Redmine

h1. How to Install Redmine on CentOS (Detailed)

{{>toc}}

h2. Introduction

I spent a fair bit of time looking for a good issue tracking / project management solution.  Having considered extensively both open source and commercial solutions (up to about $200/month price range like Jira+Confluence and Zoho Projects) I decided to go with Redmine as it offers a good mix of issue tracking and project management capability, most specifically status workflows, sub-tasking and task dependencies and everything else we need.

However, when I decided to deploy Redmine I encountered numerous difficulties, as at my workplace we use PHP and are not familiar with Ruby on Rails and setting up Ruby on Rails for anyone not familiar with it is rather difficult, largely due to the various version dependencies and incompatibilities and lack of decent detailed documentation on how to do it.  I managed to setup Redmine on Windows XP using MySQL, Apache and Mongrel, but when I tried to install the same setup on Windows Server 2008 I encountered all sorts of issues with RoR and MySQL, so I decided to setup on CentOS, which is what we use for our production web hosting anyway.

CentOS is one of the most frequently chosen Linux operating systems for Linux based production environments. There is extensive documentation available on setting up CentOS and it is arguably the best choice for deploying and running production Linux servers for organisation with all levels of in-house Linux server deployment and administration capability.

Redmine is one of the best (if not THE best) open source issue tracking and project management applications, but because it is developed using Ruby on Rails it can be rather complex to deploy for anyone not familiar with the Ruby on Rails environment.

This How-To provides detailed steps required to get Redmine up and running on a CentOS operating system using the following components:

* Apache web server

* MySQL database management system

* Ruby on Rails

* Mod Passenger Apache module

The How-To provides detailed instructions on the installation and explains what each step does, so that it can be easily follows by people experienced and new to the Ruby on Rails environment.

h2. Assumptions

* CentOS is installed and works

* Apache is installed and works 

* MySQL is installed and works

* Your are logged as root

* The next steps are done successively without errors

h2. Installation Instructions

h3. Install gem and passenger dependencies

<pre>

yum -y install zlib-devel curl-devel openssl-devel httpd-devel apr-devel apr-util-devel mysql-devel

</pre>

h3. Get Ruby

<pre>

# Create the directory where you will store the Downloads

mkdir ~/Downloads # This can be any directory.

# Change to directory where you will store the download

cd ~/Downloads # This can be any directory.

# FTP to where you will download ruby from.

# When asked to login use user/password of anonymous/anonymous

ftp ftp.ruby-lang.org 

Name (ftp.ruby-lang.org:root): anonymous

Password: anonymous

ftp> cd /pub/ruby

ftp> get ruby-1.8.7-pXXX.tar.gz

ftp> quit

# You have now downloaded ruby and need to untar it

tar zxvf ruby-1.8.7-pXXX.tar.gz

# Compile ruby

cd ruby-1.8.7-pXXX

./configure

make

make install

# Verify ruby installation

ruby -v

which ruby

# Change back into your downloads directory

cd ..

</pre>

h3. Get Gems 1.4.2 (does not work with Gems 1.5)

<pre>

wget http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rubygems-1.4.2.tgz

tar zxvf rubygems-1.4.2.tgz

cd rubygems-1.4.2

ruby setup.rb

gem -v

which gem

cd ..

</pre>

h3. Install Passenger (requires gcc)

<pre>

gem install passenger

passenger-install-apache2-module

</pre>

An alternate method is to install mod_passenger RPM for Apache from the following location: 

http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/

RHEL/CentOS 5

<pre>

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/5/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

yum install mod_passenger

</pre>

RHEL/CentOS 6

<pre>

rpm --import http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-stealthymonkeys.asc

yum install http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/6/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

yum install mod_passenger

</pre>

h3. Restart Apache

<pre>service httpd restart</pre>

h3. Download Redmine

Download page: http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=1850

<pre>

wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/75597/redmine-1.3.0.tar.gz  # GET LATEST VERSION ON RUBYFORGE

tar zxvf redmine-1.3.0.tar.gz

</pre>

h3. Copy the folder to its HTTP document root folder

<pre>cp -av redmine-1.3.0/* /var/www/redmine</pre>

h3. Configure Apache to host the documents

more information can be found here: [[HowTo configure Apache to run Redmine]]

h3. Install Bundler

<pre>gem install bundler</pre>

h3. Add the Bundler Boot and preinitializer code

For more info go to the "Bundler site":http://gembundler.com/.

h3. Create the Gemfile and register these gems in it

<pre>vi /var/www/redmine/Gemfile</pre>

<pre>

# file: /var/www/redmine/Gemfile

source "http://rubygems.org"

gem "rake", "0.8.3"

gem "rack", "1.1.0"

gem "i18n", "0.4.2"

gem "rubytree", "0.5.2", :require => "tree"

gem "RedCloth", "~>4.2.3", :require => "redcloth" # for CodeRay

gem "mysql"

gem "coderay", "~>0.9.7"

</pre>

<pre>bundle install</pre>

h3. Create the Redmine MySQL database

<pre>

yum install mysql-server

chkconfig mysqld on

service mysqld start

/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

</pre>

> For MySQL:

> start the mysql client (@mysql -u root -p@) and enter the following commands

> > <pre>create database redmine character set utf8;

create user 'redmine'@'localhost' identified by 'my_password';

grant all privileges on redmine.* to 'redmine'@'localhost'; </pre>

> For versions of MySQL prior to 5.0.2 - skip the 'create user' step and instead:

> > <pre> grant all privileges on redmine.* to 'redmine'@'localhost' identified by 'my_password';</pre>

h3. Configure /var/www/redmine/config/database.yml (rename database.yml.example)

h3. Set the production environment (optional)

Uncomment the following line in file redmine/config/environment.rb:

<pre>ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'production'</pre>

h3. Generate the session store

<pre>RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake generate_session_store</pre>

h3. Migrate the database models

<pre>RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:migrate</pre>

h3. Load default data (optional)

<pre>RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake redmine:load_default_data</pre>

Follow instructions.

h3. Rename dispatch CGI files in /var/www/redmine/public/

<pre>

mv dispatch.cgi.example dispatch.cgi

mv dispatch.fcgi.example dispatch.fcgi

mv dispatch.rb.example dispatch.rb

</pre>

h3. Edit .htaccess file for CGI dispatch configuration

<pre>

mv htaccess.fcgi.example .htaccess

</pre>

h3. Chown and Chmod files for read/write access for the Apache user

<pre>

cd ..

chown -R apache:apache redmine-1.x

chmod -R 755 redmine-1.x

</pre>

h3. Redmine should be fully installed now and fully usable

Enjoy!