Last updated on March 29th, 2022 at 07:14 pm
In this guide, you will learn how to install Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04. Redmine is cross-platform and cross-database, flexible project management tool written on Ruby on Rails Framework.
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
- Feeds & email notifications
- Per project wiki
- Per project forums
- Time tracking
- Custom fields for issues, time-entries, projects and users
- SCM integration (SVN, CVS, Git, Mercurial and Bazaar)
- Issue creation via email
- Multiple LDAP authentication support
- User self-registration support
- Multilanguage support
- Multiple databases support
Read more about Redmine features on the features page.
Install Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04
Want to use Ubuntu 22.04 instead? Check how to Install Redmine on Ubuntu 22.04.
Run system update
To begin with, ensure that your system packages are up-to-date.
apt update
Redmine can be installed from the default Ubuntu 20.04 Universe repos. However, the repos doesnt provide the Redmine package. For example, the currently available version of Redmine on he default Ubuntu 20.04 Universe repos is v4.0.6;
apt-cache policy redmine
redmine: Installed: (none) Candidate: 4.0.6-2 Version table: 4.0.6-2 500 500 http://ke.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages
However, Redmine 4.2.2 is the current Release version.
Therefore, to install Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04, you need to build and install it from the source.
Install Required Build Tools and Dependencies
To install Redmine from the source code, you need install the required build tools and dependencies.
apt install build-essential ruby-dev libxslt1-dev libmariadb-dev \ libxml2-dev zlib1g-dev imagemagick libmagickwand-dev curl \ gnupg2 bison libbison-dev libgdbm-dev libncurses-dev libncurses5-dev \ libreadline-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 -y
Install Apache HTTP Server on Ubuntu 20.04
Install Apache web server and Apache modules for the Passenger, lightweight web server for Ruby.
apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-passenger -y
Start and enable Apache to run on system boot.
systemctl enable --now apache2
Install Ruby interpreter
Redmine version 5.0.0 supports Ruby 2.7 which is installed as part of the above package dependencies.
ruby -v
ruby 2.7.0p0 (2019-12-25 revision 647ee6f091) [x86_64-linux-gnu]
Create Redmine System User
Create a Redmine system user that can be used to install Redmine Ruby dependencies via bundler command. Set its home directory to /opt/redmine
as this is where we will install Redmine app.
useradd -r -m -d /opt/redmine -s /usr/bin/bash redmine
Add Apache web server user to Redmine group.
usermod -aG redmine www-data
Also, add redmine user to RVM group;
usermod -aG rvm redmine
Install MariaDB on Ubuntu 20.04
Run the command below to install MariaDB database server on Ubuntu 20.04
apt install mariadb-server
MariaDB is started and enabled to run on boot upon installation. If not already started, run the command below to start it;
systemctl enable --now mariadb
Run initial MariaDB database secure script to remove default databases, test tables, disable remote root login,
mysql_secure_installation
Create Redmine Database and Database User
Once MariaDB is installed, login as root user and create Redmine database and database user.
Replace the names of the database and the database user accordingly.
mysql -u root -p
create database redminedb;
grant all on redminedb.* to [email protected] identified by '[email protected]';
Reload privilege tables and exit the database.
flush privileges; quit
Download and Install Redmine
Navigate Redmine releases page and grab Redmine tarball.
As of this writing, Redmine 5.0.0 is the current release.
You can simply download and extract the Redmine tarball to the Redmine install directory, /opt/redmine
.
Replace the value of VER with the current stable release version of Redmine.
VER=5.0.0
curl -s https://www.redmine.org/releases/redmine-$VER.tar.gz | sudo -u redmine tar xz -C /opt/redmine/ --strip-components=1
Configuring Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04
Once you have installed Redmine under the /opt/redmine
directory, you can now proceed to configure it.
Create Redmine configuration file by renaming the sample configuration files as shown below;
su - redmine
cp /opt/redmine/config/configuration.yml{.example,}
cp /opt/redmine/public/dispatch.fcgi{.example,}
cp /opt/redmine/config/database.yml{.example,}
Configure Redmine Database Settings
Open the created Redmine database configuration setting and set the Redmine database connection details for MySQL.
vim /opt/redmine/config/database.yml
... production: adapter: mysql2 database: redminedb host: localhost username: redmineuser password: "[email protected]" # Use "utf8" instead of "utfmb4" for MySQL prior to 5.7.7 encoding: utf8mb4 ...
Save and exit the file.
Install Redmine Ruby Dependencies
Logout as redmine user by running the exit.
[email protected]:~$ exit
As privileged user, navigate to Redmine install directory and install the Ruby dependencies.
cd /opt/redmine
Install Bundler for managing gem dependencies.
sudo gem install bundler
Next, install the required gems dependencies as redmine user.
su - redmine
bundle config set --local path 'vendor/bundle'
bundle install
Generate Secret Session Token
To prevent tempering of the cookies that stores session data, you need to generate a random secret key that Rails uses to encode them.
bundle exec rake generate_secret_token
Create Database Schema Objects
Create Rails database structure by running the command below;
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:migrate
Once the database migration is done, insert default configuration data into the database by executing;
RAILS_ENV=production REDMINE_LANG=en bundle exec rake redmine:load_default_data
You can safely ignore the Ruby warnings.
Configure FileSystem Permissions
Ensure that the following directories are available on Redmine directory, /opt/redmine.
- tmp and tmp/pdf
- public and public/plugin_assets
- log
- files
If they do not exist, simply create them and ensure that they are owned by the user used to run Redmine.
for i in tmp tmp/pdf public/plugin_assets; do [ -d $i ] || mkdir -p $i; done
chown -R redmine:redmine files log tmp public/plugin_assets
chmod -R 755 /opt/redmine
Testing Redmine Installation
The setup of Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04 is now done. Redmine listens on TCP port 3000 by default. Hence, before running the tests, open port 3000/tcp on firewall if it is running.
[email protected]:~$ exit
sudo ufw allow 3000/tcp
You can now test Redmine using WEBrick by executing the command below;
su - redmine
bundle exec rails server -u webrick -e production
Sample output;
=> Booting WEBrick => Rails 6.1.4.7 application starting in production http://0.0.0.0:3000 => Run `bin/rails server --help` for more startup options [2022-03-29 16:06:26] INFO WEBrick 1.7.0 [2022-03-29 16:06:26] INFO ruby 2.7.0 (2019-12-25) [x86_64-linux-gnu] [2022-03-29 16:06:26] INFO WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=19635 port=3000
Navigate to the browser and enter the address, http://server-IP-or-Hostname:3000. Replace the server-IP-or-Hostname accordingly.
If all is well, you should land on Redmine web user interface.
Configure Apache for Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04
Now that you have confirmed that Redmine is working as expected, proceed to configure Apache to server Redmine.
Create Redmine Apache VirtualHost configuration file.
exit
cat > /etc/apache2/sites-available/redmine.conf << 'EOL' Listen 3000 <VirtualHost *:3000> ServerName redmine.kifarunix-demo.com RailsEnv production DocumentRoot /opt/redmine/public <Directory "/opt/redmine/public"> Allow from all Require all granted </Directory> ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/redmine_error.log CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/redmine_access.log combined </VirtualHost> EOL
Check Apache configuration for errors.
apachectl configtest
Syntax OK
Ensure that Passenger module is loaded;
apache2ctl -M | grep -i passenger
passenger_module (shared)
If not enabled, run the command below to enable it.
a2enmod passenger
Enable Redmine site.
sudo a2ensite redmine
Disable default site;
a2dissite 000-default.conf
Reload Apache
sudo systemctl restart apache2
Check to ensure that Redmine is now listening on port 3000.
sudo lsof -i :3000
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME apache2 19739 root 6u IPv6 111694 0t0 TCP *:3000 (LISTEN) apache2 19770 www-data 6u IPv6 111694 0t0 TCP *:3000 (LISTEN) apache2 19771 www-data 6u IPv6 111694 0t0 TCP *:3000 (LISTEN) apache2 19772 www-data 6u IPv6 111694 0t0 TCP *:3000 (LISTEN) apache2 19773 www-data 6u IPv6 111694 0t0 TCP *:3000 (LISTEN) apache2 19774 www-data 6u IPv6 111694 0t0 TCP *:3000 (LISTEN)
Access Redmine on Browser
Next, you can now access and sign in to Redmine on browser using the address http://server-IP-address:3000.
Default credentials: admin:admin.
When prompted, reset your admin password.
Setup your Redmine profile;

Create Projects

That concludes our guide on how to install Redmine on Ubuntu 20.04. You can now explore this awesome tool.
Read more on how to use Redmine User Guide.
Reference
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Great tutorial! Thanks!
Trying to install on Ubuntu 20.04.4 Server, made all steps, but finally got stuck in problem with Passenger trying to use OS default Ruby 2.7.0 instead of 2.6.0 w rvm installed by your guide. “bundle exec rails server webrick -e production” as in test step works, but production with Apache – won’t. Error – below.
Running Setting PassengerDefaultRuby to /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.0/bin/ruby at /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.conf doesn’t help. May be /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh settings are not used by passenger.
Is there any way to fix this?
/var/log/apache2/error.log:
[ 2022-03-27 10:27:22.9835 2927/7fc7237fe700 age/Cor/Con/CheckoutSession.cpp:283 ]: [Client 1-1] Cannot checkout session because a spawning error occurred. The identifier of the error is 987e55c6. Please see
earlier logs for details about the error.
App 3103 stdout:
App 3103 stdout:
[ 2022-03-27 10:27:34.4038 2927/7fc72805f700 age/Cor/App/Implementation.cpp:304 ]: Could not spawn process for application /opt/redmine: An error occurred while starting up the preloader.
Error ID: 04797c86
Error details saved to: /tmp/passenger-error-kgdiVx.html
Message from application: It looks like Bundler could not find a gem. Maybe you didn’t install all the gems that this application needs. To install your gems, please run:
bundle install
If that didn’t work, then the problem is probably caused by your application being run under a different environment than it’s supposed to. Please check the following:
Is this app supposed to be run as the
redmine
user?Is this app being run on the correct Ruby interpreter? Below you will
see which Ruby interpreter Phusion Passenger attempted to use.
——– The exception is as follows: ——-
Could not find racc-1.6.0 in any of the sources (Bundler::GemNotFound)
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/spec_set.rb:86:in `block in materialize'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/spec_set.rb:80:in `map!'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/spec_set.rb:80:in `materialize'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/definition.rb:170:in `specs'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/definition.rb:237:in `specs_for'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/definition.rb:226:in `requested_specs'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/runtime.rb:101:in `block in definition_method'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/runtime.rb:20:in `setup'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler.rb:149:in `setup'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/setup.rb:20:in `block in <top (required)>'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/ui/shell.rb:136:in `with_level'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/ui/shell.rb:88:in `silence'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/bundler/setup.rb:20:in `<top (required)>'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:92:in `require'
/usr/lib/ruby/2.7.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:92:in `require'
/usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/phusion_passenger/loader_shared_helpers.rb:430:in `activate_gem'
/usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/phusion_passenger/loader_shared_helpers.rb:297:in `block in run_load_path_setup_code'
/usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/phusion_passenger/loader_shared_helpers.rb:435:in `running_bundler'
/usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/phusion_passenger/loader_shared_helpers.rb:296:in `run_load_path_setup_code'
/usr/share/passenger/helper-scripts/rack-preloader.rb:100:in `preload_app'
/usr/share/passenger/helper-scripts/rack-preloader.rb:156:in `<module:App>'
/usr/share/passenger/helper-scripts/rack-preloader.rb:30:in `<module:PhusionPassenger>'
/usr/share/passenger/helper-scripts/rack-preloader.rb:29:in `<main>'
[ 2022-03-27 10:27:34.4089 2927/7fc722ffd700 age/Cor/Con/CheckoutSession.cpp:283 ]: [Client 2-1] Cannot checkout session because a spawning error occurred. The identifier of the error is 04797c86. Please see
earlier logs for details about the error.
Hi Koguni,
Actually, Redmine 5.0.0 supports Ruby 2.7. The guide has been updated.