Introduction
OTRS, stands for Open source Ticket Request System, is a popular help desk software that can be used to assign tickets to incoming queries, and tracks further communications when needed. using OTRS, we can manage incoming inquiries, complaints, support requests, defect reports, and other communications.
In this tutorial, let us see how to install OTRS latest version on CentOS 6.5. Here, my testbox details are given below:
Operating System: CentOS 6.5 Minimal
IP Address: 192.168.1.2/24
Hostname: server.unixmen.local
Prerequisites
Before installing OTRS, we have to do couple of prerequisites first.
First, make sure you have configured the proper FQDN name in /etc/hosts file.
Set the hostname as shown below:
Log off or restart the system to take effect the saved changes.
Install and enable EPEL repository.
Install EPEL Repository On CentOS / RHEL / Scientific Linux 6.5
Log in as root user and Install Mysql server using the following command:
Start mysql service as shown below:
By default, Mysql root user is blank. So let us setup the root user password as shown below:
MySQL has been installed successfully with default options. In order to work properly with OTRS, we have to add the following directives into the my.cnf file.
Edit file /etc/my.cnf,
Add the following lines under the [mysqld] section:
Save and close the file.
Next, restart mysql service using the following command:
Next, Install httpd package with command:
Start httpd service, and make it to start automatically on every reboot.
Edit file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf,
Find the following lines and modify them as shown below:
Example:
Save and close file. Restart httpd service.
Adjust iptables to allow apache default port 80.
Edit file /etc/sysconfig/iptables,
Add the following line:
Then, restart iptables to take effect the saved changes using the following command:
Disable SELinux, otherwise you will get the following error:
If you want to use the installer, set the Kernel/Config.pm writable for the webserver user!
To disable SELinux, Edit file /etc/sysconfig/selinux,
Set value to disabled.
After that, reboot the system.
Download OTRS
Go to the OTRS download page and download the latest version.
The above will download and save the OTRS rpm file in the current directory. Install it using command:
The above command will install otrs package along with all required packages.
Finally, restart httpd service one more time after installing OTRS.
During OTRS installation, keep attention on the installer. It will display the web installer URL for OTRS.
Look at the following screenshot.
Install Additional PERL modules
Before proceeding to configure OTRS, you should install additional perl modules. Run the following command to know the required modules by OTRS:
Sample output:
As you see in the above output, some perl modules are missing. Install them all at once or one by one as shown below.
Now, check again for any missing modules.
Sample output:
If everything seems good, proceed to web installer.
Begin OTRS Web installer
OTRS development team has made a simple way web based installer to make the installation lot easier.
Open up the web browser and navigate to http://ip-address/otrs/installer.pl.
The following screen will appear. Click Next to continue.
Accept the License agreement.
Select the database type. In my case, I select the MySQL database.
Enter the MySQL root user name and password etc. Click Check database settings button.
Once you check the button “Check database settings”, a default database and user will be automatically created. You can change these values as per your liking, or leave the default selection and click next to continue.
Now the new database will be created. Click Next to continue.
Enter the administrator Email for OTRS, system FQDN, organization name etc. And, click Next.
Next, you’ll be prompted to enter the inbound and outbound mail settings. Also, You can setup this option later in the administration dashboard.
Congratulations! We have successfully implemented the OTRS system. Note down the the default username and password of the administrative account.
As you see in the above screenshot, the installer shows you the the administrative login URL, default username and password.
Access OTRS dashboard
Navigate to http://ip-address/otrs/otrs/index.pl from your browser. Enter the default user name and password.
This is how the OTRS administrative dashboard looks.
After successful installation, we have to do some installation tasks. The first one is to start the scheduler. Click on the warning link that says: “Scheduler is not running” on the top.
Click Start Scheduler button.
Next change the default password of the admin account(root@locahost) by clicking on the username on the upper top right corner.
Enter the current password, and enter the new password twice. Finally, click Update.
OTRS Administration
As you may know, working on OTRS with admin user is not recommended. So, create new users(agents).
Go to the Admin section on the top menu bar, and select Agents to create new user.
Click on the Add Agent Link on the left.
Fill up the details such as first name, last name, password, and email id etc. Then, click Submit button.
Next choose the group relations for the new agent. Then, click Submit button.
The new agent will be created now.
By this way, you create more users(agents), groups, roles, customers etc from the Admin section.
Customer user:
Create Tickets
Let us create a sample ticket, and assign this ticket to Agent sk. Navigate to Tickets -> New email ticket or Phone ticket.
Enter the customer user mail id, subject and body of the mail. Click on the Owner drop down box and select the Agent name. Finally, click Send mail. A new ticket will be created and assigned to the agent sk.
Sample Email ticket:
Whenever, the agent sk, log in to the PTRS, he will see a ticket has been assigned to him in his dashboard.
The agent can see the full details of the new ticket by clicking on it.
That’s it. For more details, look at the official documentation page.
Cheers!
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Setup Help Desk System Using OTRS On CentOS 6.5