Request Tracker with Docker

This is a complete setup for Request Tracker with docker and docker compose. The production setup assumes you have an external postgres database and an external SMTP server for outgoing emails. A local database server is only started in the dev configuration.

The prebuilt image is available from https://hub.docker.com/r/firefart/requesttracker. The image is rebuilt on a daily basis.

The Request Tracker for Incident Response (RT-IR) Extension is also installed.

Prerequisites

• Docker with the compose plugin
• an external SMTP server to send emails
• an external IMAP server to receive emails from
• an external Postgres database

Instruction

To start use either ./dev.sh which builds the images locally or ./prod.sh which uses the prebuilt ones from docker hub. Before running this you also need to add the required configuration files (see Configuration).

Configuration

The following configuration files need to be present before starting:

• RT_SiteConfig.pm : RTs main configuration file. This needs to be present in the root of the dir. See RT_SiteConfig.pm.example for an example configration and the needed paths and settings for this configuration.
• Caddyfile: The webserver config. See Caddyfile.example for an example.
• ./msmtp/msmtp.conf : config for msmtp (outgoing email). See msmtp.conf.example for an example. The ./msmtp folder is also mounted to /msmtp/ in the container so you can load certificates from the config file.
• crontab : Crontab file that will be run as the RT user. See contab.example for an example. Crontab output will be sent to the MAILTO address (it uses the msmtp config).
• ./getmail/getmailrc: This file configures your E-Mail fetching. See getmailrc.example for an example. getmail configuration docs are available under https://getmail6.org/configuration.html. The configuration options for rt-mailgate which is used to store the emails in request tracker can be viewed under https://docs.bestpractical.com/rt/5.0.7/rt-mailgate.html.

Additional configs:

• ./certs/: This folder should contain all optional certificates needed for caddy
• ./gpg/ : This folder should contain the gpg keyring if used in rt. Be sure to chmod the files to user 1000 with 0600 so RT will not complain.
• ./smime/ : This folder should contain the SMIME certificate if configured in RT
• ./shredder/ : This directory will be used by the shredder functionality https://docs.bestpractical.com/rt/latest/RT/Shredder.html so the backups are stored on the host

For output of your crontabs you can use the /cron directory so the output will be available on the host.

In the default configuration all output from RT, caddy, getmail and msmtp is available via docker logs (or docker compose -f ... logs).

Webserver

The setup uses Caddy as a webserver. You can find an example configuration in Caddyfile.example. Caddy provides features like auto https with lets encrypt and more stuff that makes it easy to set up. You can find the Caddy documentation here https://caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile.

Feel free to modify the config to your needs like auto https, certificate based authentication, basic authentication and so on. Just be sure the mailgateway host under port :8080 is untouched and the main host contains a block for the unauth API path, otherwise everyone with access to your RT instance can create emails without the need to log in first.

Create Certificate

If you don't want to use the auto https feature (for example in dev) you can provide your own certificates.

Create a self signed certificate:

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout ./certs/priv.pem -out ./certs/pub.pem -days 3650 -nodes

Example Caddy Configurations

Caddy on a domain with lets encrypt certificates

{
  admin off
}

# healthchecks
:1337 {
  respond "OK" 200
}

# mailgate
:8080 {
  log
  reverse_proxy rt:9000 {
    transport fastcgi
  }
}

# request tracker
:443 {
  log
  tls [email protected]

  # Block access to the unauth mail gateway endpoint
  # we have a seperate mailgate server for that
  @blocked path /REST/1.0/NoAuth/mail-gateway
  respond @blocked "Nope" 403

  reverse_proxy rt:9000 {
    transport fastcgi
  }
}

Caddy behind a reverse proxy server with a self signed certificate

pub.pem and priv.pem need to be inside the ./certs folder and will be mounted automatically.

{
  admin off
  auto_https off

  servers {
    trusted_proxies static 10.0.0.0/22
    client_ip_headers X-Orig-Addr
    trusted_proxies_strict
  }
}

# healthchecks
:1337 {
  respond "OK" 200
}

# mailgate
:8080 {
  log
  reverse_proxy rt:9000 {
    transport fastcgi
  }
}

# request tracker
:443 {
  log

  tls /certs/pub.pem /certs/priv.pem

  # Block access to the unauth mail gateway endpoint
  # we have a seperate mailgate server for that
  @blocked path /REST/1.0/NoAuth/mail-gateway
  respond @blocked "Nope" 403

  reverse_proxy rt:9000 {
    transport fastcgi {
      env SERVER_NAME {http.request.header.X-Orig-HostHeader}
    }
  }
}

Caddy behind a reverse proxy server with a self signed certificate and client certificate validation

pub.pem, priv.pem and root-ca.pem need to be inside the ./certs folder and will be mounted automatically.

{
  admin off
  auto_https off

  servers {
    trusted_proxies static 10.0.0.0/22
    client_ip_headers X-Orig-Addr
    trusted_proxies_strict
  }
}

# healthchecks
:1337 {
  respond "OK" 200
}

# mailgate
:8080 {
  log
  reverse_proxy rt:9000 {
    transport fastcgi
  }
}

# request tracker
:443 {
  log

  tls /certs/pub.pem /certs/priv.pem {
    protocols tls1.3
    client_auth {
      mode require_and_verify
      trust_pool file /certs/root-ca.pem
    }
  }

  # Block access to the unauth mail gateway endpoint
  # we have a seperate mailgate server for that
  @blocked path /REST/1.0/NoAuth/mail-gateway
  respond @blocked "Nope" 403

  reverse_proxy rt:9000 {
    transport fastcgi {
      env SERVER_NAME {http.request.header.X-Orig-HostHeader}
    }
  }
}

Caddy behind a reverse proxy server with a self signed certificate and client certificate validation with subject validation

pub.pem, priv.pem and root-ca.pem need to be inside the ./certs folder and will be mounted automatically.

{
  admin off
  auto_https off

  servers {
    trusted_proxies static 10.0.0.0/22
    client_ip_headers X-Orig-Addr
    trusted_proxies_strict
  }
}

# healthchecks
:1337 {
  respond "OK" 200
}

# mailgate
:8080 {
  log
  reverse_proxy rt:9000 {
    transport fastcgi
  }
}

# request tracker
:443 {
  @cert-auth {
    expression {http.request.tls.client.subject} == "CN=Subject,OU=example,O=com,C=xxx"
  }

  log

  tls /certs/pub.pem /certs/priv.pem {
    protocols tls1.3
    client_auth {
      mode require_and_verify
      trust_pool file /certs/root-ca.pem
    }
  }

  # block everything that is not from a trusted ip range
  @blocked_trusted not remote_ip 10.0.0.0/22
  respond @blocked_trusted "Nope" 403

  # Block access to the unauth mail gateway endpoint
  # we have a seperate mailgate server for that
  @blocked path /REST/1.0/NoAuth/mail-gateway
  respond @blocked "Nope" 403

  reverse_proxy @cert-auth rt:9000 {
    transport fastcgi {
      env SERVER_NAME {http.request.header.X-Orig-HostHeader}
    }
  }
}

Caddy behind a reverse proxy server with a self signed certificate and client certificate validation with subject validation and on a subpath

pub.pem, priv.pem and root-ca.pem need to be inside the ./certs folder and will be mounted automatically. The reverse proxy needs to point to servername/rt otherwise you will end up with wrong paths in the cookies which will lead to file uploads not working correctly. We will also set the REMOTE_USER to a custom header sent from the upstream proxy.

{
  admin off
  auto_https off

  servers {
    trusted_proxies static 10.0.0.0/22
    client_ip_headers X-Orig-Addr
    trusted_proxies_strict
  }
}

# healthchecks
:1337 {
  respond "OK" 200
}

# mailgate
:8080 {
  log
  reverse_proxy rt:9000 {
    transport fastcgi
  }
}

# request tracker
:443 {
  @cert-auth {
    expression {http.request.tls.client.subject} == "CN=Subject,OU=example,O=com,C=xxx"
  }

  log
  tls /certs/pub.pem /certs/priv.pem {
    protocols tls1.3
    client_auth {
      mode require_and_verify
      trust_pool file /certs/root-ca.pem
    }
  }

  # block everything that is not from a trusted ip range
  @blocked_trusted not remote_ip 10.0.0.0/22
  respond @blocked_trusted "Nope" 403

  handle_path /rt/* {
    # Block access to the unauth mail gateway endpoint
    # we have a seperate mailgate server for that
    @blocked path /REST/1.0/NoAuth/mail-gateway
    respond @blocked "Nope" 403

    reverse_proxy @cert-auth rt:9000 {
      transport fastcgi {
        env REMOTE_USER {http.request.header.X-Auth-Username}
        env SERVER_NAME {http.request.header.X-Orig-HostHeader}
        env REQUEST_URI {uri}
      }
    }
  }
}

Init database

This initializes a fresh database. This is needed on the first run.

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml run --rm rt bash -c 'cd /opt/rt5 && perl ./sbin/rt-setup-database --action init'

You need to restart the rt service after this step as it crashes if the database is not initialized.

DEV

Hint: Add --skip-create in dev as the database is created by docker

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml run --rm rt bash -c 'cd /opt/rt5 && perl ./sbin/rt-setup-database --action init --skip-create'

Upgrade steps

Upgrade Database

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml run --rm rt bash -c 'cd /opt/rt5 && perl ./sbin/rt-setup-database --action upgrade --upgrade-from 4.4.4'

Fix data inconsistencies

Run multiple times with the --resolve switch until no errors occur

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml run --rm rt bash -c 'cd /opt/rt5 && perl ./sbin/rt-validator --check --resolve'

RT-IR

You can simply enable RT-IR in your RT_SiteConfig.pm by including Plugin('RT::IR');. Please refer to the docs for additional install or upgrade steps.

To initialize the database (ONLY ON THE FIRST RUN!!!! and only after rt is fully set up)

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml run --rm rt bash -c 'cd /opt/rt5 && perl ./sbin/rt-setup-database --action insert --skip-create --datafile /opt/rtir/initialdata'

To upgrade

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml run --rm rt bash -c 'cd /opt/rt5 && perl ./sbin/rt-setup-database --action upgrade --skip-create --datadir /opt/rtir/upgrade --package RT::IR --ext-version 5.0.4'

Restart docker setup after all steps to fully load RT-IR (just run ./restart_prod.sh).

Deprecated features

• NGINX: The old setup used nginx for the webserver. If you want to upgrade you need to migrate your nginx config to a Caddy config. See the example Caddy Configuration section for some ideas.
• compose profiles: Previously there were compose profile to also include dozzle for viewing logs and pgadmin to interact with the database. Both tools are now removed and pgadmin is only available in dev mode. If you still need pgadmin you can easily spin it up using docker compose.