[otrs] Let's start from the beginning

[Chris Day]

Ok, let me first say I WANT OTRS!  This is the best thing since sliced bread (really!) when it comes to online CRMs (especially FREE ones!).   I'm still kinda figuring out the capabilities of my hosted service.  I'm hoping that OTRS will run in our environment.   Webserver: Apache 1.3.26 (Unix) Operating System: FreeBSD 3.4-RELEASE Complier: GCC 2.7.2.3 Database: MySQL 3.23.32-log Perl 5.00503 PHP 4.2.2 PHP3 3.0.18 Sendmail 8.9.3   I also found out that I'm allowed one cron task, which will run at 3am every night and must be called crontask.cgi.  What that means, I don't know, but I found it out anyway.   I also do NOT have telnet or shell access.  I use FTP for file managing, a PHP admin script for managing databases, and a text editor as well as using FrontPage for the site management, etc.   So, that gets me stuck on step one (create user) of the installation (haha).       shell> useradd -d /opt/OpenTRS/ otrs     shell> cd /opt/     shell> tar -xzvf otrs-xxxx-xx.tar.gz     shell> chown -r /opt/OpenTRS/* otrs   Ok I understand that if I had the access, I'd pass those commands to the server.  But can someone explain what exactly that does so that I can figure out the equivelant to getting it done.   Is this setting up a mailbox?  So I just need to create a [EMAIL PROTECTED]?  Or if I want it to be [EMAIL PROTECTED], is that gonna affect any files that maybe looking for "otrs"?   Also, file structure - cgi files are enabled only in /cgi-bin.  So I'm assuming I should extract the entire tar file into the /cgi-bin folder.  It's the only place where scripts, etc. can be executed.  Should that cause any problems with the program?  I noticed that you have "/opt/OpenTRS" but for me I think it would need to be "/cgi-bin/OpenTRS" and what affect will that have?   Note: Since I don't have telnet/shell access, I used WinZip to extract the files into a temp folder and then FTP'd them to their places.  The bug was that when it aborts the extract because there is an "install" folder and an "INSTALL" file.  Just thought you'd like to know.  The only way around it is to extract everything except the INSTALL file since that's just a readme anyway.   I did manage to setup the database just fine and completed the initial insert, but I TOTALLY get lost with the webserver steps.  What exactly needs to be done (in non-programmer language).  I am on a hosted server and can't modify the actual server itself.  But I can set up user access to certain directories with an .htaccess file.  Is this the same thing, and what would I need to do?   Ok, I think that's enough questions for now, but there are plenty more to come :)  If anyone is up for the challenge and wanted to help over AIM, I'd greatly appreciate your time.  We're a non-profit receiving a LOT of emails and really need this system to be more efficient.   Best Regards, Chris Day