Installing Redmine on Heroku with S3 Storage: Step by Step

Update: 15 August 2011This blog post was written almost a year ago. I haven't attempted to install Redmine on Heroku since then, so your milage may vary. I do intend to do an updated version in the future as this has been a very popular post.

I've started using Redmine this year, a project management web application, and I'm a big fan. I'm also a big fan of Heroku for deploying Rails applications. So, you know it makes sense -- deploy Redmine on Heroku! Here's how to do it step by step:

Initial Setup

$ mkdir your-company-redmine
$ cd your-company-redmine
$ git init
$ git remote add redmine git://github.com/edavis10/redmine.git
$ git fetch redmine
$ git merge redmine/1.0-stable
$ rake db:create RAILS_ENV=production

# if you don't have these installed
$ (sudo) gem install rails --version 2.3.5
$ (sudo) gem install rack --version 1.0.1

# setup database locally
$ RAILS_ENV=production rake db:migrate
$ RAILS_ENV=production rake redmine:load_default_data

$ rake generate_session_store

# add .gems
rails --version 2.3.5

$ mkdir tmp public/plugin_assets

# remove from .gitignore
/config/initializers/session_store.rb

$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Initial configuration"

Install Plugins

# install plugins, I like to use giternal
$ (sudo) gem install giternal

# add config/giternal.yml
redmine_heroku:
  path: vendor/plugins
  repo: http://github.com/edavis10/redmine_heroku.git
  
redmine_s3:
  path: vendor/plugins
  repo: http://github.com/tigrish/redmine_s3.git

$ giternal update
$ giternal freeze

$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Adds plugins"

Configure Heroku Plugin

# Remove from .gitignore
/public/plugin_assets

$ rake heroku:setup

Configure S3

# config/s3.yml

production:
  access_key_id: YOUR_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID
  secret_access_key: YOUR_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
  bucket: YOUR_S3_REDMINE_PRODUCTION_BUCKET
  cname_bucket: false

development:
  access_key_id: YOUR_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID
  secret_access_key: YOUR_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
  bucket: YOUR_S3_REDMINE_DEVELOPMENT_BUCKET
  cname_bucket: false

$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Configures S3 plugin"

Configure Sendgrid for Email

# remove from .gitignore
/config/email.yml

$ heroku addons:add sendgrid
$ heroku config

# configure config/email.yml
production:
  delivery_method: :smtp
  smtp_settings:
    address: "smtp.sendgrid.net"
    port: 25
    authentication: :plain
    domain: "heroku.com"
    user_name: "YOUR_SENDGRID_PASSWORD"
    password: "YOUR_SENDGRID_USERNAME"

$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Configures SendGrid for email delivery"

Deploy to Heroku

$ heroku create your-company-redmine
$ git push heroku deploy

# since we have the database setup locally, lets' push it
$ heroku db:push