XAMPP + Retrospectiva on Windows 7

Wow! Finally I got it to work… that took me about 6 hours…. in hope to save someones time, I will write down step-by-step, what I did.

We will set up Retrospectiva on xampp under http://localhost/retrospectiva .

You will need to do several steps including installation of XAMPP, Rails, many missing *.gem’s and of course Retrospectiva. Then you need to set up a mongrel-service and Apache-proxy configuration. After that, you should be able to enjoy Retrospectiva! 🙂

This is how I got it to work:

STEP 1 – Install XAMPP

http://www.apachefriends.org/xampp.html
I installed it in D:\xampp.

STEP 2 – Install Rails

We’re going to use the RubyInstaller from http://rubyforge.org/.
I first tried it with Rails 1.9.1 but it won’t work for me. I found that I might use 1.8.7:
http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=167&release_id=42563
So, you might install 1.8.7: rubyinstaller-1.8.7-p249-rc2.exe
Be sure to add the ruby/bin to your PATH (you’re able to check that option during the installation).

I installed it in D:\xampp\ruby.

cmd:
cd D:\xampp\ruby\bin
gem update
gem install rails --include-dependencies

That takes some time…

STEP 3 – Install Mongrel

I used mongrel 1.1.5.

cmd:
gem install mongrel


STEP 4 – Install mysql gem

I used mysql gem 2.8.1. :

cmd:
gem install mysql

(their might be some definition-errors, but that should be ok)

You need to download an older MySQL client library. The suggested one from the Retrospectiva-Wiki, which I used, can be found there: http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/InstantRails-win/InstantRails/mysql/bin/libmySQL.dll.

Copy the file to D:\xampp\ruby\bin.

STEP 5 – Install mongrel-service + win32-service gems

1. Download “mongrel_service-0.3.4-i386-mswin32.gem” from http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=1306
2. Download “win32-service-0.5.2-mswin32.gem” from http://files.ruby.inoack.com/win32utils/
   Be sure to use 0.5.2 as newer ones may not work with ruby 1.8.7!
3. Create a directory in htdocs like “gems”: D:\xampp\htdocs\gems and move the two *.gem files to this folder.
4. Install the gemscmd:
cd D:\xampp\htdocs\gems
gem install mongrel_service

STEP 6 – Install Retrospectiva

(You can follow the official Installation-Guide for more details)

Download the latest release: http://github.com/dim/retrospectiva/tarball/master
(I used dim-retrospectiva-b179453.tar.gz)

Unpack the downloaded file and move it to: D:\xampp\htdocs\retrospectiva

Create Database

start the xampp-control and start apache+mysql.
Go to: http://localhost/phpmyadmin and perform the sql-query (change the x’s 😉 )

sql:
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS retrospectiva;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON retrospectiva.*
TO "retrospectiva"@"localhost" IDENTIFIED BY "xxxxxxxxxxx";


Configure Database

Rename D:\xampp\htdocs\retrospectiva\config\templates\database.mysql.yml
to D:\xampp\htdocs\retrospectiva\config\database.yml

Edit config/database.yml with a text editor and adjust the configuration details in the production section. That will mainly be the password.

Load initial content and install missing gems

Try to setup Retrospectiva…

cmd:
cd D:\xampp\htdocs\retrospectiva
rake RAILS_ENV=production db:setup

That probably fails with errors about missing gems.
Go through the list of the missing gems and install each BUT NOT RedCloth:

cmd:
gem install MISSING_GEM


We need to download the RedCloth*.gem manually because on windows the installation will fail caused by missing compilers/make.exe/etc.. don’t try to fix that.. that’s not worth the time.
Download RedCloth-4.2.2-x86-mswin32-60 from http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=216&release_id=36337

Put the downloaded file in the folder you already used in Step 5 D:\xampp\htdocs\gems and install the gem:

cmd:
gem install RedCloth-4.2.2-x86-mswin32-60.gem


Testing Retrospectiva installation

After installing all that gem’s you might want to test the installation with the built-in webrick-server:

cmd:
cd D:\xampp\htdocs\retrospectiva
ruby script/server -e production -p3000

That takes some time… and their might be some errors, but after a while you should see Retrospectiva at http://localhost:3000

Well, fine! But we want it to work with the apache from XAMPP! This needs some more steps…
Hit ctrl+c to stop the webrick server and read on! 🙂

STEP 7 – Configure Apache and customize Retrospectiva

First create a file D:\xampp\htdocs\retrospectiva\config\runtime\custom.rb with this content to inform retrospectiva that we use an other root-url than “/”:

[code]
ActionController::Base.relative_url_root = "/retrospectiva"


Now we’ll configure the apache to proxy the retrospectiva calls to mongrel (we will install mongrel services in the next step).

Open D:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf and add at the bottom:

[code]
Include conf/httpd-proxy-mongrel.conf


Create the file we just included: D:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd-proxy-mongrel.conf
with the content:

[code]
LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule proxy_balancer_module modules/mod_proxy_balancer.so
ProxyPass /retrospectiva balancer://retrospectiva_cluster
ProxyPassReverse /retrospectiva balancer://retrospectiva_cluster
<Proxy balancer://retrospectiva_cluster>
BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:3002
</Proxy>


STEP 8 – Install Mongrel

Open a comand-window as Administrator (Windows->cmd, but instead of hitting ENTER hit CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER, or just right-click cmd.exe and choose Run as Administrator).

Go to the retrospectica folder and install services (it’s important that you perform the install in that folder!):

cmd:
cd D:\xampp\htdocs\retrospectiva
mongrel_rails service::install -N mongrel_retrospectiva_3001 -D "Mongrel serving Retrospectiva on 3001" -p 3001 -e production -c D:\xampp\htdocs\retrospectiva

now start the service:

cmd:
net start mongrel_retrospectiva_3001


cmd:
services.msc /s

-> find “Mongrel serving Retrospectiva on 3001” service and right click, select Properties and set Startup type to “Automatic”. Press OK.

STEP 9 – Start! 🙂

Wow that was a long way to go… but if everything works fine, you only need to restart apache in the xampp-control (hit stop then start button).

Now go to http://localhost/retrospectiva and login (admin/password)!

DONE! 🙂

I hope you could save some time and that it work’s for you!

References

As I did not reinvent the wheel, here are the pages, that I used to find out how this works (or at least some of them.. don’t remember everything..):

• Retrospectiva Installation:
  http://retrospectiva.org/wiki/Installation
  http://retrospectiva.org/wiki/Installation On Windows
  http://retrospectiva.org/tickets/510 (Ticket on the relative_url_root – Problem)
• XAMPP + Rails
  http://www.apachefriends.org
  http://www.grapethinking.com/getting-rails-to-work-on-a-windows-machine-running-xampp
• Mongrel-Services for Windows
  This section was very helpful from the Redmine and it works the same way, as here described:
  http://www.redmine.org/wiki/redmine/HowTo_Install_Redmine_in_a_sub-URI_on_Windows_with_Apache