Redmine
Redmine is a free and open source, web-based project management and issue tracking tool. It handles multiple projects and subprojects. It features per project wikis and forums, time tracking, and flexible role based access control. It includes a calendar and Gantt charts to aid visual representation of projects and their deadlines. Redmine integrates with various version control systems and includes a repository browser and diff viewer.
Redmine is written using the Ruby on Rails framework. It is cross-platform and cross-database and supports 34 languages.
Installation
This document will guide you through the suggested installation process of Redmine.
If for some reason you want to setup redmine manually, it is recommended to follow the official Installation Guide.
Although it is possible to run Redmine on its own for testing purposes, for production use it requires an SQL database as well as a web server. As database it is recommended to use MariaDB or PostgreSQL. The supported web servers are
Installation
Build and Installation
As redmine still requires Ruby 2.6, while the ruby package in the repositories is 2.7, it installs the legacy package ruby2.6AUR into `/opt/ruby-2.6`. To use the correct executables in all commands below we set up some temporary aliases. Of course, you can also specify the full paths in all commands below.
# alias ruby=/opt/ruby2.6/bin/ruby-2.6 # alias bundle=/opt/ruby2.6/bin/bundle-2.6 # alias gem=/opt/ruby2.6/bin/gem-2.6
In the following we assume user under which the redmine will be running is http. The ruby commands are thus explicitly executed under this specifiy user's control.
Database Configuration
Now, we will need to create the database that the Redmine will use to store your data. For now on, the database and its user will be named . But this names can be changed to anything else.
Database Creation
To create the database, the user and set privileges:
For PostgreSQL:
Database Access Configuration
Now you need to configure Redmine to access the database we just created. To do that you have to copy to :
# cd /usr/share/webapps/redmine/config # cp database.yml.example database.yml
And then edit this file in order to configure your database settings for "production" environment (you can configure for the "development" and "test" environments too, just change the appropriate sections).
Example for MariaDB and MySQL database:
Example for PostgreSQL database:
database.yml
production: adapter: postgresql database: redmine host: localhost username: redmine password: my_password encoding: utf8 schema_search_path: <database_schema> (default - public)
Example for a SQL Server database:
Session Store Secret Generation
Now you must generate a random key that will be used by Rails to encode cookies that stores session data thus preventing their tampering:
# bundle exec rake generate_secret_token
Database Structure Creation
With the database created and the access configured for Redmine, now it is time to create the database structure. This is done by running the following command under the application root directory:
# cd /usr/share/webapps/redmine # chown http:http db # migration requires write access to db/schema.rb # sudo -u http -g http RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:migrate
These command will create tables by running all migrations one by one then create the set of the permissions and the application administrator account, named admin.
Database Population with Default Data
Now you may want to insert the default configuration data in database, like basic types of task, task states, groups, etc. To do so execute the following:
# sudo -u http -g http RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake redmine:load_default_data
Redmine will prompt for the data set language that should be loaded; you can also define the REDMINE_LANG environment variable before running the command to a value which will be automatically and silently picked up by the task:
# sudo -u http -g http RAILS_ENV=production REDMINE_LANG=de bundle exec rake redmine:load_default_data
File System Permissions
The user account running the application must have write permission on the following subdirectories:
- files: storage of attachments.
- log: application log file production.log.
- tmp and tmp/pdf: used to generate PDF documents among other things (create these ones if not present).
The redmine comes preconfigured with permissions for user http. In case you like to use a different user you need to change the ownership, e.g.
# chown -R redmine:redmine files/ log/ tmp/
Test the installation
To test your new installation using WEBrick web server run the following in the Redmine folder:
# sudo -u http -g http ruby bin/rails server webrick -e production
Once WEBrick has started, point your browser to http://localhost:3000/. You should now see the application welcome page. Use default administrator account to log in: admin/admin. You can go to Administration menu and choose Settings to modify most of the application settings.
Puma / Unicorn
Puma and Unicorn are web servers based on Mongrel. For its increased speed and smaller memory footprint Puma is recommended. Both are very simple to setup, but for production use should be used in combination with a reverse proxy (Apache, Nginx, lighttpd, etc.).
# gem install puma # sudo -u http -g http /opt/ruby2.6/bin/puma
For production, puma can be started as a systemd service:
Do a complete daemon-reload, then start/enable redmine.service.
Phusion Passenger
For Apache and Nginx, it is recommended to use Phusion Passenger. Passenger is a module available for Nginx and Apache HTTP Server.
Start by installing the 'passenger' gem:
# gem install passenger
Now you have to look at your passenger gem installation directory to continue. If you do not known where it is, type:
# gem env
And look at the to find where the gems are installed. If you followed this guide and installed RVM, you can have more than one path, look at the one you are using.
For this guide so far, the gem path is .
# cd /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p247@global/gems/passenger-4.0.23
If you are aiming to use Apache HTTP Server, run:
# passenger-install-apache2-module
In case a rails application is deployed with a sub-URI, like http://example.com/yourapplication, some additional configuration is required, see the Passenger documentation
For Nginx:
# passenger-install-nginx-module
And finally, the installer will provide you with further information regarding the installation (such as installing additional libraries). So, to setup your server, simply follow the output from the passenger installer.
Updating
Backup the files used in Redmine:
# tar czvf ~/redmine_files.tar.gz -C /usr/share/webapps/redmine/ files
Backup the plugins installed in Redmine:
# tar czvf ~/redmine_plugins.tar.gz -C /usr/share/webapps/redmine/ plugins
Backup the database:
# mysqldump -u root -p <redmine_database> | gzip > ~/redmine_db.sql.gz
Update the redmine package as normal.
Update the gems requirements:
# bundle update
For a clean gems environment, you may want to remove all the gems and reinstall them. To go through this, do:
# for x in `gem list --no-versions`; do gem uninstall $x -a -x -I; done
If you did the last step and removed all the gems, now you will need to reinstall them all:
# gem install bundler # bundle install --without development test
Copy the saved files:
# tar xzvf ~/redmine_files.tar.gz -C /usr/share/webapps/redmine/
Copy the installed plugins:
# tar xzvf ~/redmine_plugins.tar.gz -C /usr/share/webapps/redmine/
Regenerate the secret token:
# cd /usr/share/webapps/redmine # bundle exec rake generate_secret_token
Check for any themes that you may have installed in the directory. You can copy them over but checking for updated version is ideal.
Update the database. This step is the one that could change the contents of your database. Go to your new redmine directory, then migrate your database:
# RAILS_ENV=production REDMINE_LANG=pt-BR bundle exec rake db:migrate
If you have installed any plugins, you should also run their database migrations:
# RAILS_ENV=production REDMINE_LANG=pt-BR bundle exec rake redmine:plugins:migrate
Now, it is time to clean the cache and the existing sessions:
# RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake tmp:cache:clear tmp:sessions:clear
Restart the application server (e.g. puma, thin, passenger, etc). And finally go to "Admin -> Roles & permissions" to check/set permissions for the new features, if any.
Troubleshooting
Runtime error complaining that RMagick was configured with older version
If you get the following runtime error after upgrading ImageMagick then you only need to reinstall (or rebuild as shown above if is the case).
Error when installing gems: Cannot load such file -- mysql2/mysql2
If you see an error like cannot load such file -- mysql2/mysql2, you are having a problem with the installation of the database gem. Probably a misconfiguration in the Database Access Configuration step.
In this case you should verify the file.
If this does not work, you can manually install the database gem by:
# gem install mysql2
As a last resort, you can try to comment the line of the database gem and add a new one as bellow:
<path-to-mysql2-gem-directory>/lib/mysql2/mysql2.rb
# require 'mysql2/mysql2' require '<path-to-mysql2-gem-directory>/lib/mysql2/mysql2.so'
Checkout SVN Source
Get the Redmine source (Download instructions). Here is method of installing Redmine directly from subversion in /srv/http/redmine/
# useradd -d /srv/http/redmine -s /bin/false redmine # mkdir -p /srv/http/redmine # svn checkout https://svn.redmine.org/redmine/branches/2.1-stable /srv/http/redmine # chown -R redmine: /srv/http/redmine
Automating The Update Process
Example of an after-update script:
#!/usr/bin/bash export RAILS_ENV=production grep -E "^gem 'thin'" Gemfile || echo "gem 'thin'" >> Gemfile bundle update && bundle exec rake generate_secret_token db:migrate redmine:plugins:migrate tmp:cache:clear tmp:sessions:clear
Creating a Systemd Unit
If you want to automatic run you application server when system starts, you need to create a systemd unit file.