From osTicket Wiki
POP3/IMAP
If email piping is not a preferred option for you or if your hosting provider does not support it, you may use pop3/imap account polling instead. osTicket will poll an external POP3/IMAP account on a regular basis, retrieve email messages and convert them to tickets. It is best suited for individuals with remote mail account(s) and/or limited access to mail delivery settings.
- Enable mail fetch in
Admin Panel => Settings => Email Settings - Refer to your hosting manual or contact your hosting provider for host name and port number
- Configure fetch frequency for each of the accounts - 5 minutes recommended
- Enable Delete fetched message(s) - if your mail server doesn't support auto-archiving on fetch
Schedule polling
Account polling, unlike email piping, requires that we schedule mail fetcher (script) for a repeated execution. Choose one of the methods below depending on your hosting environment.
Recurring tasks scheduler (Cron Job)
This is the most convenient method if your hosting provider allows scheduling recurring tasks via crontab on *nix or "Scheduled Tasks" on a Windows server. Please refer to your hosting manual or contact your hosting provider for instructions.
Add the following entry to cron file normally in /etc/crontab in *nix systems and adjust the time and paths accordingly
*/5 * * * * nobody /path/to/php /path/to/api/cron.php
For windows users in "Scheduled Tasks" add "c:\php\bin\php.exe c:\website\osticket\api\cron.php"
Auto cron
This is internal task manager triggered by staff's activity, no external setup required! If enabled, emails are fetched based on staff activity at an interval set for each of the email accounts.
- Enable in
Admin Panel => Settings => General Settings - Please note that nothing happens if no one is logged in.
- It might slow the page load a little in some instances.
- Maximum of one cron call every 3 minutes per staff