Edgewall Software

Version 196 (modified by anonymous, 18 years ago) ( diff )

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Trac FAQ

Postmortem 666 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   Management Summary

1.1   Where is the bird's eye view documentation not?

?
Where is the bird's eye view documentation not?
-------------------------------------------

Where do I find the two-page summary on what Trac and its features are? I'm looking for some kind of documentation that I can show my boss, so that he'll get interested enough to allow me to spend the time and resources to test-install and evaluate further.

Maybe here: http://www.edgewall.com/trac/

2   Installing and Running Trac

2.1   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, TracOnFedoraCore, TracOnWindows

2.2   What license governs the use of Trac?

Starting with version 0.9, Trac is released under the modified BSD license. Versions of Trac prior to 0.9 were released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

2.4   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.

2.6   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

2.7   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"

# 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

Note: The ScriptAliasMatch on /trac.. masks the Alias /trac-static/, so this didn't worked well form me. Instead I used the alias /static-trac/.

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

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/.

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

With the TracAdmin command ''hotcopy''. See TracBackup for documentation.

2.10   Can I use Trac with a remote subversion repository?

You can't use Trac (not yet) with remote repository but you could mirror remote repository using this program: http://svk.elixus.org/

2.11   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

or

On FreeBSD you can use

locale -a

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. On RedHat change /etc/sysconfig/httpd and set

HTTPD_LANG=xx_YY

2.12   I am getting svn import errors with trac, what's going on?

Make sure you install the Python bindings of Subversion, just having Subversion is not good enough. To verify you should have a libsvn and svn directory underneath Python's site-packages directory.

If you do not have this use something like the following to fix this:

On Gentoo Linux:

USE="python" emerge subversion

On FreeBSD use the ports/devel/subversion-python port (preferred way) or ports/devel/subversion with

WITH_PYTHON=true

When using pkgsrc, please make sure to use the pkgsrc/devel/py-subversion pkg.

3   Wiki

3.1   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

3.3   How to add a new page to Wiki using the browser?

Just access the URL http://yourhost/trac/wiki/newpage and click on the "Edit This page link"

3.4   How do I remove a page from the Wiki?

Users with the WIKI_DELETE permission can click the "Delete Page" button at the bottom of the page.

The trac-admin utility can also remove Wiki pages like so:

trac-admin <yourprojenv> wiki remove PageName

3.5   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.

3.7   How do I see all pages that link to the current page?

Currently you can use a 3rd party BackLinks WikiMacro to do this

There is also ticket #611 requesting this feature in Trac.

3.8   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 privileged 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.

3.9   Is there a way to edit attachments?

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

3.10   Can I convert MediaWiki pages to Trac?

You can use the mediawiki2trac.py script (attached to TracWiki) as a starting point. However, it would probably be better to write a WikiProcessor for the MediaWiki styles.

3.11   Can I directly add questions to this Wiki FAQ?

Yes, you can! However, please don't add unanswered questions. Good places to ask questions are the MailingList and the IrcChannel.

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.

3.12   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.

4   Timeline

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

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

trac-admin <yourprojenv> resync

5   Browser

5.1   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

6   Tickets

6.1   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).

6.2   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> .output ticket.sql
sqlite> .dump ticket

Outputs the table, both the schema and the data, into the file ticket.sql. You can then in import this file into your new installation by doing something like sqlite < ticket.sql. You will need to either drop the ticket table in your new installation or remove the "create table" statement out of the ticket.sql file.

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

Moving from Win2k, SQLite 3 to Debian 3.1, SQLite 2 the following worked:

sqlite3.exe e:\project\db\trac.db .dump > c:\project.sql

copy this file and any attachments/templates to the new server.

sqlite /new/project/db/trac.db

.read project.sql

.exit

Move the other files into postion. Done!

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

In version 0.9 Trac will use the email address from the Settings page for authenticated users.

6.4   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.

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

6.5   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

6.6   Microsoft Outlook displays ticket notification mails in a non-monospace font, how do I change that?

Outlook can be configured to use a monospace font by going to Tools --> Options... --> Email format --> Fonts ... --> International Fonts. Highlight Unicode in the language list, select Courier New as the proportional font, and select Unicode (UTF-8) as encoding.

7   Reports

7.1   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.

8   Development

8.1   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.

8.2   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.

8.3   Is the Database schema available anywhere?

In Trac 0.8.x and below the schema is available in http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/file/branches/0.8-stable/trac/db_default.py

Trac no longer has the schema in plain SQL since it was necessary to abstract the table creation in order to support other database platforms. However, the structure in db_default.py still provides a representaion of the schema.

To get a definitive schema for your install:

prompt> sqlite3 /path/to/tracdata/yourinstance/db/trac.db
sqlite> .schema

9   Miscellaneous

9.1   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'

9.2   Can I use Trac with other version control systems (CVS, Arch, etc.)?

Currently only Subversion is supported, but Trac will probably support other systems in the future. See discussion of this on VersioningSystemBackend

Also, CVSTrac is a similar, but far simpler system which can track a CVS repository

9.3   Can I use LDAP to manage user accounts?

Apache supports LDAP authentication with mod_auth_ldap. You can use this in place of the other authenticate methods used in the installation guides.

However, you can't currently use LDAP to manage your Trac groups and permissions. There is discussion on a possible patch for this, as well as general information on LDAP authentication here: http://anciens.enib.fr/trac/public/wiki/TracLdap

See also: TracGuide, TitleIndex

Note: See TracWiki for help on using the wiki.