Helpy is an open-source ticketing system designed to help businesses and organizations better manage their customer support requests. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps to install Helpy on Elementary OS.
Before beginning the installation, make sure that your system meets the following requirements:
The first step in installing Helpy is to ensure that your system has Ruby installed. Run the following command in your terminal:
sudo apt-get install ruby ruby-dev build-essential
Next, you would also need to install Node.js to run Helpy. Run the following command in your terminal:
sudo apt-get install nodejs
Helpy runs on Ruby on Rails, so we'll need to install it too. Run the following command in your terminal:
sudo gem install rails
With all the prerequisites installed, we can now proceed with the installation of Helpy. Clone the Helpy repository by running the following command:
git clone https://github.com/helpyio/helpy.git
Once the cloning is done, change into the Helpy directory:
cd helpy
Next, run the following command to install all the required gems:
bundle install
Helpy currently provides support for both MySQL and PostgreSQL, however in this tutorial, we will be using MySQL. Start by creating a new MySQL user and database by running the following command:
mysql -u root -p
Enter your MySQL password when prompted, then run the following commands:
CREATE DATABASE helpy;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON helpy.* to 'helpyuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Remember to replace password with a secure password of your choice. Then exit the MySQL shell by running:
exit
Next, create a config/database.yml file by running the following command:
cp config/database.mysql.yml config/database.yml
Replace the existing database configuration with the following:
default: &default
adapter: mysql2
encoding: utf8mb4
pool: <%= ENV.fetch("RAILS_MAX_THREADS") { 5 } %>
username: helpyuser
password: <%= ENV['HELPY_DATABASE_PASSWORD'] %>
host: 127.0.0.1
development:
<<: *default
database: helpy_development
test:
<<: *default
database: helpy_test
production:
<<: *default
database: helpy_production
username: helpy
password: <%= ENV["HELPY_DATABASE_PASSWORD"] %>
Replace helpyuser with the MySQL user you created earlier, and remember to set the HELPY_DATABASE_PASSWORD variable when running the app on production.
Now, run the following commands to create and seed the database:
rake db:create
rake db:migrate
rake db:seed
With all the prerequisites met and the database configured, we can now start the Helpy server by running the following command in your terminal:
rails server
You will see output on your terminal which will end with:
=> Booting Puma
=> Rails 5.2.3 application starting in development
=> Run `rails server -h` for more startup options
Puma starting in single mode...
* Version 3.12.1 (ruby 2.7.3-p183), codename: Llamas in Pajamas
* Min threads: 5, max threads: 5
* Environment: development
* Listening on tcp://127.0.0.1:3000
Use Ctrl-C to stop
This indicates that the Helpy server is up and running. You can now access it in your web browser by visiting http://localhost:3000. The page may take a moment to load the first time.
In this tutorial, we have walked you through the steps to install Helpy on Elementary OS. You can now start using the Helpy ticketing system to manage your customer support requests. Don't forget to check out the Helpy documentation to learn more about its features and capabilities.
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