Install Tree.io on Ubuntu with Apache

A couple of days ago I stumbled upon a very, very interesting open source project, which I have  quickly fallen in love with. This this project is called Tree.io, an all-purpose business management app for any business. Sounds great, doesnt it? I dont want to bore you with its features, since you can easily look them up yourself here. However some things that I personally really like about this system are:

1) Beautiful user interface
Tree.io just looks awesome, and thats not the end of the story – even though in my opinion it is a big plus, since many open source projects just look crappy and dont have the “good-looking” and “quick-to-use” interfaces like the one that Tree.io offers. Its interface makes it really easy to work with: its ajaxified, fast and organized, which in my opinion is pretty important, since you’ll probably use it pretty often, once you decided to go with it. Just look yourself in this demo video:

2.) Code
Tree.io is written in Python, making use of the Django Web Framework. I think its a good thing. I hate it when complex projects roll the foundation of their software on their own, probably very inferior framwork – if they even use any. Django is a great, flexible and very mature framework, that has a lot to offer. The code is organized, clean, extendable all that stuff… If you’re experienced with MVC Frameworks, let them be Rails or Symfony for instance, you will probably appreciate Django, if you dont know it already.

3.) Features
Tree.io provides a lot of functionality which is probably sufficient for any small to medium sized business, that looks for an all-around solution. I personally dig the project management module. There many project management tools out there, few open source, and very few are in my opinion a pleasure to work with. Tree.io offers solid project management features like milestones, tasks (yeah, even sub tasks) and the ability to collaborate on tasks using project comments, task comments or to chat using Tree.io’s build-in chat functionality.

Conclusion
Different tools for project management, billing and invoicing, file-storage and collaborating, contact management -> I am tired of it. Since I decided to get totally organized in 2012, Tree.io really comes in handy and will be the tool that manages everything that I do 🙂 .

Installation

Unfortunately, the installation docs are not very clear, if you (as I), have never deployed a Django Project before. I assume you’re on a linux box with Ubuntu (or I guess another debian-based distribution) installed. I also assume you will install Tree.io into the /home/projects/treeio directory. Depending on what you actually have installed on your system, there might be some problems, just comment and I will happily answer them. Lets start.

Install apache, Wsgi and mysql:

 $ sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi
 $ sudo apt-get install mysql-server python-mysqldb
 

Install some stuff that we need in order to work with Python and Django (if you havent done so already):

$ sudo apt-get install python-pip python-dev build-essential
$ sudo pip install --upgrade pip
$ sudo pip install --upgrade virtualenv
 

Install dependencies as outlined by Tree.io:

sudo apt-get build-dep python-lxml python-imaging

Create the directory Download and unzip Tree.io:

mkdir /home/projects // if the folder does not already  exist
wget http://tree.io/static/download/treeio.zip
unzip treeio.zip
cd treeio

You’re now into the treeio directory. Lets install all of its dependencies

make

If you get some error message saying that “PIP” wasnt able to find some dependencies such as “PIL”, just remove them from the “requirements.pip” file in the treeio directory. We have already installed them. You can than run “make” again after running “clean make”.

Create the “treeio”-database. I will not cover this here. However you then have to generate all the tables:

make install

The installer will guide you through all the steps. We’re almost done. There are 3 more steps:

Create a VirtualHost. Put a file called “treeio” in the /etc/apache2/sites-available directory and add the following:

Listen 8080
WSGIRestrictStdout Off
<VirtualHost *:8080>
 
    DocumentRoot /home/projects/treeio
 
    <Directory /home/projects/treeio>
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
 
    WSGIScriptAlias / /home/projects/treeio/treeio.wsgi
    
    WSGIDaemonProcess treeio processes=2 threads=15 display-name=%{GROUP}
    WSGIProcessGroup treeio
 
</VirtualHost>

Save your file. We now have to add the “treeio.wsgi”-file in your treeio directory. Add this:

import os
import sys

sys.path.append('/home/projects')
sys.path.append('/home/projects/treeio')

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'treeio.settings'

import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

Almost done! Add the treeio-site to the apache enabled sites:

$ sudo a2ensite treeio

Restart apache!

$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

You’re done! Enter the url in your browser: http://yourip:8080 . You will now see your Tree.io installation, the default admin credentials are admin (user) and admin(pass).

Troubleshooting
If it doesnt work for you, the first thing you should do is to enable the debug mode: go to /home/projects/treeio and edit the settings.py file, setting “DEBUG” to “True”. You will now see some more output and error information, given that there is no server error. In this case, as always, check your Apache logs and go from there 🙂 .