Setup Trac on Raspberry Pi as a Wiki and Issue Tracking Tool

Trac with GIT

Trac is a wiki and issue tracking tool. There are other choices such as redmind and mantisbt. However, Trac is the most suitable one for running on Raspberry Pi because:

1. it is run by python, which is installed by default for raspbian. (php and ruby are not required)
2. it is relatively light weight. It can use sqlite as the database, rather than MySQL or PostgresSQL.
3. it can be run in standalone mode, without using apache or lighttpd. (although I will still use lighttpd to 'proxy' Trac)
4. It supports modern version control tool such as Subversion and GIT. (redmine also supports, but again, it's not that light weight)
5. with making use of virtual environment (virutalenv), you can setup Trac without using a privilege account.
6. it is a mature product and many organizations are using it (http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracUsers)

Install and setup Trac

First, make sure virtualenv is already installed. (apt-get install virtualenv)

1. Create a directory and setup the virtual environment
   • mkdir trac; virtualenv --no-site-packages trac
2. Source the environment
   • cd trac; . bin/active
3. Install trac

   $ easy_install trac
   Searching for trac
   Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/trac/
   Reading http://trac.edgewall.org/
   Reading http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracDownload
   Reading http://trac.edgewall.com/
   Reading http://projects.edgewall.com/trac
   Reading http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/TracDownload
   Best match: Trac 1.0.1
   ...
   Installed /xxx/trac_test/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Genshi-0.6-py2.7.egg
   Finished processing dependencies for trac

4. Create a project directory (ie. projects/project1)
   $ mkdir -p projects/project1
5. Setup the project1 environment

   • $ trac-admin . initenv
     Creating a new Trac environment at xxxxxxxxx
     
     Trac will first ask a few questions about your environment
     in order to initialize and prepare the project database.
     
      Please enter the name of your project.
      This name will be used in page titles and descriptions.
     
     Project Name [My Project]> Project1
     
      Please specify the connection string for the database to use.
      By default, a local SQLite database is created in the environment
      directory. It is also possible to use an already existing
      PostgreSQL database (check the Trac documentation for the exact
      connection string syntax).
     
     Database connection string [sqlite:db/trac.db]>
     
     Creating and Initializing Project
      Installing default wiki pages
     ...
     
     ---------------------------------------------------------------------
     Project environment for 'Project1' created.
     
     You may now configure the environment by editing the file:
     
       /xxxx/projects/project1/conf/trac.ini
     
     If you'd like to take this new project environment for a test drive,
     try running the Trac standalone web server `tracd`:
     
       tracd --port 8000 /xxxx/projects/project1
     
     Then point your browser to http://localhost:8000/project1.
     There you can also browse the documentation for your installed
     version of Trac, including information on further setup (such as
     deploying Trac to a real web server).
     
     The latest documentation can also always be found on the project
     website:
     
       http://trac.edgewall.org/
     
     Congratulations!

6. Download the digest.py and prepare the password file (digest.txt)

   • $python digest.py -u test -p test
     test:trac:36c6af7afdad707bbcc185a18a2febbf
     $ python digest.py -u test -p test >> project1/digest.txt

7. Set the account created to be ADMIN.
   • trac-admin . permission add test TRAC_ADMIN
8. Change the logo by modifying project1/conf/trac.ini
   

   [header_logo]
   alt = (please configure the [header_logo] section in trac.ini)
   height = -1
   link =
   src = site/your_project_logo.png
   width = -1

9. Startup TRAC using a high port (say, 50080)
   

   cd project1
   tracd -s --port 50080 --auth=project1,/xxx/trac_test/projects/project1/digest.txt,trac .

---

Configure lighttpd with trac (optional)

For example, if we want to access trac behind lighttpd, the simplest method is to make use the proxy plugin. ( http:///trac will go to http://:50080/trac )

1. Start tracd with base path "/trac"
   • tracd -s --base-path=/trac --port 50080 --auth=project1,/xxx/trac_test/projects/project1/digest.txt,trac .
2. Modify lighttpd.conf.

   • $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/trac/" {
          proxy.server = ("" =>
             (
                     ( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 50080) ,
             ),
          )
     }

3. Make sure mod_proxy is active
   • lighty-enable-mod proxy; /etc/init.d/lighttpd force-reload

---

Enable GIT

By default Trac doesn't recognize GIT, but it is very simple to support GIT by changing "trac.ini" and restart tracd:

[components]
tracopt.versioncontrol.git.* = enabled

[git]
cached_repository = false
git_bin = /usr/bin/git
git_fs_encoding = utf-8
persistent_cache = false
shortrev_len = 7
trac_user_rlookup = false
use_committer_id = true
use_committer_time = true
wikishortrev_len = 40

[trac]
repository_dir = /xxx/.git

Then restart tracd

---

Ref:

• http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracInstall
• http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracStandalone#UsingAuthentication
• http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/WikiFormatting