This project documents a hands-on osTicket help desk lab built in a Windows domain environment.
The goal was to simulate how support teams handle tickets from creation to closure while working with Active Directory, domain-joined endpoints, user permissions, SLAs, departments, and ticket escalation.
This lab shows how a help desk workflow operates in a structured IT environment and how different roles interact with the same ticket from end user to resolution.
Complete VirtualBox setup and osTicket pre-installation before continuing.
- osTicket Help Desk Deployment with Virtualbox — Part 1 (System Installation)
- osTicket Help Desk Deployment with Virtualbox— Part 2 (Post Installation Set-Up)
In this lab, I practiced how to:
- Deploy and configure a new Windows 10 virtual machine
- Use osTicket as both an end user and a help desk agent
- Review and update ticket properties such as:
- Priority
- Department
- SLA
- Assigned technician
- Escalate tickets when access or department scope changes
- Resolve and close tickets while tracking the full ticket history
- Windows Server 2019 Domain Controller
- Windows 10 Enterprise virtual machines
- osTicket
- Active Directory Users and Computers
- VirtualBox
- Admin / Analyst Login:
http://DC-2019/osTicket/scp/login.php - End User Portal:
http://DC-2019/osTicket
I started by powering on the domain controller to provide services to the other domain VM's and signing into the help desk workstation.
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The Domain Controller must remain online because it provides DNS resolution and hosts the IIS web server running osTicket, making it essential for both name resolution and application access.
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When the Domain Controller is offline, clients cannot resolve the hostname via DNS, and the web service hosting osTicket is also unavailable. As a result, the application becomes completely inaccessible.
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For example accessing the URL's:
- Admin / Analyst Login:`http://DC-2019/osTicket/scp/login.php` - End User Portal:`http://DC-2019/osTicket`
Turned on Desktop1 windows machine with helpdesk1 credentials.
- Desktop1 will be used by administrators such as John Doe and Jane Doe.
- Helpdesk1 credentials will be used by John Doe and Jane Doe.
From there, I accessed the osTicket Login: http://DC-2019/osTicket/scp/login.php
adjusted the department structure by making SysAdmins a top-level department and deleting the Maintenance department.
- Desktop2 Computer will be used by Karen Valerio and Ken Valerio.
- Karen Valerio and Ken Valerio have their own crendetials respectively.
- For the first Ticket ill sign in with Karens crendentials and the second Ticket ill sign in as Ken Valerio.
Sign into Desktop2 using Karen’s domain account.
- From there, I accessed the osTicket end-user portal to submit tickets as if I were a real employee needing support.
As Karen, I created a ticket reporting a banking outage.
As a help desk agent, I reviewed the ticket and checked:
John Logs in to osTicket Make sure you log in with Desktop1 with helpdesk1 credentials.
John responds to the ticket
At first, the agent account did not have permission to fully manage the ticket.
I logged in as an administrator and updated the agent’s access so the ticket could be worked correctly.
Now that john has access he needs to change somethings around that Karen failed to input. John then updated the ticket with:
- Priority
Jane reviewed the full ticket history
Jane responded,
resolved the issue
and closed the ticket.
Signin to KenV through Windows with AD Credentials
As a help desk agent John sees the tiocket and replies to the end user.
reviewed the same key ticket properties and then updated the ticket with:
- SLA: Sev-B (4 hours, 24/7)
- Department: Support
The ticket was then worked through to completion from the agent side.
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Closed the ticket
One of the biggest things I practiced in this lab was how permissions affect ticket visibility and control.
I tested ticket access by:
- Assigning tickets to SysAdmins
- Observing how they became inaccessible from certain views
- Switching to the admin panel to grant the proper view access
- Returning to the agent panel to confirm what could and could not be modified
This helped show how role-based access affects ticket handling inside a real support platform.
This project highlights skills that are useful in help desk, desktop support, and junior system administration roles:
- Active Directory user creation
- Domain join process
- Workstation setup in a lab environment
- Ticket triage
- SLA assignment
- Department-based routing
- Permission troubleshooting
- Escalation workflow
- End-user communication
- Ticket resolution and closure
A key lesson from this lab is that tickets can come from many places in a real environment, including:
- Web portals
- Phone calls
- Chat tools
- In-person requests
Even if an issue is handled quickly, it should still be documented in the ticketing system.
That creates accountability, improves reporting, and helps track support metrics over time.
Also, most ticketing platforms include email notifications, which means users are updated whenever a ticket changes and can continue the conversation through the system.
I created this project to strengthen my understanding of:
- IT support workflows
- User and device management
- Ticket lifecycle management
- Escalation and access control
- How enterprise support environments operate
This lab helped me connect technical administration tasks with the day-to-day work of a help desk team.
This README was built from my lab documentation, which included:
- osTicket login URLs
- Active Directory user creation
- VirtualBox workstation setup
- Domain join steps
- Ticket creation scenarios
- Agent access updates
- SLA and department assignment
- Ticket escalation and closure