How to install and configure Trac for use in professional development environments. Trac will run as a module in Apache2 and will use it's own database in sqlite or PostgreSQL. Subversion is also integrated. The whole thing will be visible at http://code.domain.tld/trac

Install mod_python and trac

These are sample USE flags when running under Apache.

[ebuild   R   ] www-apache/mod_python-3.3.1-r1  438 kB
[ebuild   R   ] www-apps/trac-0.12  USE="-cgi -fastcgi -i18n -mysql postgres sqlite subversion vhosts" 0 kB

Configure apache to start with mod_python by editing /etc/conf.d/apache2 to look something like the following. Restart apache. 

APACHE2_OPTS="-D SSL -D PHP5 -D PYTHON -D XSENDFILE"

Then run the Trac easy installer

www-host ~ # easy_install Trac

Create the Trac database

Shell into the database server and create a dedicate user and database for Trac. Other methods exist but this is plain and simple. 

sql-host ~ # psql -U postgres
postgres=# create user my_trac with encrypted password 'password';
postgres=# create database my_trac with owner = my_trac encoding = 'UTF8';

Create the Trac Repository

This Trac repository is created on a raid array but, could be to any path needed. 

www-host ~ # # trac-admin /mnt/raid/trac initenv 
Creating a new Trac environment at /mnt/raid/trac

Trac will first ask a few questions about your environment 
in order to initialize and prepare the project database.

 Please enter the name of your project.
 This name will be used in page titles and descriptions.

Project Name [My Project]> My Trac Project is Awesome
 
 Please specify the connection string for the database to use.
 By default, a local SQLite database is created in the environment
 directory. It is also possible to use an already existing
 PostgreSQL database (check the Trac documentation for the exact
 connection string syntax).

Database connection string [sqlite:db/trac.db]> postgres://my_trac:password@sql-host/my_trac

 Please specify the type of version control system,
 By default, it will be svn.

 If you don't want to use Trac with version control integration,
 choose the default here and don't specify a repository directory.
 in the next question.

Repository type [svn]> 

 Please specify the absolute path to the version control
 repository, or leave it blank to use Trac without a repository.
 You can also set the repository location later.

Path to repository [/path/to/repos]> /mnt/raid/svn

 [ a bundle of snipped output here ]

Congratulations!

Change permissions so Apache can see the whole thing. 

www-host ~ # chown -R apache:apache /mnt/raid/trac

Edit the trac configuration in /mnt/raid/trac/conf/trac.ini and adjust the following, unchanged values are just not listed here. First set changes logo, second set change email behaviour. 

[header_logo]
alt = Logo
link = http://code.domain.tld/trac
src = http://code.domain.tld/img/logo.png


[notification]
always_notify_owner = true
always_notify_updater = false
smtp_default_domain = domain.tld
smtp_from = trac@domain.tld
smtp_from_name = Trac
smtp_password = password
smtp_replyto = code@domain.tld
smtp_server = smtp.domain.tld
smtp_user = user@smtp.domain.tld

Configure Apache mod_python

This example creates a dedicated site at trac.domain.tld. Create a file such as this in /etc/apache2/vhosts.d/trac.domain.tld.conf 

<VirtualHost 216.162.208.172:80>

    DocumentRoot /var/www/domain.tld/
    ServerName code.domain.tld

    #
    # Trac Sites
    #
    <Location /trac>
        SetHandler mod_python
        PythonInterpreter main_interpreter
        PythonHandler trac.web.modpython_frontend
        PythonOption TracEnv /mnt/raid/trac
        PythonOption TracUriRoot /trac
        
        # HTML pages can only be 90 seconds old (keeps fresh)
        ExpiresByType text/html "access plus 90 seconds"
        
        # Set some authentication - could use Digest
        AuthType Basic
        AuthName "My Trac Project"
        AuthUserFile /mnt/raid/trac/conf/htpasswd
        Require valid-user

    </Location>
    
    # @todo include your subversion location here
    
</VirtualHost>

And well need a few users too

www-host ~ # htpasswd -bc /mnt/raid/trac/conf/htpasswd code password

Trac Authenticate to LDAP

This configuration example restricts Trac usage to to subnets and authenticates to a back-end LDAP system. This should be placed into the <Location> section. 

    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 192.168.1.0/24
    Allow from 192.168.100.0/24
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "My Trac Server"
    AuthBasicProvider "ldap"
    AuthLDAPURL "ldap://ldap/dc=domain,dc=com?uid?sub?(objectClass=posixAccount)"
    AuthzLDAPAuthoritative Off
    Require valid-user

Useful Trac Plugins

Out of the box Trac is very useful but here are a few plugins that we thing are "must have".

Trac XML-RPC Plugin

This plugin will allow interaction to Trac via XML-RPC from programs/scripts in almost any language. Installation is quite simple, the process will look something like this. 

root@host # easy_install -Z -U http://trac-hacks.org/svn/xmlrpcplugin/trunk

install_dir /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/
Downloading http://trac-hacks.org/svn/xmlrpcplugin/trunk
Doing subversion checkout from http://trac-hacks.org/svn/xmlrpcplugin/trunk to /tmp/easy_install-NeNWSz/trunk
Processing trunk
Running setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-NeNWSz/trunk/egg-dist-tmp-0m1XdM
Adding TracXMLRPC 1.1.0-r9395 to easy-install.pth file
Installed /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/TracXMLRPC-1.1.0_r9395-py2.6.egg
Processing dependencies for TracXMLRPC==1.1.0-r9395
Finished processing dependencies for TracXMLRPC==1.1.0-r9395

Once that is done, update trac.ini to include this plugin, the restart Apache for good measure.

[components] 
tracrpc.* = enabled

See their Trac Hacks - XML RPC.

HTTP Auth

See Also