Install osTicket v1.9.12 on Ubuntu 14.04

How to install osTicket on Ubuntu 14.04.4.

Now take this all with a grain of salt.  I have never used osTicket or installed it.  Recently someone asked me for help on how to get it to post to a slack room.   After looking at it I thought that looks interesting enough to install and poke at.

I found this guide showing how to install osTicket http://idroot.net/tutorials/how-to-install-osticket-on-ubuntu-14-04/ [1]

I prefer using nginx over apache and postgres over mysql.  Poking around it looks like osTicket does not support postgres http://osticket.com/forum/discussion/3429/postgresql-instalation [2].   In that case I won't go out of the box on this first installation and stick with Apache and MySQL.

Install Apache/PHP 

> sudo apt-get update   > sudo apt-get upgrade   > sudo apt-get install -y apache2-mpm-worker libapache2-mod-fastcgi php5-fpm php5 php5-mysql php5-imap php5-gd unzip   > sudo php5enmod imap   > sudo service apache2 restart

Enable php5-fpm.conf

> sudo vi /etc/apache2/conf-available/php5-fpm.conf

And place the following in it

<IfModule mod_fastcgi.c> AddHandler php5-fcgi .php Action php5-fcgi /php5-fcgi Alias /php5-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -socket /var/run/php5-fpm.sock -pass-header Authorization <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>     Require all granted </Directory> </IfModule>

 

Enable the modules

> sudo a2enmod actions fastcgi alias   > sudo a2enconf php5-fpm   > sudo service apache2 restart

Test it

http://192.168.0.25/

Apache is running, but what about php? 

Create a test php file.

> sudo vi /var/www/html/phpinfo.php

Place the following in it

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save it then run this to change ownership to www-data

> sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/

Now open it http://192.168.0.25/phpinfo.php

It's working!

Now what about cgi.fix_pathinfo stuff?

 

It's there!  I think this is the right set up. 

Note: for a real build remember to remove the phpinfo.ini file don't want this valuable info falling into the wrong hands.

Install MySQL

> sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server mysql-client

Set a new root user password for mysql

Improve MySQL security by running this command https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/mysql-secure-installation.html [3].

> mysql_secure_installation

I already set a password for root…

Yes remove Anon Users.

Disallow root login remotely.

Remove test database.

Reload privileges now.  Yes!

Done!

Login to MySQL and create Database 

> mysql -u root -p

And run this sql query.  (of course you would want to change the password)

> create database osticketdb; CREATE USER 'osticketuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'ospassword'; GRANT ALL ON osticketdb.* TO 'osticketuser'@'localhost'; flush privileges; exit;

Install OsTicket

Head over to http://osticket.com/

Click on Downloads.

Click on Download in osTicket (the free opensource version)

Click on Download

Click No Thanks

It will start downloading, pause it.  I don't want to download it on my main machine I just want the URL.

 

Right click on click here and select Copy Link Address.  In my case I got http://osticket.com/sites/default/files/download/osTicket-v1.9.12.zip

> wget http://osticket.com/sites/default/files/download/osTicket-v1.9.12.zip

Download it.

 

> unzip osTicket-v1.9.12.zip   > sudo mkdir /var/www/html/osticket   > sudo mv upload/* /var/www/html/osticket/

Unzip it and move the folder over

Change the ownership to www-data

> sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/osticket

Restart the server

> sudo reboot now

Now open it up in a web browser.  My local IP on the box happens to be 192.168.0.25 so I will open http://192.168.0.25/osticket/   (of course for you replace the 192.168.0.25 with your address or URL. 

 

Good it's working and it looks like all my checks are passing.

Click Continue

OK, some simple instructions.

> cd /var/www/html/osticket   > sudo cp include/ost-sampleconfig.php include/ost-config.php   > sudo chmod 644 include/ost-config.php   > sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/osticket

Click Continue

 

Hey something to fill out!

Filling it out

Let me go slow and fill this page out one bit at a time.

I will give it a name and set a default email.   I have a feeling I may need to tweak some email settings somewhere so I can get it to use my gmail account to send out emails.

Create an admin user with their email and a password to login.

Hmmm database….

I ran this earlier to create a DB in mysql for osTicket

> create database osticketdb; CREATE USER 'osticketuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'ospassword'; GRANT ALL ON osticketdb.* TO 'osticketuser'@'localhost'; flush privileges; exit;

I think this makes sense.   My database is named osticketdb.  My MySQL username is ostickeruser.  And my password is ospassword.

Click Install Now.

Looks like that did it.

Now remove the setup folder

> sudo rm -r /var/www/html/osticket/setup

Fixing sendmail

It looks like out of the box it is trying to use sendmail.  I need to install it and configure it to use my gmail account.  I found this page that shows how to do this https://linuxconfig.org/configuring-gmail-as-sendmail-email-relay [4]

You also may have to enable POP/IMAP in our gmail account.   TO do that, do the following.  Login to your gmail account.

Click on the tools and click on Setttings

Enable Pop and IMAP.

Now back to sendmail install…

> sudo apt-get install sendmail mailutils sendmail-bin

Install

> sudo su root   > mkdir -m 700 /etc/mail/authinfo/   > cd /etc/mail/authinfo/

Make Gmail auth file folder

> vi gmail-auth

Create the file

And place the following in it.

AuthInfo: "U:root" "I:YOUR GMAIL EMAIL" "P:YOUR PASSWORD"

Of course put in your email and password for gmail

> makemap hash gmail-auth < gmail-auth

Make a hash map of auth file.

Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.mc

> vi /etc/mail/sendmail.mc

Place the following  above the MAILER_DEFINITION LINE

define(`SMART_HOST',`[smtp.gmail.com]')dnl define(`RELAY_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')dnl define(`ESMTP_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')dnl define(`confAUTH_OPTIONS', `A p')dnl TRUST_AUTH_MECH(`EXTERNAL DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl FEATURE(`authinfo',`hash -o /etc/mail/authinfo/gmail-auth.db')dnl

Rebuild sendmail's configuration.

> make -C /etc/mail

Reload sendmail

> service sendmail reload

Test it out

> echo "Just testing my sendmail gmail relay" | mail -s "Sendmail gmail Relay" my-email@my-domain.com

Put in your email

 

It worked!  (but very slowly)

I found this post https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/sendmail-is-slow-to-send-mail [5] which mentions that if you see sleeping for retry in /var/log/mail.log you may have a problem with /etc/hosts

> grep -n "sleeping for retry" /var/log/mail.log

 

Yep looks like I have that issue.  Edit /etc/hosts

> sudo vi /etc/hosts

I updated mine to

127.0.0.1       localhost 127.0.1.1       ubuntu # The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts ::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost basic-servername

Now test it again

> echo "Just testing my sendmail gmail relay" | mail -s "Sendmail gmail Relay" my-email@my-domain.com

Put in your email

Wow now it is fast!

Test

Now let me run some tests. Open up http://192.168.0.25/osticket/scp/ and login.

Click on Admin Panel.

Click on dashboard and Information.  In the PHP settings you should see the cgi.fix_pathinfo looks like this.

Now to test the email…

 

Click on Emails then Diagnotic.  Now fill out the email and click Send Message.

Success it worked

Kick the tires

Please note I have never ever used this product so give me some grace as I kick the tires J.

Open up http://192.168.0.25/osticket/

Looks like I am a guest user, not logged in.  Can I Open a Ticket?

Fill it out and create Ticket

Wahoo it worked!

It sent me an email.

I think that does it!

I have a good basic install of osTicket and now I can work on figuring out how to get it to post to a slack room.

References

[1]        How To Install osTicket on Ubuntu 14.04

http://idroot.net/tutorials/how-to-install-osticket-on-ubuntu-14-04/       Accessed 04/2016

[2]        PostgreSQL instalation

http://osticket.com/forum/discussion/3429/postgresql-instalation           Accessed 04/2016

[3]        mysql_secure_installation — Improve MySQL Installation Security

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/mysql-secure-installation.html
                Accessed 04/2016

[4]        Configuring Gmail as a Sendmail email relay

https://linuxconfig.org/configuring-gmail-as-sendmail-email-relay
                Accessed 04/2016

[5]        Sendmail is slow to send mail

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/sendmail-is-slow-to-send-mail
                Accessed 04/2016