RT Database backends

odhiambo · May 18, 2022, 9:52am

Hello friends,

I used RT many years ago and have been away from it for ages. I am once again keen on running an instance to manage some tickets.
Looking at the README inside the source for 4.4.5 and 5.0.2, I see that the supported MySQL version is still listed as 5.7.

Does this mean that any version beyond 5.7 is not quite officially supported?

I am running MySQL Server version: 8.0.28 and with it, I am unable to install the database - with this error:

root@gw:/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-4.4.5 # make initialize-database
/usr/local/bin/perl -I/opt/rt4/local/lib -I/opt/rt4/lib sbin/rt-setup-database --action init --prompt-for-dba-password
In order to create or update your RT database, this script needs to connect to your mysql instance on (port ‘’) as root
Please specify that user’s database password below. If the user has no database
password, just press return.

Password:
Working with:
Type: mysql
Host:
Port:
Name: rt4
User: rtuser
DBA: root
Now creating a mysql database rt4 for RT.
Done.
Now populating database schema.
[95382] [Wed May 18 09:01:02 2022] [critical]: DBD::mysql::st execute failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘Groups (
id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
Name varchar(200) NULL ,
De’ at line 1 at /usr/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-4.4.5/sbin/…/lib/RT/Handle.pm line 556. (/usr/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-4.4.5/sbin/…/lib/RT.pm:408)
DBD::mysql::st execute failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘Groups (
id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
Name varchar(200) NULL ,
De’ at line 1 at /usr/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-4.4.5/sbin/…/lib/RT/Handle.pm line 556.
*** Error code 9

Stop.
make: stopped in /usr/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-4.4.5

++
This same error manifests when I try to install rt-5.0.2:

root@gw:/usr/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-5.0.2 # make initialize-database
/usr/local/bin/perl -I/opt/rt5/local/lib -I/opt/rt5/lib sbin/rt-setup-database --action init --prompt-for-dba-password
In order to create or update your RT database, this script needs to connect to your mysql instance on localhost (port ‘’) as root
Please specify that user’s database password below. If the user has no database
password, just press return.

Password:
Working with:
Type: mysql
Host: localhost
Port:
Name: rt5
User: rtuser
DBA: root
Now creating a mysql database rt5 for RT.
Done.
Now populating database schema.
[72069] [Wed May 18 09:51:40 2022] [critical]: DBD::mysql::st execute failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘Groups (
id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
Name varchar(200) NULL ,
De’ at line 1 at /usr/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-5.0.2/sbin/…/lib/RT/Handle.pm line 551. (/usr/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-5.0.2/sbin/…/lib/RT.pm:409)
DBD::mysql::st execute failed: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘Groups (
id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
Name varchar(200) NULL ,
De’ at line 1 at /usr/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-5.0.2/sbin/…/lib/RT/Handle.pm line 551.
*** Error code 9

Stop.
make: stopped in /usr/home/wash/Tools-2/RT/rt-5.0.2

Is there a way to overcome this error??

knation · May 18, 2022, 11:16am

You’re correct, MySQL 8 isn’t supported yet as there were some new reserved words like “groups” added that RT uses. The easiest solution is to use a different version of MySQL/Mariadb.

I believe there was a thread on this a while ago where some patches to make RT work with 8 were suggested

odhiambo · May 18, 2022, 11:56am

Thank you very much for the quick response.
Since I am unable to go past the initialize-database, I think I will just have to postpone using RT for now and wait till it can work with MySQL-8.