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How to use Trac with ajp-wsgi and Apache

• Audience: Those who want to use Trac within a separate process from apache
• Requires: MacPorts >=1.7, Mac OS X 10.5

Introduction

There are several ways to run Trac with Apache: ​mod_wsgi, ​mod_python, and ​ajp-wsgi (and probably others...). This discusses how to get it working with ajp-wsgi, which runs as a single separate process from Apache's httpd. ajp-wsgi uses the ​Apache JServ Protocol to communicate with Apache, hence needs some configuration done in httpd.conf.

Installation

Install the necessary ports with:

sudo port install apache2
sudo port install trac
sudo port install ajp-wsgi +python26

The +python26 variant was selected for ajp-wsgi to use the current Python version, and Trac prefers 2.6 as well so this keeps them using the same version. Note that by default ajp-wsgi will select +python26 if not otherwise specified.

Configuration

Configuring ajp-wsgi

First, ajp-wsgi needs to be setup to run with a launchd item. Create a new launchd plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons called com.example.ajp-wsgi.plist (change com.example to suit your network) with sudo vi /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.example.ajp-wsgi.plist (or a different editor you can run as root). Place the following into this new file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
	<dict>
		<key>PYTHONHOME</key>
		<string>/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6</string>
		<key>PYTHON_EGG_CACHE</key>
		<string>/usr/local/trac/.python-egg-cache</string>
		<key>TRAC_ENV_PARENT_DIR</key>
		<string>/usr/local/trac</string>
	</dict>
	<key>GroupName</key>
	<string>_www</string>
	<key>KeepAlive</key>
	<true/>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>com.example.ajp-wsgi</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/opt/local/bin/ajp-wsgi</string>
		<string>-p</string>
		<string>8990</string>
		<string>trac.web.main</string>
		<string>dispatch_request</string>
		<string>/projects</string>
	</array>
	<key>UserName</key>
	<string>_www</string>
	<key>WorkingDirectory</key>
	<string>/usr/local/trac</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Be sure to replace /usr/local/trac with the location of your actual Trac project location. This example uses TRAC_ENV_PARENT_DIR which allows for multiple Trac projects to be located as subdirectories under that path.

Also note the /projects part being passed to ajp-wsgi, which tells it that all the Trac projects will be accessed with a URL whose path starts with /projects.

Configuring Apache2

Edit /opt/local/etc/apache2/httpd.conf in a text editor, and in the section pertinent to your server and how you want Trac accessed, add

   ProxyPass /projects/ ajp://localhost:8990/projects
   <Proxy */projects/*>
      Require all granted
   </Proxy>

This tells Apache that requests to /projects/* to be proxied over to localhost's port 8990 (which is where ajp-wsgi is listening, as specified above). This excerpt can be placed in the main portion of httpd.conf or in a <VirtualHost> section, depending on your needs.

Configuring Trac

Setup Trac as specified in ​Creating a Project Environment. Since this example uses the multiple-projects-in-a-directory, be sure to use a subdirectory as the project environment; for example, with the /usr/local/trac location used above:

trac-admin /usr/local/trac/myproject initenv

Make sure everything in /usr/local/trac is owned by the user _www as that's how ajp-wsgi is running, which will need write access so Trac can update files.

Testing

Try loading http://www.example.com/projects/myproject (replacing the domain and myproject as appropriate) and you should see the Trac page.

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