Autrius/

Autrijus Tang wrote:> On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 03:23:16PM -0200, Alex Soares de Moura wrote:

Also, the ports system in FreeBSD can alleviate the burden
in installing most of the RT dependencies, including RT itself,
with very few commands. In theory, just a “cd /usr/ports && make install
rt3” downloads and installs everything needed.

Pedantic correction – it’s:

cd /usr/ports/www/rt3
make install

The command you typed above would inadvertantly install everything
into the ports collection. :slight_smile:

Sorry, for that. I meant:

portinstall rt3

Alex

I can vouch for debian/unstable. apt-get install request-tracker3 and
you’re pretty much in business. You need to edit the RT config file, but
that’s it. Read the docs in /usr/share/doc/request-tracker3/ and you’ll be
fine. All the dependencies are installed for you and I got the whole thing
set up in an hour or less.

As to the stability of debian/unstable, in my experience it’s been as stable
as most other distros primary branch. You just can’t indiscriminantly
‘apt-get update; apt-get upgrade’ (which you shouldn’t do anyway, but is
usually pretty safe running stable). Make sure you see and understand what
packages are going to be upgraded each time and don’t upgrade the ones that
might cause problems, or upgrade them on a test box first.

-Michael

[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.fsck.com]On Behalf Of Walt ReedSent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 1:10 PM
To: rt-users@lists.fsck.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Recommended configuration for a stable working
RT3deployment

On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 10:59:53AM +0000, John Schubert said:

After spending several weeks (little over a month) trying to get RH8 to
work with RT, I decided to regress to 7.3. I’ve set up many systems
with the older versions of Apache and mod_perl, so I don’t really see a
current need to have the very latest and greatest.

Huh. I’m running it on RH8, but again: I compiled all my own stuff and
did not rely on the redhat binaries.

My suggestion would be to install RH 7.3, remove the RPMs for Apache and
mod_perl. Download the source for apache 1.3.29, mod_perl 1.29, MySQL
server client and development (you have to download the MySQL
development package…it’s buried in the docs, but you must have it for
RT).

If you are going to go through the trouble and compile your own
binaries, you also might as well go with a modern version of the OS.
Remember that all non-enterprise versions of RedHat are EOL at this
point. You may want to consider Suse, Mandrake, Debian, or even
Enterprise RH.

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rt-users@lists.fsck.com
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Have you read the FAQ? The RT FAQ Manager lives at http://fsck.com/rtfm

Harald,

Thanks for the info, I will maybe try Debian unstable, anyone
else have any recommendations?.

I also don’t want to start any platform wars, But I will also put in a
vote for FreeBSD. I have used the Excellent port as well as building
from source a number of time for Myself and others and It has
been bullet proof reliable. Running FreeBSD 4.7,4.8 Apache 2, FastCGI
and Mysql
Mostly out of ports.

Scott Muller