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Trac FAQ

Here you can find the answer to some of the most frequently asked questions about Trac. If you have a question not answered by this page you can add your question by clicking on the "Edit this page" link at the bottom of this page.

Contents

1 Installing and Running Trac
2 Wiki
3 Timeline
- 3.1 How do I get Trac to resync the timeline with my subversion repository?
4 Browser
- 4.1 On Windows, why does Trac not display diffs?
- 4.2 Does Trac support syntax coloring/highlighting of source code files?
5 Tickets
6 Reports
- 6.1 Is there any way to remove reports?
7 Development
8 Miscellaneous

1 Installing and Running Trac

1.1 What operating systems does Trac run on?

Trac will run on any system supported by Python and the depending modules. Today we are aware of people running Trac on various Linux distributions, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD and MS Windows.

See also: TracOnFreeBsd , TracOnNetBsd , TracOnOsx, TracOnMandrakelinux, TracOnGentoo, TracOnDebian, TracOnWindows

1.2 What are the dependencies of Trac?

Trac depends on the following software: Subversion w/Python bindings, Clearsilver, SQLite w/Python bindings. Syntax coloring requires GNU Enscript and/or SilverCity.

See also: TracInstall, TracSyntaxColoring.

1.3 Can I replace SQLite with MySQL or PostgreSQL?

FIXME: Dunno, I'm asking the question, please, please fill in the answer here :) Documentation details say that it can, because at the end it is still pure SQL. How practically should that be done...?

See #126 re Database Independance and DatabaseBackend.

1.4 Can I manage multiple projects from a single installation of Trac?

(or do I have to setup a different directory for each one?)

Only one installation is required, then for each project create an Environment (using trac-admin <fooproj> initenv). They will be separate projects, all handled by the same installation of Trac.

Note: Right now there is no support for sharing information between projects.

The rationale for this is that the scope of Trac (1.0) is to manage a single project, and do it well. Support for larger multi-project management adds alot of complexity, but is planned for post-1.0 development, probably as a separate framework around Trac.

See also: TracMultipleProjects

1.5 How can I create a nice URL to access trac.cgi?

If you are serving Trac with Apache 2, you can use directives of the following form to translate the url "http://myserver.com/trac" to "$APACHE_PATH$/cgi-bin/trac.cgi". Note the URL in the Location directives is the same one that the end-user would see. With this example, you would also need to change the TracIni file to find static files at a location other than /trac.

# translates /trac to /cgi-bin/trac.cgi
ScriptAliasMatch ^/trac(.*) "C:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache2/cgi-bin/trac.cgi$1"

# sets up environment for Trac
<Location "/trac">
  # For 0.7 release
  SetEnv TRAC_ENV "C:/Subversion/trac/CogTool.db"
</Location>

# authentication
<Location "/trac/login">
  AuthType Basic
  AuthName "CogTool Project Trac"
  AuthUserFile C:/Subversion/Repo/svn-users
  Require valid-user
</Location>

# static files used to display images and templates
# you will need to change the conf/trac.ini file to point to /trac-docs instead of /trac
Alias /trac-docs "C:/Subversion/trac/htdocs"
<Directory "C:/Subversion/trac/htdocs">
  Options Indexes MultiViews
  AllowOverride None
  Order allow,deny
  Allow from all
</Directory>

1.6 Great software. Is there a guide on hacking the templates?

FIXME: I have no idea. ;-)

I haven't found one but, according to this post to the trac list, the templates are stored here:

$PYTHON_HOME/share/trac: miscellaneous resources, including:
    htdocs: images and CSS;
    templates: ClearSilver templates; and

$TRAC_DB/conf/trac.ini: settings, including (but not limited to):
    templates_dir: where page templates are stored;
    htdocs_location: the base URL for this Trac installation; and

and you can read more about the clearsilver templating language at http://www.clearsilver.net/docs/.

1.7 How do I reliably create backups of my Trac environment?

With the TracAdmin command ''hotcopy''. See TracBackup for documentation, however this is not available in 0.7.1 but only in newer versions.

1.8 How do I change the format used for displaying date and time?

You change the format by setting an appropriate 'locale' in the Apache config. You do this by adding

SetEnv LC_TIME "xx_YY"

right after the line where you set TRAC_ENV.

On a Linux/Un*x platform:

xx:	The language code as defined in ISO 639
YY:	The upper case, two letter country code as defined in ISO 3166

Examples: de_DE is Germany, en_GB is Great Britain and fr_FR is France

On a Windows platform:

xx:	The language name as defined in ISO 639
YY:	The country name as defined in ISO 3166

Examples: 'German_Germany' is Germany, 'English_United Kingdom' is Great Britain and 'French_France' is France

When it does not work

First, you should check, if the chosen locale is installed on the system at all. On Linux, you can use

localedef --list-archive

to list the installed locale definitions.

If this is not the problem, then LC_TIME may be overridden by LC_ALL or LANGUAGE defined in the system environment. You may try one of them (LANGUAGE has highest priority) instead LC_TIME. Note that LC_TIME just affects the date and time display, whereas LC_ALL and LANGUAGE also affect handling of system messages, sorting and other country dependent output/input. So the conservative way is to stick to LC_TIME if possible.

2 Wiki

2.1 What is a "Wiki"?

The term Wiki is a shortened form of WikiWikiWeb. A Wiki is a database of pages that can be collaboratively edited using a web browser.

2.2 Did you copy the previous question from the MoinMoin FAQ?

Why yes, thanks for asking.

2.3 How to remove a page from the Wiki?

This, as well as other Wiki management features, will be included in our next release, Trac 0.8.

FIXME: how does one link to a Roadmap?

2.4 Could the Wiki perhaps get a RecentChanges page, showing the changed pages in anti-chronological order?

The timeline contains information about all the changes to Trac content. By deselecting the view ticket changes and view repository checkins boxes you can view only the Wiki changes.

2.5 I get the following error message when editing a wiki page with Trac 0.6.1:

columns name, version are not unique

SQLite version 2.8.13 has a bug in the max() function. Either downgrade/upgrade sqlite or replace trac/Wiki.py with this file: Wiki.py

2.6 Does Trac support Unicode/UTF-8 or any other encodings?

Yes, Trac uses UTF-8 internally for all text. See TracUnicode for a detailed description.

2.7 How can I make links to files on the network via UNC path links?

Make a wiki link that looks like [file:///%5C%5Cserver/path/to/file/readme.txt Readme]. In Mozilla or Firefox type about:config in your browser window and change security.checkloaduri to false. More info: http://tinyurl.com/4xg9c

2.8 Can I directly add questions to this Wiki FAQ?

Yes, you can! Just click Edit this page at the bottom of the page. Be aware that this page is written using reStructuredText, so you may want to check WikiRestructuredText first... Thanks to ReST, the index for this FAQ is generated automatically, using the .. contents:: directive.

2.9 But then how do we control spammers and malicious contributors?

I guess you would get an answer rapidly if you added a malicious contribution, and you just might get a bruise.

2.10 Can I let the anonymous user edit only certain pages?

FIXME: new question

3 Timeline

3.1 How do I get Trac to resync the timeline with my subversion repository?

trac-admin in trac 0.8 and above has built-in command to resync the repository that works like this.

trac-admin <yourprojenv> resync

4 Browser

4.1 On Windows, why does Trac not display diffs?

The tree diff functionality provided by the subversion python bindings use an external diff command. On UNIX-like systems, diff is usually installed already, so this wasn't an issue there. Installing diffutils should solve the problem.

After installing diffutils, you will need to add the path to the diff executable to the Windows PATH environment variable and reboot the machine.

Diffutils for windows: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/diffutils.htm

4.2 Does Trac support syntax coloring/highlighting of source code files?

Yes, using several methods. See TracSyntaxColoring for details.

5 Tickets

5.1 Is there any way to remove tickets ?

You have to go through the db file in order to remove a ticket. No web interface is available for the moment (see #298).

5.2 Is there any way to migrate tickets from one Trac installation to another?

For example, is it possible to import and export in the same way as one can using trac-admin for the wiki?

A possible approach (until someone comes up with a better one?!) is to use the sqlite engine to export the tickets and changes, generate a script, and then insert the records into the second trac installation. E.g.:

[root@xgbemf6002 root]# sqlite <path/to/trac_project/db/trac.db>
SQLite version 2.8.15
Enter ".help" for instructions
sqlite> select * from ticket;
1|1092797666|1094723786|component1|normal|normal|Martin|someone@somewhere.com|||||reopened||test|testing|
sqlite> select * from ticket_change;
1|1092798124|leigh|comment||Testing notification
1|1092798319|leigh|owner|somebody|Leigh
...
...

It should be possible to take this output , and produce a script that would insert records into the ticket and ticket_change tables in the new trac installation.

As provided below, the database schema can be found here.

5.3 How can I associate usernames (e.g. for assigned tickets) with email addresses for notification?

FIXME: I'd really like to know.... Can Trac automatically relate user "joesmith" to email address "joesmith@myorg.com", so that we don't have to manually add CC: entries?

5.4 Can Trac automatically update a ticket when I commit a changeset?

Yes, you can setup Subversion to update the Trac ticket when you commit changes with a message listing tickets that are fixed or related. You can read the comments in the beginning of the file contrib/trac-post-commit-hook: 'http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/file/trunk/contrib/trac-post-commit-hook' for more information on how to set this up.

5.5 We're already using Bugzilla, can I disable tickets?

The timeline is great, the wiki is great, the browser is great, but we're already using Bugzilla for tickets, and don't want to change, we also don't want the option to add tickets to Trac because it could be confusing. Is it possible to disable the ticket system in Trac? ?????

6 Reports

6.1 Is there any way to remove reports?

Yes, if you have the proper permissions, you should be able to delete a report simply by viewing it and clicking delete.

7 Development

7.1 How can I contribute to the project?

There are several ways to contribute, including submitting patches, sending feedback and reporting bugs. For details, see HowToContribute.

7.2 Are there any provisions for I18N and L10N? Is it enough to translate the templates?

Yes and no. Merely translating the templates is not enough to provide complete internationalization of Trac. Python supports gettext just fine, but templates might require some extra work, using Clearsilver's built-in trans.py mechanism or the new gettext patch.

The standpoint of the TracTeam right now is to hold up on translation efforts until the feature base and source code has stabilized somewhat, as to not add too much extra work until 1.0.

That said, people have already started looking into it, and making some good suggestions already. We will need help with translation efforts. If you're interested in volunteering, please consider joining the mailing list.

7.3 Is the Database scheme available anywhere?

Yes you can find it here.

8 Miscellaneous

8.1 What is a typical use-case for trac? Why/when would I want to use it?

Note: in the gist, this boils down to 'what is trac?' and should rather be the first question IMHO.

8.2 How do I create or change a milestone with an associated date?

Using trac-admin, specifically the milestone time or milestone add command. The input format for the date is rather limited still, and should be a string like this: 'Jun 3, 2003'. Note the string must be quoted for proper parsing. Example:

trac-admin myprojenv milestone add anniversary 'Jun 3, 2003'

8.3 Are there similar systems for CVS?

CVSTrac is a similar but far simpler system which can trac a CVS repository. It doesn't (IMO) look as nice as trac and migrating from CVS to subversion is easy, but a lot of the CVSTrac functionality is similar to trac. Go here:

http://www.cvstrac.org/

8.4 Is there a way to remove an attached file from a page?

Users with WIKI_DELETE permissions can delete attachments. To do this, login as the priviliged user, click on the attachment. The attachment page will now have a "Delete Attachment" button you can use to delete the attachment. Note that is an irreversible operation.