The Trac Configuration File

Trac configuration is done by editing the trac.ini config file, located in <projectenv>/conf/trac.ini. Changes to the configuration are usually reflected immediately, though changes to the [components] or [logging] sections will require restarting the web server. You may also need to restart the web server after creating a global configuration file when none was previously present.

The trac.ini configuration file and its parent directory should be writable by the web server, as Trac currently relies on the possibility to trigger a complete environment reload to flush its caches.

Global Configuration

In versions prior to 0.11, the global configuration was by default located in $prefix/share/trac/conf/trac.ini or /etc/trac/trac.ini, depending on the distribution. If you're upgrading, you may want to specify that file to inherit from. Literally, when you're upgrading to 0.11, you have to add an [inherit] section to your project's trac.ini file. Additionally, you have to move your customized templates and common images from $prefix/share/trac/... to the new location.

Global options will be merged with the environment-specific options, where local options override global options. The options file is specified as follows:

[inherit]
file = /path/to/global/trac.ini

Multiple files can be specified using a comma-separated list.

Note that you can also specify a global option file when creating a new project, by adding the option --inherit=/path/to/global/trac.ini to trac-admin's initenv command. If you do not do this but nevertheless intend to use a global option file with your new environment, you will have to go through the newly generated conf/trac.ini file and delete the entries that will otherwise override those set in the global file.

There are two more entries in the [inherit] section, templates_dir for sharing global templates and plugins_dir, for sharing plugins. Those entries can themselves be specified in the shared configuration file, and in fact, configuration files can even be chained if you specify another [inherit] file there.

Note that the templates found in the templates/ directory of the TracEnvironment have precedence over those found in [inherit] templates_dir. In turn, the latter have precedence over the installed templates, so be careful about what you put there, notably if you override a default template be sure to refresh your modifications when you upgrade to a new version of Trac (the preferred way to perform TracInterfaceCustomization being still to write a custom plugin doing an appropriate ITemplateStreamFilter transformation).

Reference for settings

This is a brief reference of available configuration options, and their default settings.

[attachment]

max_size	Maximum allowed file size (in bytes) for ticket and wiki attachments.
render_unsafe_content	Whether attachments should be rendered in the browser, or only made downloadable. Pretty much any file may be interpreted as HTML by the browser, which allows a malicious user to attach a file containing cross-site scripting attacks. For public sites where anonymous users can create attachments it is recommended to leave this option disabled (which is the default).

[browser]

color_scale	Enable colorization of the age column. This uses the same color scale as the source code annotation: blue is older, red is newer. (since 0.11)
downloadable_paths	List of repository paths that can be downloaded. Leave the option empty if you want to disable all downloads, otherwise set it to a comma-separated list of authorized paths (those paths are glob patterns, i.e. "*" can be used as a wild card) (since 0.10)
hide_properties	Comma-separated list of version control properties to hide from the repository browser. (since 0.9)
intermediate_color	(r,g,b) color triple to use for the color corresponding to the intermediate color, if two linear interpolations are used for the color scale (see intermediate_point). If not set, the intermediate color between oldest_color and newest_color will be used. (since 0.11)
intermediate_point	If set to a value between 0 and 1 (exclusive), this will be the point chosen to set the intermediate_color for interpolating the color value. (since 0.11)
newest_color	(r,g,b) color triple to use for the color corresponding to the newest color, for the color scale used in blame or the browser age column if color_scale is enabled. (since 0.11)
oldest_color	(r,g,b) color triple to use for the color corresponding to the oldest color, for the color scale used in blame or the browser age column if color_scale is enabled. (since 0.11)
oneliner_properties	Comma-separated list of version control properties to render as oneliner wiki content in the repository browser. (since 0.11)
render_unsafe_content	Whether raw files should be rendered in the browser, or only made downloadable. Pretty much any file may be interpreted as HTML by the browser, which allows a malicious user to create a file containing cross-site scripting attacks. For open repositories where anyone can check-in a file, it is recommended to leave this option disabled (which is the default).
wiki_properties	Comma-separated list of version control properties to render as wiki content in the repository browser. (since 0.11)

[changeset]

max_diff_bytes	Maximum total size in bytes of the modified files (their old size plus their new size) for which the changeset view will attempt to show the diffs inlined (since 0.10).
max_diff_files	Maximum number of modified files for which the changeset view will attempt to show the diffs inlined (since 0.10).
wiki_format_messages	Whether wiki formatting should be applied to changeset messages. If this option is disabled, changeset messages will be rendered as pre-formatted text.

[header_logo]

alt	Alternative text for the header logo.
height	Height of the header logo image in pixels.
link	URL to link to, from the header logo.
src	URL of the image to use as header logo. It can be absolute, server relative or relative. If relative, it is relative to one of the /chrome locations: site/your-logo.png if your-logo.png is located in the htdocs folder within your TracEnvironment; common/your-logo.png if your-logo.png is located in the folder mapped to the htdocs_location URL. Only specifying your-logo.png is equivalent to the latter.
width	Width of the header logo image in pixels.

[inherit]

plugins_dir	Path to the shared plugins directory. Plugins in that directory are loaded in addition to those in the directory of the environment plugins, with this one taking precedence. (since 0.11)
templates_dir	Path to the shared templates directory. Templates in that directory are loaded in addition to those in the environments templates directory, but the latter take precedence. (since 0.11)

[logging]

log_file	If log_type is file, this should be a path to the log-file. Relative paths are resolved relative to the log directory of the environment.
log_format	Custom logging format. If nothing is set, the following will be used: Trac[$(module)s] $(levelname)s: $(message)s In addition to regular key names supported by the Python logger library (see ​http://docs.python.org/library/logging.html), one could use: - $(path)s the path for the current environment - $(basename)s the last path component of the current environment - $(project)s the project name Note the usage of $(...)s instead of %(...)s as the latter form would be interpreted by the ConfigParser? itself. Example: ($(thread)d) Trac[$(basename)s:$(module)s] $(levelname)s: $(message)s (since 0.10.5)
log_level	Level of verbosity in log. Should be one of (CRITICAL, ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG).
log_type	Logging facility to use. Should be one of (none, file, stderr, syslog, winlog).

[milestone]

stats_provider

Name of the component implementing ITicketGroupStatsProvider, which is used to collect statistics on groups of tickets for display in the milestone views.

[mimeviewer]

max_preview_size	Maximum file size for HTML preview. (since 0.9)
mime_map	List of additional MIME types and keyword mappings. Mappings are comma-separated, and for each MIME type, there's a colon (":") separated list of associated keywords or file extensions. (since 0.10)
pygments_default_style	The default style to use for Pygments syntax highlighting.
pygments_modes	List of additional MIME types known by Pygments. For each, a tuple mimetype:mode:quality has to be specified, where mimetype is the MIME type, mode is the corresponding Pygments mode to be used for the conversion and quality is the quality ratio associated to this conversion. That can also be used to override the default quality ratio used by the Pygments render.
tab_width	Displayed tab width in file preview. (since 0.9)
treat_as_binary	Comma-separated list of MIME types that should be treated as binary data. (since 0.11.5)

[notification]

admit_domains	Comma-separated list of domains that should be considered as valid for email addresses (such as localdomain).
always_notify_owner	Always send notifications to the ticket owner (since 0.9).
always_notify_reporter	Always send notifications to any address in the reporter field.
always_notify_updater	Always send notifications to the person who causes the ticket property change and to any previous updater of that ticket.
ambiguous_char_width	Which width of ambiguous characters (e.g. 'single' or 'double') should be used in the table of notification mail. If 'single', the same width as characters in US-ASCII. This is expected by most users. If 'double', twice the width of US-ASCII characters. This is expected by CJK users. (since 0.12.2)
email_sender	Name of the component implementing IEmailSender. This component is used by the notification system to send emails. Trac currently provides SmtpEmailSender for connecting to an SMTP server, and SendmailEmailSender for running a sendmail-compatible executable. (since 0.12)
ignore_domains	Comma-separated list of domains that should not be considered part of email addresses (for usernames with Kerberos domains).
mime_encoding	Specifies the MIME encoding scheme for emails. Valid options are 'base64' for Base64 encoding, 'qp' for Quoted-Printable, and 'none' for no encoding, in which case mails will be sent as 7bit if the content is all ASCII, or 8bit otherwise. (since 0.10)
sendmail_path	Path to the sendmail executable. The sendmail program must accept the -i and -f options. (since 0.12)
smtp_always_bcc	Email address(es) to always send notifications to, addresses do not appear publicly (Bcc:). (since 0.10).
smtp_always_cc	Email address(es) to always send notifications to, addresses can be seen by all recipients (Cc:).
smtp_default_domain	Default host/domain to append to address that do not specify one.
smtp_enabled	Enable email notification.
smtp_from	Sender address to use in notification emails.
smtp_from_name	Sender name to use in notification emails.
smtp_password	Password for SMTP server. (since 0.9)
smtp_port	SMTP server port to use for email notification.
smtp_replyto	Reply-To address to use in notification emails.
smtp_server	SMTP server hostname to use for email notifications.
smtp_subject_prefix	Text to prepend to subject line of notification emails. If the setting is not defined, then the [$project_name] prefix. If no prefix is desired, then specifying an empty option will disable it. (since 0.10.1).
smtp_user	Username for SMTP server. (since 0.9)
ticket_subject_template	A Genshi text template snippet used to get the notification subject. By default, the subject template is $prefix #$ticket.id: $summary. $prefix being the value of the smtp_subject_prefix option. (since 0.11)
use_public_cc	Recipients can see email addresses of other CC'ed recipients. If this option is disabled (the default), recipients are put on BCC. (since 0.10)
use_short_addr	Permit email address without a host/domain (i.e. username only). The SMTP server should accept those addresses, and either append a FQDN or use local delivery. (since 0.10)
use_tls	Use SSL/TLS to send notifications over SMTP. (since 0.10)

[project]

admin	E-Mail address of the project's administrator.
admin_trac_url	Base URL of a Trac instance where errors in this Trac should be reported. This can be an absolute or relative URL, or '.' to reference this Trac instance. An empty value will disable the reporting buttons. (since 0.11.3)
descr	Short description of the project.
footer	Page footer text (right-aligned).
icon	URL of the icon of the project.
name	Name of the project.
url	URL of the main project web site, usually the website in which the base_url resides. This is used in notification e-mails.

[query]

default_anonymous_query	The default query for anonymous users. The query is either in query language syntax, or a URL query string starting with ? as used in query: Trac links. (since 0.11.2)
default_query	The default query for authenticated users. The query is either in query language syntax, or a URL query string starting with ? as used in query: Trac links. (since 0.11.2)
items_per_page	Number of tickets displayed per page in ticket queries, by default (since 0.11)
ticketlink_query	The base query to be used when linkifying values of ticket fields. The query is a URL query string starting with ? as used in query: Trac links. (since 0.12)

[report]

items_per_page	Number of tickets displayed per page in ticket reports, by default (since 0.11)
items_per_page_rss	Number of tickets displayed in the rss feeds for reports (since 0.11)

[revisionlog]

default_log_limit

Default value for the limit argument in the TracRevisionLog (since 0.11).

[roadmap]

stats_provider

Name of the component implementing ITicketGroupStatsProvider, which is used to collect statistics on groups of tickets for display in the roadmap views.

[search]

default_disabled_filters

Specifies which search filters should be disabled by default on the search page. This will also restrict the filters for the quick search function. The filter names defined by default components are: wiki, ticket, milestone and changeset. For plugins, look for their implementation of the ISearchSource interface, in the get_search_filters() method, the first member of returned tuple. Once disabled, search filters can still be manually enabled by the user on the search page. (since 0.12)

min_query_length

Minimum length of query string allowed when performing a search.

[sqlite]

extensions

Paths to sqlite extensions, relative to Trac environment's directory or absolute. (since 0.12)

[svn]

branches	Comma separated list of paths categorized as branches. If a path ends with '*', then all the directory entries found below that path will be included. Example: /trunk, /branches/*, /projectAlpha/trunk, /sandbox/*
tags	Comma separated list of paths categorized as tags. If a path ends with '*', then all the directory entries found below that path will be included. Example: /tags/*, /projectAlpha/tags/A-1.0, /projectAlpha/tags/A-v1.1

[ticket]

default_cc	Default cc: list for newly created tickets.
default_component	Default component for newly created tickets.
default_description	Default description for newly created tickets.
default_keywords	Default keywords for newly created tickets.
default_milestone	Default milestone for newly created tickets.
default_owner	Default owner for newly created tickets.
default_priority	Default priority for newly created tickets.
default_resolution	Default resolution for resolving (closing) tickets (since 0.11).
default_severity	Default severity for newly created tickets.
default_summary	Default summary (title) for newly created tickets.
default_type	Default type for newly created tickets (since 0.9).
default_version	Default version for newly created tickets.
max_comment_size	Don't accept tickets with a too big comment. (since 0.11.2)
max_description_size	Don't accept tickets with a too big description. (since 0.11).
preserve_newlines	Whether Wiki formatter should respect the new lines present in the Wiki text. If set to 'default', this is equivalent to 'yes' for new environments but keeps the old behavior for upgraded environments (i.e. 'no'). (since 0.11).
restrict_owner	Make the owner field of tickets use a drop-down menu. Be sure to understand the performance implications before activating this option. See Assign-to as Drop-Down List. Please note that e-mail addresses are not obfuscated in the resulting drop-down menu, so this option should not be used if e-mail addresses must remain protected. (since 0.9)
workflow	Ordered list of workflow controllers to use for ticket actions (since 0.11).

[timeline]

abbreviated_messages	Whether wiki-formatted event messages should be truncated or not. This only affects the default rendering, and can be overriden by specific event providers, see their own documentation. (Since 0.11)
changeset_collapse_events	Whether consecutive changesets from the same author having exactly the same message should be presented as one event. That event will link to the range of changesets in the log view. (since 0.11)
changeset_long_messages	Whether wiki-formatted changeset messages should be multiline or not. If this option is not specified or is false and wiki_format_messages is set to true, changeset messages will be single line only, losing some formatting (bullet points, etc).
changeset_show_files	Number of files to show (-1 for unlimited, 0 to disable). This can also be location, for showing the common prefix for the changed files. (since 0.11).
default_daysback	Default number of days displayed in the Timeline, in days. (since 0.9.)
max_daysback	Maximum number of days (-1 for unlimited) displayable in the Timeline. (since 0.11)
newticket_formatter	Which formatter flavor (e.g. 'html' or 'oneliner') should be used when presenting the description for new tickets. If 'oneliner', the [timeline] abbreviated_messages option applies. (since 0.11).
ticket_show_details	Enable the display of all ticket changes in the timeline, not only open / close operations (since 0.9).

[trac]

auth_cookie_lifetime	Lifetime of the authentication cookie, in seconds. This value determines how long the browser will cache authentication information, and therefore, after how much inactivity a user will have to log in again. The default value of 0 makes the cookie expire at the end of the browsing session. (since 0.12)
auth_cookie_path	Path for the authentication cookie. Set this to the common base path of several Trac instances if you want them to share the cookie. (since 0.12)
authz_file	The path to the Subversion ​authorization (authz) file. To enable authz permission checking, the AuthzSourcePolicy permission policy must be added to [trac] permission_policies.
authz_module_name	The module prefix used in the authz_file for the default repository. If left empty, the global section is used.
auto_preview_timeout	Inactivity timeout in seconds after which the automatic wiki preview triggers an update. This option can contain floating-point values. The lower the setting, the more requests will be made to the server. Set this to 0 to disable automatic preview. The default is 2.0 seconds. (since 0.12)
auto_reload	Automatically reload template files after modification.
backup_dir	Database backup location
base_url	Reference URL for the Trac deployment. This is the base URL that will be used when producing documents that will be used outside of the web browsing context, like for example when inserting URLs pointing to Trac resources in notification e-mails.
check_auth_ip	Whether the IP address of the user should be checked for authentication (since 0.9).
database	Database connection string for this project
debug_sql	Show the SQL queries in the Trac log, at DEBUG level. (Since 0.11.5)
default_charset	Charset to be used when in doubt.
default_handler	Name of the component that handles requests to the base URL. Options include TimelineModule, RoadmapModule, BrowserModule, QueryModule, ReportModule, TicketModule and WikiModule. The default is WikiModule. (since 0.9)
default_language	The preferred language to use if no user preference has been set. (since 0.12.1)
default_timezone	The default timezone to use
genshi_cache_size	The maximum number of templates that the template loader will cache in memory. The default value is 128. You may want to choose a higher value if your site uses a larger number of templates, and you have enough memory to spare, or you can reduce it if you are short on memory.
htdocs_location	Base URL for serving the core static resources below /chrome/common/. It can be left empty, and Trac will simply serve those resources itself. Advanced users can use this together with trac-admin ... deploy <deploydir> to allow serving the static resources for Trac directly from the web server. Note however that this only applies to the <deploydir>/htdocs/common directory, the other deployed resources (i.e. those from plugins) will not be made available this way and additional rewrite rules will be needed in the web server.
ignore_auth_case	Whether login names should be converted to lower case (since 0.9).
mainnav	Order of the items to display in the mainnav navigation bar, listed by IDs. See also TracNavigation.
metanav	Order of the items to display in the metanav navigation bar, listed by IDs. See also TracNavigation.
mysqldump_path	Location of mysqldump for MySQL database backups
never_obfuscate_mailto	Never obfuscate mailto: links explicitly written in the wiki, even if show_email_addresses is false or the user has not the EMAIL_VIEW permission (since 0.11.6).
permission_policies	List of components implementing IPermissionPolicy, in the order in which they will be applied. These components manage fine-grained access control to Trac resources. Defaults to the DefaultPermissionPolicy? (pre-0.11 behavior) and LegacyAttachmentPolicy? (map ATTACHMENT_* permissions to realm specific ones)
permission_store	Name of the component implementing IPermissionStore, which is used for managing user and group permissions.
pg_dump_path	Location of pg_dump for Postgres database backups
repository_dir	Path to the default repository. This can also be a relative path (since 0.11). This option is deprecated, and repositories should be defined in the repositories section, or using the "Repositories" admin panel. (since 0.12)
repository_sync_per_request	List of repositories that should be synchronized on every page request. Leave this option empty if you have set up post-commit hooks calling trac-admin $ENV changeset added on all your repositories (recommended). Otherwise, set it to a comma-separated list of repository names. Note that this will negatively affect performance, and will prevent changeset listeners from receiving events from the repositories specified here. The default is to synchronize the default repository, for backward compatibility. (since 0.12)
repository_type	Default repository connector type. (since 0.10) This is also used as the default repository type for repositories defined in TracIni#repositories-section repositories or using the "Repositories" admin panel. (since 0.12)
request_filters	Ordered list of filters to apply to all requests (since 0.10).
resizable_textareas	Make <textarea> fields resizable. Requires JavaScript. (since 0.12)
secure_cookies	Restrict cookies to HTTPS connections. When true, set the secure flag on all cookies so that they are only sent to the server on HTTPS connections. Use this if your Trac instance is only accessible through HTTPS. (since 0.11.2)
show_email_addresses	Show email addresses instead of usernames. If false, we obfuscate email addresses. (since 0.11)
show_ip_addresses	Show IP addresses for resource edits (e.g. wiki). (since 0.11.3)
timeout	Timeout value for database connection, in seconds. Use '0' to specify no timeout. (Since 0.11)
use_base_url_for_redirect	Optionally use [trac] base_url for redirects. In some configurations, usually involving running Trac behind a HTTP proxy, Trac can't automatically reconstruct the URL that is used to access it. You may need to use this option to force Trac to use the base_url setting also for redirects. This introduces the obvious limitation that this environment will only be usable when accessible from that URL, as redirects are frequently used. (since 0.10.5)

[versioncontrol]

allowed_repository_dir_prefixes

Comma-separated list of allowed prefixes for repository directories when adding and editing repositories in the repository admin panel. If the list is empty, all repository directories are allowed. (since 0.12.1)

[wiki]

ignore_missing_pages	Enable/disable highlighting CamelCase links to missing pages (since 0.9).
max_size	Maximum allowed wiki page size in characters. (since 0.11.2)
render_unsafe_content	Enable/disable the use of unsafe HTML tags such as <script> or <embed> with the HTML WikiProcessor (since 0.10.4). For public sites where anonymous users can edit the wiki it is recommended to leave this option disabled (which is the default).
safe_schemes	List of URI schemes considered "safe", that will be rendered as external links even if [wiki] render_unsafe_content is false. (since 0.11.8)
split_page_names	Enable/disable splitting the WikiPageNames with space characters (since 0.10).

Reference for special sections

1. [components]
2. [extra-permissions]
3. [milestone-groups]
4. [repositories]
5. [svn:externals]
6. [ticket-custom]
7. [ticket-workflow]

[components]

This section is used to enable or disable components provided by plugins, as well as by Trac itself. The component to enable/disable is specified via the name of the option. Whether its enabled is determined by the option value; setting the value to enabled or on will enable the component, any other value (typically disabled or off) will disable the component.

The option name is either the fully qualified name of the components or the module/package prefix of the component. The former enables/disables a specific component, while the latter enables/disables any component in the specified package/module.

Consider the following configuration snippet:

[components]
trac.ticket.report.ReportModule = disabled
webadmin.* = enabled

The first option tells Trac to disable the report module. The second option instructs Trac to enable all components in the webadmin package. Note that the trailing wildcard is required for module/package matching.

See the Plugins page on About Trac to get the list of active components (requires CONFIG_VIEW permissions.)

See also: TracPlugins

[extra-permissions]

(since 0.12)

Custom additional permissions can be defined in this section when ExtraPermissionsProvider? is enabled.

[milestone-groups]

(since 0.11)

As the workflow for tickets is now configurable, there can be many ticket states, and simply displaying closed tickets vs. all the others is maybe not appropriate in all cases. This section enables one to easily create groups of states that will be shown in different colors in the milestone progress bar.

Example configuration (the default only has closed and active):

closed = closed
# sequence number in the progress bar
closed.order = 0
# optional extra param for the query (two additional columns: created and modified and sort on created)
closed.query_args = group=resolution,order=time,col=id,col=summary,col=owner,col=type,col=priority,col=component,col=severity,col=time,col=changetime
# indicates groups that count for overall completion percentage
closed.overall_completion = true

new = new
new.order = 1
new.css_class = new
new.label = new

# one catch-all group is allowed
active = *
active.order = 2
# CSS class for this interval
active.css_class = open
# Displayed label for this group
active.label = in progress

The definition consists in a comma-separated list of accepted status. Also, '*' means any status and could be used to associate all remaining states to one catch-all group.

The CSS class can be one of: new (yellow), open (no color) or closed (green). New styles can easily be added using the following selector: table.progress td.<class>

[repositories]

(since 0.12 multirepos)

One of the alternatives for registering new repositories is to populate the [repositories] section of the trac.ini.

This is especially suited for setting up convenience aliases, short-lived repositories, or during the initial phases of an installation.

See TracRepositoryAdmin for details about the format adopted for this section and the rest of that page for the other alternatives.

[svn:externals]

(since 0.11)

The TracBrowser for Subversion can interpret the svn:externals property of folders. By default, it only turns the URLs into links as Trac can't browse remote repositories.

However, if you have another Trac instance (or an other repository browser like ​ViewVC) configured to browse the target repository, then you can instruct Trac which other repository browser to use for which external URL.

This mapping is done in the [svn:externals] section of the TracIni

Example:

[svn:externals]
1 = svn://server/repos1                       http://trac/proj1/browser/$path?rev=$rev
2 = svn://server/repos2                       http://trac/proj2/browser/$path?rev=$rev
3 = http://theirserver.org/svn/eng-soft       http://ourserver/viewvc/svn/$path/?pathrev=25914
4 = svn://anotherserver.com/tools_repository  http://ourserver/tracs/tools/browser/$path?rev=$rev

With the above, the svn://anotherserver.com/tools_repository/tags/1.1/tools external will be mapped to http://ourserver/tracs/tools/browser/tags/1.1/tools?rev= (and rev will be set to the appropriate revision number if the external additionally specifies a revision, see the ​SVN Book on externals for more details).

Note that the number used as a key in the above section is purely used as a place holder, as the URLs themselves can't be used as a key due to various limitations in the configuration file parser.

Finally, the relative URLs introduced in ​Subversion 1.5 are not yet supported.

[ticket-custom]

In this section, you can define additional fields for tickets. See TracTicketsCustomFields for more details.

[ticket-workflow]

(since 0.11)

The workflow for tickets is controlled by plugins. By default, there's only a ConfigurableTicketWorkflow component in charge. That component allows the workflow to be configured via this section in the trac.ini file. See TracWorkflow for more details.

---

See also: TracGuide, TracAdmin, TracEnvironment