The guide walks you through installing Redmine on a fresh CentOS 8 box in under an hour, starting with the necessary prerequisites such as a non‑root sudoer and an up‑to‑date system. It then installs the base stack—EPEL, development tools, Apache, MariaDB—and switches to the Remi repository for Ruby 2.7+, adding Node.js 14 before creating a dedicated database user and secure password. Next, you download Redmine into /opt, install its Ruby gems with Bundler, configure the database connection in database.yml, precompile assets, and set up an Apache virtual host that uses Passenger to serve the Rails app. Finally, the tutorial hardens the installation by setting proper file ownership and changing the default admin password, then verifies everything works before you can start customizing SMTP or enabling HTTPS.

Install Redmine on CentOS 8

You’ll learn how to get a fresh copy of Redmine running on a clean CentOS 8 server in under an hour, including the database setup and basic security hardening that keeps the web app from becoming a playground for bad guys.

Prerequisites – what you need before you start

• A CentOS 8 machine with a non‑root user that can sudo.
• An internet connection to fetch packages.
• Basic knowledge of the command line (you’ve probably used yum or dnf at least once).

If you’re pulling this from an older server, make sure it’s fully patched (sudo dnf update -y) – I’ve seen Redmine crash after a kernel upgrade that broke systemd‑journald.

Step 1: Install the base stack

sudo dnf install -y epel-release
sudo dnf groupinstall -y "Development Tools" "Web Server" "Database Server"

Why it matters: The “Development Tools” pulls in compilers and libraries that Ruby needs to build native gems; the web server package (Apache) will later serve Redmine.

Step 2: Add the Remi repository for a recent Ruby

CentOS 8 ships with Ruby 2.6, but Redmine prefers at least 2.7.

sudo dnf install -y https://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-8.rpm
sudo dnf module reset -y ruby
sudo dnf module enable -y ruby:remi-2.7
sudo dnf install -y ruby ruby-devel rubygems

Why it matters: Using the Remi stream keeps Ruby up‑to‑date without messing with the OS packages.

Step 3: Install Node.js for JavaScript assets

Redmine’s asset pipeline needs a recent Node version.

sudo dnf module reset -y nodejs
sudo dnf module enable -y nodejs:14
sudo dnf install -y nodejs

Step 4: Set up MariaDB and create the Redmine database

sudo dnf install -y mariadb-server
sudo systemctl enable --now mariadb

# Secure the installation – I use this because the default root password is blank
sudo mysql_secure_installation

# Now create a user and database
mysql -u root -p <<EOF
CREATE DATABASE redmine CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON redmine.* TO 'redmine'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPass!23';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
EOF

MariaDB is lighter than MySQL and works fine out of the box; the utf8mb4 collation supports emojis, which Redmine can store in comments.

Step 5: Download and unpack Redmine

cd /opt
sudo wget https://www.redmine.org/releases/redmine-4.2.3.tar.gz
sudo tar xf redmine-4.2.3.tar.gz
sudo mv redmine-4.2.3 redmine

 Placing Redmine in /opt keeps it separate from system files and makes upgrades easier.

Step 6: Install Ruby gems for Redmine

cd /opt/redmine
sudo gem install bundler
sudo bundle install --without development test

Bundler pulls the exact gem versions Redmine expects; skipping dev/test reduces disk usage.

Step 7: Configure database credentials

Copy the example file and edit it:

cp config/database.yml.mysql.example config/database.yml
sudo vi config/database.yml

Change username, password, and database to match what you created in MariaDB.

Also set adapter: mysql2.

Step 8: Precompile assets (optional but recommended)

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake redmine:plugins RAILS_ENV=production db:migrate
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake assets:precompile

Why it matters: Without this, the first page load can be painfully slow and hit a timeout in production.

Step 9: Configure Apache to serve Redmine

sudo dnf install -y mod_passenger
cat >/etc/httpd/conf.d/redmine.conf <<EOF
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName redmine.example.com
    DocumentRoot /opt/redmine/public

    PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby

    <Directory /opt/redmine/public>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/redmine_error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/redmine_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
EOF

sudo systemctl enable --now httpd

Passenger lets Apache spin up a Rails process automatically; no need to run rails server manually.

Step 10: Harden the installation (quick win)

# Make sure only the Redmine user owns its files
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /opt/redmine

# Drop the default admin password immediately
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake redmine:admin_password RAILS_ENV=production

The default admin account is a common target; setting a new password on first boot stops attackers from logging in with known creds.

Step 11: Test everything works

Open http://redmine.example.com in your browser. You should see the login page. Try logging in as “admin” (or whatever you set) and check that dashboards load without error.

If something fails, glance at /var/log/httpd/redmine_error.log – it usually points straight to the culprit.

That’s it: a running Redmine instance on CentOS 8 ready for your teams. From here you can tweak SMTP settings, install plugins, or move to HTTPS with certbot.