Installing osTicket on a Debian 10 Linux server

In this manual we will show you how to install osTicket on your server.

info A completely empty Debian 10 server (without SWPanel) has been used for the manual. Most of the installation will be done through the console.

Requirements

To be able to install the osTicket software you need to fulfill a series of prerequisites:

• An up-to-date server (in our case a Debian 10).
• A LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MariaDB/MySQL and PHP)
• A user with sudo permissions (we will use the root user)
• Internet access (to download the software)

Preparation of the server

We execute the following commands from the terminal with the root user:

1. Update the system

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade

2. Install the unzip program

sudo apt install -y unzip

3. Install Apache

sudo apt install apache2 apache2-utils

4. Enable the automatic start of Apache on reboot our system

systemctl enable apache2

5. We configure www-data (apache user) as owner of the web root

chown www-data:www-data /var/www/ -R

6. Install MariaDB

sudo apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client

7. Enable the automatic start of MariaDB when rebooting our system

systemctl enable mariadb

8. Install PHP 7.3

apt install php7.3 libapache2-mod-php7.3 php7.3-mysql php-common php7.3-cli php7.3-common php7.3-json php7.3-opcache php7.3-readline

9. We enable the Apache php 7.3 module

a2enmod php7.3

10. Restart the web server

systemctl restart apache2

Software installation

Execute the following commands from the terminal with the root user:

1. Download the program from the development site.

wget -q https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket/releases/download/v1.15.2/osTicket-v1.15.2.zip

2. Unzip the downloaded file

unzip -q osTicket-v1.15.2.zip

3. Move the folder containing the application to the root directory

mv upload/ /var/www/osticket

4. We delete the scripts folder (we are not going to use it)

rm -r scripts

5. Delete the zip file (we don't need it anymore)

rm -r osTicket-v1.15.2.zip

6. We will create the initial osTicket configuration file

cp /var/www/osticket/include/ost-sampleconfig.php /var/www/osticket/include/ost-config.php

7. We give write permission to the application configuration file

chown www-data: /var/www/osticket/include/ost-config.php

Database

We are going to create the database to work correctly with the application

1. We connect to the database with the root user and its password

mysql -u root -p

(we will enter the root user password and press enter)

2. We will create the database with the name "osticket"

create database osticket charset utf8mb4 collate utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

3. We will create the user and password of the Database (Replace the X's by the desired password)

create user osticket@localhost identified by 'XXXXXXXX';

4. We will give the necessary permissions to the user on the Database

grant all privileges on osticket.* to osticket@localhost;

5. Close the connection to the database

exit

Web server

Let's configure the web server to work correctly with the application.

1. We create a configuration for the osticket web service

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/osticket.conf

2. The content of the file will be:

Alias /osticket /var/www/osticket

3. Close the file saving the changes by pressing Ctrl+X and pressing y+enter.

4. Activate the new configuration

a2ensite osticket.conf

5. Reload the web server configuration

systemctl reload apache2

PHP

We install the necessary extensions for the application to work correctly.

1. For version 7.3 (the one recommended by the application)

apt install -y php7.3-apcu php7.3-gd php7.3-imap php7.3-intl php7.3-mbstring php7.3-xml

2. Restart the web server for the changes to take effect

systemctl reload apache2

Web installation

The last phase of the installation is to configure the application through a web browser where it will allow us to create the administrator user and will ask us for the database data.

To access this configuration, open a web browser and search for http://dominio/osticket or http://nombre-de-la-maquina/osticket.

The first page will show us a series of checks, if we have followed the manual, we will have them all correct and we will click on Continue.

In the next page it will let us create the administrator user, its password and it will ask us for the database connection data. Once entered we will click on Install Now. Required data:

System Settings

• Helpdesk Name (We put the name of our company)
• Default Email (We put an email of our company)

Admin User

• First Name (Enter the administrator user's first name)
• Last Name (Enter the last name of the admin user)
• Email Address (Enter the administrator user's email address)
• Username (Does not exist, we create it now)
• Password (Does not exist, we create it now)
• Retype Password (Re-enter the password)

Database Settings

• MySQL Table Prefix (we leave it as it is)
• MySQL Hostname (we leave it as it is)
• MySQL Database (database name --> osticket)
• MySQL Username (database user -->osticket)
• MySQL Password (the database password we set -->XXXXXXXXXXXX)

The installation process will take a moment and will show us a last page where it will inform us of the successful result of the operation and will suggest us to give permission to the configuration file of the application.

1. We will delete the web installer of the application

rm -rf /var/www/osticket/setup/

2. Give permissions to the configuration file

chmod 0644 /var/www/osticket/include/ost-config.php

success That's it! We will be able to access our osTicket service using the URL: http://dominio/osticket

To access the backend we will do it through the same URL but adding "/scp" at the end (http://dominio/osticket/scp).

Modify the language (optional)

To be able to modify the language of the application we have to download the file of the language we are interested in from the official page of the application, pass the file by FTP and unzip it in the correct location. As the server we are using is an empty Debian 10, the first thing to do is to create a user and install the FTP service.

1. We create a user in the system for FTP

adduser testftp

• Enter the password and press enter.
• Repeat the password and press enter.
• Make 5 enter, press y + enter.

2. vsftp installation from the Debian 10 repositories

sudo apt -y install vsftpd

3. Configure the FTP service by modifying its configuration file

nano /etc/vsftpd.conf

4. Modify:

...
write_enable=YES
...
ssl_enable=YES
...

5. Close the file with Ctrl + x and save it with y + enter.

6. Restart the service for the modifications to take effect.

systemctl reload vsftpd 

7. Download the language pack from the official [osTicket] web site (https://osticket.com/download/) by clicking on Language pack, selecting the language (Spanish - Español) and clicking on Download.

8. FTP the language pack to the server with an FTP client such as Filezilla.

9. Unzip the package to the correct directory

unzip /home/testftp/osTicket-lang.zip -d /var/www/osticket/include/i18n/ 

10. Enter the backend with the URL http://domain/osticket/scp

11. Use the administrator user credentials to log in.

12. Click on the settings tab.

13. We look for the option Primary Language and select "spanish (Spain) ".

14. Go down to the bottom of the page and click on Save Changes.

info Done! If we change tabs or exit, the language is already modified.