Tracks

Installing Tracks as a leopard service

2008-07-29T01:26:32+00:00

Hi Everyone,

I’m using mongrel as my rails server and my goal is to have tracks start automatically with OS X, having got this working I though I would share the details here in case some of you wish to do the same, this should also work on OS X Server.

I should point out that if you’re using apache there’s a rails module (mod_rails) available so you could use that, I haven’t looked at apache on OS X yet so don’t have it running, however that is another option.

I should also point out that I’m still learning about OS X and this is my first foray into the launchd technology so this may not be the most robust way of setting this up but it seems to work well.

If you don’t have Git installed you can get it here.

Ok, first we need tracks:
git clone --depth 1 git://github.com/bsag/tracks.git ~/tracks

If you don’t want the bleeding edge checkout a stable version:
cd ~/tracks
git checkout v1.6

Next setup the rails environment:
cd ~/tracks
cp ./config/environment.rb.tmpl ./config/environment.rb
sed -i -e ‘/^SALT/s/change-me/<your salt secret>/’ ./config/environment.rb

cp -r ./log.tmpl ./log
touch ./log/mongrel.log

echo -e "
    > production:n
    >   adapter: sqlite3n
    >   database: db/production.sqlite3n
    >   timeout: 5000" > ./config/database.yml

rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production
cd ~

Check it works, use Ctrl-C if it started Ok:
mongrel_rails start -e production -c ~/tracks

Create a group for mongrel based services using the next available gid:
(not sure why I created a mongrel group, seemed like a good idea at the time)

dscl . list groups PrimaryGroupID | awk ‘id<$2 {id=$2} END {print id+1}’

if the gid returned above was greater than 500, replace 500 below with it’s value.

sudo dseditgroup -o create -i 500 _mongrel
sudo dscl . create Groups/_mongrel RecordName _mongrel mongrel

Create a user for Tracks using the next available uid:

dscl . list users UniqueID | awk ‘id<$2 {id=$2} END {print id+1}’

If the uid returned above was greater than 500, replace 500 below with it’s value.
The PrimaryGroupID should be the gid you assigned to the _mongrel group above.

sudo dscl . create Users/_tracks
sudo dscl . create Users/_tracks RecordName _tracks tracks
sudo dscl . create Users/_tracks UniqueID 500
sudo dscl . create Users/_tracks PrimaryGroupID 502
sudo dscl . create Users/_tracks NFSHomeDirectory /var/empty
sudo dscl . create Users/_tracks UserShell /usr/bin/false

Move tracks into /opt and set owner:
sudo mv ~/tracks /opt/tracks
sudo chown -R tracks:mongrel /opt/tracks

Create the file ‘~/uk.org.rousette.tracks.plist’ with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
  <plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>uk.org.rousette.tracks</string>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>_tracks</string>
    <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
    <string>/opt/tracks</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/usr/bin/mongrel_rails</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>mongrel_rails</string>
      <string>start</string>
      <string>-eproduction</string>
      [b]<string>-a127.0.0.1</string>[/b]
      [b]<string>-p3000</string>[/b]
      <string>-llog/mongrel.log</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

You should probably set the port argument above to something other than 3000.

If you want to access Tracks across a network remove the address argument or set it to the machines network address.

Personally if I wanted to access tracks across the network I would probably use apache, either as a proxy to the mongrel daemon or using mod_rails.

Install the plist as a launch daemon:
sudo mv ~/uk.org.rousette.tracks.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/uk.org.rousette.tracks.plist
sudo chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/uk.org.rousette.tracks.plist

All that’s left is to launch:

To start the daemon:
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/uk.org.rousette.tracks.plist

To stop the daemon:
sudo launchctl remove uk.org.rousette.tracks

To restart the daemon:
sudo launchctl stop uk.org.rousette.tracks

stop does stop the daemon but because we have KeepAlive set to true launchd simply restarts it, removing KeepAlive will allow you to use stop/start instead of load/remove.

You should now be able to access Tracks from your browser at the port you’ve specified and this should remain the case after reboot, if that’s not the case take a look at the Console application and the mongrel log for errors.

When you want to update to the latest code cd to the /opt/tracks folder and do one of the following:
sudo git pull
or
sudo git pull --tags

If you’re not running the bleeding edge code don’t forget to checkout the changeset or tag you want.

Happy tracking

Auth type not a valid authentication type

2007-03-08T22:54:50+00:00

Getting this error when I try to sign up on a new Tracks installation, trunk/SVN today, on 10.4.8.

Any ideas?

can’t activate rubyforge (= 0.4.5), already activated rubyforge-1.0.0]

2008-06-22T05:05:39+00:00

Hi everyone,

I’m still so new to tracks, so I encountered a few problems in installing it. After doing all the casualties (downloading, extracting and setting up the database connection) I done exactly the same thing as instructed in the documentation

Populate your database with the Tracks 1.6 schema
Open a terminal and change into the root of your Tracks 1.6 directory. Enter the following command:
rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

than it threw a few errors as the following:

gerryleonugroho:~/Desktop/tracks-1.6 gerryleonugroho$ rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production
(in /Users/gerryleonugroho/Desktop/tracks-1.6)
rake aborted!
can’t activate rubyforge (= 0.4.5), already activated rubyforge-1.0.0]

Any idea what when wrong with my installation? Oh, btw, I’m on Mac OS X 10.4.11 and using MySQL for production environment.

Many thanks in advanced.

Missing Default Helper Path

2008-04-17T13:43:29+00:00

SwitchEnvironmentController: missing default helper path switch_environment_helper
UnobtrusiveJavascriptController: missing default helper path unobtrusive_javascript_helper

I found two problems when I tried to run Tracks on Leopard. Anyone know how to solve this problem?

Thank you.

Starting Tracks in Leopard

2008-04-14T00:51:36+00:00

OK, I’ve finally installed Tracks, had it running in Leopard/Safari. Then unloaded all the contents of my brain into it & used it successfully for a week. Restarted my computer and have no idea how to get Tracks going again.

I assume it’s not as easy as pointing the browser to “http://localhost:8080/”?

I used an installer and am not very code savvy!

Tracks rev 701 & sqlite3 throwing: no such file to load - sqlite3

2008-01-23T20:28:27+00:00

Tracks is awesome. I used it w/ MySQL for a year and it helped me get a lot done. Recently I wanted to use SQLite3 instead and here’s where the troubles begin.

I followed instructions from both the Trac site and the installation.html file included in Tracks but no matter what I do I keep getting a ‘no such file to load - sqlite3’ when I start the server.

However I can run migrations just fine to set up the schema so I’m confused--unfortunately, I’m a weak Ruby coder so I am unable to solve this myself.

I’m not at my home cpu (os x 10.4) so I can’t post the stack trace, but the above message is etched in my head from searching all over Google for an answer--which I can’t find.

I’m on Ruby 1.8.6 and Rails 2.0.2 with the proper sqlite-ruby gem installed--though this shouldn’t affect Tracks as it was probably frozen, correct?

Anyway, I don’t suppose someone would be willing to walk me through a fresh install of Tracks (tag = current) on OS X 10.4 w/ SQLite3? I’m sure I can’t be the only one having this problem.

Thank you for the consideration and an excellent piece of software!

Problem importing the DB Schema into MySQL

2008-02-22T08:40:16+00:00

When trying to get import the tracks database schema into my MySQL database, I continuously get the following MySQL Syntax error (full rake output further below).

Mysql::Error: #42000You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''contexts' SET 'user_id' = 1' at line 1: UPDATE 'contexts' SET 'user_id' = 1;

I tried using “rake migrate” both with the rails version included tracks, and the latest version I have (2.0.2).

I was wondering whether anybody has or could create a MySQL schema dump and post it here?
Help is much appreciated! Thanks // pascal

OS X 10.5
MySQL 5.0.45

#>$ rake migrate --trace
(in tmp/tracks)
** Invoke migrate (first_time)
** Invoke environment (first_time)
** Execute environment
** Execute migrate
rake aborted!
Mysql::Error: #42000You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''contexts' SET 'user_id' = 1' at line 1: UPDATE 'contexts' SET 'user_id' = 1;
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract_adapter.rb:88:in `log'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/mysql_adapter.rb:180:in `execute'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/migration.rb:170:in `send'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/migration.rb:170:in `method_missing'
./db/migrate//2_add_user_id.rb:6:in `up'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/migration.rb:228:in `send'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/migration.rb:228:in `migrate'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/migration.rb:223:in `each'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/migration.rb:223:in `migrate'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/migration.rb:190:in `up'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/migration.rb:181:in `migrate'
/tmp/tracks/vendor/rails/railties/lib/tasks/databases.rake:3
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:546:in `call'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:546:in `execute'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:541:in `each'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:541:in `execute'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:508:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:501:in `synchronize'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:501:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:494:in `invoke'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:1931:in `invoke_task'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:1909:in `top_level'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:1909:in `each'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:1909:in `top_level'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:1948:in `standard_exception_handling'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:1903:in `top_level'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:1881:in `run'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:1948:in `standard_exception_handling'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/lib/rake.rb:1878:in `run'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.1/bin/rake:31
/usr/bin/rake:19:in `load'
/usr/bin/rake:19
#>$

Slingshot: Syncing offline work a reality?

2007-11-07T18:08:23+00:00

Background: After using Tracks extensively I realized that in my current job I am offline too often to shrug away the situation of being on a train and not having a record of my todo items let alone being able to work on them (the list, I mean).
A local install worked so so only, with the odd loss of changes in the database (I used and still use Chronosync which does its job well as far as I can tell).
So, despite the fact that I liked almost everything else about Tracks I moved on but kept returning here until I stumbled across your post about Slinghsot.

If I understand this correctly this means that this will be iincorporated into Tracks and install with it, transparent to the user, right? What I don’t quite understand is if this will depend on the data being hosted on a Joyent server. I am partly concerned about cost, but also security of my data.

And - how could it be otherwise - the infamous question: When, oh when?

Can you give an update on this rather exciting matter, please? Thank you

Prion

Mac OS X install without Locomotive

2007-10-21T23:21:41+00:00

I really don’t want to install MySQL on my Mac, so I’m trying to install Tracks 1.043 without Locomotive.

Details:
Mac Mini, intel processor
OS 10.4.10
Tracks 1.043

Installed gems okay
Installed sqlite3-ruby 1.2.1 using gems

And then I started to run into problems.

In the scripts directory, I opened the installation.html file
Under SQLite/SQLite3 it says that the instructions are the same as for MySQL, except they aren’t (okay, I’m paraphrasing). The sentence ends with “so you’re ready to go”. Go where?

So, I started reading the MySQL instructions.

Unzip tracks. Okay, already did that.
Make a database - is this one of the steps that’s already done? Sounds like it, so I skip to the next bullet point.
All about database.yml - ah, I don’t have to change that.
Next, change the salt in environment.rb. Cool. Done.
Now, rake migrate - oh oh, it doesn’t work.

rake aborted!
uninitialized constant API

(See full trace by running task with --trace)

Okay, let’s trace.

(in /Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043)
** Invoke migrate (first_time)
** Invoke db:migrate (first_time)
** Invoke environment (first_time)
** Execute environment
** Execute db:migrate
rake aborted!
uninitialized constant API
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/../../activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:112:in `const_missing’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/../../activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:122:in `send’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/../../activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:122:in `const_missing’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/sqlite3-ruby-1.2.1/lib/sqlite3/driver/native/driver.rb:100:in `open’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/sqlite3-ruby-1.2.1/lib/sqlite3/database.rb:111:in `initialize’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/sqlite_adapter.rb:17:in `new’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/sqlite_adapter.rb:17:in `sqlite3_connection’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:251:in `send’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:251:in `connection_without_query_cache=’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:54:in `connection=’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:220:in `retrieve_connection’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:78:in `connection’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/migration.rb:280:in `migrate’
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/tasks/databases.rake:4
/Users/stevenanderson/applications/tracks-1.043/config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/tasks/databases.rake:3:in `call’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:392:in `execute’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:392:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:392:in `execute’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:362:in `invoke’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:355:in `synchronize’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:355:in `invoke’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:369:in `invoke_prerequisites’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:368:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1003:in `send’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1003:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:368:in `invoke_prerequisites’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:361:in `invoke’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:355:in `synchronize’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:355:in `invoke’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1739:in `top_level’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1739:in `each’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1739:in `top_level’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1733:in `standard_exception_handling’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1733:in `top_level’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1711:in `run’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1708:in `standard_exception_handling’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/lib/rake.rb:1708:in `run’
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.3/bin/rake:7
/usr/bin/rake:16:in `load’
/usr/bin/rake:16

Any ideas?

MySQL > SQLite3 db transition (Tracks 1.043 Locomotive install on 10.4.10)

2007-09-14T20:54:45+00:00

Hi All,

I’ve been somewhat successful getting the Locomotive install running on my new iMac. The app is there and I signed in and can login.

My problems arise when trying to import my old MySQL dump into the (empty/default?) SQLite3 db.

When I run: sqlite3 db/tracks-104.db < db/tracks-104-dump.sql

(in terminal from my new tracks-1.043 folder—yes I named my old dump “tracks-104-dump.sql” which I did in YourSQL on my old system)

as per bsag’s post: Updated Tracks 1.043 for installation with Locomotive

I get a big chunk of data and then this error:

SQL error: unrecognized token: “`”
UNLOCK TABLES;
SQL error: near “UNLOCK”: syntax error
CREATE TABLE `todos` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`context_id` int(11) NOT NULL default ‘0’,
`project_id` int(11) default NULL,
`description` varchar(255) NOT NULL default ‘’,
`notes` text,
`done` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default ‘0’,
`created_at` datetime default NULL,
`due` date default NULL,
`completed` datetime default NULL,
`user_id` int(11) default ‘1’,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
SQL error: unrecognized token: “`”
LOCK TABLES `todos` WRITE;
SQL error: unrecognized token: “`”

and then another big chunk and then this error:

UNLOCK TABLES;
SQL error: unrecognized token: “`”
CREATE TABLE `users` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`login` varchar(80) NOT NULL default ‘’,
`password` varchar(40) NOT NULL default ‘’,
`word` varchar(255) default NULL,
`is_admin` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default ‘0’,
`preferences` text,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
SQL error: unrecognized token: “`”
LOCK TABLES `users` WRITE;
SQL error: unrecognized token: “`”
INSERT INTO `users` VALUES (1,’tim’,’c4b709311c79f499e8d376767ef63eb903c1c91a’,’22fd8dd501eaa43800309a6130aff04bea8603f0’,1,’--- nstaleness_starts: "180"ndate_format: "%d/%m/%Y"nno_completed: "5"nadmin_email: butshesagirl at rousette dot org dot uknweek_starts: "1"ndue_style: "1"’);
SQL error: unrecognized token: “`”
UNLOCK TABLES;
SQL error: near “UNLOCK”: syntax error

So I’m stuck. Can someone help me migrate my database to SQLite3?

As far as converting the boolean fields. Is bsag’s syntax correct (I was getting errors)?

Should:
sqlite> set done = ‘f’
be
sqlite> set done = f

Should
sqlite> where done = 0;
be
sqlite> where done = 0

Any help with this last hurdle would be greatly appreciated so I can et back to getting things done. I can email you mt SQL dump if needed.