Comments on: Installing Trac without root privs

By: Sam Pablo Kuper

Sam Pablo Kuper — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:34:05 +0000

Ok, I thought I’d have a go with DreamTracInstall. I removed the custom-installed Python25, and followed the DreamTracInstall instructions to the letter.

The results were semi-successful. The script put the contents of the htdocs folder in the wrong place, but I moved them to the directory for the relevant domain and voila, Trac! But although the front page works, links from it don’t: they’re causing HTTP 500 internal server errors.

A quick look at the logs suggests they are creating mod_rewrite loops that won’t resolve. What’s less clear is how to fix this. Bleh, Trac is nasty.

By: Sam Pablo Kuper

Sam Pablo Kuper — Sun, 18 May 2008 14:10:08 +0000

The sticking point for me with DreamTracInstall is assumption 3: “You don’t have python installed to your local home directory.”

Well, I’m not entirely clear what this means, but if it means, “You haven’t custom-installed Python,” then assumption 3 doesn’t apply to me, because I have custom-installed Python, following the instructions from the link in your post above. And if I want to deploy Django or web2py, I’m guessing I’ll need that custom-install, so I’m loath to remove it.

Mmm, I’m definitely stuck at this point. I’ll probably have to come back to this another day.

By: Sam Pablo Kuper

Sam Pablo Kuper — Sun, 18 May 2008 13:38:53 +0000

OK, so I’ve got as far as running

bin/tracd –port 8000 /path/to/yourproject

but when I access the corresponding URL in a browser, although I get a Trac welcome screen (yay!) there’s an error message at the top of it: “Warning: Can’t synchronize with the repository (Unsupported version control system “svn”. Check that the Python support libraries for “svn” are correctly installed.)”

The advice here isn’t terribly helpful because it assumes root access. Nonetheless, the suggestion of trying

from svn import core

at the Python interpreter is useful. In my case, I get an error. But what’s the solution? Er, I don’t know. I’m guessing that it’s a path issue or a something-more-needs-to-be-installed issue, but I don’t know which yet.

Help welcome :)

By: Mel

Mel — Sun, 18 May 2008 13:00:05 +0000

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/DreamTracInstall is almost certainly a better tutorial (if you leave the tracd process running, Dreamhost complains). I haven’t tried working through it yet, though.

It looks like the virtual-python script you pointed to is intended to do the same thing as virtualenv.

By: Sam Pablo Kuper

Sam Pablo Kuper — Sun, 18 May 2008 05:40:42 +0000

I think I’ve actually answered those questions now. All I’m still trying to work out is which of the two approaches – “Unix account” or virtualenv – to prefer. Suggestions welcome!

And regardless of my finicky points, thanks for the helpful tutorial!

By: Sam Pablo Kuper

Sam Pablo Kuper — Sun, 18 May 2008 04:55:27 +0000

I have a slightly awkward question about this: how would using virtualenv relate to installing Python on Dreamhost with the "Unix account setup"? That is, is the use of the Unix account setup actually unnecessary in order to get a Python environment running on Dreamhost that's separate from the globally installed one, given that virtualenv will give you the same sort of effect with much less hassle? Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick? Is virtualenv similar to using the virtual python approach? (:feeling dense:)