Installing 4.0

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Contents

Introduction

Important Note

If you don't have direct control over your server configuration, we STRONGLY urge you to consider "software-as-a-service". E-mail management is a major component for any online organization and it can be quite technical. While the service model is based on a monthly fee rather than a one-time licensing cost, you're not really paying for the same software over and over -- you are paying for a partner who will keep the technical obstacles and maintenance out of your way so you can focus on what you're best at.

Otherwise, if you're ready to jump through a couple technical hoops we'll do our best to get Cerberus Helpdesk 4.0 running in your environment. Let's begin!

PHP Environment

Cerberus Helpdesk 4.0 uses the Zend Framework, which requires your server to be running PHP 5.1.4 or later. It also requires several specialized PHP extensions to provide a better balance of speed, resource usage and power.

These new requirements have drastically improved the focus and performance of the project. However, if you don't have access to modify your current application hosting environment you will likely run into trouble or dead-ends.

  • Rename the extension to .php and save the file in your web-path.
  • Access the proper URL on your server to display the cerb4-servercheck.php page.
  • Correct any errors then continue to the next step.

More info:

  • Installing PHP Mailparse
  • Note, if you cannot install the Mailparse extension, a member on the forums has written PHP emulation called "mailpars2em" which uses the freely available PEAR package "Mail/mimeDecode" instead of Mailparse. No compilation is required, but since it is not compiled C code, it runs more slowly than Mailparse. You can download mailpars2em, under an "experimental, use at your own risk" agreement. For more information, see this forum thread.

Acquiring the Files

Assuming the Server Checker tool above passed all tests, it's time to download the Cerberus Helpdesk files.

Using Subversion (recommended)

Subversion is the recommended method for obtaining the project files, since it allows for painless software updates and the preservation of any custom modifications you make. It is highly recommended that you do whatever you have to do to use this delivery method.

Subversion is usually available from the package manager for major Linux distributions. For Windows Servers the best option is TortoiseSVN.

SVN Details:

Example usage: 

svn checkout "http://svn.webgroupmedia.com/cerb4/branches/stable" cerb4

Be sure to checkout or copy the files into the appropriate web-path and domain name.

Downloading a ZIP File

A .zip file is provided for situations where Subversion isn't available. This method will make your future software upgrades a bigger hassle than they would be with Subversion.

Preparing the Files

Unix-based Servers

On Unix-based servers (e.g., Linux, BSD, MacOSX, Solaris) you'll need to set the proper ownership and permissions on the files.

From the command-line in the cerb4/ directory you downloaded above: 

chown -R apache:apache *
chmod -R 0774 libs/devblocks/tmp/
chmod -R 0774 storage/

Windows-based Servers

  • Depending on your server configuration you may need to change the owner of the cerb4/ directory (and contents) to your IIS user.

Creating a Database

You need to create a new database and login for your helpdesk data.

MySQL Console

mysql> CREATE DATABASE cerb4 CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON cerb4.* TO user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

Use your own values for cerb4, user@localhost and password.

Running the Installer

At this point you should be able to run the Cerberus Helpdesk 4.0 Installer by opening your browser to http://your-website/cerb4/

The guided installer will walk you through the process of configuring your helpdesk for use.

Finishing Touches

Friendly URLS

If you're using Apache you can enable URL rewriting so the URLs created by Cerberus Helpdesk are much more user friendly.

Friendly URL: /display/FCX-12345-678

Unfriendly URL: /index.php?c=display&id=FCX-12345-678

This difference is entirely cosmetic.

From the cerb4/ directory:

  • Copy the .htaccess-dist file to .htaccess

If you run into any trouble simply delete the copied .htaccess file.

Friendly URLs on nginx

If you are using nginx the .htaccess file will not work. To have it work correctly, just add the following directives in your server config

rewrite ^/index.php/.*$ /index.php last;

location ~ /(\.svn|api|libs|plugins|storage|templates) { deny all; }

These assume that Cerberus is installed in the root of the server. Otherwise just prepend the path to Cerberus (for example rewrite ^/support/cerb4/index.php/.*$) /support/cerb4/index.php last;)

Congratulations!

Welcome to the Cerberus Helpdesk community!

To get familiar with the new concepts in Version 4.0, visit New Changes.

To migrate your Cerberus Helpdesk 3.0 content to 4.0, visit ImpEx:Cerb3Export.

To walk-through a step-by-step example of use with explanations, visit Getting Started.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.cerb4.com/wiki/Installing_4.0"
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