Project

General

Profile

HowTo configure Apache to run Redmine » History » Version 16

Lu Pon, 2010-06-01 23:02
Comment about Ubuntu version

1 1 Cyber Sprocket
h1. HowTo configure Apache to run Redmine
2
3 7 Mischa The Evil
{{>toc}}
4 1 Cyber Sprocket
5 2 Cyber Sprocket
These notes assume you already have Redmine running via the webrick server and are looking to get Redmine running via your existing Apache installation.   Most of the commands assume you are in the root installation directory of redmine, so be sure to change directory there before starting.
6 1 Cyber Sprocket
7
h2. For CentOS 5
8
9
h3. Assumptions
10
11
* OS is CentOS 5
12
* Web server is Apache 2
13
** mod_cgi is enabled
14
** name based virtual servers are being used
15 2 Cyber Sprocket
** the web server runs under the user apache, group apache
16 1 Cyber Sprocket
17 4 Cyber Sprocket
h3. Myths
18
19
* You do not need to run mod_fcgid
20
* You do not need to run mod_fastcgi
21 8 William Baum
 
22
bq. -This section needs work. I can't tell if these are the myths or the corrections to the myths.
23
_(note: if someone were so generous to post working, known good, HOWTO steps here for enabling FastCGI, that would be highly valuable to the entire community.- It is reported that www.redmine.org itself runs FastCGI, so it is obviously a valid, worthwhile, stable, performing way to run this great great web app'.)_
24 5 Brad Mace
25 14 Cyber Sprocket
bq. I have added sections detailing the installation and configuration of mod_fastcgi and mod_fcgid below. --wmbaum, (2009-08-30)
26 1 Cyber Sprocket
27 14 Cyber Sprocket
bq. We had problems with getting Rails 2.3.5 working with cgi and fastcgi.  fcgid on Apache2 worked great for 9.3. We tweaked some of the notes based on the recent fcgid updates. -- "cybersprocket":http://www.cybersprocket.com, (2010-04-25)
28
29 1 Cyber Sprocket
h3. Basic Steps
30
31 11 Patrick OMalley
* Install Redmine per the [[RedmineInstall| installation instructions]] and get it running with webrick.
32 1 Cyber Sprocket
33
* Kill the webrick session
34
35
* Copy the public/dispatch.cgi.example to public/dispatch.cgi
36
37 9 Patrick OMalley
* Edit public/dispatch.cgi to fix the shell script invocation to point to your ruby install location like:
38 1 Cyber Sprocket
  @#!/usr/local/bin/ruby@
39 9 Patrick OMalley
  or 
40
  @#!/usr/bin/ruby@
41 1 Cyber Sprocket
42 10 Patrick OMalley
* Also in public/dispatch.cgi, you may need to change the require line to an absolute path as stated in the comment to something like
43
  @require "/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.1.2/lib/dispatcher.rb"@
44
45 1 Cyber Sprocket
* Make sure public/dispatch.cgi has execute permissions via:
46
  @# chmod 755 public/dispatch.cgi@
47
48
* Update the config/environment.rb file to force the rails environment to production, simply uncomment this line at the start of the file:
49
  @ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'production'@
50
51 3 Cyber Sprocket
* Add your virtual host entry to the apache configuration file (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf).  We installed redmine into the /live/redmine folder on our server. _Note: be sure to point your DocumentRoot to the public sub-folder!_
52
53 1 Cyber Sprocket
<pre>
54
    <VirtualHost *:80>
55
        ServerName redmine.<YOUR-DOMAIN>.com
56
        ServerAdmin webmaster@<YOUR-DOMAIN>.com
57
        DocumentRoot /live/redmine/public/
58
        ErrorLog logs/redmine_error_log
59
60
        <Directory "/live/redmine/public/">
61
                Options Indexes ExecCGI FollowSymLinks
62
                Order allow,deny
63
                Allow from all
64
                AllowOverride all
65
        </Directory>
66
    </VirtualHost>
67
</pre>
68
69
* Make sure your files, log, tmp, and vendor directories are all accessible (read/write) by user apache, group apache. We did that via a change of ownership:
70
  @# chown -R apache:apache files log tmp vendor@
71
72
73 2 Cyber Sprocket
h3. Error Messages and Resolutions
74 1 Cyber Sprocket
75 2 Cyber Sprocket
  * @Rails requires RubyGems >= 0.9.4. Please install RubyGems@
76 1 Cyber Sprocket
    Look for rogue versions of ruby binaries.  We had an older version in /usr/bin/ruby as well as /usr/local/bin/ruby.
77
78 2 Cyber Sprocket
  * @Premature script headers@
79
    This is the generic "got something before the Content-Type: header in a CGI script" error from Apache.  Run dispatch.cgi (see below) and see what comes out BEFORE the Content-Type: directive.
80
81 8 William Baum
h3. Helpful Commands
82 2 Cyber Sprocket
83
 * @# which ruby@
84
   tells you which ruby binary is being run when the fully-qualified-filename has not been specified.
85
86
 * @# find / -name ruby@
87
   searches your entire system for any file named ruby, warning: can take a while on large filesystems.
88
 
89
 * @# ruby -v@
90 1 Cyber Sprocket
   tell you what version of ruby you are running by default
91
92
 * @#public/dispatch.cgi@
93
   runs the dispatch CGI script.   It should spit out HTML that start with @Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8@, if ANYTHING precedes the Content-Type text you will get a "premature script headers" error in the Apache log files.
94 8 William Baum
95
96
h2. mod_fastcgi
97
98
I suggest getting redmine running with mod_cgi above, not only to verify your basic redmine and apache configuration, but also so you can appreciate the perfomance gains you'll get from mod_fastcgi or mod_fcid.
99
100
We'll start with "mod_fastcgi":http://www.fastcgi.com/.  
101
102
Install prerequisites:
103
104
<pre>
105
yum install libtool httpd-devel apr-devel apr
106
</pre>
107
108
h3. Download and Install mod_fastcgi
109
110
<pre>
111
cd /usr/local/src/
112
wget http://www.fastcgi.com/dist/mod_fastcgi-current.tar.gz
113
114
tar -zxvf mod_fastcgi-current.tar.gz
115
cd mod_fastcgi-2.4.6/
116
cp Makefile.AP2 Makefile 
117
make top_dir=/usr/lib/httpd
118
make install top_dir=/usr/lib/httpd
119
</pre>
120
121
Create or edit @/etc/httpd/conf.d/mod_fastcgi.conf@
122
<pre>
123
LoadModule fastcgi_module modules/mod_fastcgi.so
124
<IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>
125
FastCgiIpcDir /tmp/fcgi_ipc/
126
</IfModule>
127
</pre>
128
129
The @/tmp/fcgi_ipc/@ directory needs to be writable to the apache user:
130
<pre>
131
chown -R apache.apache /tmp/fcgi_ipc/
132
chmod -R 777 /tmp/fcgi_ipc/
133
</pre>
134
135
> Note:  I had to do this more than once.. It created directories which it then didn't own.. ??
136
137
h3. Download and install @fcgi@ (for fcgi gem)
138
139
<pre>
140
wget http://www.fastcgi.com/dist/fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gz
141
tar -zxvf fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gz
142
cd fcgi-2.4.0
143
./configure
144
make
145
make install
146
</pre>
147
148
h3. Install fcgi gem:
149
150
<pre>
151
gem install fcgi
152
</pre>
153
154
h2. Configuring redmine to use fastcgi:
155
156
In your redmine/public/ directory, copy @dispatch.fcgi.example@ to @dispatch.fcgi@
157
> Note: Mine was shebanged to "#!/usr/bin/env ruby", which is fine.  I found a reference or two that seemed to indicate the 'env' bit is preferable to calling ruby directly.  If this doesn't work, then you'll need to change it to wherever your ruby is as above.
158
159
@./public/.htaccess@
160
<pre>
161
#<IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>
162
#       RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]
163
#</IfModule>
164
#<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
165
#       RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]
166
#</IfModule>
167
#<IfModule mod_cgi.c>
168
#       RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.cgi [QSA,L]
169
#</IfModule>
170
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]
171
</pre>
172
173
The default .htaccess will use cgi if it's available, so we need to force fcgi.  You could perhaps rearrange the directives to prefer fcgi -- I just commented out the others and forced it with <code>RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]</code>  You can see which one is actually in use with <code>ps gaux</code>
174
175
Give it a whirl:
176
<pre>
177
/etc/init.d/httpd configtest
178
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
179
</pre>
180
181
h2. Additional Apache Configuration
182
183
When I first fired up apache with redmine, apache started very slowly and sucked up a significantly larger chunk of RAM than normal.  Further investigation revealed that it had fired off *8* @ruby .../redmine/public/dispatch.fcgi@ processes! No wonder it was slow. 
184
185
I was running redmin under the apache default VirtualHost, and the default StartServers, MinSpareServers, etc. applied.  You can adjust the defaults in @/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf@ or even better is to run redmine under a @NameVirtualHost@ or a different @VirtualHost@.  This prevents apache from firing off a bunch of extraneous processes, and @NameVirtualHost@ should allow you to configure multiple redmine environments on the same IP without wasting a bunch of resources.
186
187
If you're having issues with apache virtual hosts, this can be very helpful:
188
<pre>
189
/usr/sbin/httpd -t -D DUMP_VHOSTS
190
</pre>
191
192
h2. mod_fcgid
193 1 Cyber Sprocket
194 14 Cyber Sprocket
h3. fcgid from Apache
195
196
"Official Apache mod_fcgid":http://httpd.apache.org/mod_fcgid/ this is the Apache version, seems newer and we had more luck with this than the Coremail hosted version below.
197
198
<pre>
199
cd /usr/local/src/
200
wget http://apache.mirrors.hoobly.com/httpd/mod_fcgid/mod_fcgid-2.3.5.tar.gz
201
tar zxvf mod_fcgid.2.3.5.tgz
202
cd mod_fcgid.2.3.5
203
</pre>
204
205
Configure and Install
206
<pre>
207
./configure.apxs
208
make
209
make install
210
service httpd restart
211
</pre>
212
213
214
215
h3. fcgid from China Coremail service
216
217 8 William Baum
"mod_fcgid":http://fastcgi.coremail.cn/ seems newer and preferable to mod_fastcgi.
218 1 Cyber Sprocket
219 14 Cyber Sprocket
220 1 Cyber Sprocket
<pre>
221 8 William Baum
cd /usr/local/src/
222 14 Cyber Sprocket
wget http://apache.mirrors.hoobly.com/httpd/mod_fcgid/mod_fcgid-2.2.tar.gz
223 13 William Baum
tar zxvf mod_fcgid.2.2.tgz
224
cd mod_fcgid.2.2
225 8 William Baum
</pre>
226
227
Edit Makefile
228
<pre>
229
#top_dir      = /usr/local/apache2
230 1 Cyber Sprocket
top_dir      = /usr/lib/httpd
231 13 William Baum
</pre>
232
233
Build it..
234
<pre>
235
make
236
make install
237 8 William Baum
</pre>
238
239
Edit/create @/etc/httpd/conf.d/mod_fcgid.conf@
240
<pre>
241
LoadModule fcgid_module /usr/lib/httpd/modules/mod_fcgid.so
242
243
<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
244
    SocketPath /tmp/fcgid_sock/
245
    AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
246
</IfModule>
247
</pre>
248
249
Now you should be able to switch between mod_fastcgi and mod_fcgid by renaming one of them to other than *.conf in @/etc/httpd/conf.d/@
250
<pre>
251
cd /etc/httpd/conf.d/
252
mv mod_fastcgi.conf mod_fastcgi.conf.not
253 1 Cyber Sprocket
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
254
</pre>
255 14 Cyber Sprocket
256
257
h3. Either Version, Permissions
258
259
With either fcgid version you may run into problems with the fcgid service starting.   Make sure the socks parent directory (typically /var/log/httpd) has proper permissions.   The default directory permissions for /var/log/httpd is for a standard non-fcgid install of Apache.  You need to add execute permissions for Apache to read/write to the directory properly while it is running fcgid.
260
261
<pre>
262
chmod 755 /var/log/httpd
263
service httpd restart
264
</pre>
265
266 8 William Baum
267
h2. Installation Sources
268
269
In the above steps, I installed from sources only where I didn't find any RPM's in common repo's.  I'm rather surprised that one can't simply @yum install@ mod_fastcgi, mod_fcgid, fcgi, etc., but there we are.  If you find better methods or sources for any of the above, please feel free to update.
270 12 Fred Eisele
271 16 Lu Pon
h2. Ubuntu Server (Version ?) (This not don't work for 8.04 LTS)
272 12 Fred Eisele
273
Install passenger
274
<pre>
275
sudo aptitude install libapache2-mod-passenger
276
</pre>
277
This did switch the type of apache server to worker from prefork but in my case that was acceptable.
278
279
I had installed the redmine tarball into /opt/redmine as redmine-0.8.5 and made a symlink named current.
280
Then make a link to the redmine public directory from the apache DocumentRoot (see /etc/apache2/config.d/*).
281
<pre>
282
ln -s /opt/redmine/current/public /var/www/redmine
283
</pre>
284
285
Updated /etc/apache/config.d/redmine (or wherever your virtualhost is defined) with the following:
286
<pre>
287
RailsEnv production
288
RailsBaseURI /redmine
289
</pre>
290
291
Restart apache.
292 15 Martin Cyr
293
h2. For FreeBSD (and possibly others)
294
295
I found the current instructions to be lacking on some way. With the information above, the scripts and css might not appear correctly, the link get broken and such. Also, some hacks seems to have been lost to history (the #!/bin/bash/ruby hack, wich is not required with this technique). Here is how I got it going.
296
297
Make sure 'Apache 2.2', 'Ruby', 'fastcgi' (including the gem) are installed.
298
First, putting redmine in a sub-directory requires more work and is left for the reader as an exercise to get properly (hint Rewrite is your friend), so from now on, I will assume that redmine will be the DocumentRoot.
299
So here it is, my httpd.conf :
300
<pre>
301
LoadModule fastcgi_module     libexec/apache22/mod_fastcgi.so
302
303
DocumentRoot "/usr/local/www/redmine/public"
304
305
FastCgiServer /usr/local/www/redmine/public/dispatch.fcgi -idle-timeout 120 -initial-env RAILS_ENV=production -initial-env PATH=/usr/local/bin -processes 2
306
307
<Directory /usr/local/www/redmine/public>
308
   AddHandler fastcgi-script fcgi
309
   Order allow,deny
310
   Allow from all
311
   AllowOverride all
312
   Options +FollowSymLinks +ExecCGI
313
   RewriteEngine On
314
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
315
   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi
316
</Directory>
317
</pre>
318
319
Now let's explain what happens and why:
320
# _AddHandler fastcgi-script fcgi_: defines that when apache identifies a file with extension fcgi, if should be handled buy the fastcgi-script handler. This definition of a handler is created by the mod_fastcgi.so module (loaded through the LoadModule directive of couse).
321
# _Options +FollowSymLinks +ExecCGI_: tells apache that within this directory, CGI-ish script execution is allowed
322
# _RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f_: only rewrite if the file doesn't exist
323
# _RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi_: everything goes to dispatch.fcgi
324
# _FastCgiServer /usr/local/www/redmine/public/dispatch.fcgi -idle-timeout 120 -initial-env RAILS_ENV=production -initial-env PATH=/usr/local/bin -processes 2_: This is the main thing. As Scott Laird explains in this "blog":http://scottstuff.net/blog/2005/07/20/apache-tuning-for-rails-and-fastcgi, running FastCGI can run in three modes (see post). This tells FastCGI how to handle our script, with the important part being the initial-env to define what variables should be set in the FastCGI context. As FastCGI starts, it will normally start with a blank (*emtpy*) environment variables, so yeah, your $PATH will be empty, and no /usr/bin/env *will NOT* find the ruby executable in the path and thus failing with the error _env: ruby: No such file or directory_. Also, ruby will not know that he is expected to start in production env. With this line, you don't have to fix your dispatch.fcgi shabang (the #!/usr/bin/env ruby line) nor will you have to change the config/environment.rb file with a ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'production'.
325
326
Restart apache and you should be set.