OSTicket Install?

[foofighterjim]

Trying to get this setup and not getting very far (PHP and SQL aren't my forte). Just wondering if anyone can spare a minute to guide me through getting setup as the OSticket wiki is just not making any sense to me. So far I have:

 

• Created a new Server 2012 VM & installed updates.
  
• Installed IIS role, including .net 3.5 support.
  
• Downloaded the latest version of OSTicket.
  
• Copied the contents for the upload folder into \inetpub\wwwroot\helpdesk\
  

 

Not sure about installing MySQL (there is almost too much information out there)

I think I need to install PHP (same as MySQL, not sure where to start)

PHP manager for IIS but the only link I can find is this: https://archive.codeplex.com/?p=phpmanager absolutely no idea what to do with the archive.

 

Really need to get this going soon as our Spiceworks has bricked so currently not running a helpdesk.

[NB9457]

Not a great deal of help, but we went from osticket to manage engine service desk (which is free) and the exe just runs a does everything for you, so if you need to get up quick it’s worth a look https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/free-it-help-desk-software.html

 

 

Also freshdesk can pretty much do wha osticket does, except its cloud based and again, the basic one is free.

[foofighterjim]

Also freshdesk can pretty much do wha osticket does, except its cloud based and again, the basic one is free.

 

Looked at freshdesk yesterday, looks good but it relies on setting up message forwarding which we have disabled at domain level, so unfortunately it is a non starter for us.

[jthompson]

We run ours in an Ubuntu Linux VM, rather than Windows, where setting up the LAMP stack is relatively trivial. Perhaps look around Google for what WAMP setups are out there. Most are probably not recommended for production, though.

[unixman_again]

It's has been a long time since I installed osticket, but I have installed lots of other WIMP (Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP) systems with no problems.

 

For MySQL - try here https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/installer/ - it's pretty much click and it will install.

For PHP - go to https://windows.php.net/download/ - again it's easy to install, just copy it to where you want and change the php.ini file to suit. The biggest problem I've found is determining whether you need thread safe or non thread safe. I always choose thread safe if possible.

phpmanager isn't required.

 

The hardest part I've found is configuring IIS. Just keep fiddling with the config until it works. Permissions are the main problem I've found - include IIS_IUSR and it seems to work.

[SHimmer45]

It's has been a long time since I installed osticket, but I have installed lots of other WIMP (Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP) systems with no problems.

 

For MySQL - try here https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/installer/ - it's pretty much click and it will install.

For PHP - go to https://windows.php.net/download/ - again it's easy to install, just copy it to where you want and change the php.ini file to suit. The biggest problem I've found is determining whether you need thread safe or non thread safe. I always choose thread safe if possible.

phpmanager isn't required.

 

The hardest part I've found is configuring IIS. Just keep fiddling with the config until it works. Permissions are the main problem I've found - include IIS_IUSR and it seems to work.

 

very much this, we have HESK running on IIS using MySql and PHP took a little fiddling to work (adding IIS_IUSR to be able to read and or write to certain folders for the helpdesk setup)

 

but from where u are now you should just be ale to install the Mysql server (make a note of the DB name and the user and password for accessing it which is set at the time of install)

PHP on IIS can be installed directly with a nice tool from Microsoft which can also install and configure IIS at the same time

[unixman_again]

PHP on IIS can be installed directly with a nice tool from Microsoft which can also install and configure IIS at the same time

 

I didn't know that. I wonder which version? I like to keep the PHPs the same across all servers, although we have one that has two widely different versions on for reasons that are far too complicated to explain. One version is what I think Noah used.

[SHimmer45]

Something called WebPI supports the later PHP versions

[foofighterjim]

Thanks all for your suggestions, as a stop gap for now we did use @NB9457 suggestion and we are up and running. Quite impressed with it actually, bit of a culture shock compared to Spiceworks but for the better. Will investigate OS Ticket with a clearer head at a later date now that we have a working solution in place.

[leegcvcc]

@foofighterjim - why is it such a culture shock? Is it better from what you've seen? I have 4 instances of Spiceworks running here and always looking for better free helpdesks... not found one yet though

[foofighterjim]

@foofighterjim - why is it such a culture shock? Is it better from what you've seen? I have 4 instances of Spiceworks running here and always looking for better free helpdesks... not found one yet though

 

It is a very different layout and is purely helpdesk focused. From our testing it is much better at handling attachments and you can embed images into replies. You can do things like share tickets or split tickets if it goes off topic or has multiple unrelated requests. As a helpdesk it is just much more than Spiceworks, you are limited to 5 technicians on the free version though. I am sticking with it until the holidays at least, possibly beyond depending on how it goes between now and then.

 

Only negative so far is that we sometimes have to submit replies to tickets multiple times as they fail to send, not as bad as it sounds as you are told and you can just click submit until it goes through. Going to look into that today as it may just be a setting change somewhere, or something I may have done wrong during setup.