Sun, 30 May 2010
/SW/business/Redmine:
Installing Redmine on Debian Linux
I have found Redmine to be extremely sensitive to the Ruby environment, often requiring that librairies be of exactly a certain
version (not older, not newer). Configuration documentation is not sufficiently detailed. And error and diagnostic information is
extremely difficult to obtain in a typical hosting account.
So if you are trying to install Redmine in a hosting account that supports Ruby on Rails, you would be well-advised to get the
application running first in a controlled environment where you have root. In my case, that was my Debian Linux desktop. After flailing
around for hours in the hosting account, everything simply fell into place when I went back to basics and installed the Redmine
application locally.
These[1][2] were the main references for getting this working on Debian.
apt-get install ruby rake rubygems libmysql-ruby
gem install rails -v=2.3.5 (takes quite a while!)
gem install rake -v=0.8.3
gem install hoe -v=1.3.0
Checkout a fresh copy of the latest Redmine stable, currently:
svn co svn://rubyforge.org/var/svn/redmine/branches/0.9-stable redmine-0.9
Start the native Ruby web server and see what happens:
cd [...]/redmine-0.9
ruby script/server production
At this point I got a complaint about a missing database.yml. In my case, I was actually migrating Redmine from one hosting account
where it suddenly broke, to another hosting account. So I installed the MySQL database from the old account to a database called
mentage_redmine, then created a config/database.yml as follows:
production:
adapter: mysql
database: mentage_redmine
host: localhost
username: mentage_redmine
password: ***********
encoding: utf8
development:
adapter: mysql
database: mentage_redmine
host: localhost
username: mentage_redmine
password: ***********
encoding: utf8
Restart the server: this time an "Internal Server Error" that gave very specific instructions about adding a line pertaining to cookies
to the config/environment.rb file. After adding this line, it basically worked.
In my particular case, again because I was migrating an existing application, in the new site I replaced the public/images, javascripts,
stylesheets, and themes directories with those from the old site's public directory. After that, everything looked right as well.
[1] http://www.redmine.org/wiki/1/RedmineInstall
[2] http://www.redmine.org/wiki/1/HowTo_Install_Redmine_in_a_home_directory_on_Debian
posted at: 11:30 | path: /SW/business/Redmine | permanent link to this entry
Sat, 29 May 2010
/SW/business/Redmine:
Installing Redmine in a Hostgator Hosting Account
To their credit, Hostgator[1] actually provides some documentation[2] about getting Ruby applications working in their hosting account.
I, however, found them to be inadequate, and debugging information availability was little to none, so for me the magic key was getting
Redmine working first on my desktop, then migrating to the Hostgator hosting account.
One of the first things one notices when looking at the rather sparse Redmine installation manual[3] is the need for specific versions
of a number of Ruby librairies. This is what I found:
| My Debian Desktop | Hostgator Account |
| rails (2.3.5) | rails (2.3.8) |
| rack (1.0.1) | rack (1.1.0) |
| rake (0.8.3) | rake (0.8.7) |
| hoe (1.3.0) | hoe (2.6.0) |
In the Hostgator account, I got the above librairy versions using "gem list --local". I then installed in the account the correct
versions as follows:
gem install rails -v=2.3.5
gem install hoe -v=1.3.0
Now transfer Redmine from desktop to Hostgator, placing it in /home/mentage/redmine-0.9.
In /home/mentage/public_html, create the following symlink:
redmine -> /home/mentage/redmine-0.9/public/
Hostgator is using Apache to server up Ruby applications. Create a public/.htaccess[2] file with the following contents:
AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
Options +FollowSymLinks +ExecCGI
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/notrails.*
RewriteRule .* - [L]
RewriteRule ^$ index.html [QSA]
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [QSA]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]
After that, it worked for me by pointing a browser at the redmine directory.
[1] http://www.hostgator.com/
[2] http://forums.hostgator.com/ruby-rails-support-t13038p8.html
[3] http://www.redmine.org/wiki/1/RedmineInstall
posted at: 13:08 | path: /SW/business/Redmine | permanent link to this entry
