Add Backlogs plugin to Redmine

For teams working with scrum, Redmine with the Backlogs plugin is a great tool for project management. This tutorial explains how install Backlogs plugin to an existing Redmine running on a Ubuntu Server. Follow this tutorial for detail to install Redmine on a Ubuntu Server.


First you need to install RubyGems, get the 1.3.7 version:

 wget http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rubygems-1.3.7.tgz  

Unpack it

 tar -zxvf rubygems-1.3.7.tgz  

And install it

 cd rubygems-1.3.7  
 sudo ruby setup.rb  

Update RubyGems with:

 sudo update_rubygems  
 sudo gem update --system  

Now you need to re-install the required Redmine Gems:

 sudo gem install rack -v=1.1.3  
 sudo gem install rails -v=2.3.14  
 sudo gem install mysql  

And the required gems for Backlogs plugin:

 sudo gem install i18n --version 0.4.2  
 sudo gem install icalendar  
 sudo gem install prawn  
 sudo gem install holidays --version 1.0.3  
 sudo gem install holidays  
 sudo gem install open-uri-cached  
 sudo apt-get install libxslt-dev libxml2-dev  
 sudo gem install nokogiri   
 sudo gem install system_timer   

Go to your Redmine plugins directory:

 cd /opt/redmine-1.3.2/vendor/plugins/  

And download the plugin from Git repository:

 sudo git clone http://github.com/backlogs/redmine_backlogs.git  

Go to plugin directory and checkout the latest version:

 cd redmine_backlogs  
 git tag  
 sudo git checkout v0.8.7  

Configure the plugin:

 cd /opt/redmine-1.3.2  
 sudo rake generate_session_store RAILS_ENV="production"  
 sudo rake config/initializers/session_store.rb RAILS_ENV="production"  
 sudo rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV="production"  
 sudo rake db:migrate:upgrade_plugin_migrations RAILS_ENV="production"  
 sudo rake redmine:backlogs:install RAILS_ENV="production"  

Finally restart your server:

 sudo service apache2 restart

Now you only have to enable the Backlogs plugin on all the projects you want to use the scrum methodology on Project / Settings / Modules.