Trac on SDF

This is currently NOT UP-TO-DATE info at SDF as Trac is not currently installed properly

This tutorial discusses how to install Trac, in the words of its creators a minimalistic approach to web-based management of software projects.

Introduction

Trac includes wiki, bug tracker, milestone plan and an interface to Subversion or Git. It is installed on SDF, so you can setup your own instance and manage your projects.

Installing a Trac instance on SDF

Setting up an SVN repository

Skip this step if you want to use Trac without a repository. Otherwise run the commands

$ mkdir .svn_repos
$ svnadmin create .svn_repos/my-cool-project

to setup a repository named “my-cool-project” in your homedir under $HOME/.svn_repos. You can then checkout your repository from your home using the svn+ssh protocol.

Setting up a Git Repository

:: TBD, but Trac supports git, which is more modern as source control. Details are discussed on the Trac project site

Setting up Trac

Get started with

trac-admin /path/to/trac initenv

where /path/to/trac is the directory where Trac will be installed (it will be created if doesn't exist). The installation routine will ask you a bunch of questions, including your project's name, database connection (default is fine), repository type and path (type in the path you have chosen above, e.g. ~/.svn_repos/my-cool-project or leave it blank if you didn't setup a repository. Whenever you are not sure what to do, just hit [return] to use the default.

If the output finally reads Project environment for 'My cool project' created and Congratulations!, you have just successfully installed Trac. Pat yourself on the back and read on!

Running Trac

There are currently two ways to run Trac on SDF: with the standalone server “tracd” and as CGI within Apache.

Using the standalone server "tracd"

This is by far the least painful, but requires the MetaARPA membership because tracd opens a port on the machine. After you determine your meta port allocation, note down the uid number that is output as part of the uid -u command. This will be your port number (to avoid conflicts between users) and will be referred to as <PORT> from here on.

Next, run the command

tracd --port <PORT> /path/to/trac

You will now be able to connect to your Trac instance with your Browser of Choice™ at http://sverige.freeshell.org:<PORT>/trac

Running Trac as CGI within Apache

With this setup, you will be able to run Trac under your own domain. The tradeoff is performance – tracd is considerably faster.

Copy trac.cgi into your html/ directory:

cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/trac/cgi-bin/trac.cgi html/

and fix the permissions using mkhomepg -p. Add the following lines to trac.cgi just after the comments:

import os os.environ['TRAC_ENV']='/path/to/trac'

Now Trac can locate the directory containing your instance.

If you rename the CGI to index.cgi, it can be called just by the directory. In that case, you may consider setting up a subdirectory (like MYPROJECT) and copying the CGI there.

Point your browser to http://YOURLOGIN.freeshell.org/trac.cgi (or even just YOURLOGIN.freeshell.org/MYPROJECT if you renamed the CGI and copied it to the MYPROJECT subdirectory of your html/) to check that it works. Please be patient, CGI takes a while to load the page.

Note: If you want to use Trac in your VHOSTed domain at SDF, be sure to put trac.cgi into the corresponding domain directory under html/.

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