Ubuntu / Redmine / Nginx / Mongrel / Supervisord - blog.dbrgn.ch

This is a howto to install Redmine on Ubuntu Natty (probably works on Debian too) with Nginx, Mongrel and Supervisord. The listed commands usually assume root permissions.

Involved software:

Redmine:	Duh, the software you want to install :)
Nginx:	A fast webserver/proxy from Russia
Mongrel:	The software used to serve redmine
Supervisor:	A supervisor daemon written in Python, it automatically restarts the Mongrel process in case it dies.

First, add the PPA for the currently stable Nginx version (the Ubuntu version is outdated).

$ add-apt-repository ppa:nginx/stable

Then install redmine using your desired backend (e.g. redmine-sqlite), and the supervisor and nginx packages.

$ aptitude install redmine redmine-sqlite nginx supervisor

Install the mongrel gem.

$ gem install mongrel

Set up redmine...

$ cd /usr/share/redmine
$ touch log/production.log
$ chmod 777 log log/production.log

Then add the mongrel initializer to redmine (see this bug):

$ cd config/initializers
$ wget 'https://gist.github.com/raw/826692/cb0dcf784c30e6a6d00c631f350de99ab99e389d/mongrel.rb'

Configure nginx:

$ cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
$ touch ../sites-available/redmine
$ ln -s ../sites-available/redmine
$ vim redmine

Add the following configuration (adjust to your likings):

upstream redmine_server {
        server localhost:3000 fail_timeout=0;
}

server {
        listen 80;
        server_name domain.example.com;

        root /usr/share/redmine/public;

        access_log /var/log/nginx/redmine.access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/redmine.error.log info;

        keepalive_timeout 5;

        location / {
                try_files $uri/index.html $uri.html $uri @mongrel;
        }

        location @mongrel {
                proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
                proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
                proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
                proxy_redirect off;
                proxy_pass http://redmine_server;
        }
}

Then edit /etc/supervisord/supervisord.conf and add the following program definition at the end:

[program:redmine]
command=ruby /usr/share/redmine/script/server -e production
directory=/usr/share/redmine/public/
user=www-data
autostart=true
autorestart=true
redirect_stderr=True

Now restart nginx and supervisord:

$ /etc/init.d/supervisord stop
$ /etc/init.d/supervisord start
$ /etc/init.d/nginx restart

(The supervisord restart command is broken in current Ubuntu and Debian versions)

That's it, now your redmine installation should be up and running. In case of questions, feel free to comment.