osTicket is an open source help desk ticketing system that helps organizations manage customer support queries. In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through the process of installing osTicket on your Ubuntu server.
Before getting started, make sure that your Ubuntu server meets the following requirements:
You can install Apache web server on Ubuntu by running the following commands in your terminal:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install apache2
sudo ufw allow 'Apache Full'
Once the installation is complete, you can test Apache web server by visiting the server's public IP address in a web browser. You should see the Apache welcome page.
You can install MySQL server on Ubuntu by running the following command:
sudo apt install mysql-server
During installation, you will be prompted to set a password for the MySQL root user. Make sure you remember this password as you’ll need it later.
You can install PHP on Ubuntu by running the following command:
sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql php-cli
Once the installation is complete, you can test PHP by creating a phpinfo.php file in your web server’s root directory:
sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php
Add the following code to the file, save it, and exit the editor:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Visit http://YOUR_SERVER_IP_ADDRESS/phpinfo.php in your web browser to see the PHP information page.
Before installing osTicket, you’ll need to create a new MySQL database for it. You can do this by running the following commands:
mysql -u root -p
This will bring you to the MySQL prompt. Enter the MySQL root user’s password when prompted.
CREATE DATABASE osticket;
CREATE USER 'osticketuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON osticket.* TO 'osticketuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
This will create a new MySQL database called osticket, a new MySQL user called osticketuser, and assign all privileges to that user for the osticket database.
You can download the latest version of osTicket from their website https://osticket.com/download/. You can use the following commands to download osTicket directly from the terminal:
cd /tmp
curl -OL https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket/releases/download/v1.15.3/osTicket-v1.15.3.zip
Unzip the downloaded package by running the command:
unzip -d /var/www/html/ osTicket-v1.15.3.zip
Now, give appropriate permissions to access the osTicket files:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/upload
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/upload
Navigate to http://YOUR_SERVER_IP_ADDRESS/upload in your web browser. You should land on the osTicket wizard page. Click on the Continue button.
In the next step, you will be prompted to enter your MySQL database details:
Click on the Install Now button to proceed.
After osTicket is installed, you will be prompted to set up your admin user credentials. Provide the necessary details, and click on the Setup button.
You can test osTicket by logging in as the admin user and creating a new ticket. To do this, navigate to http://YOUR_SERVER_IP_ADDRESS/upload/scp/login.php in your web browser, login as the admin user, and create a new ticket.
You have successfully installed osTicket on your Ubuntu server. You can now manage your customer support queries and tickets using osTicket.
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