Edgewall Software

Version 141 (modified by anonymous, 19 years ago) ( diff )

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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 ask it on the MailingList or in the IrcChannel. See the TracSupport page for more options on getting support for Trac.

Contents

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

1.3   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.

1.5   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

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

If you are serving Trac with Apache, you can use the following directives to let your users access Trac with URLs like "http://www.example.com/trac/" rather than the default "http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/trac.cgi". This example shows how to set it up for Apache 2 on a Windows server, but it works just as well with Apache 1.3 or on Unix.

# Map the Trac CGI into /trac/
ScriptAliasMatch ^/trac/(.*) "C:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache2/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/$1"

# Fix users who don't type the trailing slash
RedirectMatch ^/trac$ /trac/

# Tell Trac where its environment is stored
<Location "/trac/">
  SetEnv TRAC_ENV "C:/Subversion/trac/CogTool.db"
</Location>

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

# Link the static files into /trac-static/
# You'll need to change the trac.ini to point to /trac-static/ instead of /trac/
Alias /trac-static/ "C:/Subversion/trac/htdocs/"

# Allow access to the Trac static files
<Directory "C:/Subversion/trac/htdocs">
  AllowOverride None
  Order allow,deny
  Allow from all
</Directory>

See also: TracPrettyUrls

1.7   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/.

1.8   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.

1.9   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.

See also: TracWiki

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.

The trac-admin utility will have the ability to remove Wiki pages like so:

trac-admin <yourprojenv> wiki remove PageName

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.

2.8   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.

2.11   Can I restrict the anonymous user to only the start page?

To answer my own question - it doesn't look possible. See the "login page" thread on the mailing lists.

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

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?

5.5   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.

If you are using a stable version rather than the latest development version you should instead get the script which matches your release - for example http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/file/branches/0.8-stable/contrib/trac-post-commit-hook

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

Use TracAdmin and disable the permissions for tickets:

trac-admin </path/to/projenv> permission remove TICKET_VIEW TICKET_CREATE TICKET_MODIFY TICKET_ADMIN

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 postpone translation efforts until the feature base and source code has stabilized somewhat, so 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.

See also TracL10N.

8   Miscellaneous

8.1   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'

8.2   Are there similar systems for CVS?

CVSTrac is a similar but far simpler system which can track 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.

8.5   Is there a way to edit attachments?

Could I download attached file, update it and upload it back with same name? See related #948.

See also: TracGuide, TitleIndex

Note: See TracWiki for help on using the wiki.