Hi William,

i managed to install OpenProject 3.0.8 recently on CentOS following the step-by-step guide https://www.openproject.org/projects/openproject/wiki/Installation_on_Centos_65_x64_with_Apache_and_PostgreSQL_93 with the sole distinction that i use a MySQL server. i share your concerns regarding the not very intuitive installation, but it the end all thing fell in place more or less. i admit i had to combine several steps from the other installation guides to actually make it run.

did you check the apache server logs in /var/log/httpd ? i had several problems with permissions and wrong paths with the passenger module so there may be some hints in there. is the apache really running and listening on the desired port? (check with sudo netstat -pan | grep httpd ) . From your desription i guess it doesn’t - which may be caused by a configuration error.

what gives sudo service httpd restart ??

if you give me more insight i might be of help.

Regards
Jonas

Awesome… I will give your steps a try. I am just about to give up on it. One question on the Centos install. Once everything is installed. How do you access the front end? I don’;t see an index.html. Do you type http://myipaddress:8000 or something like that?

Thanks again,
William Cornett, PMP

there is no need for an index.html as a request is solely handled through the Passenger Module (i guess). The Passenger Module executes the ruby code and serves dynamically generated html pages accordingly.

how you access your page depends heavily how you configured your apache server. if you have followed the CentOS install guide here at openproject the URL http://myipadress would be enough. only if you explicitly configured port 8000 in the apache config, http://myipaddress:8000 would be correct. Please note that if you want to have openproject running on http://myipaddress:8000 you must add a

Listen 8000

statement in the apache config.

let me share my apache config, maybe it helps you. Please note that i wanted openproject accessible through a subdirectory /openproject on my server, so you need to actually enter http://myserveripadress/openproject to access the application. i put all these things into the file /etc/httpd/conf.d/openproject.conf which is automatically loaded by apache on CentOS:

# Load Passenger Module 
# (mind the correct path and that the apache user has has actually read access to that file)
LoadModule passenger_module /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.46/buildout/apache2/mod_passenger.so

# configure Passenger Module:
<IfModule mod_passenger.c>
  PassengerRoot /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.46
  PassengerDefaultRuby /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/wrappers/ruby
</IfModule>

# redirect requests to static files in subdirectory http://myserveripadress/openproject to the correct folder
Alias /openproject /home/openproject/openproject/public

# let the webserver serve static files from this folder
<Directory /home/openproject/openproject/public>
         # This relaxes Apache security settings.
         AllowOverride all
         # MultiViews must be turned off.
         Options -MultiViews
          Order Allow,Deny
        Allow from all
</Directory>

# fixes a problem with CSS asset loading (see https://www.openproject.org/topics/1740 )
Alias /assets  /home/openproject/openproject/public/assets

# configure passenger for requests to http://myserveripadress/openproject
<Location /openproject>
        PassengerBaseURI /openproject
        PassengerAppRoot /home/openproject/openproject
        RackBaseURI /openproject
</Location>

So i guess your steps should be to check out if the apache server is actually running and listening on the correct port.

Jonas Küpper wrote:

Hi William,

i managed to install OpenProject 3.0.8 recently on CentOS following the step-by-step guide https://www.openproject.org/projects/openproject/wiki/Installation_on_Centos_65_x64_with_Apache_and_PostgreSQL_93 with the sole distinction that i use a MySQL server. i share your concerns regarding the not very intuitive installation, but it the end all thing fell in place more or less. i admit i had to combine several steps from the other installation guides to actually make it run.

I have posted CentOS with MySQL installation guide and corrected minor problems with the above installation steps:
https://www.openproject.org/topics/1308?board_id=9

Regards,
Igor

Thanks guys… I tried your steps. Each time with a clean install of Centos 6.5 64bit.When I go to 23.227.189.148 I get a webpage is unavailable clean. Its like passenger wont launch. I have verified paths and set all folders and files along those paths to 777.

When I run service httpd restart I get:
————————————————————-
Last login: Wed Aug 6 01:02:46 2014 from cpe-71-72-209-47.cinci.res.rr.com root@exagowebmedia ~]# service httpd restart
Stopping httpd: [FAILED]
Starting httpd: httpd: Syntax error on line 1013 of /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf: Cannot load home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.48/buildout/apache2/mod_passenger.so into server: /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.48/buildout/apache2/mod_passenger.so: cannot open shared object file: Permission denied
[FAILED]
[root@exagowebmedia ~]#

httpd.conf

LoadModule passenger_module /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.48/buildout/apache2/mod_passenger.so
<IfModule mod_passenger.c>
PassengerRoot /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.48
PassengerDefaultRuby /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/wrappers/ruby

————————————————————-

openproject.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.exagowebmedia.us
# !!! Be sure to point DocumentRoot to ‘public’!
DocumentRoot /home/openproject/openproject/public
<Directory /home/openproject/openproject/public>
# This relaxes Apache security settings.
AllowOverride all
# MultiViews must be turned off.
Options -MultiViews

Hey,

there we have your problem: Apache won’t start unless the user apache can read /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.48/buildout/apache2/mod_passenger.so.

So here’s how to fix this: make sure ALL the folders on that path are executable by the world and /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.48/buildout/apache2/mod_passenger.so is readable by the world. i guess somewhere on that path there is a folder NOT executable by the world.

you can check the permissions the apache user has by making yourself to the apache user by issuing

sudo su -s /bin/bash apache

for example i guess

ls -ld /home/openproject/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.0/gems/passenger-4.0.48/buildout/apache2/

will give you a permission denied error if you are apache.

walk your way along the path and change permissions as root where necessary with for example

chmod o+x /home/openproject/.rvm

after you are sure apache can read that file, restart the apache server.

i think it’s also possible to copy mod_passenger.so to the apache modules direcory /etc/httpd/modules/ and change the LoadModule line in /etc/httpd/httpd.conf accordingly, but i never tried it.

Ok I’m getting closer… I verifies the paths had the permissions you described but when I restarted apache it still failed. I copies the mod_passenger.so to the etc/https/modules/ folder ensures permissions were set along this new path and modified the httpd.conf file to reflect its new location now apache starts fine.

However, when I go to 23.227.189.148 I still get page not available. When I restart apache I now get a domain can not reliably determine a fqdn on 127.0.0.1 or something of that nature.

One more thing, I went to check permissions on home/OpenProject/OpenProject/public and it says no such file or folder exists

I know I have to be close to getting this thing to work and thanks for your help.

William C.

See attached

These errors (apr_socketaddr_info_get, “could not reliably…” are alright, and the server does in fact start (as indicated by the [OK]).

My major concern would be the Warning: DocumentRoot /home/openproject/openproject/public does not exist. This folder should exist if you installed it along the lines of the tutorial. but from that point i am a little helpless, did you execute this?

RAILS_ENV="production" bundle exec rake assets:precompile

and /var/log/httpd/error_log may be a source of more information whats going wrong.

Ok still no luck. I’m willing to pay someone to install this. If anyone is interjected ping me.

Thanks,
William Cornett,PMP

Ok still no luck. I’m willing to pay someone to install this. If anyone is interested ping me.

Thanks,
William Cornett,PMP

Hi William

I just tried Jonas’s code and it largely works but he did miss couple of things that make it work for me on Ubuntu.

I have attached my latest install notes which now has a section on installing OpenProject as a sub site and it includes the small (but extremely important) missing lines of code/instructions.
End to end it will take you an hour to get it up and running. I find that most issues occur when steps are missed although some file version do change quickly as well. The passenger module was ……45 when I first wrote my document, it is now 48 (that slowed me down today :) )

cheers
Brendan

Crumbs, it really shouldn’t be this hard.

Thanks to everyone for their contributions so far, it definitely helps, but I have tried and failed for the 4th time today.

Part of the problem is that the guides miss important steps, so it would be tremendously helpful if the developer/s who put the docs up could perhaps go over their work and add in the missing bits.

Another problem is that there are useful guides like the one Brendan posted, but it adds confusion for someone like me because it is done in AWS (I am using a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04 on a VMware server).

The steps I think which really throw one off, are the little bits where one needs to switch between users.

This is particularly confusing, for example:

Add following lines into profile file of the desired user:
nano /home/openproject/.bash_profile
cd $HOME
source "/home/openproject/.profile"
source "/home/openproject/.rvm/scripts/rvm"
(fyi the source command is like a run command)

If one opens that file, it already contains info, and adding the lines definitely seems to cause problems.

I also tried the package manager version, but there are no instructions about how to use it.

So the problem here is that there is this wonderful looking bit of kit (which I will get working eventually), but the assumption is that you are an advanced server administrator with detailed knowledge of Ruby.

Anyway, keep up the good work, but please can someone try to update the docs with slightly less confusing steps/slightly more annotation?

eg:

before you start:

Requirements: Open ports x, y, z (or not?)
Install Apache first (or not?).

DO THESE STEPS AS SUDO
DO THESE STEPS AS SERVER OWNER
DO THESE STEPS AS NEW OPENPROJECT USER
…ETC

I will get it working eventually, having tried quite a few others I really like the look, feel, and functionality of Openproject, but wow, it makes me feel pretty thick that I can’t even get it running.

Thanks

Guy

Hi Guy

thanks for your feedback.
I do understand the Ubuntu document could be streamlined for non linux admins. I will do that in the next couple of days.
I saw another OP issue on Centos here, so I ran up Centos 7, see my new attached instructions - thanks to all above for their effort which I used. You do not have to swap users as often now.
but I am worried that the lines
_cd $HOME
source “/home/openproject/.profile”
source “/home/openproject/.rvm/scripts/rvm”_
caused problems
I hope you did not add the line

It is in brackets, so is not a command, should not be put in a command file.
I will update the formatting so it is clearer

Centos is not for the faint hearted, it is an industrial OS so comes out of the box hardened. I had to fix a few compile issues and security issues, which where hard for an amateur admin like myself (Google was my friend).

The install takes about 90 minutes (not counting the iso download). You should be able to cut and paste your way through it, no thinking required.
I appreciate you feedback
cheers
Brendan

I got it to work !!! Kind of… I ran setenforce 0 in ssh client then restarted apache and BAM! I got the openproject page on my ip address. Problem now is I can not log in (i set up mysql as my database). User openproject and the PW I created for it doesn’t let me in.

When I register a new user I, nor they, get an email to verify registration.

At first, when I would do a “Lost Password” rest request, they would get an email with a link to http://localhost:3000/account/lost_password?token=7d14916b89a78700573e094893e112fa08d8cdfc

With this in the footer of the email: You have received this notification because you have either subscribed to it, or are involved in it.
To change your notification preferences, please click here: http://hostname/my/account

I went in and tweaked the config.yml smtp settings to:

production:
email_delivery_method: “smtp”
smtp_address: “mail..com”
smtp_port: 25
smtp_authentication: :plain
smtp_domain: ‘exagoweb.com’
smtp_user_name: ‘@.com’
smtp_password: ‘*’

_Now when I do a lost pw request I get a 500 error page:
Internal error

An error occurred on the page you were trying to access.
If you continue to experience problems please contact your OpenProject administrator for assistance.

If you are the OpenProject administrator, check your log files for details about the error.

Back_

//SUCCESS//

I finally got it to work !!!

Had to CAREFULLY read all the steps (which user you are and which folder you are in)
Configure iptables and then restart them
permanently disable SELinux
Restart mySQL
Restart httpd services

and BAM !!!

Now to explore a bit… Oh yea log in credentials are admin admin by default (important to know that-Not all install instructions tell you that)

Guys, thanks for the replies and additional steps.

Sorry it took a while for me to acknowledge, have been away for the past few weeks but wanted to let you know it is appreciated.

I am going to try again using Centos now (I use Centos for all my web servers so am happy to see that is working well in that distro).

s. Brendan, I also just noticed that you have created a whole document for VMware with screenshots.. above and beyond the call of duty, thanks so much for the time and effort you have put into this, tremendous.