Redmine

Hi John,

Here is the stack we have had luck with:

- Ubuntu Linux (but any distro should work fine)
- NGINX http server
- Multiple Mongrel servers running with Mongrel Cluster
- MySQL DB
- Rails 2.0
- Ruby 1.8.6

I personally think that NGINX is easier to deploy and administer than Apache. However, if you have more experience with Apache, that works too.

Mines about the same as John:

• Debian Linux (Etch)
• NGINX http server with SSL (though I was using Apache 2.2 up until last week)
• One Mongrel server
• MySQL Database
• Rails 2.0
• Ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25

I should run two mongrels but I have 3 other Rails apps on the same server so memory is tight. So far it's been pretty stable, the server is at 110 days of uptime and I've use Redmine everyday since.

If you run into any trouble, post about it in this forum and I can try to lend a hand.

Eric

I am a strong believer in PostgreSQL due to its speed, ACID compliance, and robustness. I also use FastCGI for its performance across multiple programming languages and its convenience. Other than that, I'm pretty similar to the rest of you

By pity, please don't use cgi/fcgi :)

I'm using mongrel_clusters behind a nginx reverse_proxy, backed by a MySQL server. Have a look to Thin, since its performances are promising.

I froze Rails 2.0.2, using ruby 1.8.6 (don't you Ruby 1.9 since it's not currently Rails compatible).

Enjoy redmine.

Why not FastCGI?

I was reading up on Mongrel, and it sounds like it has a global lock on all Rails stuff, which doesn't sound very good performance-wise.

Hmmm. First I've heard about nginx. Interesting. I like to try new things, but in this case I just need to get stuff running, and I come from LAMP primarily.

How many users do you guys support? If I had to support a team of 20-30, could I get away with one mongrel? Do you have any good reading on how mogrel (and/or mongrel_clusters?) fits into the architecture. What's the diff between mongrel and mongrel_cluster?

From what I gather, Ruby is the language (like Java), Rails is the framework (like XYZ), mongrel is the app server (like Tomcat), lighty, nginx, apache is the webserver that passes requests to the app server. You run the app inside of mongrel.

How many Redmine users could I support with just mongrel like we sometimes do with just Tomcat? Or am I just being completely stupid?

As John Goerzen said a mongrel instance handles rails request one after the other and never in parallel.

So if you expect simultaneous requests from your users you have to start several mongrel instances on different ports. This is what mongrel_cluster does. In this case you also need a load balancer (for example Apache).

I even use mongrel_cluster with a single mongrel instance because it comes with a handy init-script.

Just check the response times with one mongrel instance and add more until you're satisfied.

Running on RHEL4 but you can get the latest ruby packagse from CentOS, works fine. ruby 1.8.5, rails 2.0.2, mysql

• CentOS 5
• apache
• fcgid
• MySQL 5.0
• Rails 2.0.2
• Ruby 1.8.6

I used mongrel in the past but I switched to fcgid (I needed to use apache authentication and access modules and it was easier to do with fcgid... )

• Gentoo
• Mongrel cluster (x3)
• ruby 1.8.6-patchset111
• mysql 5
• Apache 2.2.8 (mod_proxy)

lighttpd 1.4.18
fastcgi
ruby 1.8.6
mysql 3.23.58
rails 1.2.4

all on x86_64

I hate mysql but as far as rails goes, anything else is a second class citizen which sucks otherwise I'd be using firebirdsql...

Thanks for all of the replies everyone. I'm finding this thread very interesting. In most other projects the platforms seems to be more consistent across the crowd. Here I see a lot of variety.

Any chance I could get folks to respond with how many users they are happily supporting with the architecture they describe here? Any other architectural details to offer? Number of machines?

I finally got Redmine running and so I'll offer my setup.

We're trying it out with 5 users on a small project.

Kubuntu 7.10 with VMware server, also running a slice with just Redmine on it and a very lean installation of.. Kubuntu 7.10. The slice only gets 1GB of memory. Usage is low, we're not talking to the source repository yet (next step) and we're going to work toward authentication using the LDAP with our ActiveDirectory.

Looks like our setup is most similar to Michael Pirogov's. For some reason I was having issues with the Ubuntu packages, so I'm doing everything from source. I also went from source because the production environment might be RHEL and I wanted things consistent.

• Mongrel cluster (x5)
• ruby 1.8.6-patchset111
• mysql 5.0
• Apache 2.2.8 (mod_proxy)

Everything is running on one host, though I'd like to point it at our central MySQL eventually.

Regarding MySQL....

I swear by PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL has had a better, more complete SQL implementation than MySQL for ages, and is more robust too (none of this database being down due to "crashed tables" stuff that I see from MySQL periodically). Also, PostgreSQL is ACID all the way, with full transaction support everywhere (not just on a non-default table type as with MySQL). The PostgreSQL defaults are to use less caching than MySQL defaults, but configured to use similar amounts of RAM, performs similarly to MySQL.

I am using it with Redmine with no problems.

Here is my setup:

• 2xP3-500 with 640meg of RAM (I hope to upgrade soon...)
• Ubuntu server
• Apache2 + fcgid
• Mysql 5 + ruby 1.8.6 + rails 2.0.2

Serving 15~20,000 pages/day for ~20,000 unique users/month.

VMware Virtual Machine, running Windows XP Professional (I know, I suck).
Instant Rails 1.7:
-- MySql 5.0.27
-- Mongrel 1.0.1
-- Ruby 1.8.6
-- Rails 1.2.3

I'd love to get it using Apache, but I can't seem to make that happen. Just no time to fuss with it right now - what I've got works.

Gotta love Instant Rails. I think the wiki guide for Redmine should explain how to try Redmine using Instant Rails. Redmine is my first foray into trying out Rails apps and after two weeks of banging my head, it was Instant Rails that actually allowed me to try Redmine. I was then able to commit myself to proceed with setting up Redmine on Linux for other users.

i had quite a battle to set it up under ubuntu edgy + apache. in the end i got it working with the following:

apache2 with fcgid (mod-fastcgi didn't work)
ruby 1.8.2 (apt-get) with Rubygems 1.1.1 (compiled)
gems: rails 2.0.2, fcgi 0.8.7, rake 0.8.1
mysql 5.0.24a

I got it running with Apache mod_rails (aka passenger) with no problem.
Passenger is very young so one should know what (s)he does when using it in production.

First, I have a rather small site and am alone on it so I can use whatever I find interesting to play with.

That said, I use the following configuration:
- Dell 9150 (dual core @ 2.8 GHz, still running in i386 mode, amd64 soon)
- FreeBSD (currently 6.1, 7.0 soon)
- Apache 2.2 as front-end, proxying to various RoR instances
- thin as a RoR-aware web server after using mongrel for months

Ruby is 1.8.6-p111 (I like to be in sync) -- although soon-to-be 1.8.7 seems to be a bigger change. Database is Postgresql, I know RoR doesn't use most of its more advanced features but I like it much better than mysql. I already use pgsql for gallery2 and RadiantCMS (CMS for my website) anyway.

My configuration is:

- A Dell PowerEdge 64bit Xeon rackmount running Windows Server 2003 and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (not really my choice, but hey!)
- ubuntu-server 7.10
- A single mongrel instance. I'll add more as load increases.

It's quite happily serving about 15 regular users, although no more than 5-10 concurrent sessions. As I bring Redmine to more departments within my org, I'll need to look again at my setup.

Incidentally, we're using Redmine for tasks far removed from software development. Its tracker, status and workflow config is so flexible, I've got various projects configured to manage all kinds of business workflows. Everyone who's used it so far is loving it :)

RubyCampus.org Redmine Configuration¶

We have had a lot of success with the following setup for our project. Our Redmine setup is entirely hosted on secure sockets layer (SSL) because the organizations we work with need to meet certain requirements on handling and transmitting data to third-parties over the Internet (colleges, universities and some government). Everything except MySQL is compiled from source. We have about 60 daily users that are logged in concurrently in the US, Japan and other regions. We expect to have about 130 sometime in the next month as more universities come online so we will make adjustments where appropriate. So far it has been running beautifully.

Some colleagues are toying with the idea of running Redmine in a Debian VM on a IBM System Z mainframe which we have access to at a University in Japan where the project is based, wholly unnecessary but you know academics...

• Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (etch)
• NGINX entirely SSL Redmine and lots of caching mechanisms
• MySQL 5.0.x
• Ruby 1.8.6
• Rails 2.0.2
• Mongrel Cluster (8 processes)

All maintenance and updates are done with Capistrano tasks.