How to Install osTicket on a Virtual Private Server – The Quick and Easy Way

4. php -v – to check php 5.6 installation, sample output below:

   Sample output:

   PHP 5.6.29-1+deb.sury.org~xenial+1 (cli)
   Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
   Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies
   with Zend OPcache v7.0.6-dev, Copyright (c) 1999-2016, by Zend Technologies
   with Xdebug v2.5.0, Copyright (c) 2002-2016, by Derick Rethans

   Note? If PHP still shows up as PHP 7.1.0 or PHP 7.0 – that’s okay for as long as 5.6 is enabled. For DigitaOcean users, access your URL like yourdomain.tld/info.php . You should notice that 5.6 is the one active. See sample image.

   

   But some people may still ask… **I’ve already purged `php7.0` but I still see it when doing `php -v`?** For some reason unknown yet to me, after installing php5.6, `php7.*-common` came back installed on the VPS. This wasn’t the case a few months ago. It’s perfectly safe though. But if you really want to get rid of it, you could do the following: 1. `apt-get purge php7.0-common -y` – if you see PHP 7.0 or 7.0.x 2. `apt-get purge php7.1-common -y` – if you see PHP 7.1 or 7.1.x Then do a `php -v` command to check your PHP version. It should now show as `PHP 5.6.x`

5. Restart Apache, then you’re Done!

   To restart apache:

   service apache2 restart

Note: When doing add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php, you’ll notice a warning like this:

WARNING: add-apt-repository is broken with non-UTF-8 locales,
see https://github.com/oerdnj/deb.sury.org/issues/56 for workaround:

If you’re using UTF-8 Locales in your VPS (ie. en_GB.UTF-8), then you should be good to go. So hitting Enter key would produce positive effect and the ppa repo should be added. Please refer to the sample output below.

BUT if you’re not using UTF-8 locales or otherwise knows as non-UTF-8 locales – you could encounter some error within the PPA Key name – where Ondřej Surý is displayed as Ond\xc5\x99ej Sur�

So in case you were using non-UTF-8 locales – you should invoke the following command when adding the php5.6 repo:

apt-get install -y language-pack-en-base

hit Enter key then…

LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

hit Enter key – and follow sub-steps 2 and 3 above

Sample Output:

gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmptbhqemjf/secring.gpg' created
gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmptbhqemjf/pubring.gpg' created
gpg: requesting key E5267A6C from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: /tmp/tmptbhqemjf/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key E5267A6C: public key "Launchpad PPA for Ondřej Surý" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1  (RSA: 1)
OK

Step 5: Download and extract osTicket

You could download the zip file directly from this link: http://osticket.com/sites/default/files/download/osTicket-v1.10.zip

But I strongly recommend that you checkout the latest in http://osticket.com/editions – fill out the form in case you haven’t done it yet.

For the sake of this guide, we will download the file directly to our VPS using the wget command. To download the file, simply type:

cd ~ && wget http://osticket.com/sites/default/files/download/osTicket-v1.10.zip

The file should now be in your root’s home folder. To check it out, you could type cd then do ls -l or ls -l ~. Or just ls -l if you’re on the root home folder. Meaning, your prompt must look similar to this:

root@support:~#

Next, extract the file osTicket-v1.10.zip using the unzip command. Make sure you’re on the root’s home folder.

The command should be:

unzip osTicket-v1.10.zip -d osticket

That should extract the files inside osticket directory. Do a ls -l command and you should be able to see the folder.

Now, inside the osticket directory you should see two folders named scripts and upload. You can check those by invoking this command:

ls -1 ~/osticket

Sample output:

scripts
upload

To check the contents of upload folder (the actual osTicket core files):

ls -1 ~/osticket/upload

Step 6: Copy the osTicket core files to Apache’s web directory and set necessary permission.

Copy all the files inside upload folder to /var/www/html – this is our default Apache Web Root Folder. This might not be the case if you’re using another VPS provider/host or had used another script to build your LAMP VPS.

The command should be:

1. cd osticket/upload
2. cp -r . /var/www/html
3. cd /var/www/html
4. cp include/ost-sampleconfig.php include/ost-config.php
5. chown -R :www-data .
6. find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
7. find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
8. chmod 0666 include/ost-config.php

Step 7: Create a database using commandline.

With this guide, we did not install phpMyAdmin instead, we’ll be using just the commandline – which is fairly easy to use for this specific task.

Prepare your MySQL root password – it should be located in /root/.digitalocean_password. Use cat /root/.digitalocean_password – to retrive your password.

In case you’ve changed your root password, then prepare to enter that on the following steps.

So let’s move on and create a database for osTicket.

Login as root user and enter your password. Typing your password won’t be printed on screen.

The command should be (you should get a Query OK, message for every command):

1. mysql -u root -p – then enter key

2. Paste or Enter your password

   You’ll get to mysql> prompt when login is successful.

3. create database ost;

   To create a database named ost – as in osticket. You could name yours differently.

4. grant all on ost.* to 'ost'@'localhost' identified by 'yoursecretpassword';

   yoursecretpassword – You have to use your own secure password.

5. flush privileges;

6. quit

   You should be back to your previous prompt (root@yourhostname:~#)

   Next… the osTicket Web install part.

Step 8: osTicket Installation using the wizard

Now that you have done the necessary file/directory permission and the database, we’re now ready to install osTicket. So fire up your favorite browser and head over to your VPS web address. If you’re just playing around you could use the IP address of your VPS or any free domain name. But if you intend of using it in production, then you should’ve prepared the necessary DNS settings so you could use the proper url for your support system.

In my case, I setup support.chubbable.com to be my osTicket Support URL. It is forwarded to my osticket VPS – the one I created earlier.

When everything is done correctly, accessing your support url should open the osTicket installation wizard. If you followed the php5.6 installation steps carefully then everything required including recommended packages should have a green colored check on them. See this [reference image][20] below.

If no issues found, click on the Continue button and follow the rest of the steps, which should be easy to follow.

Fields To Fill Out;

System Settings:

1. Helpdesk Name: i.e. Chubbable’s Help Desk

2. Default Email: i.e. [email protected]

   You need to setup your own domain attached email address, so you could have an email address with your domain name attached to it. But for the meantime, you could use any Gmail account and configure Forwarding later. Postfix should be use for this part to send out email from the VPS.

   Will do a guide on how to do this later, depending on my availability and motivation. I’ll discuss how you would attach your osTicket to 3rd-party email host like Mailgun, Mandrill, Zoho Mail and the like.

Admin User – Pretty simple to fill out, no further explanation needed. But take note that you have to fill the Email address for the admin user. It should be a real and working one.

Database Settings:

1. MySQL Table Prefix: you may leave this as it is, unless you know what you’re doing.

2. MySQL Hostname: localhost

3. MySQL Database: ost

   or use whatever you configure when your created your database.

4. MySQL Username: ost

   or use whatever you configure when your created your database.

5. MySQL Password: your-password

   Click on Install Now, whenever you’re ready.

   If you encounter Unable to connect error for MySQL – double check your database name, user and password. Make sure you created those database details properly [using these steps][11].

   You should be taken to the Congratulations! page, if you installed osTicket successfully.

   

   Lastly, don’t forget to change the permission for `include/ost-config.php` file – set it to read-only mode. Also delete the `setup` folder from your web directory. To do so, invoke these command, regardless of your folder location: `chmod 644 /var/www/html/include/ost-config.php` – to set the file in read-only mode `rm -rf /var/www/html/setup/` – to remove the setup folder. And that’s it! You can now visit your front-end or your admin/staff dashboard by simply following the link posted on the bottom of the `Congratulations!` page. In my case it says… Your osTicket URL: `http://support.chubbable.com/` Your Staff Control Panel: `http://support.chubbable.com/scp`

Securing your osTicket Virtual Private Server

When using DigitalOcean, firewall shall taken care of automatically while your droplet or VPS is being created. But that only happens when you use the One-click app feature.

If you type this in your terminal: ufw status – you should be able to see which ports were firewalled. You have to take care of this manually if you choose to only create a bare Ubuntu 16.05 server.

Now, for additional security once you decide to go on production, you need to do some extra effort to secure your server. And those are mentioned in my other post listed below.

Please read on the following server hardening tips:

• TCP Wrapper Configuration
• Installing Fail2ban

Use a Free SSL on osTicket – Letsencrypt