Help Desk Software for Linux?

rockville asks: "I'm starting a help desk for a small company that uses a lot of Linux workstations and servers. I'm looking for some software that we can use to enter calls, track bugs, etc. All of the help desk packages I've looked at so far can handle Linux clients, but none run on a Linux server. Does anyone know of a vendor that does this? (The type of database doesn't matter: proprietary, MySQL, whatever) " I don't know of such animals, however would something like this be all that difficult to code?

what about GNATS?

[ksheff]

I used GNATS a few years ago on some Unix boxes for bug reporting and help desk-like work. It did the job better than the windows based help desk software that we paid for, but the unix folks found lacking (gotta love free software). At the time it had a Tcl/Tk gui interface, but it also apparently has a www interface too. Check out http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~dank/gn ats.html [caltech.edu] for some GNATS resources. According to that page, the FSF, FreeBSD, and Apache projects use it.

How about...

[rbf]

Searching Freshmeat [freshmeat.net] for this? I just did and here is what I found:
http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/10/03/93897 2901.html
http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/08/21/93526 0021.html
http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/1998/01/31/88628 8615.html
http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/10/12/93976 0444.html
http://www.freshmeat.net/appindex/1998/08/12/90294 2850.html

That's just what I found on the first page... I would imagine it wouldn't be too hard to combine parts of each of these to produce something to fit your exact needs.

rbf using Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 with Linux 2.2.13.


LONG LIVE ALPHA!!!

So Many Option, Perl, Bugzilla, Commercial

[bueller]

There are a number of options depending on the effort you want to expend.

On the free side, definately look at Bugzilla, from Mozilla.org [mozilla.org]. In many respects defect tracking and help desk is very similiar, so a customised Bugzilla could do the trick.

You could code your own Helpdesk software, which is what Australian ISP connect.com.au [connect.com.au] have done, using perl.

If you are a glutton for punishment and seeking mega kudos, then perhaps try getting the NCR (AT&T) MP-RAS version of Remedy [remedy.com] to work. I assume you would need to do something similar to what happened with the SCO version of Oracle on Linux before Oracle did a Linux port

Helpdesk Software

[x00]

When I was looking for an app to do this a while back I found Helpdesk 5.1 [freeserve.co.uk] from Jeremy Robst. It is web based and uses Perl, Apache and an SQL server.

Looked to be quite good from what I read, although I never actually got to use it. Hope its of use to you.

Keystone

[Malachi]

We are currently using Keystone, its not quite a finished product, but it gets the job done for us. I am sure it was in the freshmeat post around here, but you can find it at www.stonekeep.com [stonekeep.com]. Some interoffice people are working on a JAVA trouble-ticket-project-management solution which will be contributed to open source once it gets to early stability.

However, till that glorious day, I recommend Keystone, uses mysql or postgres or oracle, has a tree structure, dependents, parents, schedules, item tracking, views/filters, none of this is at a high polish but like I've said, it works, and there aren't many I know that beat it right now.

-Malachi-