Starting with Redmine locally - how easy is migration to server later?

Question

I am starting on a number of big PHP projects which I need Bug Tracking, Wiki and Subversion integration capabilities for.

I used to have a Virtual Server running Windows Server and a Trac/SVN installation for this, but I am planning a relocation to another country this year, so I want to close that server down and move the functionality to a virtual machine on my workstation for the moment.

Seeing as I have to set up a new environment anyway, I would like to take the opportunity and try out Redmine, which I have been eyeing for a while now for a number of reasons. The bitnami package is promising to give me the necessary point-and-click bliss to get started fast.

What I would like to know from somebody with experience in Redmine is:

• If I start creating a project environment on a local virtual machine, will I be able to easily migrate them to a Redmine hosting provider (or server running redmine) later? I'm sure there are export tools and all, but how difficult is it going to be in practice? On a scale from 1 (nightmare) to 10 (Click here, upload there, done)?

Answer 1

On your scale, I'd rate it close to a 9 or 10. It's not automatic, because aspects of the configuration may have to change (e.g. where your database is located, if it's not going to be localhost on the new machine). But it's pretty close -- you'd just upload your backed-up MySQL database to the new, remote instance once you're ready to make the move, and that's about it, except for the various other configuration and installation details that you can handle at the command line. But these will vary from host to host.

The only thing to worry about is that third-party providers may have specific restrictions on what kinds of plugins or settings can be active with a given Redmine install, but I suspect that in 95% of cases there won't be any issue here either.

Answer 2

Redmine is a ruby on rails application. Moving it to any server that runs apache is dead simple using Phusion Passenger. I'd rate it at a 5 on your scale. By no means a nightmare, but there is some command line work involved. I've done this exact thing at Slicehost.

Answer 3

I can't tell you about migration to a hosting provider, I don't know how they handle that...

but migrating to your own server should be really easy, It's just a backup and restore

http://www.redmine.org/wiki/redmine/RedmineUpgrade

you should install redmine on your server (pick the same version you were using) and then backup your mysql data (mysqldump), copy your files at "files" folder, and that should be enough...

then you should upgrade to the latest version of redmine, and follow the rest of the wiki...

Answer 4

You could also try a speciality Redmine hosting provider such as Planio (which is run by my company). We also offer ready-to-use integrated SVN and Git repositories, start/stop time tracking and number of neat extras. We have a fair pricing model and even an entirely free account. Setup takes less than 5 minutes.

This way, you could focus on your move and professional projects and would not need to worry about your Redmine setup as we do all the maintenance, updates, backups for you.