ANNOUNCEMENT: Instant Mantis Now Available

[Rich]

Instant Mantis is now available for download.

What is Instant Mantis? Not another branched distro?
NO! Instant Mantis uses the same code base as Mantis, it simply packages it with a cut down Apache/php/MySQL server to allow you to download, unpack, and go! (Hence the name Instant Mantis).

It is a fully portable Mantis instance. There is no installation required, you can move it anywhere you like, even keep it on a USB key.

This was born of a desire for two things.

1) to be able to go into a new workplace and set up Mantis in an instant.
2) to be able to keep my own issues in Mantis, and carry them with me on a USB key.

More info is available on the download page at http://www.nearlygeek.com/tools/instant-mantis/

Note: Instant Mantis requires Windows, it's portable as in USB key portable, not OS portable!

[vboctor]

Sounds like a good idea, I'll check it out when I get a chance. Thanks for your work.

Regards,
Victor.

[vboctor]

Rich, I think it's a great idea!

Following are my comments:

1. Consider including phpMyAdmin in the package.
2. Use Mantis 1.0.2.

Regards,
Victor

[Narcissus]

I agree that this is a great idea!

What I'd *love* to see is a combination Windows autorun + LAMPPIX (KNOPPIX based) solution.

Someone did this with Joomla (discussion at http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,49684.0.html ). This way, if running a Windows machine you can just stick the CD in but for non-Windows users, there's always a KNOPPIX live CD type situation available.

Now, here's the tricky part that I'd love to see added :)

Because of the read-only nature of the CD format, I'd love to see that CD set up to store the database on a USB key. Is this possible at all? Or, if not, would it be possible to set up LAMPPIX to run off USB?

Anyway, that's just a pie-in-the-sky thought... What you currently have is awesome though. Congratulations and thanks!

[bunger]

The email functionality doesn't seem to work, which prevents me from creating and logging in new users. The error is:

Mailer Error: Could not instantiate mail function.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Rich]

@Victor: Thanks, I will upgrade to Mantis 1.0.2 in the next release (hopefully in the next few days)
As for phpMyAdmin, I was actually thinking of distributing LESS of the mySQL command line admin tools to keep the size down. I will look into the impact of including phpMyAdmin.

@Narcissus: Um, ouch. I must admit my Linux is not that great and I think this could be beyond me. What I CAN add is that the data files ARE movable. So you could run the server off CD and keep the data files on a USB key. The DATA_ROOT environment variable in the batch file can be edited to point at the data file wherever it is.

@bunger: Interesting, I replicated this fault, and then found the same fault with my "full" Mantis install at home. I tracked it down to the SMTP server blocking php Mail requests. I use hMailServer and changed the config to allow relaying from the localhost, and it all worked. Perhaps the error could lie in something like that, can you view logs of your SMTP server?

[vboctor]

Rich, given that you have the database already created, I think there is a change that you will have all InstantMantis installations having the same cookie for the administrator user. This would be a security risk.

If that the case, then I would recommend having the cookie as empty by default and setting it to a random value when the user first logs in. This patch can be applied to Mantis main stream by removing the setting of the cookie from the install and setting it on login if it is empty.

Regards,
Victor
MantisConnect
http://www.futureware.biz/mantisconnect/

[vboctor]

Another minor issue, InstantMantis doesn't work properly if it is placed in a directory path that contains spaces.

Regards,
Victor
Mantis Blog
http://www.futureware.biz/

[aptsadi]

i am using instant mantis & i have mySQL installed on my system,
when i m starting "imstart" file , it is giving me an error "Could not open required defaults file: \my.ini
Fatal Error in defaults handling." & the program gets aborted.
i want to use the same mySQL for instantMantis: because i m using mySQL in other applications as well !!!!!

plz help me how can i configure it >>>>Can i use SQL Server 2000 for INSTANT MANTIS , how it wil be configure

[chuckbl]

I downloaded instant mantis and installed it on my workstation in order to evaluate it. Everything went fine until I tried to add new users. I also got the e-mail error because my SMTP server isn't set up correctly.

The problem is, I don't want to set up a SMTP server on my workstation and while I am evaluating mantis I specifically do not want to send out e-mails. I just want to try this out locally by myself. If I choose to use mantis it will be installed on another server.

the word instant (and your web page) implies that you can drop this on any Windows machine and try it out. I think you need to disable the e-mail notification.

Chuck Blanchard

PS: I finally found a reference to "$g_send_reset_password" after wading through many many discussions about problems with e-mail notification. So it is working for me now. But if mantis did not look so promising I would have given up a long time ago.

[mcwizard]

Now all that is missing is "Mantis on a Stick" :)

[vboctor]

mcwizard, InstantMantis should be runnable from a USB stick.

chuckbl, did you check out the Instant Mantis FAQ on the wiki:
http://www.mantisbt.org/wiki/doku.php/m ... mantis_faq

Please contribute any other questions / answers that would be useful to others to the Wiki FAQ.