Trac on Ubuntu

Help wanted: The various Ubuntu specific install docs should be cleaned and merged where that makes sense…

• Back to TracInstallPlatforms
• TracInstall - See this before reading any distro specific tutorial

Note: It is always best practice to use the latest stable version of Trac.

tutorial	Ubuntu Version	Trac Version	Apache	VCS	Database
Ubuntu-11.10	11.10	0.12	Mod_WSGI	?	?
Ubuntu-10.04-Subversion	10.04	0.12	Mod_Python	Subversion	MySQL
Ubuntu-10.04-Bazaar	10.04	0.12	Mod_WSGI	Bazaar	MySQL
Ubuntu-10.04.03-Git	10.04.03	0.11	Mod_Python	Git	MySQL
​ubuntu Help	?	?	Mod_Python	?	SQLite
0.11/TracOnUbuntu	8.04	0.11	Mod_Python	Subversion	SQLite
hardy, cgi	8.04	0.11	CGI	Subversion	SQLite
TracUbuntuMultipleProjects	8.04	0.11	Mod_Python	Subversion	SQLite
0.10.4/TracOnUbuntuHardy	8.04	0.10.4	Mod_Python	Subversion	SQLite
TracFeisty	7.04	?	Mod_Python	Subversion	SQLite
TracInstallUbuntu	?	0.11.5	Mod_Python	?	SQLite
​Ubuntu-Trac	?	?	Mod_Python	Subversion	SQLite
Ubuntu 5.10 "The Breezy Badger"	5.10	?	Mod_Python	Subversion	SQLite
Ubuntu 5.10 with workingenv	5.10	?	Fast_CGI	?	SQLite

DB: Most tutorials do not say the database they are using. I assume the default is SQLite.

Ubuntu 8.04.2 Hardy Note: the default package installs trac-post-commit-hook under /usr/share/doc/trac/contrib path. Unfortunately this script is not working correctly with Trac 0.11 and you need to download the latest version from 0.11-stable/contrib/trac-post-commit-hook.

Installing Trac on Ubuntu

This is a short recipe to install and configure virtual Apache2 host with Trac

Which Ubuntu packages are needed

Typical procedure to install Trac under Ubuntu with its default dependencies (default - choosed by apt) is

apt-get install python python-babel
apt-get install trac

Ensure that python version matches Trac latest, otherwise apt will install older Trac version which matches your old python package installed. Also take into account that python-babel should be always installed before trac if you wish to see it internationalized.

Upgrade python packages

Ubuntu pre-packaged python resources are not always newest, and you may consider to upgrade them with easy_install or pip

• Upgrade with easy_install

  easy_install Babel
  easy_install Trac
  

• Upgrade with pip (another python installer, namely python-pip)

  apt-get install python-pip
  pip install --upgrade Babel
  pip install --upgrade Trac
  

Configuring virtual host

Here is shown sample virtual host configuration running under apache2 (one file) with minimal, "entry level" settings. Config file created at apache2 known place for site configs (see below), and then configured site can be "enabled" to run.

The following considerations used within this config, yours may vary, so adjust them below appropriately at your own

• trac.local is a hostname of virtual host
• /var/local/trac is a directory (Trac project) at that host
• /var/local/trac/.htpasswd is a password file created with htpasswd utility
• ru_RU.UTF8 is a locale ident

Prepare configuration

First you need to

• create directory for Trac project and change its access permissions to that under which apache2 runs (www-data in most cases)
• initialize Trac environment within that directory
• create apache2 htpasswd entry for authorized web user access within this directory
• add to Trac this authorized web user with administrative privileges over Trac

  mkdir -p /var/local/trac
  trac-admin /var/local/trac initenv
  htpasswd -c /var/local/trac/.htpasswd adminusername
  trac-admin /var/local/trac permission add adminusername TRAC_ADMIN
  chown -R www-data: /var/local/trac
  chmod -R 775 /var/local/trac 
  

Create config file with any text editor (vi in this example):

vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/trac

Enter the following copy-paste into this file:

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName trac.local
        <Location />
           SetHandler mod_python
           PythonInterpreter main_interpreter
           PythonHandler trac.web.modpython_frontend
           PythonOption TracEnv /var/local/trac
           PythonOption TracEnvParentDir /var/local/trac
           PythonOption TracUriRoot /
           PythonOption TracEnv /var/local/trac
            # PythonOption TracEnvIndexTemplate /var/local/trac/templates/index-template.html
           PythonOption TracLocale en_US.UTF8
           PythonOption PYTHON_EGG_CACHE /tmp
           Order allow,deny
           Allow from all
        </Location>
        <Location /login>
          AuthType Basic
          AuthName "myproject"
          AuthUserFile /var/local/trac/.htpasswd
          Require valid-user
        </Location>
</VirtualHost>

Enable prepared configuration

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-python
a2enmod python
a2ensite trac
service apache2 restart