Hello, friends. In this post, you will learn how to install Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04 quickly and easily.
According to the official information on the project website,
Redmine is a flexible project management web application. Written using the Ruby on Rails framework, it is cross-platform and cross-database.
As you can imagine, it is open source which allows us to get the source code of the application. Also, we will be able to use it in small or medium projects.
Some of the main features of Redmine are:
- Multiple projects support
- Flexible role-based access control
- Flexible issue tracking system
- Gantt chart and calendar
- News, documents & files management
As a project manager, it has the advantage of being able to have all the information associated with a project and delimited within the same project. In addition to allowing us to control it through a simple and very practical web interface.
So, let’s get started.
Install Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04 – First steps
When connecting to the server, make sure it is up to date. To do so, run the following commands:
apt update apt upgrade
After this, install Apache and the passenger module.
apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-passenger Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: apache2-bin apache2-data apache2-utils libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap libgdbm-compat4 libjansson4 liblua5.2-0 libperl5.30 libruby2.7 passenger perl perl-modules-5.30 rake ruby ruby-minitest ruby-net-telnet ruby-power-assert ruby-rack ruby-test-unit ruby-xmlrpc ruby2.7 rubygems-integration Suggested packages: apache2-doc apache2-suexec-pristine | apache2-suexec-custom www-browser nodejs passenger-doc python rails perl-doc libterm-readline-gnu-perl | libterm-readline-perl-perl make libb-debug-perl liblocale-codes-perl ri ruby-dev bundler Recommended packages: ssl-cert zip fonts-lato libjs-jquery The following NEW packages will be installed: apache2 apache2-bin apache2-data apache2-utils libapache2-mod-passenger libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap libgdbm-compat4 libjansson4 liblua5.2-0 libperl5.30 libruby2.7 passenger perl perl-modules-5.30 rake ruby ruby-minitest ruby-net-telnet ruby-power-assert ruby-rack ruby-test-unit ruby-xmlrpc ruby2.7 rubygems-integration 0 upgraded, 27 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded. Need to get 14.3 MB of archives. After this operation, 79.5 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: galera-3 gawk libconfig-inifiles-perl libdbi-perl libmpfr6 libsigsegv2 libsnappy1v5 mariadb-client-10.3 mariadb-client-core-10.3 mariadb-common mariadb-server-10.3 mariadb-server-core-10.3 mysql-common socat Suggested packages: gawk-doc libclone-perl libmldbm-perl libnet-daemon-perl libsql-statement-perl mailx mariadb-test tinyca Recommended packages: libdbd-mysql-perl libterm-readkey-perl libhtml-template-perl The following NEW packages will be installed: galera-3 gawk libconfig-inifiles-perl libdbi-perl libmpfr6 libsigsegv2 libsnappy1v5 mariadb-client mariadb-client-10.3 mariadb-client-core-10.3 mariadb-common mariadb-server mariadb-server-10.3 mariadb-server-core-10.3 mysql-common socat 0 upgraded, 16 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded. Need to get 19.9 MB of archives. After this operation, 167 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Installing MariaDB on Ubuntu 20.04
Now it is time to install the MariaDB database driver. You can do this by running
apt install mariadb-server mariadb-client
When installing, set a root password and “secure” the installation using the mysql_secure_installation script.
mysql_secure_installation
Define the root password and answer the questions as appropriate. In my chaos, I’ve answered Y to everything.
Now, access the MariaDB console and create the new database for Redmine as well as the user and password for it.
mysql -u root -p CREATE DATABASE redminedb CHARACTER SET utf8mb4; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON redminedb.* TO 'redmineuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES; Exit;
Now with MariaDB ready, we can start the installation.
Install and configure Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04
Fortunately, Redmine is available from the official Ubuntu repositories. For now, this is the easiest and safest way to do the installation, so we’ll do it this way.
apt install redmine redmine-mysql Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: dbconfig-common dbconfig-mysql fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core imagemagick-6-common libfftw3-double3 libfontconfig1 libgomp1 libjbig0 libjpeg-turbo8 libjpeg8 libjs-chart.js libjs-jquery libjs-jquery-ui libjs-raphael liblcms2-2 liblqr-1-0 libmagickcore-6.q16-6 libmysqlclient21 libtiff5 libwebp6 libwebpmux3 libx11-6 libx11-data libxau6 libxcb1 libxdmcp6 libxext6 libxslt1.1 ruby-actioncable ruby-actionmailer ruby-actionpack ruby-actionpack-action-caching ruby-actionpack-xml-parser ruby-actionview ruby-activejob ruby-activemodel ruby-activerecord ruby-activestorage ruby-activesupport ruby-addressable ruby-arel ruby-atomic ruby-builder ruby-bundler ruby-coderay ruby-concurrent ruby-crass ruby-css-parser ruby-erubi ruby-eventmachine ruby-globalid ruby-hike ruby-htmlentities ruby-i18n ruby-jquery-rails ruby-loofah ruby-mail ruby-marcel ruby-method-source ruby-mime-types ruby-mime-types-data ruby-mimemagic ruby-mini-mime ruby-molinillo ruby-multi-json ruby-mysql2 ruby-net-http-persistent ruby-net-ldap ruby-nio4r ruby-nokogiri ruby-pkg-config ruby-public-suffix ruby-rack-test ruby-rails ruby-rails-deprecated-sanitizer ruby-rails-dom-testing ruby-rails-html-sanitizer ruby-rails-observers ruby-railties ruby-rbpdf ruby-rbpdf-font ruby-redcarpet ruby-request-store ruby-rmagick ruby-roadie ruby-roadie-rails ruby-rouge ruby-sprockets ruby-sprockets-rails ruby-thor ruby-thread-safe ruby-tilt ruby-tzinfo ruby-websocket-driver ruby-websocket-extensions Suggested packages: libfftw3-bin libfftw3-dev libjs-jquery-ui-docs javascript-common liblcms2-utils libmagickcore-6.q16-6-extra bzr cvs darcs git mercurial ruby-fcgi subversion Recommended packages: javascript-common ghostscript gsfonts ruby-oj The following NEW packages will be installed: dbconfig-common dbconfig-mysql fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core imagemagick-6-common libfftw3-double3 libfontconfig1 libgomp1 libjbig0 libjpeg-turbo8 libjpeg8 libjs-chart.js libjs-jquery libjs-jquery-ui libjs-raphael liblcms2-2 liblqr-1-0 libmagickcore-6.q16-6 libmysqlclient21 libtiff5 libwebp6 libwebpmux3 libx11-6 libx11-data libxau6 libxcb1 libxdmcp6 libxext6 libxslt1.1 redmine redmine-mysql ruby-actioncable ruby-actionmailer ruby-actionpack ruby-actionpack-action-caching ruby-actionpack-xml-parser ruby-actionview ruby-activejob ruby-activemodel ruby-activerecord ruby-activestorage ruby-activesupport ruby-addressable ruby-arel ruby-atomic ruby-builder ruby-bundler ruby-coderay ruby-concurrent ruby-crass ruby-css-parser ruby-erubi ruby-eventmachine ruby-globalid ruby-hike ruby-htmlentities ruby-i18n ruby-jquery-rails ruby-loofah ruby-mail ruby-marcel ruby-method-source ruby-mime-types ruby-mime-types-data ruby-mimemagic ruby-mini-mime ruby-molinillo ruby-multi-json ruby-mysql2 ruby-net-http-persistent ruby-net-ldap ruby-nio4r ruby-nokogiri ruby-pkg-config ruby-public-suffix ruby-rack-test ruby-rails ruby-rails-deprecated-sanitizer ruby-rails-dom-testing ruby-rails-html-sanitizer ruby-rails-observers ruby-railties ruby-rbpdf ruby-rbpdf-font ruby-redcarpet ruby-request-store ruby-rmagick ruby-roadie ruby-roadie-rails ruby-rouge ruby-sprockets ruby-sprockets-rails ruby-thor ruby-thread-safe ruby-tilt ruby-tzinfo ruby-websocket-driver ruby-websocket-extensions 0 upgraded, 98 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded. Need to get 21.7 MB of archives. After this operation, 78.9 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
During the installation, you will be asked if you want to configure the Redmine database.
Then, set a password to complete the process
After this, it’s a good idea to install bundler because it provides an environment for Ruby on Rails projects and since Redmine is built on this, it’s a must install.
gem install bundler Fetching bundler-2.2.24.gem Successfully installed bundler-2.2.24 Parsing documentation for bundler-2.2.24 Installing ri documentation for bundler-2.2.24 Done installing documentation for bundler after 3 seconds 1 gem installed
After you install it, edit the Passenger module configuration file.
nano /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.conf
And replace the contents with this
<IfModule mod_passenger.c> PassengerDefaultUser www-data PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/phusion_passenger/locations.ini PassengerDefaultRuby /usr/bin/ruby </IfModule>
Make a Redmine symbolic link to the Apache root directory
ln -s /usr/share/redmine/public /var/www/html/redmine
The next step is to create a file called gemfile.lock in addition to this, you have to make it belong to the apache user.
touch /usr/share/redmine/Gemfile.lock chown www-data:www-data /usr/share/redmine/Gemfile.lock chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/redmine
The most convenient way is to create a new VirtualHost to manage the Redmine web interface.
nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/redmine.conf
And add the following
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin [email protected] DocumentRoot /var/www/html/redmine ServerName redmine.osradar.test <Directory /var/www/html/redmine> RailsBaseURI /redmine PassengerResolveSymlinksInDocumentRoot on </Directory> ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined </VirtualHost>
Remember to replace the ServerName and ServerAdmin values with your own.
Save the changes and close the editor.
Optional: Enabling HTTPS access
It is recommended to install the security certificates that enable HTTPS connection to Redmine. If the installation will be available via the Internet then this step is highly recommended.
So, install Certbot and its Apache plugin.
apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache
And now, generate and install a certificate for your domain.
certbot --apache --d [your-domain]
Then follow the instructions and when finished, restart Apache to complete the process.
systemctl restart apache2
Access to the Redmine installation
Now, open your favorite web browser and go to https://your-domain and you will see a HOME screen.
On the right-hand side, you will see a Sign Up button. Log in with the default credentials admin as user and admin as password.
After logging in, you will be prompted to change the password and you will be able to set your own.
And finally, you will see the Redmine main panel.
So, enjoy it.
Conclusion
Redmine is a tool that allows you to manage projects from a comfortable web interface. Made in Ruby on Rails it allows us to have the best of this language and the efficiency of being Open Source so we can even contribute with the code.
