[DRE-maint] Bug#1120894: redmine: dpkg-reconfigure/upgrade redmine recreates /usr/share/redmine/plugins

[Soren Stoutner]

On Monday, November 17, 2025 7:49:52 PM Mountain Standard Time Alban Browaeys 
wrote:
> I meant:
> rmdir /var/lib/redmine/default/plugin
> is the way advertised by the Debian README to have
> /usr/share/redmine/plugins activated when one do not want to use
> symlinks from /usr/share/redmine/plugins/ to
> /var/lib/redmine/default/plugins.

The text of README.Debian has changed a bit from the version in 6.0.5+ds-1 to 
the current text, which reads:

Plugins will be loaded from
/var/lib/redmine/instances/$REDMINE_INSTANCE/plugins/.  If this directory does
not exist, loading will fall back to the global plugins directory at
/usr/share/redmine/plugins/.  The
/var/lib/redmine/instances/$REDMINE_INSTANCE/plugins/ directory is 
automatically
created each time Redmine is upgraded.  To enable a plugin for an instance it
can be symlinked from the global plugins driectory.

https://sources.debian.org/src/redmine/6.0.6%2Bds-2/debian/README.Debian

Hopefully, this is a bit more express.
 
> Fact is I cannot use symlinks from /usr/share/redmine/plugins/<x> to
> /var/lib/redmine/default/plugins because it crashes rails loading. THis
> is another bug.
> In the meantime I can workaround this issue by switching removing the
> /var/lib/redmine/default/plugins directory as advertised by the Debian
> README to have /usr/share/plugins fallback to work.

That should be a bug that you file, as that is not behavior I have noticed.  
We should get to the bottom of why that is happening.

> But /usr/share/redmine/bin/redmine-instances called on each
> upgrades/dpkg-reconfigure of redmine by redmine.postinst recreate teh
> deleted /var/lib/redmine/default/plugins directory (with an empty
> folder) thus the fallback to /usr/share/redmine/plugins is disabled and
> I have no plugins anymore.

As stated in the README text above, that is the expected behavior, which is 
why it is not the recommended way of handling plugins, although it is possible 
if you want to manually re-delete it after every upgrade.

> I plan to bug report the symlinks to /var/lib/redmine/default/plugins
> from /usr/share/redmine/plugins/<x> breaks in a later bug report once I
> have redmine at least back on track with the fallback to
> /usr/share/redmine/plugins (this is my local prod redmine instance).
> Fact is currently I get redmine to work but it will breaks on each
> redmine upgrades.

I think that is a good idea.  You can either create a new bug report or 
retitle this one.

> ie unircorn errors out this way when I use symlinks (same for `sudo -u
> www-data REDMINE_INSTANCE=default rackup -E production`)

I am not familiar with Unicorn.  In your other bug report (or this one if you 
retitle) you might want to provide some background on how it works and the 
configuration options you are using.

> Note that I have /usr/share/redmine/instances/default a symlink to
> /var/lib/redmine/default. I don't know if it is vanilla. If I remove
> this symlink and dpkg-reconfigure or reinstall redmine a broken nearly
> empty (out of a log file) /usr/share/redmine/instances/default
> directory is created and redmine bundler errors out (because
> /usr/share/redmine/Gemfile
> `Dir['/usr/share/redmine/{config,instances/*/config}/database.yml'].sel
> ect do |f| `
> and there is not
> /usr/share/redmine/instances/default/config/database.yml because
> /usr/share/redmine/instances/default is nearly empty).
> It seems /usr/share/redmine/instances/default empty folder is created
> by redmine.postinst rake db:migrate.

I don’t think that is a standard configuration.  /usr/share/redmine/instances 
should be a symlink to /var/lib/redmine as shown in my original email, but 
inside of that "default" is not typically a symlink.

root:/usr/share/redmine/instances# ls -la
total 20
drwxr-xr-x   3 root     root     4096 Oct  6 15:33 .
drwxr-xr-x 112 root     root     4096 Sep  9 18:58 ..
drwxr-xr-x   5 root     root     4096 Oct  6 15:33 default
-rw-r--r--   1 www-data www-data 7367 Oct  6 15:33 Gemfile.lock

Note that, in case it wasn’t clear from my original email, the configuration 
that has been tested is symlinking each plugin directory.  I have not tested 
symlinking the entire parent plugin directory, which one of your comments made 
me think perhaps you have tried.

-- 
Soren Stoutner
soren at debian.org
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