A shared inbox collapses the day two people reply to the same customer. A ticket system fixes that: every request gets a number, an owner and a full history. This guide installs the OTRS helpdesk on a Linux server and takes you to the moment the first real ticket lands in the right queue.
One honest note before the steps. The original OTRS Community Edition is no longer maintained - OTRS AG ended its support at the start of 2021, so it receives no security patches. The system itself lives on as Znuny, the community fork of the same code, run by the company of the OTRS creator and still releasing updates (the download page lists Znuny 7.3.8 and Znuny LTS 6.5.26, both from October 2026). Everything in this guide - queues, agents, mail, the web installer - is the shared OTRS way of working, and the video above shows the installation on screen. For a fresh install, follow the same steps with the current Znuny build.
OTRS and Znuny run on Linux - there is no Windows installer. You need a Linux server or VPS, the Apache web server, Perl, and a database: MariaDB or MySQL, with PostgreSQL also supported. A small VPS is honestly enough for a small team; this is a classic, light application, not a heavy platform. Give it a name your staff can remember, like a support subdomain, and keep the server clock and timezone correct - ticket times and mail fetching both depend on it.
Download from the official Znuny download page, never from a random mirror or an old OTRS 6 copy saved on some forum - that old code has had no security fixes since 2021. The download page publishes a checksum next to every release, and checking it takes ten seconds:
curl -LO https://download.znuny.org/releases/znuny-7.3.8.tar.gz and the matching .sha256 filesha256sum -c znuny-7.3.8.tar.gz.sha256 - it must say OK before you install anythingOn a RHEL-family server the base stack is one command class - sudo dnf install -y httpd mariadb-server - then sudo systemctl enable --now httpd mariadb so both start now and at every boot. Create an empty database for the helpdesk, for example CREATE DATABASE otrs DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8; - the manual is strict that the database encoding must be utf8. Two database settings from the official manual are worth adding before you install, because big email attachments will hit them later:
max_allowed_packet = 64M in the database server configurationinnodb_log_file_size = 256M for MariaDB and MySQL setupsThe installer is a browser wizard at http://your-server/otrs/installer.pl - replace the address with your own server name. It checks the system, connects to the database you created, and sets up the first administrator account, root@localhost. When it finishes, two background pieces must be started as the otrs user, or mail will never be fetched and automatic jobs will never run:
sudo -u otrs /opt/otrs/bin/otrs.Daemon.pl start/opt/otrs/bin/Cron.sh start as the otrs userDo not stop at an empty dashboard - an installed system is not a working helpdesk yet. Finish these five things in the same sitting:
The full OTRS helpdesk installation with every screen shown live - server, database, installer and first login.
▶ Watch Full VideoThe community code is free and open source under the GPL. The original OTRS Community Edition is no longer maintained by OTRS AG, so a new installation should use Znuny, the maintained fork of the same code, which is also free. OTRS AG sells a separate commercial product for organisations that want a vendor support contract.
No. OTRS and Znuny run on Linux with Apache, Perl and MariaDB, MySQL or PostgreSQL. If your only machine runs Windows, install it inside a Linux virtual machine or use a small Linux VPS - the application itself is light.
It is the built-in administrator account the web installer creates. Log in with it first, set a strong password, create your own named agent account with admin rights, and keep root@localhost for emergencies instead of daily work.