Completing the iTop installation

cron.php - overview

In order to operate properly, iTop maintenance operations and asynchronous tasks must be executed on a regular basis. In order to ease the installation, all the background tasks have been grouped to be launched from a single file: webservices/cron.php

The following features require the activation of cron.php

• Asynchronous emails. By default, this option is disabled. To enable it, set 'email_asynchronous' to 1 in the configuration file
• Check ticket SLA. Tickets reaching the limits will be passed into Escalation TTO/TTR states

For more information about cron.php, check the Wiki

Scheduling cron.php on Windows

1. Edit the file <itop root>/webservices/cron.params to set the credentials used for cronified tasks (requires administator privileges)
2. Edit the file <itop root>/webservices/cron.cmd, and set the relevant path for your installation of PHP. If you care about security, it is recommended to change also the path to the parameters file <itop root>/webservices/cron.params and move this file to a place where its content is not served by the web server.
3. Schedule the execution of cron.cmd:

   schtasks.exe /create /tn "iTop CRON" /sc minute /mo 1 /tr "\"<itop root>/webservices/cron.cmd\""

Scheduling cron.php on Linux/Unix

1. Edit the file <itop root>/webservices/cron.params to set the credentials used for cronified tasks (requires administator privileges)
2. If you care about security: move the file <itop root>/webservices/cron.params into a directory not in the scope of the web server (Apache), and make it be readable only by the account that will execute the cron
3. Edit the crontab and add the following line:

   * * * * * /usr/bin/php <itop root>/webservices/cron.php --param_file=<itop root>/webservices/cron.params

iTop Modules

Configuration Management

This module allows IT operators to document all items they have under their control, it implements a CMDB following the ITIL best practices. The module provides a logical model of the IT infrastructure by identifying, controlling, maintaining and verifying the version of all existing Configuration Items (CIs). Relationships between CIs are also documented in the Configuration Management module, so that IT engineers can easily analyze dependencies within the infrastructure and understand the impact due to incidents or changes.

Out of the box, iTop 1.0 allows you to manage:

• Persons and Teams
• Locations
• Business Processes
• Application Solutions for documenting the architecture of complex entreprise-grade applications
• Infrastructure and devices: PCs, Servers, Network Devices, Printers, Network Interfaces, Applications, Databases, Patches, Mobile Phones
• Groups of CI
• Documents (files, Web links, notes)

With iTop you can document your whole IT environment and who is responsible for managing what.

Any modification made on a CI is tracked with the modification date, the modified attributes values (previous and new), and the user who made the modification.

This module is the base for all other iTop modules and is automatically installed with iTop

Service Management

This module allows you to define and maintain the Services provided by your organization, the contracts with your customers and providers and the available Service Levels for each of Service.

Using this module, you can document:

• Your IT service catalog, the corresponding Service Level Agreements (SLAs), based on Service Level Targets (SLTs, i.e. tickets response times)
• The contracts with your third party suppliers (Provider Contracts)
• Your customer contracts, which services you provide to them and the corresponding SLAs.

For each type of contract you can document the costs, relate the contract to specific contacts (persons or teams), infrastructures and link it to any document.

Request Management / Help Desk

The Help desk module enables you to track all the requests submitted by end users. Each user request ticket can then be assigned to a team which is responsible for making sure the request is properly handled.

This module uses iTop's email notification system in order to inform the contacts (callers, agents...) during the processing of each user request. A end user portal is available to enable end-users to create service requests by themselves, follow their status and provide feedbacks upon completion of each request.

This module depends on the Service Management Module in order to link user requests with the service catalog, define and enforce Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Incident Management

This module manages Incident tickets, created in response to incidents occurring on the infrastructure, as described in the ITIL best practices. The Service Levels Agreements (SLAs) for the tickets are defined in the Service Management Module.

Incident tickets can be linked to CIs (see Configuration Management) and contacts. This module uses iTop's email notification system in order to inform the agents when a new incident is created, assigned or escalated.

See also: Known Error Database module, Problem Management module.

Change Management

The change management module allows you to track the changes occurring to your IT environment, plan them, analyze their impact and minimize their disruption. iTop defines several profiles following the recommended ITIL roles for implementing a change management process: change manager, change supervisor and change implementer. Out of the box, iTop 1.0 offers 3 types of changes: Routine Changes, Normal Changes and Emergency Changes, each with their own specific life-cycle.

Problem Management

The primary objectives of Problem Management are to prevent problems and resulting incidents from happening, to eliminate recurring incidents and to minimize the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented.

Use this module to track recurring issues and link many Incidents to one single Problem ticket.

Best uses with the Known Errors Database

Known Errors Database

Along with the Problem Management module, use the Known Errors Database module to document the solution to recurring issues, track workarounds, investigate root causes and link together all the potentially impacted CIs, in order to speed-up the resolution of future Incidents.