Request Tracker
 Ticket list interface (RT 3.8) | |
| Original author(s) | Jesse Vincent |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Best Practical Solutions, LLC |
| Initial release | October 13, 1999 |
| Stable release | 4.2.0 / October 3, 2013 |
| Written in | Perl |
| Operating system | Any Unix-like |
| Platform | Cross-platform |
| Available in | Multiple Languages |
| Type | Issue tracking system |
| License | GPLv2 |
| Website | bestpractical.com/rt |
Request Tracker, commonly abbreviated to RT, is a ticket-tracking system written in Perl used to coordinate tasks and manage requests among a community of users. RT's first release in 1996 was written by Jesse Vincent, who later formed Best Practical Solutions LLC to distribute, develop, and support the package.[1] RT is open source (FOSS) and distributed under the GNU General Public License.[2]
Request Tracker for Incident Response (RTIR) is a special distribution of RT to fulfill the specific needs of CERT teams.[3] It was initially developed in cooperation with JANET-CERT, and in 2006 was upgraded and expanded with joint funding from nine Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs) in Europe.[4]
Technology
RT is written in Perl and runs on the Apache and lighttpd web servers using mod_perl or FastCGI with data stored in either MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle or SQLite. It is possible to extend the RT interface using plug-ins written in Perl.[1]
History
Jesse Vincent, while enrolled at Wesleyan University in 1994, worked for Wesleyan's computing help desk and was responsible for improving the help desk and residential networking software infrastructure. This task included setting up a ticketing system for the help desk. Initially he set up a Linux server to run "req", but later he identified that the command line interface was limiting usage. Over the next two years he created and maintained WebReq, a web based interface for req written in Perl. Eventually the req portions were removed and what was left became RT version 1.0. A complete rewrite occurred for RT version 2.0 when Jesse started to work on RT full-time in 2001 and founded Best Practical Solutions.
Interface
RT has many interfaces for creating and updating tickets. A web interface is available for both logged in users and guest users. It is easily tailored by granting or denying specific permissions to users as well as by adding custom fields and data to tickets. Template callbacks allow the modification of the software's web pages without requiring extensive knowledge.
Email is another primary interface to RT and is often the only interface many guest users see. The email system includes support for auto-responses, attachments, and full customization of the rules which govern to whom and when email is sent. Emails are stored in RT as correspondence on a ticket, and the software can make a distinction between public replies and private comments to show them as appropriate.
A basic REST-like API and a command-line tool are also provided as another way to interact with RT.
Integration
RT integrates with Best Practical's knowledge base application, the RT FAQ Manager ("RTFM").[5] As of RT 4.0.0, RTFM's functionality was integrated into RT itself as Articles.
See also
- Comparison of help desk issue tracking software
- Comparison of issue tracking systems
References
- "RT Essentials", O'Reilly, 2005, 224 pages ISBN 0-596-00668-3
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Rich, Amy (August 2003). "RT: Request Tracker, Part 1". Sun Microsystems. Retrieved 2010-03-10.
- ↑ "RT FAQ: What is RT?". "Request Tracker (RT) [...] is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL)."
- ↑ "RTIR: RT for Incident Response". "to fulfill the specific needs of CERT teams"
- ↑ "REQUEST TRACKER INCIDENT RESPONSE (RTIR) SOFTWARE TO BE UPGRADED AND EXPANDED".
- ↑ "Best Practical's RTFM page".
External links
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