How to install osTicket on CentOS 8 /RHEL 8

In this post, you will learn how to install osTicket on CentOS 8 / RHEL 8

Introduction

osTicket is a widely-used open source support ticket system. It seamlessly integrates inquiries created via email, phone and web-based forms into a simple easy-to-use multi-user web interface. Manage, organize and archive all your support requests and responses in one place while providing your customers with accountability and responsiveness they deserve.

SOME OF OUR FEATURES

• Dashboard Reports

rich and simple dashboard keeps you up-to-date on your help desk statistics

• Ticket Filters

powerful ticket filtering system makes sure the right tickets goes to the right department leaving you with a clutter-free environment

• Configurable Help Topic

Add, edit, and delete your help desk topics that suit your preference

• Customer Support Portal

Robust customer support portal system to help your business maintain happy customer relationships

• Service Level Agreements

Simply set your business hours and our system will handle the rest leaving you worry-free

Installation

Just follow the steps below

Update the system

• Update your system and install yum-utils

sudo yum -y update && sudo yum -y install yum-utils

Install and Configure mariaDB

• Install and Configure MariaDB database

sudo yum -y install @mariadb

• Start and enable the mariadb service

sudo systemctl enable --now mariadb

• Secure your Database server after installation

sudo mysql_secure_installation

• The next step is to create osTicket database. Login to your database server as root user and create a database for osTicket

mysql -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE osticket_db; 
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON osticket_db.* TO osticket_user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY "unixcopPassword"; 
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; 
\q

 Install Apache Web Server

• Run the following commands to download and install apache

sudo yum install httpd -y

• Start the service.

sudo systemctl enable --now httpd

•  Show the service status

systemctl status httpd

 Install PHP

• Install PHP 7.4 on CentOS 8. Add EPEL and Remi repisitories as follow:

sudo dnf -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm
sudo dnf -y install https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm
sudo dnf -y install yum-utils

• Reset php AppStream module

sudo dnf module reset php

• Then enable PHP 7.4 module

sudo dnf module install php:remi-7.4 

• Also install other PHP 7.4 extensions as shown below

sudo dnf install wget php php-{pear,cgi,common,curl,mbstring,gd,mysqlnd,gettext,bcmath,json,xml,fpm,intl,zip,imap,apcu} -y

• Verify that the version of PHP that will be installed is v7.4

php --version

Download and Install osTicket

• First install some helpful tools

dnf install curl wget unzip -y

• Download latest release of osTicket by running the below command.

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/osTicket/osTicket/releases/latest | grep browser_download_url | grep "browser_download_url" | cut -d '"' -f 4 | wget -i -

• Then extract the downloaded osTicket

unzip osTicket-v*.zip -d osTicket

• Move osTicket folder to /var/www directory

mv osTicket /var/www/

• Create an osTicket configuration file

cp /var/www/osTicket/upload/include/ost-sampleconfig.php /var/www/osTicket/upload/include/ost-config.php 

• Change the ownership to apache for this directory

sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/osTicket

Configure Apache Web Server

• Create VirtualHost file for osTicket on Apache configurations.

vim /etc/httpd/conf.d/osticket.conf

• Then add the following:

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin admin@unixcop.com
     DocumentRoot /var/www/osTicket/upload
     ServerName osticket.unixcop.com
     ServerAlias www.osticket.unixcop.com
     <Directory /var/www/osTicket/>
          Options FollowSymlinks
          AllowOverride All
          Require all granted
     </Directory>

     ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/osticket_error.log
     CustomLog /var/log/httpd/osticket_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

• Enable php-fpm service

systemctl enable --now php-fpm

• Edit the setting of enforcing SElinux

sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1
semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t "/var/www/osTicket(/.*)?"
sudo restorecon -Rv /var/www/osTicket/

• Restart apache

systemctl restart httpd

• Open http and https ports in the firwalld

firewall-cmd --add-service={http,https} --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload

Install osTicket on CentOS 8

• Visit the osTicket Web console with http://osticket.unixcop.com in your web browser.

• Confirm the software requirements checks then click continue as shown below:

• Enter the required information for system settings and Admin User

• Also fill the Database we created as shown then click install Now

• With successful installation, you will get this page as shown below:

NOTE: To log in to backend system ( Staff control panel), use the link below your Staff control panel osticket.unixcop.com/scp

•  Access Your Staff Control Panel with the admin user credential you entered before while the installation

• You will get this warning to delete setup directory as shown below, so remove it with running the commands below:

sudo chmod 0644 /var/www/osTicket/upload/include/ost-config.php
sudo rm -rf /var/www/osTicket/upload/setup/

• Refresh the page again

• Then click Manage to get the help topics as shown below

Conclusion

That’s it

We showed you how to install osTicket on CentOS 8 /RHEL 8

thank you…