osTicket is a open-source helpdesk ticket system written in PHP and running like a CMS on LAMP stack. It comes with a simple and intuitive web UI used to manage, organize, track and archive all support ticket requests in company and organisations.

Tutorial: How to Install osTicket on Debian 11

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install osTicket on Debian 11

Requirements

For install osTicket in this tutorial will be using a Debian 11.
SSH root access or a user with sudo privileges is also required.
PHP version 8.1

Step 1. Log in via SSH and perform system update

$ ssh root@ip_address_or_hostname

First run the following command to update all installed packages to the latest available version.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade

Step 2: Install Apache Webserver

Before install osTicket the Apache webserver must be deployed, from now on you are logged in as root, or use sudo for elevated privileges:

$ apt -y install apache2

Now start the Apache webserver and check it to auto-start on server boot, execute these commands:

$ systemctl start apache2
$ systemctl is-enabled apache2

If the Apache webserver is not enabled for auto-start at boot, do this.

$ systemctl enable apache2

Step 3: Install osTicket PHP 8 and extensions

When this tutorial was written the latest release is osTicket 1.18 they requires PHP 8.1. PHP 8 packages are not available in the default Debian 11 package repositories.

So, to install PHP 8.1 first we have to enable SURY PHP PPA repository, which contains all the released versions of PHP to date.

Download the GPG key and add the required repository through the following commands:

$ apt -y install lsb-release apt-transport-https ca-certificates gnupg2
$ wget -qO - https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg | apt-key add -
$ echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list

Once the SURY repository is added, you need to update the repository:

$ apt-get update

To install PHP 8.1 and the required PHP extensions, run this command:

$ apt -y install php8.1 php8.1-cli php8.1-common php8.1-curl php8.1-mbstring php8.1-gd php8.1-mysql php8.1-xml php8.1-imap php8.1-intl php8.1-apcu php8.1-cgi php8.1-zip

Step 4: Install MariaDB

MariaDB is available in the Debian 11 default OS repository. You can install it by running the following command:

$ apt -y install mariadb-server

Once the installation is complete, perform the following command to secure your installation. This is optional, but strongly recommended:

$ mariadb_secure_installation

This script will set the MariaDB root password, disable remote root login and remove anonymous users. We suggest answering every question with the character ‘Y’ for yes.

Step 5: Create a Database for osTicket

$ mysql -u root -p

Create a MySQL database for osTicket by running the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE osticket;
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON osticket.* TO 'ostiuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Passw0rd!';
MariaDB [(none)]> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
MariaDB [(none)]> EXIT;

Note. replace Passw0rd! with an actual strong password.

Step 6: Install osTicket on Debian 11

Download the latest stable version from the official source by executing the following command on your server:

$ wget https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket/releases/download/v1.18/osTicket-v1.18.zip

Then create a osticket directory by unzip it to/var/www/osticket

$ unzip osTicket-v1.18.zip -d /var/www/osticket

Create an osTicket configuration file, by copying the example config file:

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

Then run the following command to set the correct permissions:

$ chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/osticket/
$ find /var/www/osticket/ -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0644
$ find /var/www/osticket/ -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0755

Step 7: Create new Apache configuration file

Create a new Apache configuration file for osTicket:

$ vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/osticket.conf

Note. if you are not familiar with vim, then simply choose your favorite editor, may you use nano or emacs!

A basic Apache configuration file looks similar to this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin admin@domain.com
     DocumentRoot "/var/www/osticket/upload"
     ServerName domain.com
     ServerAlias www.domain.com

     <Directory "/var/www/osticket/upload">
         Require all granted
         Options Indexes FollowSymlinks
         AllowOverride All
         Order allow,deny
         allow from all
     </Directory>

     ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/osticket_error.log
     CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/osticket_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Note. after copy-paste this lines change the domain name next to ServerAdmin and ServerName (domain.com) along with ServerAlias in order to make it work with your unique registered domain name.

Save and close the file then activate the osTicket virtual host with the following command:

$ a2ensite osticket.conf
$ systemctl reload apache2

Now you able to open http://domain.com in your favorite web browser in order to complete the osTicket installation:

Confirm that all requirements are satisfied and click Continue.

The next step is to add the base system configuration by entering the values you made earlier and click the “Install Now” button:

On installation has been completed successfully, you will get the Congratulations page:

Finaly change the permission of ost-config.php to remove write access:

$ chmod 0644 /var/www/osticket/upload/include/ost-config.php

Also, remove the setup directory:

$ rm -rf /var/www/osticket/upload/setup/

Finish! osTicket has been successfully installed on your Debian 11 server.

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Install osTicket on Debian 11