Database Backend

Initially, Trac only supported SQLite for its database backend. Postgresql support has been added as of Trac 0.9.

Since milestone:0.10, Trac offers an easily extensible layer for Database support (see trac.db.api​).

The existing backends have been refactored and integrated in this layer. There's currently bundled support for:

• ​SQLite, using PySqlite
• ​PostgreSQL, using a variety of bindings (​psycopg1, ​psycopg2, or ​pyPgSQL) (see #126 for historical notes)

There's some work in progress for the following:

• MySQL (see #986)
• Oracle (see #1874)

Backend Specific Installation Instructions

Postgresql

• Have a working copy of Postgresql
• Get the proper database driver for Python (see above)
• Create a database for your Trac environment

  % createdb dbname
  

• Run trac-admin to create a new Trac environment. When prompted for a Database connection string, use:

  postgres://user:pass@localhost:5432/dbname
  

See also #2441, which discusses the process of migration from SQLite to Postgresql.

MySQL

MySQL is only experimentally supported with the patch attached to ticket #986. It also has several limitations.

• Have a working copy of MySQL version 4.1.12 or greater.
• ​MySQLdb - Python database driver for MySQL
• Create a database and user for your Trac environment

  % mysqladmin create dbname
  % mysql
  > grant all privileges on dbname.* to dbuser identified by 'dbpass';
  > quit
  

• Run trac-admin to create a new Trac environment. When prompted for a database connection string, use:

  mysql://dbuser:dbpass@host:port/dbname
  

• or

  mysql://dbuser:dbpass@host/dbname
  

Alternative Ideas for Database Independence

Object-Relational Mapper

An ORM could be used to provide a unified object interface to different RDBMS:

• some people have been talking about using ​SQLObject to accomplish this goal of database independence.
• ​Modeling Another, more advanced (and more complex) OR-Mapper.
• ​SQLAlchemy seems to be also quite advanced

Comparisions between both and more info on Python ORMs:

• ​http://toulouse.amber.org/archives/2003/04/21/evaluating_objectrelational_migration.html
• ​http://google.com/search?q=SQLObject+modeling

Store Tickets and Wiki pages directly in the Subversion repository

A compelling idea with many advantages. A page advocating this plan is TighterSubversionIntegration. There has also been a discussion on the Trac mailing list. All arguments from this discussion are summarized on the page WhySQLite.

Other Alternatives

• ​http://wiki.w4py.org/databaseintegration.html
• ​http://adodb.sourceforge.net - the fast ADODB db abstraction layer (version available for python)