Please note that these instructions only apply to old versions of Debian. For lenny and above, please consult the included documentation instead.
The installation instructions are dependent on the version of debian GNU/Linux you are running. It is a lot easier if you are running the newer release than for the older stable /Woody/ release.
Debian 4.0 (etch)
This documents how to install RT3.6 with postgresql and FastCGI.
Install request-tracker3.6 rt3.6-apache2, postgresql-8.1, libapache2-mod-fastcgi and libcgi-fast-perl with aptitude. This dragged in some apache1 stuff for me, so I had to manually change some selections in the aptitude GUI before the selections were sensible.
Read notes in /usr/share/doc/request-tracker3.6/NOTES.Debian.gz, but skip out when it starts with database setup. Do the following instead:
In RT_SiteConfig.pm add the following lines to the database setup section:
Set($DatabaseHost , ''); Set($DatabaseRTHost , '');
This makes database communication go over the local socket instead of tcp over the loopback network interface, which also makes same-host ident identification
Edit /etc/postgresql/8.1/main/pg_hba.conf and add the following two lines:
host rtdb rtuser 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 password local rtdb rtuser password
Change permissions for RT_SiteConfig so the postgres user can read it. We'll change this later.
sudo chmod 640 /etc/request-tracker3.6/RT_SiteConfig.pm sudo chgrp postgres /etc/request-tracker3.6/RT_SiteConfig.pm
Run the db setup script:
sudo -u postgres /usr/sbin/rt-setup-database-3.6 --action init --dba postgres
Change the permissions so that apache can read the RT setup file:
sudo chgrp www-data /etc/request-tracker3.6/RT_SiteConfig.pm
Now you can go back to follow the instructions in NOTES.Debian again. An easy way to get the apache config included is to do ln -s /etc/request-tracker3.6/apache2-something.conf /etc/apache2/conf.d/, or it can be included in a file in /etc/apache2/sites-available.
Debian 3.1 (sarge) or newer!
The fastcgi package is part of the non-free repository. Make sure you have a non-free repository in the /etc/apt/sources.list file.
For Apache2 and FastCGI install the following before installing the RT package:
apt-get install libcgi-fast-perl apache2-mpm-prefork libapache2-mod-fastcgi
Make sure you have a working apache2 install before you go on to installing request tracker and read FastCGIConfiguration for hints on how to do your FastCGI setup.
The rt3 packages are part of the standard debian packages with (almost) all dependencies described. You can use:
apt-get install request-tracker3
or
apt-get install request-tracker3.4
or
apt-get install request-tracker3.6
The database system to be used (postgres or mysql) is not made into a dependency. You need to make sure that the database you want to use is installed. This makes one more /apt-get install/ .
apt-get install postgresql postgresql-client
or
apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
The default database in the configuration files is postgresql. (Is this true? My RT 3.6.3 distribution defaults to MySQL). I have changed this to mysqld because I used that for my RT2 installation before, and because I had some strange problems with RT3.0.9 and rt2-to-rt3-1.23. You may be more successful, so by all means if you prefer postgresql, try it before following me in this step.
Then read /usr/share/doc/request-tracker3/README.Debian.gz and /usr/share/doc/request-tracker3/INSTALL.Debian.gz for essential installation instructions. (See also the debian package information at [http://packages.debian.org/testing/misc/request-tracker3] or for version 3.4 [http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?keywords=request-tracker3.4&searchon=names&subword=1&version=all&release=all] )
If you use PostgreSQL (and on the localhost), then in addition to following the instructions in /usr/share/doc/request-tracker3.4/INSTALL.Debian.gz you will need to add the following to your RT_SiteConfig.pm:
Set($DatabaseHost , ''); Set($DatabaseRTHost , '');
Note: If you want to customize your RT3 install, the Debian path is /usr/local/share/request-tracker3 instead.
You may also need to install the rt3-clients package (apt-get install rt3-clients) if you want to enable the mail processing, and configure your mailer the right way, so, for instance, for exim, see EximConfig.
User comment: if using mod-fastcgi in default install mason_handler.fcgi won't start - RT_SiteConfig.pm is owned by root with mode 600 so won't be loaded unless you run your web server as root or fix permissions (apache runs as www-data:www-data unless changed):
chgrp www-data /etc/request-tracker3/RT_SiteConfig.pm chmod 640 /etc/request-tracker3/RT_SiteConfig.pm
Debian 3.0 (woody)
Read the README file included in the RT tarball.
Note that the versions of the perl and mysql packages in woody are deprecated by RT. However, you may find that RT still functions just fine. If anyone finds anything broken, please add it to this page...