[opensourcedex]

rt is a free, open source customer support & success project written in Perl and released under GPL-2.0. It has 1,157 GitHub stars, 298 forks and 82 open issues, and was last pushed 21 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #12 of 17 tracked projects in Customer Support & Success, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 1 stars over the last 3 tracked days.

What is rt?

Request Tracker (RT) is an open source, enterprise-grade issue and ticket tracking system written in Perl for organizations that need to track what needs to get done, who is working on which tasks, what has already been done, and when tasks were or were not completed.

What it is

Request Tracker (RT) is an open source, enterprise-grade issue and ticket tracking system written in Perl and licensed under GPL-2.0. The project repository has 1157 stars, 296 forks, and 82 open issues, with the last push on 2026-09-11. It is commercially supported by Best Practical, which offers hosting, support, training, custom development, and professional services.

RT solves the problem of keeping track of what needs to get done, who is working on which tasks, what has already been done, and when tasks were or were not completed. It provides issue tracking, bug tracking, helpdesk ticketing, customer support, asset management, and project management capabilities. The facts provided do not name a specific product that RT replaces; it stands as an open source option in the Business Software / Customer Support & Success category.

Key capabilities

  • Tracks what needs to get done, who is working on which tasks, what has already been done, and when tasks were or were not completed.
  • Supports issue tracking, bug tracking, helpdesk ticketing, customer support, asset management, and project management, as listed in repository topics.
  • Runs on Perl 5.26.3 or later; RT will not start on older versions.
  • Uses SQL databases including MySQL 8.0.31 or later, MariaDB 10.6 or later, Postgres 13 or later, Oracle 18c or later, and SQLite 3.0 or later for testing only.
  • Deploys behind webservers with FastCGI or mod_perl support, including Apache 2.x with mod_fcgid or mod_perl, and nginx.
  • Configures through etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm, with installation defaulting to /opt/rt6 via a configure script and mysql as the default database type.
  • Offers optional full-text indexing, an external HTML converter, and a TLS certificate for production use.

Who uses it and how

  • Organizations tracking tasks, projects, and assets use RT to record what needs to get done and who is working on each item.
  • Customer support and helpdesk teams use RT for ticketing and issue management, as indicated by topics such as helpdesk-ticketing, customer-support, and support-tools.
  • Software development teams use RT as a bug tracker and issue tracker, per topics bug-tracker and issue-tracker.
  • Teams with existing Perl, MySQL, MariaDB, Postgres, or Oracle infrastructure deploy RT on their own servers using the provided configure script.
  • Organizations needing commercial hosting, support, training, custom development, or professional services can purchase those from Best Practical.

Getting started

Unpack the RT distribution, run ./configure (with --help to list options), and install; RT defaults to /opt/rt6 and uses mysql as the default database type. Commercial hosting, support, training, custom development, and professional services are available from Best Practical at [email protected].

How it compares

No similar tools are named in the provided facts, so RT stands alone in this registry. The facts do not list any paid products that RT replaces.

When to use it — and when not to

Self-hosters must operate a supported SQL database (MySQL 8.0.31+, MariaDB 10.6+, Postgres 13+, or Oracle 18c+), a webserver with FastCGI or mod_perl, and Perl 5.26.3 or later; SQLite is for testing only with no upgrade path guaranteed. The default install directory /opt/rt6 does not work under SELinux's default configuration, and testing without a TLS certificate requires setting $WebSecureCookies to 0 in etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm. Organizations unwilling to manage these dependencies, or those needing SQLite in production, should not pick RT.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

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Request Tracker (RT)

RT is an open source, enterprise-grade issue and ticket tracking system.
Explore RT docs »

Release Notes · Community Forum · Public Wiki · Blog · Hosting & Support

Latest release Build status

RT allows organizations to keep track of what needs to get done, who is working on which tasks, what's already been done, and when tasks were (or weren't) completed.

RT doesn't cost anything to use, no matter how much you use it; it is freely available under the terms of Version 2 of the GNU General Public License.

RT is commercially-supported software. To purchase hosting, support, training, custom development, or professional services, please get in touch with us at [email protected].

Screenshot of RT

REQUIRED PACKAGES

  • Perl 5.26.3 or later (http://www.perl.org).

    • RT won't start on versions of Perl older than 5.26.3.

  • A supported SQL database

    • MySQL 8.0.31 or later with InnoDB support
    • MariaDB 10.6 or later with InnoDB support
    • Postgres 13 or later
    • Oracle 18c or later
    • SQLite 3.0 or later (for testing only, no upgrade path guaranteed)

  • A webserver with FastCGI or mod_perl support

    RT's FastCGI handler needs to access RT's configuration file.

  • Various and sundry perl modules

    • A tool included with RT takes care of the installation of most of these automatically using Perl's CPAN (http://www.cpan.org). Some operating systems package all or some of the modules required, so that can be an easier way to get all of the dependencies installed. See our perl documentation for more tips.

OPTIONAL DEPENDENCIES

  • Full-text indexing support in your database

  • An external HTML converter

    • Installing an external utility to convert HTML can improve performance. See the C configuration option for details.

  • A TLS certificate for your web server

    • For production use, we recommend getting an SSL certificate for your web server. You can get them free from Let's Encrypt (https://letsencrypt.org/) or even create your own self-signed certificate.
    • If you are testing and want to run without a certificate, add this to your etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm file:
      Set( $WebSecureCookies, 0 );
    • Without this setting, your browser won't trust RT's cookies and you won't be able to log in. See etc/RT_Config.html#WebSecureCookies for more information.

GENERAL INSTALLATION

  1. Unpack this distribution other than where you want to install RT. Your home directory or /usr/local/src are both fine choices. Change to that directory and run the following command:

    tar xzvf rt.tar.gz

  2. Run the configure script. To see the list of options, run:

    ./configure --help

    Or review the options on our documentation page for configure.

    Then re-run ./configure with the flags you want.

    RT defaults to installing in /opt/rt6. It tries to guess which of www-data, www, apache or nobody your webserver will run as, but you can override that behavior. Note that the default install directory in /opt/rt6 does not work under SELinux's default configuration.

    The default database type (--with-db-type) is mysql, which means MySQL version 8 and later. Starting in RT 5.0.6, use mysql5 to run MySQL 5.7 or older, and use MariaDB to run with MariaDB.

    If you are upgrading from a previous version of RT, please review the upgrade notes for the appropriate versions, which can be found in docs/UPGRADING-*.

    If you are upgrading from 5.0.x to 6.0.x you should review both the UPGRADING-5.0 and UPGRADING-6.0 files.

    If you are upgrading from 4.4.x, you should review UPGRADING-4.4 as well.

    Any upgrade steps given in version-specific UPGRADING files should be run after the rest of the steps below; however, please read the relevant documentation before beginning the upgrade to be aware of important changes.

    RT stores the arguments given to ./configure at the top of the etc/RT_Config.pm file in case you need to recreate your previous use of ./configure.

  3. Make sure that RT has the Perl and system libraries it needs to run. Check for missing dependencies by running:

    make testdeps

  4. If the script reports any missing dependencies, install them by hand, or run the following command as a user who has permission to install perl modules on your system:

    make fixdeps

    Some modules require user input or environment variables to install correctly, so it may be necessary to install them manually. Some modules also require external source libraries, so you may need to install additional packages.

    Ticket relationship graphing requires the graphviz library which you should install using your distribution's package manager.

    Dashboard emails containing charts require a Chrome-based browser to be installed on the RT server. Most distributions have a package for "chromium".

    See docs/rt_perl.pod for additional information about installing perl and RT's dependencies.

  5. Check to make sure everything was installed properly.

    make testdeps

    It might sometimes be necessary to run "make fixdeps" several times to install all necessary perl modules.

6a. If you are installing RT for the first time

As a user with permission to install RT in your chosen directory, type:

make install

To configure RT with the web installer, run:

/opt/rt6/sbin/rt-server

and follow the instructions. Once completed, you should now have a working RT instance running with the standalone rt-server. Press Ctrl-C to stop it, and proceed to Step 7 to configure a recommended deployment environment for production.

To configure RT manually, you must setup etc/RT_SiteConfig.pm in your RT installation directory. You'll need to add any values you need to change from the defaults in etc/RT_Config.pm.

As a user with permission to read RT's configuration file, type:

make initialize-database

If the make fails, type:

make dropdb

and re-run make initialize-database.

6b. If you are upgrading from an older release of RT Before upgrading, always ensure that you have a complete current backup. If you don't have a current backup, upgrading your database could accidentally damage it and lose data, or worse.

If you are using MySQL, please read the instructions in docs/UPGRADING.mysql as well to ensure that you do not corrupt existing data.

  • Stop your webserver.
  • You may also wish to put incoming email into a h

readme truncated — read the full docs on github

Frequently asked questions

Is rt free to use?

rt is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does rt do?

Request Tracker, an enterprise-grade issue tracking system

What is rt written in?

rt is primarily written in Perl. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/bestpractical/rt, and it has 1,157 GitHub stars.