osTicket - Prerequisites and Installation

This tutorial outlines the prerequisites and installation of the open-source help desk ticketing system osTicket.

Environments and Technologies Used

• Microsoft Azure (Virtual Machines/Compute)
• Remote Desktop
• Internet Information Services (IIS)

Operating Systems Used

• Windows 10 (21H2)

List of Prerequisites

• Azure subscription
• new azure resource group
• windows 10 virtual machine
• MySQL 5.5
• PHP
• osTicket

Creating our resources

1. Create a Resource Group
2. Create a Windows 10 Virtual Machine (VM) with 2-4 virtual CPUs

Installing dependencies

3. Connect to your Virtual Machine with Remote Desktop
4. Install / Enable IIS in Windows by going to the start menu, control panel, uninstall a program and then click "Turn windows features on or off", check the following box:

5. Install Web Platform Installer
6. Open after installation
7. Search for MySQL 5.5 and add it (it will ask for credentials to be created later)

• Name: root
• Password: Password1

8. Search for PHP and add all simple versions of x86 PHP up until version 7.3
9. Fix any failures if required download from dependecies folder you can ignore PHP version 5.3.28 if it fails

11. Install PHP Manager 1.5.0 for IIS 10 if it fails to install
12. Install Microsoft Visual C++ 2009 if it fails to install

Install osTicket v1.15.8

13. Download osTicket

• Extract and copy the “upload” folder INTO c:\inetpub\wwwroot
• Within c:\inetpub\wwwroot, Rename “upload” to “osTicket”

Reload IIS

14. open up start menu type "iis" and restart the server, then go to sites -> Default -> osTicket
15. On the right, click “Browse :80”

Enable Extensions in IIS: Note that some extensions are not enabled

16. Go back to IIS, sites -> Default -> osTicket
17. Double-click PHP Manager
18. Click “Enable or disable an extension”

• Enable: php_imap.dll
• Enable: php_intl.dll
• Enable: php_opcache.dll

Refresh the osTicket site in your browser, observe the changes

Rename:

From: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\osTicket\include\ost-sampleconfig.php

To: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\osTicket\include\ost-config.php

Assign Permissions: ost-config.php

19. right click the file, go to properties, security, advanced and Disable inheritance -> Remove All
20. Now click add, select a principal, "Everyone" and give them access to everything, obviously for the sake of practice we're ginving everyone full control, in a real setup this would be unwise.

Continue Setting up osTicket in the browser (click Continue)

21. Name Helpdesk
22. Default email (receives email from customers)

• Download and Install HeidiSQL

24. Create a new session, root/Password1
25. Connect to the session
26. Create a database called “osTicket”

Continue Setting up osticket in the browser

27. MySQL Database: osTicket
28. MySQL Username: root
29. MySQL Password: Password1

• Click “Install Now!”
• Congratulations, hopefully it installed with no errors!

Clean up

30. Delete: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\osTicket\setup (if it fails to delete, delete the contents and then delete the empty folder)
31. Set Permissions to “Read and execute” only: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\osTicket\include\ost-config.php by following the same step as earlier

32. Login to the osTicket Admin Panel (http://localhost/osTicket/scp/login.php)

your login pages

• Browse to your help desk login page: http://localhost/osTicket/scp/login.php
• End Users osTicket URL: http://localhost/osTicket/