trac/INSTALL

Trac Installation Guide
=======================

Trac is a lightweight project management tool that is implemented as a
web-based application. Trac is written in the Python programming
language and can use SQLite, PostgreSQL or MySQL as database. For HTML
rendering, Trac uses the Genshi templating system.

Note that you should also read the
**trac/wiki/default-pages/TracInstall** documentation file present in
the source distribution.  If you're upgrading an already installed
environment, please also read trac/wiki/default-pages/TracUpgrade.


Requirements
------------

To install Trac, the following software packages must be installed:

 * Python, version >= 2.5.
 * setuptools, version >= 0.6
 * Genshi, version >= 0.6
 * Optionally, Subversion, version >= 1.1.x and the Subversion SWIG
   Python bindings (not PySVN, that's something different).
 * One of the following Python bindings, depending on the database used:
    * pysqlite version 2.x for SQLite 3.x
    * psycopg2 version 2.0.x for the PostgreSQL database
    * MySQLdb, version 1.2.2 for the MySQL database
 * A web server capable of executing CGI/FastCGI scripts, or Apache
   HTTPD with mod_python or mod_wsgi. (Trac also comes with a
   standalone server, tracd)

Any of the above python library can usually be installed using
easy_install, which itself can be installed using the following
bootstrap script::

  $ wget http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py

  $ python ez_setup.py

After that, you can do for example: easy_install Genshi

Your version of Python comes with its own version of pysqlite, however
if want to use the latest pysqlite package, you can download from
http://code.google.com/p/pysqlite/downloads/list the Windows
installers or the tar.gz archive for building from source::

  $ tar xvfz <version>.tar.gz

  $ cd <version>

  $ python setup.py build_static install

That way, the latest SQLite version will be downloaded and built into the
bindings.


Installing Trac
---------------

The command::

  $ python ./setup.py install

will byte-compile the python source code and install it in the
site-packages directory of your python installation. The directories
cgi-bin, templates, htdocs and wiki-default are all copied to
``$prefix/share/trac/``.

The script will also install the trac-admin command-line tool, used to
create and maintain project environments. Trac-admin is the command
center of Trac.

Note: you'll need root permissions or equivalent for this step.

To install Trac in a different location, or use other advanced
installation options, run::

  $ python ./setup.py --help


Installing Trac on Windows
--------------------------

If you downloaded the Trac installer (the .exe file), installing is
simply a matter of running the installer.  After running the
installer, configuration and installation is the same as for other
platforms.


Creating a Project Environment
------------------------------

A Trac environment is the backend storage format where Trac stores
information like wiki pages, tickets, reports, settings, etc. A Trac
environment consists of the environment configuration file (trac.ini),
custom templates, log files, and more.

A new Trac environment is created with trac-admin::

  $ trac-admin /path/to/projectenv initenv

Note: The user account under which the web server is run needs write
permission to the environment directory and all the files inside.

trac-admin will prompt you for the name of the project, where your
subversion repository is located, what database you want to use, etc.


Running the Standalone Server
-----------------------------

After having created a Trac environment, you can easily try the web
interface by running the standalone server ``tracd``::

  $ tracd --port 8000 /path/to/projectenv

Then, fire up a browser and visit http://localhost:8000/. You should
get a simple listing of all environments that tracd knows
about. Follow the link to the environment you just created, and you
should see Trac in action.


Running Trac on a Web Server
----------------------------

Trac provides three options for connecting to a "real" web server:
CGI, FastCGI and mod_python. For decent performance, it is recommended
that you use either FastCGI or mod_python.

Please refer to the TracInstall page for details on these setups. You
can find it either in the wiki of the Trac project you just created,
or on the main Trac site.


Using Trac
----------

Once you have your Trac site up and running, you should be able to
browse your subversion repository, create tickets, view the timeline,
etc.

Keep in mind that anonymous (not logged in) users can by default
access most but not all of the features. You will need to configure
authentication and grant additional permissions to authenticated users
to see the full set of features.

For further documentation, see the TracGuide wiki page.

Enjoy!

/The Trac Team

Please also consider joining the mailing lists at
<http://groups.google.com/group/trac-users>


Visit the Trac open source project at <http://trac.edgewall.org/>