Request Tracker

SoCS hosts a Request Tracker server which is available at “help.socs.uoguelph.ca”. Request Tracking is an open-source ticketing software that is used to manage IT related requests from staff, faculty, and students.

Clients can submit IT requests through email to “help@socs.uoguelph.ca” which will automatically create a ticket within Request Tracker and send an email to all IT Analysts (currently Shamsi and Kyle).

There are no default rules on how tickets are administered on Request Tracker, it is just used to easily track and retrieve information from ongoing and old tickets. Replying to tickets is done primarily through email by replying to the notification email from Request Tracker. This automatically updates the ticket and sends the response to the client. The formatting of the email is not always preserved when communicating with the client this way but attachments and screenshots are.

Tickets that are 2+ weeks old with no response from the client are considered resolved. Closing a ticket does not send a notification email to the client (to avoid reopening the ticket). There are some reporting tools on Request Tracker that are occasionally used.

All configuration for RT is stored in the /etc/request-tracker-5/RTSiteConfig.d/ folder.

Authentication is done though the campus LDAP, directory.uoguelph.ca allowing any campus member the ability to submit a ticket. This is configured in 70-external-auth.pm.

To allow searching of attachments and ticket content the 50-search.pm file is used to allow full indexing. See more details in the RT Docs.

Incoming mail is first routed to the SoCS Mail server (mail.socs.uoguelph.ca). The rt-mailgate (installed via the rt-clients package) is used to automatically forward any incoming mail to the RT server. This is configured via the /etc/aliases file. After a configuration change is made, the newaliases command must be run to update the alias database. Detailed mail routing is as follows.

• Mail is sent to help@socs.uoguelph.ca
• The /etc/aliases file automatically forwards this to the local sysadmin user
• Sieve is used to process the mail. /var/lib/dovecot/sieve/default.sieve is used to configure this. Must be recompiled on modification.
• Mail from an @uoguelph.ca address is forwarded normally. Mail from an @socs.uoguelph.ca is sent to kjohns23@uoguelph.ca. Other mail is left in the sysadmin mailbox.
• Mail that is forwarded to the RT server goes via help-reply@socs.uoguelph.ca (also listed in the aliases).

This configuration is set up as users not in the campus LDAP do not have an account and will automatically have their incoming mail rejected. This ensures that any mail from an on-campus address gets to an IT admin while external mail is ignored.