New BitNami Redmine 2.2.0 released!

We are happy to announce that you can now download a new BitNami Redmine stack for the just-released Redmine 2.2.0 version. In case you are not familiar with the Redmine project, it is a flexible, web-based project management application.

This version of Redmine adds support for the latest Rails release: Rails 3.2.9. We also upgraded PHP to the latest stable version: 5.4.9.

New features in this version:

• Private comments in issues.
• Ability to allow subtasks in subprojects or other projects (can be turned on/off with a configurable scope).
• Issue relations improvements:
• Precedes/Follows relations take care of non working days when rescheduling issues (non working days can be configured in the application settings).
• Precedes/Follows relations now also move following issues when rescheduling an issue earlier.
• A new relation "Copied from/to" is automatically added when copying issues.
• You can now filter issues against their relations.
• Relations can be displayed on the issue list.
• Issue list improvements:
• The order of the group column can now be set.
• An option lets you display the full issue descriptions on the issue list.
• REST API additions: wiki pages, roles, priorities, user Impersonation.

Download the free native installer or virtual machine or deploy the new Redmine 2.2.0 version to the Amazon cloud in one click from the BitNami Redmine page. Enjoy!

Tell Us What You Think About the Future of the Cloud

In the spring of 2011, we teamed up with several open source companies to conduct a survey of trends in cloud computing and published the results under a Creative Commons license. The cloud space has been changing incredibly quickly over the past few years, so we're doing another survey to see just how much the industry and technologies have changed since 2011. Of course, we'll publish the results again so that everyone will have access to them. As an added bonus, all respondents who provide their contact info will have a chance to win one of 5 new iPads! 

We would love it if you would take just a few minutes to share your thoughts on the future of the cloud. You can take the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BACD 

If you are curious about the results of the last survey, here is a summary of a few of the findings:

• ·       61% of organizations are in the information gathering or planning stages or have an approved cloud computing strategy (but no implementation), 20% have cloud implementations and 20% have no cloud computing plans at this point
• ·       70% of data center managers choose to deploy infrastructure on dedicated resources (e.g. dedicated servers and data center resources) while only 12% prefer to deploy their infrastructure in the public cloud.
• ·       Hardware savings was cited as the most popular reason for using cloud-based storage and platform-as-a-service.
• ·       12% of IT professionals indicated their preference was to run their infrastructure in public clouds
• ·       The open source Linux operating system is the dominant guest operating system in the cloud with 83% of IT professionals planning to deploy Linux as a guest operating system, 66% will be deploying Windows OSes in the cloud
• ·       Open source usage is pervasive among cloud computing users with 69% using open source software whenever possible while only 3% claim not to use open source software at all. All government users indicated some degree of open source usage.
• ·       Among cloud computing users 59% will use compute clouds, 51% will use cloud storage and 47% will be using Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings
• ·       The number one overall reason inhibiting cloud computing adoption is lack of cloud computing training (43%), followed by security concerns (36%).

Don't forget to take the survey to share your thoughts on the cloud and for a chance to win a latest-generation iPad! 

New BitNami JasperReports 5.0 released

We are happy to announce a new major release of BitNami JasperReports stack, version 5.0. JasperReports is a popular open source Java report and analysis tool.

BitNami JasperReports provides all-in-one free native installers, virtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images that simplify JasperReports' installation.

In addition to this, we also provide simplified deployment and management of JasperReports in the cloud with BitNami Cloud Hosting. Sign up for our free developer plan to check it out!

This version ships the following components:

 -  JasperReports 5.0
 -  Apache Tomcat 7.0.33
 -  JDK 1.7.0_09
 -  MySQL 5.5.28

JasperReports 5 welcome page

JasperReports 5 sample report

Tiki Wiki now part of BitNami

We have a new BitNami packaging contest winner: Welcome Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware to the BitNami family! Tiki Wiki is an open source wiki-based content management system and online office suite written primarily in PHP.

As with all BitNami-packaged applications, it will soon be available in a complete, ready-to-run package that you can download as a free native installer, virtual appliance and cloud template for the Amazon cloud. 

Would you like your favorite app to be part of BitNami? Be sure to propose and vote for it in our online contest! Every two weeks the content is restarted and one app is selected. Previous winners were the TestLink and PhpCompta applications. Your vote can make a difference!

New BitNami Alfresco 4.2.c released

We are happy to announce a new BitNami Alfresco Stack version: 4.2.c. BitNami Alfresco provides all-in-one free native installers, virtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images that simplify Alfresco installation. 

In addition to the stacks, we also simplify hosting and management of Alfresco in the cloud with our BitNami Cloud Hosting one-click deployment service. Sign up for our free developer plan to check it out.

This version contains the following components:

• Alfresco 4.2.c
• JDK 1.7.0_09
• Apache Tomcat 7.0.33
• LibreOffice 3.5.4

Enjoy! 

Alfresco administrator dashboard

LibreOffice document viewer

New Cloud Tools for Windows Azure

We are happy to announce a new addition to the BitNami family: BitNami Cloud Tools for Windows Azure. It is a native installer that bundles the command line tools that you need to access and manage Azure Cloud services together with all the third-party components required to make them work, such as Python and Node.js runtimes. The installers are available for Windows, Linux and OS X. Because they are self-contained and can be installed in just a few clicks, they are a convenient tool for getting started with the Windows Azure cloud.

Assuming you already have a Windows Azure account, the next step after installation is proper Windows Azure credentials setup.

1. Start the 'azure-shell.sh' on OS X or Linux or the 'Windows Azure cmd' on Windows. You should see a warning like the following:

WARNING: Your Azure account was not imported yet.
Please run the 'azure account download' command to import your account

2. Run the command below:

$ azure account download

info:    Executing command account download

info:    Launching browser to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=254432

help:    Save the downloaded file, then execute the command

help:      account import <file>

info:    account download command OK

3.  Download your 'publishsettings' file from Windows Azure and import your accout.


$ azure account import publishsettings_file

info:    Executing command account import
info:    Found subscription: 3-Month Free Trial
info:    Setting service endpoint to: https://management.core.windows.net/
info:    Setting default subscription to: 3-Month Free Trial
info:    Use "azure account set" to change to a different one.
warn:    The 'publishsettings' file contains sensitive information.
warn:    Remember to delete it now that it has been imported.
info:    Account publish settings imported successfully
+ Enumerating locations
info:    account import command OK

That's all!  You can now start launching and starting Azure images on your own. Take a look at this quick guide to get started with WordPress, Drupal or Joomla! in Windows Azure with BitNami images.

New WordPress 3.5 available on BitNami

We are happy to announce that a new WordPress 3.5 "Elvin" version has been released on BitNami. This stack is available as a native installer for OS X, Windows and Linux, as a virtual machine and as an Amazon Cloud Image (AMI).

There are a significant number of new features in this WordPress version, including: 

• New media handling for photos and galleries. 

New WordPress media manager

• New default theme which has a very clean mobile-first responsive design

New WordPress twenty twelve theme

• New Dashboard design to be retina-ready with beautiful high resolution graphics
• New welcome screen

New WordPress dashboard

• Now you can install WordPress Multisite in a sub-directory
• New updated APIs: TinyMCE, jQuery, jQuery UI, jCrop and SimplePie
• and many more!

In addition to the latest WordPress version, BitNami WordPress stack has been upgraded to use the latest PHP 5.4 and Apache 2.4 versions, which provide significant performance improvements. This is the list of the current main components that are bundled with the stack:

- WordPress 3.5
- PHP 5.4.9
- Apache 2.4.3
- MySQL 5.5.28
- phpMyAdmin 3.5.4
- Varnish 3.0.1

BitNami WordPress Multisite and BitNami Cloud Hosting

A WordPress Multisite Network is similar to a WordPress blog but it lets you create more blogs on demand. It is a collection of sites that share the same WordPress installation, plugins and themes. It is indicated for organizations, communities or user groups. In addition to the regular WordPress stack, BitNami provides a multisite version, configured out of the box to use different domains or subdomains for each blog.

You can add new sites from the Network Admin panel and WordPress will automatically manage the subdomains. This configuration works if you have previously configured your domain to accept wildcards (*.mydomain.com). For example: mysite1.mydomain.com, mysite2.mydomain.com, etc.

We have recently added support for wildcards in BitNami Cloud Hosting, a self-service application portal that allows you build and launch servers in the AWS cloud easily. Once you start your WordPress multisite you can start simply add new subdomains from the WordPress admin panel.

WordPress Multisite

PhpCompta is now available on BitNami

PhpCompta is the second winner of the BitNami bi-weekly packaging contest. PhpCompta is a web-based accounting application adapted to the Belgium and French legislations, were it is very popular. You can now download free, ready to run native installers for  Windows, OS X and Linux, virtual machines and Amazon EC2 images for PhpCompta.

Please see below for a brief Q&A with Dany De Bontridder, the founder of the PhpCompta project, where he shares some details about it.

1. What is the goal of the PhpCompta application? 

The project was started 10 years ago because I needed an accounting program running on Linux. I chose to develop it in PHP because it was easier to create the interface, and it turned out to be a good choice :-)  

The goal of PhpCompta is to have a reliable accounting application. Over time, new features were added thanks to the ideas of users. Today you can use to fill up the forms for the tax administration, to follow up with customers and much more.

2. What are some of the main features of PhpCompta? 

PhpCompta is really flexible, all the menu items are in a database, you can reorganize the menu and change completely the look and feel. Otherwise, the features are related to the accounting functionality, which follows the laws of Belgium and France, generation of documents (invoice, order, feenotes...).

3. Which projects or organizations are using PhpCompta currently? 

There are many users for phpCompta, ranging from non-profit to small business to union organizations, some of them with up to 100 simultaneous users. Geographically, we have users in Belgium, France, Switzerland... 

We also cooperate with other projects. For example, we have developed a plugin for Dolibarr (an open source ERP application). This plugin converts some actions (invoice...) and put them in PhpCompta. We did this because Dolibarr is missing a serious plugin for accounting. Each application is specialized in a different field.

4. What do you expect will be the main benefits of having BitNami packages available for PhpCompta? 

The biggest issue we have is with Windows users. It is difficult for them to install PhpCompta on Windows, so thanks to BitNami it will be easier for them to install and use it.

Would you like your favorite app to be part of BitNami? Be sure to suggest and vote for it in our contest!

Deploy Your Favorite BitNami Apps to VMware vFabric Application Director

We have partnered with VMware to bring your favorite BitNami apps to VMware vFabric Application Director! You can now find free application blueprints for SugarCRM, JasperReports Server, Drupal, Joomla!, Liferay and other applications in the new VMware Cloud Applications Management Marketplace, which was launched today.

vFabric Application Director is designed to simplify the multi-tier deployment of applications by providing a drag and drop interface that lets you visually build application deployments. In collaboration with VMware, we  have prepared both application components and deployment blueprints for many of the top BitNami applications. This means that you can point and click your way to deploying SugarCRM, Alfresco, Liferay and other apps in multi-tier configurations on VMware vCloud-powered private, public and hybrid clouds in a few mouse clicks. We are particularly excited about this announcement because it is the first time we are providing a way to deploy BitNami applications in a multi-tiered architecture. 

Currently available applications are listed below. Click on an icon for a how to for deploying the app on vFabric. 

Enjoy!

Updated BitNami Node.JS 0.8.15 available

We are happy to announce a new version of BitNami Node.js Stack: 0.8.15. Compared with v0.6, this release brings significant improvements in performance, as well as cleanup in several core APIs and new debugging features. Some of them are the following:

- Node got a lot faster.
- Node got more stable.
- You can do stuff with file descriptors.
- The cluster module is much more awesome.
- The domain module was added.
- The repl is better.
- The build system changed from waf to gyp.
- and more!

As with all BitNami Stacks, this stack is available as a native installer for Linux and OS X, as a virtual machine or as an Amazon cloud image (AMI).

Getting started with BitNami Node.js

The BitNami Node.js Stack comes with a relocatable Node.js built with its dependencies, as well as NPM for manging modules and node-waf  to build native C++ extensions for Node.js. It also bundles a ready to use Redis server, a perfect complement to your Node.js web applications.

Once you have installed the stack, open the BitNami console. This console is a script to load the stack environment so you can run any command installed:

$ cd installdir
$ ./use_nodejs

You can use the node interactive shell:

$ node
> console.log('Hello world!')

Node.js comes with the npm package manager. This example shows how to install the express package globally. Express is a high performance, high class web development for Node.js inspired by Sinatra.

$ npm -g install express
$ npm -g list

Now you can create your own minimalistic project executing:

$ mkdir projects
$ cd projects
$ express sample-application

Then install the project dependencies:

$ cd sample-application
$ npm install

Now you can deploy your application:

$ node app.js
$ Express server listening on port 3000 in development mode

Finally, check the application from your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3000. You can find more info about BitNami Node.js stack at our Wiki or post any question or suggestion in our forum.

Django 1.5 beta: GeoDjango support for PostGIS 2.0. Now all-in-one with BitNami.

The Django development team has recently released the first beta of the upcoming major version of the framework, Django 1.5. At BitNami, one of our goals is to simplify the testing of the latest versions of open source web applications and language runtimes. We are happy to announce that we have just also released our first BitNami DjangoStack with 1.5. It is completely self-contained and it will not conflict with your current development environment. You can download it, give a try and safely remove it when you are done.

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. If you are not familiar already with BitNami DjangoStack, it is a free packaging offering that simplifies the development and deployment of Django and Python applications.This version includes ready-to-run versions of Apache 2.2 with mod_wsgi 3.3, SQLite 3.7, MySQL 5.5, PostgreSQL 9.2 with PostGIS 2.0 (only of Linux and Mac OS X), Python 2.7 and Django 1.5. It can be deployed using all-in-one free native installers (for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows), virtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images.

The biggest new feature in Django 1.5 is the configurable User model. You can check the release notes for this version here.

Another important new feature is that GeoDjango now supports PostGIS 2.0, which is already bundled in the BitNami DjangoStack. GeoDjango makes it simple to create geographic Web applications, like location-based services. You can now check our GeoDjango Quickstart guide for details on how to use GeoDjango with PostGIS 2.0 on BitNami DjangoStack.

As a reminder, our bi-weekly contest is now open to Python web applications. If there is any application that you would like to see added to the BitNami Library visit our contest page. You can vote for the applications in our contest or also summit new applications.

BitNami Contest now open to Ruby and Python apps

We are holding a bi-weekly contest for deciding which apps we should be adding to the BitNami library.  Initially, it was restricted to PHP-based web applications. The first winners were TestLink and PhpCompta (still in the process of being packaged). We are happy to announce that you can now also vote for Ruby and Python web applications.

Each selected project will get free native installers, virtual machines and Amazon Cloud Images that will be kept up to date periodically. They will also get access to the hundreds of thousands of end users and developers that visit our site every month. An streamlined installation process and the extra exposure from BitNami tends to significantly raise the awareness of the winning project.

Take a minute to decide which PHP, Ruby or Python web application is packaged next by visiting our contest page.  Once you have voted, remember to share via the Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus buttons to encourage your friends to do the same. Good luck!

Updated Redmine stack and upgrade instructions

We are happy to announce new BitNami Redmine stacks for the 2.1.3 and 1.4.5 versions of the popular project management tool. Both versions are running now the latest stable version of Ruby, 1.9.3-p327 and the latest passenger 4 beta which significantly improve the performance of the application. Check our previous post for more details of the enhancements we have been implementing for all Ruby-based apps in the BitNami library.

If you are an existing Redmine user, the rest of the article explains step-by-step instructions on how to upgrade to the latest version using the BitNami stack. 

First, check the plugins that you are currently using and make sure that they support the latest 2.1.x version. If your plugins are not compatible with the 2.x releases, you may want to upgrade to the latest BitNami Redmine 1.4.5 version instead.

Next, create a backup of your previous installation. It is necessary to create a database backup and make a copy of your uploaded files. The steps below are valid to upgrade from a previous BitNami Redmine installation, in a non-BitNami installation the process should be similar.

$ /installdir/mysql/bin/mysqldump -u root -p bitnami_redmine > redmine_backup.sql

$ tar -czvf redmine-files.tar.gz /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/files

The next step is to install the new BitNami Redmine version. You can download a native installer, the virtual machine or start a new instance in the Amazon cloud. You can use the same machine or you can consider migrating your servers to the cloud (heck out some reasons why you may want to move your infrastructure to the cloud)

Once you have the new Redmine version running, install the plugins that you need. Then copy the database backup and the files directory backup to the machine and restore them. Check that you are running these command from the BitNami Redmine console, so the appropriate environment variables are preloaded.

$ /installdir/mysql/bin/mysql -u root -p bitnami_redmine < redmine_backup.sql

$ tar -xzvf redmine-files.tar.gz /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/

Next, migrate the database to the new version.

$ cd /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs

$ rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

If you have installed plugins, you should run the following command:

$ rake redmine:plugins:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

Alternativelt, if you are using the 1.4.x version, the migration command is the following:

$ rake db:migrate_plugins RAILS_ENV=production

If you find any issue during the migration, check our Wiki or post in our forum. Now you can start Redmine again and access it via the web. You will probably want to configure the email settings in the new Redmine installation in the "/installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/config/configuration.yml" file. You can find here an example using a GMail account.

Finally, some users also want to change the URL to access the app from the root of the domain name (http://example.com instead of http://example.com/redmine). The below provides sample configuration changes.

DocumentRoot /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/public

#Alias /redmine /installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/public

<Directory "/installdir/apps/redmine/htdocs/public">

  Options -MultiViews

  allow from all

</Directory>

#<Location /redmine>

#  SetEnv RAILS_RELATIVE_URL_ROOT "/redmine"

#  RackBaseURI /redmine

#</Location>

PassengerPreStart http://example.com/

That's all! Enjoy your new, faster than ever Redmine, powered by BitNami.

Updated BitNami Redmine stacks (Ruby 1.9, Passenger 4)

We are happy to announce that BitNami Redmine, BitNami RubyStack and other Ruby-based stacks have been updated to include Ruby 1.9 and Passenger 4 beta with one goal in mind: improving performance. There are benchmarks that prove Ruby 1.9 is almost 2x faster than 1.8 version, and it feels even faster in the real world. 

The following are several BitNami applications that have been re-released with Ruby 1.9 support:

- Redmine, project management tool.

- Spree, an e-commerce platform.

- Tracks, a web-based application to help you implement the GTD methodology.

- Radiant, a Ruby On Rails CMS. We have upgraded it to 1.1.0 version.

- In addition to that, all of the BitNami PHP-based modules like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!, SugarCRM and others will run well on top of RubyStack.

         

The default configuration for production environments for Linux and OS X is now Apache running with the Passenger module. However, if you prefer to use Nginx with Passenger, BitNami RubyStack ships the Nginx server and the Passenger extension already compiled and ready-to-use! Please see below for how easy it is to enable Nginx server with Passenger.

$ cd /opt/bitnami (or your installation directory)

$ ./ctlscript.sh stop apache

Edit the "nginx/conf/nginx.conf" and add the public path to your application. For example, Redmine application:

 server {

    listen 80; (or a different port)

    root /opt/bitnami/apps/redmine/htdocs/public;

    passenger_enabled on;

    rails_env production;

    passenger_base_uri /redmine;

 }

Disable Apache server and enable Nginx.

$ mv apache2/scripts/ctl.sh apache2/scripts/ctl.sh.disable

$ mv nginx/scripts/ctl.sh.disable nginx/scripts/ctl.sh

$ ./ctlscript.sh start nginx

On Windows, all BitNami Ruby-based stacks ship DevKit, a development tool kit for adding gems that require C/C++ extensions easily. Now it is even easier to customize your applications or extend their functionality adding plugins.

Weblate now available in BitNami

Weblate is now part of the BitNami library. Weblate is a web-based translation tool with tight Git integration. It features a simple and clean user interface, propagation of translations across subprojects, consistency checks and automatic linking to source files. Weblate is written in Python and powered by the Django application framework.

Weblate lets you handle several projects and languages simultaneously with an easy-to-use and clear interface.

Weblate dashboard

The list of features includes:

• Easy web-based translation
• Propagation of translations across sub-projects (for different branches)
• Tight git integration - every change is represented by Git commit
• Usage of Django's admin interface
• Upload and automatic merging of translation files
• Links to source files for context
• Allows to use machine translation services
• Message consistency checks
• Tunable access control
• Wide range of supported translation formats (Gettext, Qt, Java, Windows, Symbian and more)

You can now download free, ready to run native installers for OS X and Linux, virtual machines and Amazon EC2 images coming soon.

You can find more information about this project in its official web http://weblate.org and related documentation on http://weblate.readthedocs.org/en/latest/.

If you want your project to be featured as part of BitNami, you can propose it in our bi-weekly contest