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Items filtered by date: December 2014

Thursday, 19 February 2015 13:05

Silastic Thermal Glue

What is Silastic Thermal Glue?

This is a silicon based glue that is used among other things to glue electronic components to circuit boards which is addition to soldering the component. The purpose is to prevent the component from vibrating durin use or transport which can increase the life of the component. The glue used for electronics is electrically inert to prevent conduction and is also resistant to high temperatures.

Silastic Thermal Glue has many different types and different uses, not just electronics so it is important that you use the correct type for you application.

{add image of silastic glue on a motherboard)

Silastic Thermal Glue is not to be confused with Termal Paste although they probably share a heritage and there might be a crossover is the glue that is used to glue a heatsink to a CPU.

Notes

  • Do not use normal silicon or glue this will be unsafe and can damage your electronics
  • Be careful you select the right type of glue as there are glues for Heatsinks and that of components
  • RTV = room temperature vulcanizing

Also Know as:

  • Thermal Adhesive
  • Electronic Grade Silicone

703 704 705 (chinese glue)

These glues are available on ebay and alibaba but i have managed to get the data sheet and an image with the different types of the glue on a piece of paper so you can see what they look like.

703 704 705 physical manifestation

703 704 705 datasheet

Notes about 703, 704 and 705

Hi,

Thanks for your communication.

There are some differences among 705, 704 and 703:

WH-703 silicone rubber :( white, black):
Properties and Uses:
Cold water resistance, good adhesion, better than the 704 silicone, but prone to yellow light, temperature -60 ℃ - + 150 ℃. Can be used underwater instrumentation moisture sealing, potting submarine cables, small motor magnetic tile adhesive, ignition coil, coated front sensor potting table, car chassis, sealed refrigerated equipment and so on.

Widely used in electronic components bonding, sealing, insulation; anti-leakage, corrosion and surface protection device management.

WH-704 silicone rubber :( white, black)
Properties and Uses:
Temperature good, intolerance blisters, adhesive force of less than 703 silicone, easy to break repair, not yellow after curing, temperature -60 ℃ - + 250 ℃. Widely used in electric heaters, electric control, instrumentation, analytical electrode, electric plugs, electric heaters bonding, sealing, insulation; corrosion and surface protection device management.

WH-705 silicone rubber :( transparent)
Properties and Uses:
Transparent, easy to overhaul, used the occasion to be optically transparent, and SCR, rectifier tube tops protection. Widely used as a transparent RTV, fast curing cement and water. Temperature -60 ℃ - + 200 ℃.

Widely used in electronics, instrumentation, chemical, light industry, machinery industry, bonding, sealing, insulation, potting; surface protection device management. Has excellent electrical insulation and arc resistance, moisture, shock.

Hope it can be helpful to you.

If you like it, welcome to purchase directly, then we will arrange the item for you ASAP.

Should you have any other questions,please feel free to contact us.

Have a nice day.

Best wishes.

- magicdigitals

Other Silastic Glues

Useful Links

CPU Glue

Also known as

  • White Silicone Thermal Plaster/Glue/Adhesive/Paste (these terms are not precise and are for help in searching on eBay only)
  • thermal glue
  • heatsink plaster

Links

Published in Electronics
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Wednesday, 18 February 2015 19:58

SEF URLs not working after upgrade

Problem

When i upgraded Prestashop 1.5 to 1.6.0.11 the product and category SEF / Friendly URLs do not work but the CMS pages do.

Cause

In my case i believe it was because i had custom Friendly URLs set so this solution might for everyone, in which case use the Useful Links.

Solution

  1. Go to your prestashop admin / Preferences / SEO & URLs page
  2. Navigate to the Schema of URLs section
  3. Click on Save. 
  4. Disable Friendly URLs, click save in this section, then re-enable the Friendly URLs
  5. Test, You might get away with the steps so far.
  6. As a further step, copy the Schema of URLs from a fresh install of prestashop (same version) and then click save.
  7. Disable Friendly URLs, click save in this section, then re-enable the Friendly URLs
  8. Test

Other Things to Try

There are several tutorials out there that tell you to experiment by turning the apache multiviews on/off and the same with mod_security. After you change either of these you need to disable the freiendly urls and then re-enable them, this causes the .htaccess to be regenerated correctely. These methods will only help a few people and you really should not disable mod_security.

Useful Links

Published in Prestashop
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Wednesday, 18 February 2015 19:51

No carriers available after upgrade

Problem

When i upgraded Prestashop 1.5 to 1.6.0.11 there were no carriers available even though they were setup correctely in PS 1.5

Cause

This is caused by prestashop changing how they handled the shipping matrix. The matrices that are present after upgrade reflect he carriers that you had there before but the costing data and ranges have not be preserved.

Solution

Go into the shipping methods and repopulated the costing data into the ranges and add ranges as needed as if you were setting these up from fresh

Published in Prestashop
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Tuesday, 10 February 2015 21:26

temp mantis SVN environment setup instructions

This is what I did to get mantis to work with SourceSVN

  • Create folder D:\Documents\Developer\

Install Subversion

  • Install CollabNet Subversion Edge D:\Documents\Developer\SubversionEdge\
  • Create a Normal User and assign it to the ‘Test’ repositories - shoulders

Install Xampp

  • Install xampp - D:\Documents\Developer\xampp\
  • Change xampp ports (optional)

    To prevent issues with my other webservers I use for development. It is easier to reconfigure the one sever that is not going to get changed.

    • Apache
      • Httpd.conf
        • Listen 80 –> 81
        • ServerName localhost:80 -> :81
    • Httpd-ssl.conf
      • Listen 443 –> 444
      • <VirtualHost _default_:443> -> <VirtualHost _default_:444>
  • Mysql –my.ini
    • [client] port = 3306 – 3307
    • [mysqld] port=3306 - 3307
  • Php.ini - if you do not change this you get a #2002 – connection actively reused error
    • mysql.default_port=3306 – 3307
    • mysqli.default_port=3306 - 3307

Install Mantis

  • create a table in PHPMyadmin called mantis using utf8_general_ci collation
  • set a username and password ; mantis : YFb5fNTtmXsFHpBP, grant all privileges on the mantis SQL table
  • setup mantis, install with MySQLi – it is quicker of connecting
    • Nb you need a MySQL root account to install. This might change in a newer version. Stupid, I had to use root and not password
    • Default username/password: administrator / root
    • Renamed default user to mantis-admin
    • Delete the admin folder ( I renamed it just in case)
  • Run mantis
  • Create a normal user – if more than one user - shoulders
  • Install Source Integration Plugin and SourceSVN
  • Config settings I changed
    • Bug Fixed Message Template – I added everything in ?
    • API Key – added my random generated key here
    • SVN: Path to binary - D:\Documents\Developer\SubversionEdge\bin also “D:\Documents\Developer\SubversionEdge\bin” might be valid when there are spaces in the path
    • SVN: Trust All SSL Certs – ticked, allows me to use a self-signed cert whilst being secure
    • SVN: Use Windows `start` - I believe you need this when using windows. ?

Create Repository

  • Goto mantis/repositories
  • Type in ‘test’ for name and select SVN for type
  • Click create repository
  • Fill in the following details, leave the rest
    • Name – prefilled - Test
    • URL – this is the front facing url for the repository
      https://svn.exampleserver.com:18080/svn/
    • SVN Username – don’t use the super admin, you might consider a repository specific username here
    • SVN Password
    • Standard Repository – tick
    • Click ‘update repository’
    • Click ‘import everything’

This is far as I got, more errors and bugs. Mantis is free but needs a serious GUI upgrade

Published in Subversion (SVN)
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Saturday, 07 February 2015 12:40

My Redmine Notes

My notes on using and configuring Redmine.

Notes

  • General
    • you can have multiple repositories per project
    • Redmine Tutorial - YouTube - A tutorial on using Redmine software project management suite.
  • Security
    • rename admin and set a decent password (ie redmine-admin) or shoulders. You cannot unmkae this account as an administrator
    • make redmine to use https/SSL (this is not easy)
    • create a new user, ie yourusername, you can then makes this user an administrator by clicking a box.
    • it is better to keep the main admin and your username seperate. at some point in the future other people might start using redmine. als, it makes it easier to get back in if you forget your password.
    • when setting these 2 users, hide your email address.
  • Show smaller images in the editor

Configure Redmine Emails

  • if emails is not setup you get the following message:
    Email delivery is not configured, and notifications are disabled.
Configure your SMTP server in config/configuration.yml and restart the application to enable them.

configure redmine@quantumwarp.com as the system email

Create the email account

  • create email account on your cPanel with 0mb mailbox and forwarding if required. this advoids another mail address to monitor.

configure email in configuration.xml, you must restart redmine to see the changes.

  • http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/EmailConfiguration
  • NB you will struggle to get it to work until you know the following editing the configuration file.
  • when you edit the appropriate section you will notice 'email_delivery:' this is also at the top og the configuration file above all of the email configuratioins and obviously declaring this twice causes problemd so just rem this out at the top of the you email configuration section. it makes it neater doing it there than at the top of the file.

now go back to the emails settings in redmine app as they will be available.

  • change the 'Emission email address' to redmine@quantumwarp.com
  • send a test email, the button is at the bottom left.
  • redmine@quantumwarp.com can be used for incoming stuff.
  • under the 'General Tab' change 'Host name and path' to 'svn.quantumwarp.com:81/redmine'

Errors and Alerts

when you first run Redmine you are presented with the following message. You should load the default configuratioin.

load default data alert

Published in Redmine
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Friday, 06 February 2015 21:07

Redmine Security and SSL

Security and SSL

If you are using this on a real website you might want to use SSL and make your installation secure. There are a few things you can do. For most people running on their local machine that do not want it on the internet do not require any of these settings, but it will not harm if they did. Following the instructions above you should already be using ProxyRequests Off

<Directory> / <Location>

  • location acts upon the url only, directory works on the physical file path, so they basically do the same thing via the 2 declarative paths.
  • however, directory is a little more secure because there can be multip-le urls poitning to the same file whereas when using directory there is only 1 file path so directory is better for security permissions etc ..
  • directory and location directives can be used within a virtual host and will apply to that virtualhost only, if not it will be applied to the main/default website/name/localhost etc..
  • using <directory> is better than <location>

SSL on non default port

The optional protocol argument is not required for most configurations. If not specified, https is the default for port 443 and http the default for all other ports. The protocol is used to determine which module should handle a request, and to apply protocol specific optimizations with the AcceptFilter directive.

You only need to set the protocol if you are running on non-standard ports. For example, running an https site on port 8443:

Listen 192.170.2.1:8443 https

Hooks

Secure Proxy

apache httpd.conf

<Proxy *>
  Order Deny,Allow
  Deny from all
  Allow from 192.168.0
</Proxy>
Published in Redmine
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Tuesday, 03 February 2015 19:35

Running Redmine Through Apache on Xampp

Some Notes Before We Start

When you have a webserver running you probably would like redmine through that server aswell to keep things easier, reducing port forwarding requirements and the number of addresses you hand out. You could just hand out the new address which usually looks like http://localhost:3000/ if you want, but why not do a proper integration.

These methods will allow you to run redmine from your normal webserver or localhost, http://localhost/ with no port number on the end (this assumes that your webserver does not have a port number, using port 80).

Tthere are 2 parts of this process to consider:

  1. Changing the folder from which redmine is server ie from http://localhost:3000/ to http://localhost:3000/redmine/
  2. Proxying / Redirecting redmine from the server where it is (ie http://localhost:3000/) to youer apache server http://localhost/

With the following instructions i will assume the following

If you just want the code, click here, this will take you to the bottom where you can just get the code for a quick start without any of the history.

Files

This section is not required reading but might help if you have issues or question later on.

During my research i cam across references to Redmine files where you could put code. I am going to list them here and what i think they do.

  • {redmine}/config.ru - this is the intialization configuration file, i think
  • {redmine}/config/enviroment.rb - This file controls additonal settings that will get applied to both development and production enviroments
  • {redmine}/config/additional_enviroment.rb - This is only present in later version of Ruby/Rails/Redmine and probably needs creating. . This file controls additonal settings that will get applied to both development and production enviroments similiar enviroment.rb does. Not all commands in this file work in this file that would in enviroment.rb .
  • {redmine}/config/application.rb - dont bother altering code in this
  • {redmine}/config/development.rb - this files allows you to add additional commands/instructions to just the development enviroment
  • {redmine}/config/production.rb - this files allows you to add additional commands/instructions to just the production enviroment

Move Redmine to a Sub-Folder

Method 1 - Using WebBrick

This techniques is the best an i have taken most of the information from Defect #12102: Installed Redmine in a sub-URI: Links are generated not correctly - Redmine

This method also utilises the inbuilt WebBrick Webserver, This is an excellent simple solution but if you are going to use this for a lot of users you should perhaps think about using Thin Server, this will require slightly different instructions and some more work. WebBrick is classed as a reference server and if you are going to server more than 20 people at a time there will be large performance issues. For the most of us WebBrick will be fine.

config.ru

# This file is used by Rack-based servers to start the application.

require ::File.expand_path('../config/environment',  __FILE__)
map '/redmine' do
  run RedmineApp::Application
end

Replace the contents of {redmine}/config.ru with this code. This also assumes you have not already made any alterations to this file.

This code does 2 things

  1. changes all links in the pages to /redmine/
  2. changes the actual served root. Files in the /public/ directory are now served as http://3000/redmine/ instead of http://localhost:3000/

The root folder effectively no longer exists, you get page not found supplied by the webserver if you browse to http://localhost:3000/ and this is normal.

Other Static Asset Commands

You can also change the dynamic urls by using the 2 following commands:

  • RedmineApp::Application.routes.default_scope = { :path => '/redmine', :shallow_path => '/redmine'
  • RedmineApp::Application.routes.default_scope = '/redmine'

which cause the following issues:

  • the directory of the dynamic links changes but the root of the webserver stays the same. This means that the static files stay in the root directory (http://localhost/) while all of the dynamic links are in http://localhost:3000/redmine/
  • it is very difficult to proxy these 2 folders because this will involve complex rewrite rules

enviroment.rb 

ActionController::Base.relative_url_root = '/redmine'

Add this to the end of {redmine}config/enviroment.rb. I also think you can put this in either development.rb or production.rb, this change will then only occur in that particular enviroment.

This code alters the path of the links pointing to the static files such as javascripts and CSS. Currently all paths for these still point to the root http://localhost:3000/ but they actual ar now present at http://localhost:3000/redmine/ and even though we have added the code in config.ru these paths are not altered so we need this code to correct that.

NB:

  • RedmineApp::Application.routes.default_scope = '/redmine' works but is not the prefered method. This must also be put before RedmineApp::Application.initialize!
  • ActionController::AbstractRequest.relative_url_root = "/redmine" - Does not work, it was for older versions of Redmine
  • config.action_controller.relative_url_root = '/redmine' - not sure about this

You now have moved your Redmine installation to a subfolder

Method 2 - Thin Server + Passenger Server

this will be for my Thin server notes when i do them, there is also the Passenger Webserver to consider. Each has there own method. Basically youo can run these servers with switches to perform the directory change, You can then proxy this over to your main webserver as in the instructions below. Check my General Links section for resources.

Proxying Redmine to Apache / Xampp

Redmine in Root Folder

This is the easiest of the methods to implement. You can simply proxy Remine to your apache server using the following code, this assumes redmine is at http://localhost:3000/

httpd.conf

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

Make sure these modules are enabled in httpd.conf, they are required.

ProxyRequests Off
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass / http://localhost:3000/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:3000/

Add these lines to the end your apache httpd.conf , if you do this you will not be able to run any other stuff from your apache webserver because all requests will get forwarded to the Redmine server.

Or Alter the Redmine Server port directely

Simply run the Redmine server on port 80 by using the following switch which will give the same effect

-p 80

Redmine in Subfolder

Method 1 - Basic (also blunt and site wide)

These instructions will assume the subfolder on apache you want is http://localhost/redmine/

.htaccess file

# Redirects /redmine to /redmine/
RedirectMatch ^/redmine$ /redmine/
RedirectMatch ^/$ /redmine/

add this code to ..../htdocs/.htaccess in your apache server.

You can redirect the non-slashed version, but this is to make sure we have a correct URL. A directory is denoted by having a slash at the end of the URL (ie /redmine/ ) wheresas if you dont, it denotes a page (ie /redmine ).

What we are directing to is more akin to a directory/default index file like a normal webserver, http://www.example.com/ You dont often see http://www.example.com/index.html , but they are the same page. Notice the slash at the end, this is intentional.

httpd.conf

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

Make sure these modules are enabled in httpd.conf, they are required.

ProxyRequests Off
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass /redmine/ http://localhost:3000/redmine/
ProxyPassReverse /redmine/ http://localhost:3000/redmine/

This is code that actualy passes the information/request between Redmine Server and your Apache server.

Can I make this Better

The commands above will work site wide so are a bit blunt, the following methods will allow you to apply these rules to a specific locations.

Method 2 - <Location>

<Location> works on the URLs presented to the server

httpd.conf

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

Make sure these modules are enabled in httpd.conf, they are required.

ProxyRequests Off	
<Location /redmine/>
	RedirectMatch ^/redmine$ /redmine/
	RedirectMatch ^/$ /redmine/
	ProxyPreserveHost On
	ProxyPass http://localhost:3000/redmine/
	ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:3000/redmine/
</Location>
  • ProxyRequests Off will not work in <Location>
  • Notice that the proxy statements do not have a target in them, only the source
  • The RedirectMatch commands will work outside of <Location>
  • rules in <location> can be moved easier that <directory> because there are not absolut addresses

With this method you have to split the commands, ProxyRequests will not work in location so needs to be put in the normal flow of the httpd.conf (i.e. not in <location>)

Method 3 - <Directory>

Directory works on the physical path of the accessed files and is better to be used for security because several URLs can point to a single directory or file whereas the <Directory> command is very specific.

httpd.conf

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

Make sure these modules are enabled in httpd.conf, they are required.

ProxyRequests Off
<Directory "d:\Documents\Developer\xampp\htdocs\redmine\">
	RedirectMatch ^/redmine$ /redmine/
	RedirectMatch ^/$ /redmine/
	ProxyPreserveHost On
	ProxyPass http://localhost:3000/redmine/
	ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:3000/redmine/
</Directory>
  • ProxyRequests Off will not work in <Location>
  • Notice that the proxy statements do not have a target in them, only the source
  • <Directory "D:/Documents/Developer/xampp/htdocs/redmine/"> is also valid
  • this command acts on the Virtual Directory in the xampp public folder
  • This should work even though the directory does not exist
  • The RedirectMatch commands will work outside of <Directory>

Method 4 - VirtualHost

With Virtualhost you can run a another domain name on the 1 xampp/apache server. This is very useful. You can also just use it to apply rules to the server and keep the code neater, easier for copying and pasting.

httpd.conf

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

Make sure these modules are enabled in httpd.conf, they are required.

<VirtualHost *:80>

	## This is for setting a domain name
	ServerName rails.localhost.com
	DocumentRoot "D:\Documents\Developer\RubyRoot\redmine\public\"

	# Make sure there is a trailing slash in the root
	RedirectMatch ^/redmine$ /redmine/
	RedirectMatch ^/$ /redmine/
	
	# The proxying code
	ProxyRequests Off 
	ProxyPreserveHost On
	ProxyPass /redmine/ http://localhost:3000/redmine/
	ProxyPassReverse /redmine/ http://localhost:3000/redmine/

</VirtualHost>
  • If you want to run another domain on you local webserver you need to add a rule to your Hosts file, ie 127.0.0.1 rails.localhost.com
  • All the code required is contained within <VirtualHost> tags
  • This code be used on the whole server or just an individual domain (depends if you define ServerName)

Including the rules in the <VirtualHost> tags is not required but can make handling the code easier and if you do want apply this to a specific domain it is easy to enable it.

My Code

So you have arrived here at the code, just following the simple instructions and edit the files. Redmine will then run at http://localhost/redmine/ on you xampp installation. This does of course assume you have Redmine already running on your Windows PC.

 

Redmine - config.ru

# This file is used by Rack-based servers to start the application.
 
require ::File.expand_path('../config/environment',  __FILE__)
map '/redmine' do
  run RedmineApp::Application
end

Replace the contents of {redmine}/config.ru with this code. This also assumes you have not already made any alterations to this file.

 

Redmine - enviroment.rb 

ActionController::Base.relative_url_root = '/redmine'

Add this to the end of {redmine}config/enviroment.rb. I also think you can put this in either development.rb or production.rb, this change will then only occur in that particular enviroment.

 

Apache / Xampp - httpd.conf

Edit your Apache / Xampp httpd.conf file

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

Make sure these modules are enabled in httpd.conf file, they are required.

#################################
# RUBY SETUP
#################################

	# Enforces a trailing slash for the /redmine/ directory
	RedirectMatch ^/redmine$ /redmine/
	RedirectMatch ^/$ /redmine/
	
	# The proxying code
	ProxyRequests Off 
	ProxyPreserveHost On
	ProxyPass /redmine/ http://localhost:3000/redmine/
	ProxyPassReverse /redmine/ http://localhost:3000/redmine/

#################################
# RUBY SETUP
#################################

Add these lines at the bottom of the httpd.conf file.

 

Done

All the changes are now done, you will find that Redmine will be served from http://localhost/redmine/ and http://localhost:3000/redmine/ , this is normal.

If you had your servers running while making these changes you need to restart them both.

You should note that this setup is non-SSL version so is not secure.

General Links

These are the links i used for my research and might be of use.

Redmine / Ruby

Reverse Proxy

Apache

Published in xampp
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Sunday, 01 February 2015 20:02

Upgrading Redmine

These are my instructions to upgrade your Redmine install on windows and also assumes you have used my instructions for installing redmine, however this is not mandatory but will explain where the filepaths come from.

I will be upgrading Redmine 2.6.1 to Redmine 3.0.0 but i am sure they will be almost the same for other version.

Notes

  • These instructions are based on the official instructions from RedmineUpgrade - Official Instructions.
  • Redmine 3.0.0 now uses mysql 6.1.5
  • the gems are installed to the RubyInstallere and not Redmine

Instructions

Step 1 - Check Requirements

The first step to upgrading Redmine is to check that you meet the requirements for the version you're about to install.

You can easily check what version of Redmine, Ruby and Rails by browsing to Administration/Information and you will see the following information.

Environment:
  Redmine version                2.6.1.stable
  Ruby version                   2.1.5-p273 (2014-11-13) [i386-mingw32]
  Rails version                  3.2.21
  Environment                    production
  Database adapter               Mysql2
SCM:
  Subversion                     1.8.11
  Filesystem                     
Redmine plugins:
  no plugin installed

Redmine 3.0.0 requires, Ruby 1.9.3 or higher (and now supports ruby 2.2).

Step 2 - Backup

  1. Backup your redmine database via phpmyadmin (or any other method you prefer)
  2. make a full backup of your redmine directory (ie D:\Documents\Developer\RubyRoot\redmine\)

Step 3 - Perform the upgrade

    1. If Redmine is running, gracefully stop redmine, the redmine service if running and any related xampp installation (ie D:\Documents\Developer\xampp)
    2. Download the following software
    3. Rename
      D:\Documents\Developer\RubyRoot\redmine\
      to
      D:\Documents\Developer\RubyRoot\old-redmine\
    4. Extract redmine-3.0.0.zip to D:\Documents\Developer\RubyRoot\redmine
    5. From the '.../old-redmine/' directory, copy the following files to the same location in the new redmine installation '.../redmine/'
      • {redmine}/config/database.yml
      • {redmine}config/configuration.yml
      • {redmine}/files/ directory content (this directory contains all your uploaded files so you might not have any).
      • The folders of your custom plugins from your plugins directory (or vendor/plugins directory if upgrading from a 1.x version) into new installation plugins directory. Make sure that you copy only plugins that are were not initially bundled with your previous Redmine setup. My installation does not have any plugins so this step is not needed.
      • If you are running Redmine in a subfolder
        • {redmine}/config/environment.rb (this might require merging rather than copying)
        • {redmine}/config.ru (this might require merging rather than copying)
      • If you have the redmine service copy the following files
        • redmine_service_ctl.rb
        • redmine_service.rb
    6. Open up a command prompt as an administrator and navigate to D:\Documents\Developer\RubyRoot\redmine
    7. Install the required gems by running the following command: 
      bundle install --without development test
      • this installs all the required gems
      • this brings up the following message about the new version of the MySQL connector that has been installed
        ================================================================================

  You've installed the binary version of mysql2.
  It was built using MySQL Connector/C version 6.1.5.
  It's recommended to use the exact same version to avoid potential issues.

  At the time of building this gem, the necessary DLL files were retrieved from:

  http://cdn.mysql.com/Downloads/Connector-C/mysql-connector-c-6.1.5-win32.zip

  This gem *includes* vendor/libmysql.dll with redistribution notice in vendor/README.

================================================================================
      • You need to extract  libmysql.dll from mysql-connector-c-6.1.5-win32.zip. The file is located in the archive at ...\mysql-connector-c-6.1.5-win32\bin
      • Replace D:\Documents\Developer\RailsInstaller\mysql\lib\libmysql.dll with the new version of libmysql.dll
      • you might need to reboot windows for the new version of libmysql.dll to be loaded
    8. Run the following command from your new Redmine root directory: 
      bundle exec rake generate_secret_token
    9. Check for any themes that you may have installed in the public/themes directory. You can copy them over but checking for updated version is ideal.

Step 4 - Update the database

  1. Start your xampp install apache and mysql
  2. This step is the one that could change the contents of your database. Go to your new redmine directory, then migrate your database: 
    bundle exec rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production
  3. If you have installed any plugins, you should also run their database migrations: 
    bundle exec rake redmine:plugins:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

Step 5 - Clean Up

  1. Clear the cache and the existing sessions: 
    bundle exec rake tmp:cache:clear tmp:sessions:clear RAILS_ENV=production
  2. Restart the application server (e.g. puma, thin, passenger)
  3. Finally go to "Admin -> Roles & permissions" to check/set permissions for the new features, if any.

Links

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Saturday, 31 January 2015 18:16

Further Redmine Settings

Changing the Logging Level

If you discover that your log file is filling up with lots of uneeded information you can change the logging level from the default.

in the {redmine}/config/additional_enviroment.rb file you can change the logging level. By either adding the line or un-remming one that is present. When you set the error loggin level to error you will only get errors logged to the log file. This will affect both enviroments.

  • config.log_level = : debug
  • config.log_level = : error

The log levels available are: :debug, :info, :warn, :error, :fatal, and :unknown, which correspond to the integers 0-5.

Logging Links

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Sunday, 25 January 2015 17:01

Integrate Subversion with Redmine

Installation of Subversion with redmine can be straight forward if you have some easy toread instructions, so here they are.

There are several levels of integration

Basic SVN Integration

  • browse SVN Repositories
  • close jobs via SVN commit messages
  • compare revisions

Read the official Instructions - RedmineSettings - Repositories

According to the instructions this only works if Redmine and the Subversion Server are on the sam physical machine (this needs 100% clarifying but for now we will assume it is true).

This feature allows you to grab the commits from a predefined SVN Repository (most protocols are supported) and this repository is attached to a project, by doing this when you submit a commit to a repository with a message with correct issue reference syntax, redmine will close the related isse(s) in the project. Git , SVN and other SCM are available. This feature also allows you to perfomr comparisons of different revisions and you eben get the choice to see the changes side-by-side or on top of each other, this feature can be useful depending on how your code looks. There is also a repository browse feature built in to redmine. You can have multiple repositorys per project

Enable Fetch Commits Automatically

In Redmine Administration/Settings/Repositories make sure that Fetch Commits Automatically is ticked. If this option is activated, the application automatically retrieves the new revisions when a user consults the repository.

Official article here

Instructions to add a repository

make sure u use a network version for the repository so you can move it if you want.

  • create a project
  • In the project settings, make sure that the 'Repository' module is enabled and go to the 'Repository' tab.
  • Select the SCM that corresponds to your repository and enter the path or URL of your repository.
  • i used these settings, Redmine was able to download the changes from the repository

SCM Subversion
Main repository checked
identifier test-identifier (dont know what this is for, Repository Identifier)
URL https://svn.exampleserver.com:18080/svn/Test/
user svn-redmine
password xxwhateverxxxx


* when the repository is set you cannot change the details after you have created it except for the surname and password.I have read on the redmine official documentation that you should use a network location for you Subversion repository

  • the first time you view the repository redmine will retrieve all of the changes and import the information

Now that you have configured these settings you can close jobs via a svn commit (see below for forming a correct message for closing jobs) but the draw back is that the changes/commits are only retrieved at certain times

  1. when you browse the SVN repository via Redmine
  2. if you set up a CRON job {add details here}

Allow SVN Commits to Close Jobs

In the step above you configured Redmine to interact with Subversion and to retrieve any changes/commits. Redmine currently parses the commit messages for keywords which reference issue, it does this so it can automatically change these keywords into links. These links are found by using a set of default rules and keywords which can be chamged in the admin panel but the default options should be fine for most people.

The one thing Redmine does not do by default is close issues. You need to specify the keywords that you want to be used as closing keywords and enable the option in the Redmine settings via the admin panel.

Links

What Should i Do?

  1. Browse to Administration/Settings/Repositories/'Referencing and fixing issues in commit messages' Section
  2. Enable 'Allow issues of all the other projects to be referenced and fixed'
  3. Add the following into 'Fixing keywords'
    fix,fixes,fixed,close,closed,patches,patched

    If i get a better list i will add it here, but these keywords give you the gist.

  4. Set 'Applied Status' to Closed
  5. Set '% Done' to 100%
  6. Click Save at the bottom left of the page to save all changes
  7. Done

You can configure whatever rule you want but at least this will get you going. Read the official Documentation for the syntax of closing statements you should use in your commit messages.

NB:

  • I do not know if the keywords are case sensitive

Advanced Keywords

Better Issue Referencing

Redmine has a list of keywords it scans for to identify issues as follows:

refs,references,IssueID

I want to extend that to the following list

refs,references,IssueID,bug,bugs,defect,defects,feature,features,issue,issues,patch

I dont know about whether yoou can close multiple issues but i will add the plural version here anyway

Resolve Issue Keywords (optional)

These are different status and have different uses so require their own settings in the'Referencing and fixing issues in commit messages'.

If you want to have the resolved option set from commit messages you need to do the following:

  1. Browse to Administration/Settings/Repositories/'Referencing and fixing issues in commit messages' Section
  2. Add a new 'Fixing' rule
  3. Add the following into 'Fixing keywords'
    resolve,resolves,resolved
  4. Set 'Applied Status' to Resolved
  5. Set '% Done' to 100%
  6. Click Save at the bottom left of the page to save all changes
  7. Done

Example Commit Message Syntax for Redmine

To reference and issue use a command using any of the issue referencing keywords as below:

issue #1234

To close a job use the following or similiar command with any of the other closing keywords

close #1234

The key thing with these is that that the command is in a certain format

{keyword}{a space}{a hash}{issue number}

Resolved Vs Closed Links

Close Jobs Imediately Upon SVN Submit

To get jobs to close when you actually submit the commit further integration is required which is in the next section.

This is a very useful feature because in my opinion this is how everyone will think this integration works, when you submit a commit with closing statements in the message that issue will be immediately closed. In the 'Basic SVN Integration' this does not happen until you browse the repository or your cron job is fired so the commits get parsed and redmine closes the jobs so there could potentially be a gap between closing the jobs and this apopearing on the Redmine installation.

In this method you basically create a post-commit hook that polls the Redmine installation which then instructs Redmine that some changes have been made and that it should fetch them. It should be noted that this can cause a slight slow down in the commiting of the changes to the repository.

There are 2 types of polls you can use:

  1. Fetches changesets for all active projects

    /sys/fetch_changesets?key=<your service key>

  2. Fetches changesets from the repository of a specific project. This will be quicker that the previous method.

    /sys/fetch_changesets?id=<project identifier>&key=<your service key>

And several delivery methods for the hook:

  1. Visual Basic (.vbs)
  2. wget
  3. cURL
  4. Ruby (via command line)

My Instructions

I will be using cURL for these instructions because it is the easiest solution.

Do this once

  1. Download the correct cURL Binary from here. Get the Generic Non-SSL version for your architecture (x86/x64), security will be addressed in a later article
  2. Copy the file to D:\Documents\developer\SubversionEdge\bin - this folder should be in your path from when you installed Collabnet Subversion Edge. You can put this file anywhere but if it is not in your path you need to use the full location of the executable or add that location to your path.
  3. Disable Fetch Commits Automatically - there is no point in fetching changes upon browsing the repository from within redmine if your changes are always upto date.
    • You make this change by going to Administration/Settings/Repositories/ and untick this option.
  4. Enable Enable WS for repository management - This allows the Webservice to be used for triggering refreshes.
    1. You make this change by going to Administration/Settings/Repositories/ and tick this option.
    2. 'Genereate a Key' for the WS Services
  5. Save Changes

Required For Each Repository

For each repository you need create add an exectuable post-commit hook with the commands in it to trigger Redmine in to checking for changes. I will use a Hook that updates only the repositories in that particular project. It will also be very easy to change to refresh all repositories.

post-commit.bat

@ECHO OFF

curl "http://<redmine url>/sys/fetch_changesets?id=<project identifier>&key=<your service key>"

This is the example code from Redmine's official instructions on calling a URL that will trigger Redmine to refresh all Repositories for that chosen Project.

Create the 'post-commit' Hook

I will assume

  • you have created a test repository called 'Test' and it is physically located at D:\Documents\developer\SubversionEdge\data\repositories\Test
  • Redmine is located at http://localhost/redmine/
  • Your project in Redmine is called 'TestProject'
  • Your WS Key that you generated earlier is 'Password123'
@ECHO OFF

curl "http://localhost/redmine/sys/fetch_changesets?id=TestProject&key=Password123"
  1. create a file called post-commit.bat
  2. edit this file and add the code above in to it and save.
    NB: if the repository you are updating is in another project you will need to alter the project name accordingly, you cannot just copy the Hook file into another repository.

  3. Move this file to D:\Documents\developer\SubversionEdge\data\repositories\Test\hooks
  4. Done

Upon a successful commit to your Subversion Repository, Redmine will check all of the Repositories that belong to the specified project for changes.

You might be asking why cannot i not just update only a specified repository in Redmine rather than all of the repositories that belong to a project. This is a requested feature but for some reason it has not been added yet. Considering things most people will not notice this and if you use the command that refreshes all repositories in Redmine upon a successful commit you will never need this. If you use the 'Refresh All' command you can just copy this to other repository hook folders without alteration.

Useful Links

Automatically Create SVN Repositories

This is the final level of integration but it is not easy and seems to come with its own issues. You have to edit code and do this and that to get it to work. It is quicker to create the SVN Repository in Subversion Edge and then enter the details into redmine as in 'Basic SVN Integration'

I will not be implementing this aas i have easy control over my Subversion Server

See the official page for more information

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