HowTo Install Redmine (> 2.5.x) on Heroku¶

Ok, after months of try-and-fail I was finally able to do it.
As it's my first Rails application i had no idea of how to do it, so I looked for different tutorials. Finally here my own:

It's a mix between these two:

• http://railsguides.net/2012/04/28/how-to-deploy-redmine-to-heroku/
• http://tygertown.us/redmine-on-heroku/

Install Redmine¶

First i got the newest stable version of Redmine (2.5 at this time)

git clone https://github.com/redmine/redmine.git -b 2.5-stable

Edit: Navigate into your project with your terminal:

cd redmine

Then as everywhere, we have to remove those files from .gitignore

Gemfile.lock
Gemfile.local
public/plugin_assets
config/initializers/session_store.rb
config/initializers/secret_token.rb
config/configuration.yml
config/email.yml

As I always had problems with the database, I just removed this whole block from the Gemfile

database_file = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "config/database.yml")
if File.exist?(database_file)
  database_config = YAML::load(ERB.new(IO.read(database_file)).result)

  ...

  else
    warn("No adapter found in config/database.yml, please configure it first")
  end
else
  warn("Please configure your config/database.yml first")
end

and added instead just this to the Gemfile

group :production do
  # gems specifically for Heroku go here
  gem "pg", ">= 0.11.0" 
end

Then finally install the gems. Don't get confused by log messages like "Please configure your config/database.yml first", heroku will do that for you

bundle install

Now get the secret token with

bundle exec rake generate_secret_token

Next, you create a app at heroku (we're supposing you are already registered at heroku and all that it brings with it)

heroku create NAME_FOR_YOUR_APP

To avoid aborting when deploying to heroku, we have to do the following two steps:

• In config/environment.rb we have to remove (or comment) line 10, where it says
  

    exit 1
  

• In config/application.rb we have to add an additional line between line 13 and line 14 and add this: config.assets.initialize_on_precompile = false and it should look like this
  

  ...
  12: module RedmineApp
  13:   class Application < Rails::Application
  14:     config.assets.initialize_on_precompile = false
  15:     # Settings in config/environments/* take precedence over those specified here.
  ...
  

Now we are finally ready to commit our changes

git add -A
git commit -m “preparing for heroku”
git push heroku 2.5-stable:master

Now just get the database ready and chose the default language, when you are asked

heroku run rake db:migrate
heroku run rake redmine:load_default_data

There you go, open your redmine and log in with your credentials

heroku open

Your username is admin and your password is admin as well.

Configure E-Mail¶

First you have to add the Sendgrid add-on to heroku

heroku addons:add sendgrid:starter

This is just a free-200-mails-per-day version (-> see Add-On-Description )

Then you do create the following file for the email configurations: config/configuration.yml
In this file you only have the following content (adjust Username and Password to yours, you can find them at the add-on page when accessing through your heroku app)

production:
  delivery_method: :smtp
  smtp_settings:
    address: "smtp.sendgrid.net" 
    port: 25
    authentication: :plain
    domain: "heroku.com" 
    user_name: "SENDGRID_USERNAME" 
    password: "SENDGRID_PASSWORD" 

Once again, commit and push your changes

git add -A
git commit -m “adding email configurations”
git push heroku 2.5-stable:master

There you go, enjoy!

I know this is not the cleanest way at some steps, but it works and I hope to help others as well ;)