email cron config - API error - code #77

Chris Ellis

This is my second attempt at installing osTicket. I gave up on the first attempt earlier this year as I could not get the inbound email configured.

I have had better luck this time around. Inbound email is working on Autocron.

When I try to use the cron tab method, the job fails and produces an error message:

Unknown remote host or invalid API key

There is no documentation on configuring the API key and a dearth of solutions in the forum.

Is it possible to have some clear guide as to how this feature is configured or is it intended that we purchase support to have it solved?

Thanks and cheers!

peter

Is it possible to have some clear guide as to how this feature is configured or is it intended that we purchase support to have it solved?
Thanks and cheers

Please don't attribute lack of know how to commercial support conspiracy. We try hard to make sure osTicket is easy to install, setup and use compared to the competition.:

API key is only required for remote piping which has nothing to do with cron job. You need to cron the system path not the url. If I'm not mistaken we have instructions on how to setup cron here http://osticket.com/wiki/POP3/IMAP_Settings(http://osticket.com/wiki/POP3/IMAP_Settings)

Chris Ellis

Thanks for the prompt reply Peter. I would like to think that it is not a lack of know how. I've lost count of how many CMS web setups I've done at my school and as a freelancer.

I spent most of yesterday working through the configuration of osTicket and I've followed the email instructions as carefully as I can.

So my cron command is

php /var/www/osticket/api/cron.php

When I run it, it throws the API #77 error

peter

Chris - I wasn't question your experience but rather reacting to you assertion that we made a feature hard on purpose.

The API error you are getting is not suppose to happen when cron.php is executed locally via cron or command line. Is 10.139.92.26 the IP of the localhost? The script (api.inc.php) checks $_SERVER and $_SERVER to determine if the call is local or remote.

Chris Ellis

Sorry Peter - it was a cheap shot fueled by frustration. The app is great and suits our needs really well - simple to use.

10.139.92.26 is the local web host. Our school mail accounts are with netspace. I use exim as an MTA which is configured to relay through netspace mailserver via smtp with and authenticated account.

Everything else is working fine - including auto cron, but it would be nice to receive and autorespond to incoming emails every 5 minutes.

peter

The issue is the first for me...as I mentioned the local execution shouldn't trigger API error.

Replace your api/cron.php with the attached file and you should be good to go!

Thanks,

[cron.php.zip](https://forum.osticket.com/assets/files/migrated/9/ad7148bae5440477f839485c4f89d73.zip)

Chris Ellis

Thanks Peter - getting warm!

The web server is now able to run the cron job on schedule, but email fetch is not happening.

The only output from the cron job is "EX_CONFIG".

Hope that helps!

peter

Add define('EX_CONFIG', 78); at the top of the file.

Are you sure you uploaded the file to api directory? The reason I'm asking is because you shouldn't be getting the above error code unless main.inc.php fails to load.

Chris Ellis

I deleted the original and uploaded to /var/www/osticket/api

code now looks like this:

define('EX_CONFIG', 78);

if(!file_exists('../main.inc.php')) exit(EX_CONFIG);

require_once('../main.inc.php');

if(!defined('INCLUDE_DIR')) exit(EX_CONFIG);

require_once(INCLUDE_DIR.'class.cron.php');

Cron:();

Sys:(LOG_DEBUG,'Cron Job','External cron job executed ['.$_SERVER');

Cron job runs and returns 'No output generated'.

I'll try a few test tickets 5 minutes apart and see if it works.

Chris Ellis

No, still no luck.

Chris Ellis

Is ti possible to just run class.mailfetch.php as a cron job?

SpikeBoy

Try this

<?php

/*********************************************************************

cron.php

File to handle cron job calls (local and remote).

Peter Rotich <peter@osticket.com>

http://www.osticket.com

Released under the GNU General Public License WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY.

See LICENSE.TXT for details.

vim: expandtab sw=4 ts=4 sts=4:

$Id: $

**********************************************************************/

<USERMENTION username="chdir">@chdir</USERMENTION>(realpath(dirname(__FILE__)).'/'); //Change dir.

if(!file_exists('../main.inc.php')) exit(EX_CONFIG);

require_once('../main.inc.php');

if(!defined('INCLUDE_DIR')) exit(EX_CONFIG);

require_once(INCLUDE_DIR.'class.cron.php');

Cron:();

Sys:(LOG_DEBUG,'Cron Job','External cron job executed ['.$_SERVER');

?>

It's the "@chdir" line that should make the difference ;-)

-Jon

Chris Ellis

Thanks Jon,

I tried that - job execution showing up in sys log - but still no email fetching.

SpikeBoy

How about this?

Did you add "extension=imap.so" to php.ini and make sure that your call to php in the crontab is reading that php.ini? I had trouble with it in the command line because I use a shared server so when I access "/scp/admin.php" with a web browser php is called using the php.ini in my home directory, but when I run php from the command line it doesn't know about it so I had to add "-c ~" to the command.

Try typing in "php --ini" or "php5 --ini" into the command line (I like to specify php5 in the command line) and if it doesn't list your php.ini then you have to use "-c /path/to/php.ini" to specify it. "man php5" in the command line for more details.

-Jon

Chris Ellis

Yeah - checked and tweaked all that.

The new cron.php file has changed what is happening in the system.

I am now receiving these error messages:

Admin,

The system is having trouble fetching emails from the following POP account:

User: support@myschoolsupportsite.com

Host: pop.myipservice.net.au

Error: Too many login failures

So at least the cron job is hitting the pop server which it hadn't done before.

The emails from the same account are being auto-fetched without problem.

Is there some difference in the way the cronjob activated fetch is passing account credentials that could cause this problem?

Thanks again.

SpikeBoy

Are you using the exact same username with the proper capitalization? my web host requires the user name to be the full email address. Something else you could try that should reset the login failures is to change the account password to something different. You can even change it back to what it was but by changing the password it should let you log in again. That's something else that happened to me. Make sure you can connect with a regular email client though.

-Jon

Chris Ellis

The email address is fine - I can login through a webmail client, and the autocron fetch uses the same account without issue.

SpikeBoy

I guess I'm out of ideas. Sorry :-\

Chris Ellis

Thanks Jon - a great effort and I really appreciate it. I was getting excited there for a while :-)

But at least you've progressed the situation where osticket is at least trying to fetch email via a cron job.

I just tried the account using Mac Mail - it's also working.

closetgenius

I found that on ubuntu (8) php-cli uses a different php.ini than apache:

/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

/etc/php5/cli/php.ini

I adjusted my cron as follows:

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php -c /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini /var/www/funkuniversitysupport/html/api/cron.php

solved my problem