Request Tracker (RT) - Enterprise Ticketing and ITSM

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

## Launch a Production Service Desk in Minutes

Request Tracker (RT) is a mature, enterprise-grade ticketing and workflow platform from Best Practical, used across government agencies, universities, ISPs and enterprises for help desks, IT service management, customer support, network operations and incident response. This pre-hardened AMI delivers a fully operational ticketing system within minutes of launch, eliminating the hours of manual dependency resolution, database setup and security configuration that a from-scratch install demands.

## What You Get Without Lifting a Config File

Installing RT by hand means resolving a long chain of Perl module dependencies, standing up and tuning PostgreSQL, initialising the RT schema, configuring Apache with the prefork MPM and mod_perl (RT is not thread-safe), and rotating the well-known default root login before the instance is exposed. This image completes every one of those steps at build time. RT is installed from maintained distribution packages so every Perl dependency is package-managed; PostgreSQL runs bound to the loopback interface only; and the well-known default root password is never shipped.

## Security Hardening - Defence in Depth

• No default or shared credentials: a unique RT administrator password is generated on each instance's first boot, along with a unique PostgreSQL role password and RT database secret
• Network isolation: PostgreSQL binds exclusively to the loopback interface; only Apache on port 80 is exposed
• Correct instance URL: first boot sets the RT web domain to the instance's own public address so ticket links, self-service URLs and cookies are correct immediately
• Dedicated data volume: the PostgreSQL cluster - every ticket, attachment and user account - lives on its own EBS volume, surviving OS-disk changes and resizable independently

## Enterprise Ticketing Capabilities

• Configurable queues with custom fields, ownership and status workflows
• Group and role-based permissions with approval chains
• Self-service portal for requesters and email-to-ticket intake
• Searchable history of every correspondence and a full audit trail
• A workflow engine to enforce consistent processes across teams

## Concrete Use Cases

• IT and internal help desk: staff raise requests; agents triage, own and resolve tickets in configurable queues with custom fields, approvals and full audit history
• Customer support and issue tracking: external requesters use a self-service portal and email intake while support teams share queues with ownership and status workflow
• Network and incident operations: track incidents, changes and operational tasks across teams with role-based permissions, watchers and reporting

## AWS Integration

Deploy on any EC2 instance type; the recommended starting size is m5.large. Front RT with an Application Load Balancer and terminate TLS with your own ACM certificate. Point RT's web domain at your own hostname. Back up the ticket database using EBS snapshots or AWS Backup. Resize the dedicated data volume independently of the OS disk as your ticket history grows.

## Evaluate Before You Commit

Launch on a smaller instance type such as t3.medium to explore the RT interface, configure queues and test email workflows at minimal infrastructure cost, then scale up to m5.large or larger for production.

## cloudimg Support

24/7 technical support by email and chat. Help with deployment, configuring queues, custom fields, scrips and workflow, wiring up inbound and outbound email, reverse-proxy termination with your own domain and certificate, and backup planning for your ticket database.