The Bugzilla Guide - 2.16.11 Release
Matthew P. Barnson
The Bugzilla Team
2006-02-20
This is the documentation for Bugzilla, the mozilla.org bug-tracking
system. Bugzilla is an enterprise-class piece of software that powers
issue-tracking for hundreds of organizations around the world, tracking
millions of bugs.
This documentation is maintained in DocBook 4.1.2 XML format. Changes
are best submitted as plain text or XML diffs, attached to a bug filed
in mozilla.org's Bugzilla.
The most current version of this document can always be found on the
Bugzilla Documentation Page.
__________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. About This Guide
1.1. Copyright Information
1.2. Disclaimer
1.3. New Versions
1.4. Credits
1.5. Document Conventions
2. Introduction
2.1. What is Bugzilla?
2.2. Why Should We Use Bugzilla?
3. Using Bugzilla
3.1. How do I use Bugzilla?
3.2. Hints and Tips
3.3. User Preferences
4. Installation
4.1. Step-by-step Install
4.2. Optional Additional Configuration
4.3. Win32 Installation Notes
4.4. Mac OS X Installation Notes
4.5. UNIX (non-root) Installation Notes
4.6. Troubleshooting
5. Administering Bugzilla
5.1. Bugzilla Configuration
5.2. User Administration
5.3. Product, Component, Milestone, and Version Administration
5.4. Voting
5.5. Groups and Group Security
5.6. Bugzilla Security
5.7. Template Customisation
5.8. Upgrading to New Releases
5.9. Integrating Bugzilla with Third-Party Tools
A. The Bugzilla FAQ
B. The Bugzilla Database
B.1. Database Schema Chart
B.2. MySQL Bugzilla Database Introduction
C. Useful Patches and Utilities for Bugzilla
C.1. Apache mod_rewrite magic
C.2. Command-line Bugzilla Queries
D. Bugzilla Variants and Competitors
D.1. Red Hat Bugzilla
D.2. Loki Bugzilla (Fenris)
D.3. Issuezilla
D.4. Scarab
D.5. Perforce SCM
D.6. SourceForge
E. GNU Free Documentation License
0. PREAMBLE
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
2. VERBATIM COPYING
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
4. MODIFICATIONS
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
8. TRANSLATION
9. TERMINATION
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
How to use this License for your documents
Glossary
List of Figures
3-1. Lifecycle of a Bugzilla Bug
4-1. Other File::Temp error messages
4-2. Patch for File::Temp in Perl 5.6.0
List of Examples
4-1. Installing ActivePerl ppd Modules on Microsoft Windows
4-2. Installing OpenInteract ppd Modules manually on Microsoft Windows
4-3. Removing encrypt() for Windows NT Bugzilla version 2.12 or earlier
__________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1. About This Guide
1.1. Copyright Information
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in Appendix E.
--Copyright (c) 2000-2006 Matthew P. Barnson and The Bugzilla Team
If you have any questions regarding this document, its copyright, or
publishing this document in non-electronic form, please contact The
Bugzilla Team.
__________________________________________________________________
1.2. Disclaimer
No liability for the contents of this document can be accepted. Use the
concepts, examples, and other content at your own risk. This document
may contain errors and inaccuracies that may damage your system, cause
your partner to leave you, your boss to fire you, your cats to pee on
your furniture and clothing, and global thermonuclear war. Proceed with
caution.
All copyrights are held by their respective owners, unless specifically
noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded
as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as
endorsements, with the exception of the term "GNU/Linux". We
wholeheartedly endorse the use of GNU/Linux in every situation where it
is appropriate. It is an extremely versatile, stable, and robust
operating system that offers an ideal operating environment for
Bugzilla.
You are strongly recommended to make a backup of your system before
installing Bugzilla and at regular intervals thereafter. If you
implement any suggestion in this Guide, implement this one!
Although the Bugzilla development team has taken great care to ensure
that all easily-exploitable bugs or options are documented or fixed in
the code, security holes surely exist. Great care should be taken both
in the installation and usage of this software. Carefully consider the
implications of installing other network services with Bugzilla. The
Bugzilla development team members, Netscape Communications, America
Online Inc., and any affiliated developers or sponsors assume no
liability for your use of this product. You have the source code to
this product, and are responsible for auditing it yourself to ensure
your security needs are met.
__________________________________________________________________
1.3. New Versions
This is the 2.16.11 version of The Bugzilla Guide. It is so named to
match the version of Bugzilla it is disributed with. If you are reading
this from any source other than those below, please check one of these
mirrors to make sure you are reading an up-to-date version of the
Guide.
The latest version of this guide can always be found at
https://www.bugzilla.org, or checked out via CVS by following the
Mozilla CVS instructions and check out the
mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/docs/ subtree. However, you should read the
version which came with the Bugzilla release you are using.
The Bugzilla Guide, or a section of it, is also available in the
following languages: French, German, Japanese. Note that these
documents may be written for a different Bugzilla version.
In addition, there are Bugzilla template localisation projects in the
following languages. They may have translated documentation available:
Arabic, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, French,
German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.
If you would like to volunteer to translate the Guide into additional
languages, please contact Dave Miller.
__________________________________________________________________
1.4. Credits
The people listed below have made enormous contributions to the
creation of this Guide, through their writing, dedicated hacking
efforts, numerous e-mail and IRC support sessions, and overall
excellent contribution to the Bugzilla community:
Matthew P. Barnson <mbarnson@sisna.com>
for the Herculean task of pulling together the Bugzilla Guide
and shepherding it to 2.14.
Terry Weissman <terry@mozilla.org>
for initially writing Bugzilla and creating the README upon
which the UNIX installation documentation is largely based.
Tara Hernandez <tara@tequilarists.org>
for keeping Bugzilla development going strong after Terry left
mozilla.org and for running landfill.
Dave Lawrence <dkl@redhat.com>
for providing insight into the key differences between Red Hat's
customized Bugzilla, and being largely responsible for Section
D.1.
Dawn Endico <endico@mozilla.org>
for being a hacker extraordinaire and putting up with Matthew's
incessant questions and arguments on irc.mozilla.org in
#mozwebtools
Jacob Steenhagen <jake@bugzilla.org>
for taking over documentation during the 2.17 development period
and backporting relevent docs changes to this 2.16 branch.
Dave Miller <justdave@bugzilla.org>
for taking over as project lead when Tara stepped down and
continually pusing to have relevant changes pushed back to this
2.16 branch of the documentation.
Last but not least, all the members of the
news://news.mozilla.org/netscape/public/mozilla/webtools newsgroup.
Without your discussions, insight, suggestions, and patches, this could
never have happened.
Thanks also go to the following people for significant contributions to
this documentation (in alphabetical order): Vlad Dascalu, Andrew
Pearson, Ben FrantzDale, Eric Hanson, Gervase Markham, Joe Robins,
Kevin Brannen, Ron Teitelbaum, Shane Travis, Spencer Smith, Zach
Liption .
__________________________________________________________________
1.5. Document Conventions
This document uses the following conventions:
Descriptions Appearance
Use caution
Caution
Don't run with scissors!
Hint
Tip
Would you like a breath mint?
Notes
Note
Dear John...
Warnings
Warning
Read this or the cat gets it.
File Names filename
Directory Names directory
Commands to be typed command
Applications Names application
Prompt of users command under bash shell bash$
Prompt of root users command under bash shell bash#
Prompt of user command under tcsh shell tcsh$
Environment Variables VARIABLE
Emphasized word word
Term found in the glossary Bugzilla
Code Example
<para>
Beginning and end of paragraph
</para>
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Chapter 2. Introduction
2.1. What is Bugzilla?
Bugzilla is a bug- or issue-tracking system. Bug-tracking systems allow
individual or groups of developers effectively to keep track of
outstanding problems with their product. Bugzilla was originally
written by Terry Weissman in a programming language called TCL, to
replace a rudimentary bug-tracking database used internally by Netscape
Communications. Terry later ported Bugzilla to Perl from TCL, and in
Perl it remains to this day. Most commercial defect-tracking software
vendors at the time charged enormous licensing fees, and Bugzilla
quickly became a favorite of the open-source crowd (with its genesis in
the open-source browser project, Mozilla). It is now the de-facto
standard defect-tracking system against which all others are measured.
Bugzilla boasts many advanced features. These include:
* Powerful searching
* User-configurable email notifications of bug changes
* Full change history
* Inter-bug dependency tracking and graphing
* Excellent attachment management
* Integrated, product-based, granular security schema
* Fully security-audited, and runs under Perl's taint mode
* A robust, stable RDBMS back-end
* Web, XML, email and console interfaces
* Completely customisable and/or localisable web user interface
* Extensive configurability
* Smooth upgrade pathway between versions
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2.2. Why Should We Use Bugzilla?
For many years, defect-tracking software has remained principally the
domain of large software development houses. Even then, most shops
never bothered with bug-tracking software, and instead simply relied on
shared lists and email to monitor the status of defects. This procedure
is error-prone and tends to cause those bugs judged least significant
by developers to be dropped or ignored.
These days, many companies are finding that integrated defect-tracking
systems reduce downtime, increase productivity, and raise customer
satisfaction with their systems. Along with full disclosure, an open
bug-tracker allows manufacturers to keep in touch with their clients
and resellers, to communicate about problems effectively throughout the
data management chain. Many corporations have also discovered that
defect-tracking helps reduce costs by providing IT support
accountability, telephone support knowledge bases, and a common,
well-understood system for accounting for unusual system or software
issues.
But why should you use Bugzilla?
Bugzilla is very adaptable to various situations. Known uses currently
include IT support queues, Systems Administration deployment
management, chip design and development problem tracking (both
pre-and-post fabrication), and software and hardware bug tracking for
luminaries such as Redhat, NASA, Linux-Mandrake, and VA Systems.
Combined with systems such as CVS, Bonsai, or Perforce SCM, Bugzilla
provides a powerful, easy-to-use solution to configuration management
and replication problems.
Bugzilla can dramatically increase the productivity and accountability
of individual employees by providing a documented workflow and positive
feedback for good performance. How many times do you wake up in the
morning, remembering that you were supposed to do something today, but
you just can't quite remember? Put it in Bugzilla, and you have a
record of it from which you can extrapolate milestones, predict product
versions for integration, and follow the discussion trail that led to
critical decisions.
Ultimately, Bugzilla puts the power in your hands to improve your value
to your employer or business while providing a usable framework for
your natural attention to detail and knowledge store to flourish.
__________________________________________________________________
Chapter 3. Using Bugzilla
3.1. How do I use Bugzilla?
This section contains information for end-users of Bugzilla. There is a
Bugzilla test installation, called Landfill, which you are welcome to
play with (if it's up). However, not all of the Bugzilla installations
there will necessarily have all Bugzilla features enabled, and
different installations run different versions, so some things may not
quite work as this document describes.
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3.1.1. Create a Bugzilla Account
If you want to use Bugzilla, first you need to create an account.
Consult with the administrator responsible for your installation of
Bugzilla for the URL you should use to access it. If you're
test-driving Bugzilla, use this URL:
https://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-2.16.11/
1. Click the "Open a new Bugzilla account" link, enter your email
address and, optionally, your name in the spaces provided, then
click "Create Account" .
2. Within moments, you should receive an email to the address you
provided above, which contains your login name (generally the same
as the email address), and a password you can use to access your
account. This password is randomly generated, and can be changed to
something more memorable.
3. Click the "Log In" link in the yellow area at the bottom of the
page in your browser, enter your email address and password into
the spaces provided, and click "Login".
You are now logged in. Bugzilla uses cookies for authentication so,
unless your IP address changes, you should not have to log in again.
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3.1.2. Anatomy of a Bug
The core of Bugzilla is the screen which displays a particular bug.
It's a good place to explain some Bugzilla concepts. Bug 1 on Landfill
is a good example. Note that the labels for most fields are hyperlinks;
clicking them will take you to context-sensitive help on that
particular field. Fields marked * may not be present on every
installation of Bugzilla.
1. Product and Component: Bugs are divided up by Product and
Component, with a Product having one or more Components in it. For
example, bugzilla.mozilla.org's "Bugzilla" Product is composed of
several Components:
Administration: Administration of a Bugzilla installation.
Bugzilla-General: Anything that doesn't fit in the other components, or
spans multiple components.
Creating/Changing Bugs: Creating, changing, and viewing bugs.
Documentation: The Bugzilla documentation, including The Bugzilla
Guide.
Email: Anything to do with email sent by Bugzilla.
Installation: The installation process of Bugzilla.
Query/Buglist: Anything to do with searching for bugs and viewing the
buglists.
Reporting/Charting: Getting reports from Bugzilla.
User Accounts: Anything about managing a user account from the user's
perspective. Saved queries, creating accounts, changing passwords,
logging in, etc.
User Interface: General issues having to do with the user interface
cosmetics (not functionality) including cosmetic issues, HTML
templates, etc.
2. Status and Resolution: These define exactly what state the bug is
in - from not even being confirmed as a bug, through to being fixed
and the fix confirmed by Quality Assurance. The different possible
values for Status and Resolution on your installation should be
documented in the context-sensitive help for those items.
3. Assigned To: The person responsible for fixing the bug.
4. *URL: A URL associated with the bug, if any.
5. Summary: A one-sentence summary of the problem.
6. *Status Whiteboard: (a.k.a. Whiteboard) A free-form text area for
adding short notes and tags to a bug.
7. *Keywords: The administrator can define keywords which you can use
to tag and categorise bugs - e.g. The Mozilla Project has keywords
like crash and regression.
8. Platform and OS: These indicate the computing environment where the
bug was found.
9. Version: The "Version" field is usually used for versions of a
product which have been released, and is set to indicate which
versions of a Component have the particular problem the bug report
is about.
10. Priority: The bug assignee uses this field to prioritise his or her
bugs. It's a good idea not to change this on other people's bugs.
11. Severity: This indicates how severe the problem is - from blocker
("application unusable") to trivial ("minor cosmetic issue"). You
can also use this field to indicate whether a bug is an enhancement
request.
12. *Target: (a.k.a. Target Milestone) A future version by which the
bug is to be fixed. e.g. The Bugzilla Project's milestones for
future Bugzilla versions are 2.18, 2.20, 3.0, etc. Milestones are
not restricted to numbers, thought - you can use any text strings,
such as dates.
13. Reporter: The person who filed the bug.
14. CC list: A list of people who get mail when the bug changes.
15. Attachments: You can attach files (e.g. testcases or patches) to
bugs. If there are any attachments, they are listed in this
section.
16. *Dependencies: If this bug cannot be fixed unless other bugs are
fixed (depends on), or this bug stops other bugs being fixed
(blocks), their numbers are recorded here.
17. *Votes: Whether this bug has any votes.
18. Additional Comments: You can add your two cents to the bug
discussion here, if you have something worthwhile to say.
__________________________________________________________________
3.1.3. Life Cycle of a Bug
The life cycle, also known as work flow, of a bug is currently
hardcoded into Bugzilla. Figure 3-1 contains a graphical repsentation
of this life cycle. If you wish customize this image for your site, the
diagram file is available in Dia's native XML format.
Figure 3-1. Lifecycle of a Bugzilla Bug
[bzLifecycle.png]
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3.1.4. Searching for Bugs
The Bugzilla Search page is is the interface where you can find any bug
report, comment, or patch currently in the Bugzilla system. You can
play with it here:
https://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-2.16.11/query.cgi .
The Search page has controls for selecting different possible values
for all of the fields in a bug, as described above. Once you've defined
a search, you can either run it, or save it as a Remembered Query,
which can optionally appear in the footer of your pages.
Highly advanced querying is done using Boolean Charts, which have their
own context-sensitive help .
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3.1.5. Bug Lists
If you run a search, a list of matching bugs will be returned. The
default search is to return all open bugs on the system - don't try
running this search on a Bugzilla installation with a lot of bugs!
The format of the list is configurable. For example, it can be sorted
by clicking the column headings. Other useful features can be accessed
using the links at the bottom of the list:
Long Format: this gives you a large page with a non-editable summary of
the fields of each bug.
Change Columns: change the bug attributes which appear in the list.
Change several bugs at once: If your account is sufficiently empowered,
you can make the same change to all the bugs in the list - for example,
changing their owner.
Send mail to bug owners: Sends mail to the owners of all bugs on the
list.
Edit this query: If you didn't get exactly the results you were looking
for, you can return to the Query page through this link and make small
revisions to the query you just made so you get more accurate results.
__________________________________________________________________
3.1.6. Filing Bugs
Years of bug writing experience has been distilled for your reading
pleasure into the Bug Writing Guidelines. While some of the advice is
Mozilla-specific, the basic principles of reporting Reproducible,
Specific bugs, isolating the Product you are using, the Version of the
Product, the Component which failed, the Hardware Platform, and
Operating System you were using at the time of the failure go a long
way toward ensuring accurate, responsible fixes for the bug that bit
you.
The procedure for filing a test bug is as follows:
1. Go to Landfill in your browser and click Enter a new bug report.
2. Select a product - any one will do.
3. Fill in the fields. Bugzilla should have made reasonable guesses,
based upon your browser, for the "Platform" and "OS" drop-down
boxes. If they are wrong, change them.
4. Select "Commit" and send in your bug report.
__________________________________________________________________
3.2. Hints and Tips
This section distills some Bugzilla tips and best practices that have
been developed.
__________________________________________________________________
3.2.1. Autolinkification
Bugzilla comments are plain text - so posting HTML will result in
literal HTML tags rather than being interpreted by a browser. However,
Bugzilla will automatically make hyperlinks out of certain sorts of
text in comments. For example, the text https://www.bugzilla.org will be
turned into https://www.bugzilla.org. Other strings which get linkified
in the obvious manner are:
bug 12345
bug 23456, comment 53
attachment 4321
mailto:george@example.com
george@example.com
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org
Most other sorts of URL
A corollary here is that if you type a bug number in a comment, you
should put the word "bug" before it, so it gets autolinkified for the
convenience of others.
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3.2.2. Quicksearch
Quicksearch is a single-text-box query tool which uses metacharacters
to indicate what is to be searched. For example, typing "foo|bar" into
Quicksearch would search for "foo" or "bar" in the summary and status
whiteboard of a bug; adding ":BazProduct" would search only in that
product.
You'll find the Quicksearch box on Bugzilla's front page, along with a
Help link which details how to use it.
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3.2.3. Comments
If you are changing the fields on a bug, only comment if either you
have something pertinent to say, or Bugzilla requires it. Otherwise,
you may spam people unnecessarily with bug mail. To take an example: a
user can set up their account to filter out messages where someone just
adds themselves to the CC field of a bug (which happens a lot.) If you
come along, add yourself to the CC field, and add a comment saying
"Adding self to CC", then that person gets a pointless piece of mail
they would otherwise have avoided.
Don't use sigs in comments. Signing your name ("Bill") is acceptable,
particularly if you do it out of habit, but full mail/news-style four
line ASCII art creations are not.
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3.2.4. Attachments
Use attachments, rather than comments, for large chunks of ASCII data,
such as trace, debugging output files, or log files. That way, it
doesn't bloat the bug for everyone who wants to read it, and cause
people to receive fat, useless mails.
Trim screenshots. There's no need to show the whole screen if you are
pointing out a single-pixel problem.
Don't attach simple test cases (e.g. one HTML file, one CSS file and an
image) as a ZIP file. Instead, upload them in reverse order and edit
the referring file so that they point to the attached files. This way,
the test case works immediately out of the bug.
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3.2.5. Dependency Tree
On the "Dependency tree" page linked from each bug page, you can see
the dependency relationship from the bug as a tree structure.
You can change how much depth to show, and you can hide resolved bugs
from this page.
__________________________________________________________________
3.2.6. Filing Bugs
Try to make sure that everything said in the summary is also said in
the first comment. Summaries are often updated and this will ensure
your original information is easily accessible.
You do not need to put "any" or similar strings in the URL field. If
there is no specific URL associated with the bug, leave this field
blank.
If you feel a bug you filed was incorrectly marked as a DUPLICATE of
another, please question it in your bug, not the bug it was duped to.
Feel free to CC the person who duped it if they are not already CCed.
__________________________________________________________________
3.3. User Preferences
Once you have logged in, you can customise various aspects of Bugzilla
via the "Edit prefs" link in the page footer. The preferences are split
into four tabs:
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3.3.1. Account Settings
On this tab, you can change your basic account information, including
your password, email address and real name. For security reasons, in
order to change anything on this page you must type your current
password into the "Password" field at the top of the page. If you
attempt to change your email address, a confirmation email is sent to
both the old and new addresses, with a link to use to confirm the
change. This helps to prevent account hijacking.
__________________________________________________________________
3.3.2. Email Settings
This tab controls the amount of email Bugzilla sends you.
The first item on this page is marked "Users to watch". When you enter
one or more comma-delineated user accounts (usually email addresses)
into the text entry box, you will receive a copy of all the bugmail
those users are sent (security settings permitting). This powerful
functionality enables seamless transitions as developers change
projects or users go on holiday.
Note
The ability to watch other users may not be available in all Bugzilla
installations. If you don't see this feature, and feel that you need
it, speak to your administrator.
The "Field/recipient specific options" table allows you to determine
how much mail Bugzilla sends you. The rows of the table define events
that can happen to a bug -- things like attachments being added, new
comments being made, the priority changing, etc. The columns in the
table define your relationship with the bug:
* Reporter - Where you are the person who initially reported the bug.
Your name/account appears in the "Reporter:" field.
* Assignee - Where you are the person who has been designated as the
one responsible for the bug. Your name/account appears in the
"Assigned To:" field of the bug.
* QA Contact - You are one of the designated QA Contacts for the bug.
Your account appears in the "QA Contact:" text-box of the bug.
* CC - You are on the list CC List for the bug. Your account appears
in the "CC:" text box of the bug.
* Voter - You have placed one or more votes for the bug. Your account
appears only if someone clicks on the "Show votes for this bug"
link on the bug.
Note
Some columns may not be visible for your installation, depending on
your site's configuration.
To fine-tune your bugmail, decide the events for which you want to
receive bugmail; then decide if you want to receive it all the time
(enable the checkbox for every column), or only when you have a certain
relationship with a bug (enable the checkbox only for those columns).
For example: if you didn't want to receive mail when someone added
themselves to the CC list, you could uncheck all the boxes in the "CC
Field Changes" line. As another example, if you never wanted to receive
email on bugs you reported unless the bug was resolved, you would
un-check all boxes in the "Reporter" column except for the one on the
"The bug is resolved or verified" row.
If you want to receive the maximum amount of email possible, check
every box in every column. if you don't want to receive any email from
Bugzilla at all, ensure that every box in this table is un-checked.
Note
Your Bugzilla administrator can stop a user from receiving bugmail by
adding the user's name to the data/nomail file. This is a drastic step
best taken only for disabled accounts, as it overrides the user's
individual mail preferences.
Note
Bugzilla adds the "X-Bugzilla-Reason" header to all bugmail it sends,
describing the recipient's relationship (AssignedTo, Reporter,
QAContact, CC, or Voter) to the bug. This header can be used to do
further client-side filtering.
By default, Bugzilla sends out email regardless of who made the
change... even if you were the one responsible for generating the email
in the first place. If you don't care to receive bugmail from your own
changes, check the box marked "Only email me reports of changes made by
other people".
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3.3.3. Page Footer
On the Search page, you can store queries in Bugzilla, so if you
regularly run a particular query it is just a drop-down menu away. Once
you have a stored query, you can come here to request that it also be
displayed in your page footer.
__________________________________________________________________
3.3.4. Permissions
This is a purely informative page which outlines your current
permissions on this installation of Bugzilla - what product groups you
are in, and whether you can edit bugs or perform various administration
functions.
__________________________________________________________________
Chapter 4. Installation
4.1. Step-by-step Install
4.1.1. Introduction
Please note that Bugzilla 2.16.x will become unsupported with the
release of Bugzilla 2.22. If you're installing Bugzilla for the first
time, please consider a newer stable version. Stable versions of
Bugzilla can be found at https://www.bugzilla.org/
Bugzilla has been successfully installed under Solaris, Linux, and
Win32. Win32 is not yet officially supported, but many people have got
it working fine. Please see the Win32 Installation Notes for further
advice on getting Bugzilla to work on Microsoft Windows.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.2. Package List
Note
If you are running the very most recent version of Perl and MySQL (both
the executables and development libraries) on your system, you can skip
these manual installation steps for the Perl modules by using
Bundle::Bugzilla; see Using Bundle::Bugzilla instead of manually
installing Perl modules.
The software packages necessary for the proper running of Bugzilla
(with download links) are:
1. MySQL database server (3.22.5 or greater. Note that versions of
Bugzilla prior to 2.20RC1 do not work with MySQL 5.0.12 or higher.
If you intend to install Bugzilla using MySQL 5.x as your back-end,
please use a more current release of Bugzilla).
2. Perl (5.005 or greater, 5.6.1 is recommended if you wish to use
Bundle::Bugzilla)
3. Perl Modules (minimum version):
a. Template (v2.07)
b. AppConfig (v1.52)
c. Text::Wrap (v2001.0131)
d. File::Spec (v0.8.2)
e. Data::Dumper (any)
f. DBD::mysql (v1.2209)
g. DBI (v1.13)
h. Date::Parse (any)
i. CGI::Carp (any)
and, optionally:
a. GD (v1.19) for bug charting
b. Chart::Base (v0.99c) for bug charting
c. XML::Parser (any) for the XML interface
d. MIME::Parser (any) for the email interface
4. The web server of your choice. Apache is highly recommended.
5. At least version 8.7 of Sendmail, or any Sendmail-compatible MTA
congruent with this version or higher.
Note
Windows users will have to see the Win32 Installation Notes for one
alternative to Sendmail for Windows.
Warning
It is a good idea, while installing Bugzilla, to ensure that there is
some kind of firewall between you and the rest of the Internet, because
your machine may be insecure for periods during the install. Many
installation steps require an active Internet connection to complete,
but you must take care to ensure that at no point is your machine
vulnerable to an attack.
Note
Linux-Mandrake 8.0 includes every required and optional library for
Bugzilla. The easiest way to install them is by using the urpmi
utility. If you follow these commands, you should have everything you
need for Bugzilla, and checksetup.pl should not complain about any
missing libraries. You may already have some of these installed.
bash# urpmi perl-mysql
bash# urpmi perl-chart
bash# urpmi perl-gd
bash# urpmi perl-MailTools (for Bugzilla email integration)
bash# urpmi apache-modules
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.3. MySQL
Visit the MySQL homepage at www.mysql.com to grab and install the
latest stable 4.x release of MySQL. Note that versions of Bugzilla
prior to 2.20RC1 do not work with MySQL 5.0.12 or higher. If you intend
to install Bugzilla using MySQL 5.x as your back-end, please use a more
current release of Bugzilla).
Note
Many of the binary versions of MySQL store their data files in /var. On
some Unix systems, this is part of a smaller root partition, and may
not have room for your bug database. You can set the data directory as
an option to configure if you build MySQL from source yourself.
If you install from something other than an RPM or Debian package, you
will need to add mysqld to your init scripts so the server daemon will
come back up whenever your machine reboots. Further discussion of UNIX
init sequences are beyond the scope of this guide.
By default, MySQL will only accept packets up to 64Kb in size. If you
want to have attachments larger than this, you will need to modify your
/etc/my.cnf as below.
If you are using MySQL 4.0 or newer, enter:
[mysqld]
# Allow packets up to 1M
max_allowed_packet=1M
If you are using an older version of MySQL, enter:
[mysqld]
# Allow packets up to 1M
set-variable = max_allowed_packet=1M
There is also a parameter in Bugzilla called 'maxattachmentsize'
(default = 1000 Kb) that controls the maximum allowable attachment
size. Attachments larger than either the 'max_allowed_packet' or
'maxattachmentsize' value will not be accepted by Bugzilla.
If you plan on running Bugzilla and MySQL on the same machine, consider
using the --skip-networking option in the init script. This enhances
security by preventing network access to MySQL.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.4. Perl
Any machine that doesn't have Perl on it is a sad machine indeed. Perl
can be got in source form from perl.com for the rare *nix systems which
don't have it. Although Bugzilla runs with all post-5.005 versions of
Perl, it's a good idea to be up to the very latest version if you can
when running Bugzilla. As of this writing, that is Perl version 5.6.1.
Tip
You can skip the following Perl module installation steps by installing
Bundle::Bugzilla from CPAN, which installs all required modules for
you.
bash# perl -MCPAN -e 'install "Bundle::Bugzilla"'
Bundle::Bugzilla doesn't include GD, Chart::Base, or MIME::Parser,
which are not essential to a basic Bugzilla install. If installing this
bundle fails, you should install each module individually to isolate
the problem.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.5. Perl Modules
All Perl modules can be found on the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
(CPAN). The CPAN servers have a real tendency to bog down, so please
use mirrors.
Quality, general Perl module installation instructions can be found on
the CPAN website, but the easy thing to do is to just use the CPAN
shell which does all the hard work for you. To use the CPAN shell to
install a module:
bash# perl -MCPAN -e 'install "<modulename>"'
To do it the hard way:
Untar the module tarball -- it should create its own directory
CD to the directory just created, and enter the following commands:
1. bash# perl Makefile.PL
2. bash# make
3. bash# make test
4. bash# make install
Warning
Many people complain that Perl modules will not install for them. Most
times, the error messages complain that they are missing a file in
"@INC". Virtually every time, this error is due to permissions being
set too restrictively for you to compile Perl modules or not having the
necessary Perl development libraries installed on your system. Consult
your local UNIX systems administrator for help solving these
permissions issues; if you are the local UNIX sysadmin, please consult
the newsgroup/mailing list for further assistance or hire someone to
help you out.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.5.1. DBI
The DBI module is a generic Perl module used the MySQL-related modules.
As long as your Perl installation was done correctly the DBI module
should be a breeze. It's a mixed Perl/C module, but Perl's MakeMaker
system simplifies the C compilation greatly.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.5.2. Data::Dumper
The Data::Dumper module provides data structure persistence for Perl
(similar to Java's serialization). It comes with later sub-releases of
Perl 5.004, but a re-installation just to be sure it's available won't
hurt anything.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.5.3. MySQL-related modules
The Perl/MySQL interface requires a few mutually-dependent Perl
modules. These modules are grouped together into the Msql-Mysql-modules
package.
The MakeMaker process will ask you a few questions about the desired
compilation target and your MySQL installation. For most of the
questions the provided default will be adequate, but when asked if your
desired target is the MySQL or mSQL packages, you should select the
MySQL related ones. Later you will be asked if you wish to provide
backwards compatibility with the older MySQL packages; you should
answer YES to this question. The default is NO.
A host of 'localhost' should be fine and a testing user of 'test' with
a null password should find itself with sufficient access to run tests
on the 'test' database which MySQL created upon installation.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.5.4. TimeDate modules
Many of the more common date/time/calendar related Perl modules have
been grouped into a bundle similar to the MySQL modules bundle. This
bundle is stored on the CPAN under the name TimeDate. The component
module we're most interested in is the Date::Format module, but
installing all of them is probably a good idea anyway.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.5.5. GD (optional)
The GD library was written by Thomas Boutell a long while ago to
programatically generate images in C. Since then it's become the
defacto standard for programatic image construction. The Perl bindings
to it found in the GD library are used on millions of web pages to
generate graphs on the fly. That's what Bugzilla will be using it for
so you must install it if you want any of the graphing to work.
Note
The Perl GD library requires some other libraries that may or may not
be installed on your system, including libpng and libgd. The full
requirements are listed in the Perl GD library README. If compiling GD
fails, it's probably because you're missing a required library.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.5.6. Chart::Base (optional)
The Chart module provides Bugzilla with on-the-fly charting abilities.
It can be installed in the usual fashion after it has been fetched from
CPAN. Note that earlier versions that 0.99c used GIFs, which are no
longer supported by the latest versions of GD.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.5.7. Template Toolkit
When you install Template Toolkit, you'll get asked various questions
about features to enable. The defaults are fine, except that it is
recommended you use the high speed XS Stash of the Template Toolkit, in
order to achieve best performance. However, there are known problems
with XS Stash and Perl 5.005_02 and lower. If you wish to use these
older versions of Perl, please use the regular stash.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.6. HTTP Server
You have a freedom of choice here - Apache, Netscape or any other
server on UNIX would do. You can run the web server on a different
machine than MySQL, but need to adjust the MySQL "bugs" user
permissions accordingly.
Note
We strongly recommend Apache as the web server to use. The Bugzilla
Guide installation instructions, in general, assume you are using
Apache. If you have got Bugzilla working using another webserver,
please share your experiences with us.
You'll want to make sure that your web server will run any file with
the .cgi extension as a CGI and not just display it. If you're using
Apache that means uncommenting the following line in the httpd.conf
file:
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
With Apache you'll also want to make sure that within the httpd.conf
file the line:
Options ExecCGI
AllowOverride Limit
is in the stanza that covers the directories into which you intend to
put the bugzilla .html and .cgi files.
Note
AllowOverride Limit allows the use of a Deny statement in the .htaccess
file generated by checksetup.pl
Users of older versions of Apache may find the above lines in the
srm.conf and access.conf files, respectively.
Warning
There are important files and directories that should not be a served
by the HTTP server - most files in the "data" and "shadow" directories
and the "localconfig" file. You should configure your HTTP server to
not serve these files. Failure to do so will expose critical passwords
and other data. Please see .htaccess files and security for details on
how to do this for Apache; the checksetup.pl script should create
appropriate .htaccess files for you.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.7. Bugzilla
You should untar the Bugzilla files into a directory that you're
willing to make writable by the default web server user (probably
"nobody"). You may decide to put the files in the main web space for
your web server or perhaps in /usr/local with a symbolic link in the
web space that points to the Bugzilla directory.
Tip
If you symlink the bugzilla directory into your Apache's HTML
heirarchy, you may receive Forbidden errors unless you add the
"FollowSymLinks" directive to the <Directory> entry for the HTML root
in httpd.conf.
Add index.cgi to the end of the DirectoryIndex line.
Once all the files are in a web accessible directory, make that
directory writable by your webserver's user. This is a temporary step
until you run the post-install checksetup.pl script, which locks down
your installation.
Lastly, you'll need to set up a symbolic link to
/usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl for the correct location of your Perl
executable (probably /usr/bin/perl). Otherwise you must hack all the
.cgi files to change where they look for Perl. This can be done using
the following Perl one-liner, but I suggest using the symlink approach
to avoid upgrade hassles.
perl -pi -e 's@#\!/usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl@#\!/usr/bin/perl@' *cgi *pl Bug.pm
processmail syncshadowdb
Change /usr/bin/perl to match the location of Perl on your machine.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.8. Setting Up the MySQL Database
After you've gotten all the software installed and working you're ready
to start preparing the database for its life as the back end to a high
quality bug tracker.
First, you'll want to fix MySQL permissions to allow access from
Bugzilla. For the purpose of this Installation section, the Bugzilla
username will be "bugs", and will have minimal permissions.
Begin by giving the MySQL root user a password. MySQL passwords are
limited to 16 characters.
bash# mysql -u root mysql
mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('<new_password>') WHERE
user='root';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
From this point on, if you need to access MySQL as the MySQL root user,
you will need to use mysql -u root -p and enter <new_password>.
Remember that MySQL user names have nothing to do with Unix user names
(login names).
Next, we use an SQL GRANT command to create a "bugs" user, and grant
sufficient permissions for checksetup.pl, which we'll use later, to
work its magic. This also restricts the "bugs" user to operations
within a database called "bugs", and only allows the account to connect
from "localhost". Modify it to reflect your setup if you will be
connecting from another machine or as a different user.
Remember to set <bugs_password> to some unique password.
If you are using MySQL 4.x or newer, enter:
mysql> GRANT SELECT, INSERT,
UPDATE, DELETE, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE, LOCK TABLES,
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, DROP, REFERENCES ON bugs.*
TO bugs@localhost IDENTIFIED BY '$db_pass';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
If you are using an older version of MySQL, the LOCK TABLES and CREATE
TEMPORARY TABLES permissions will be unavailable and should be removed
from the permissions list. In this case, the following command line can
be used:
mysql> GRANT SELECT, INSERT,
UPDATE, DELETE, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE, DROP,
REFERENCES ON bugs.* TO bugs@localhost IDENTIFIED BY
'$db_pass';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.9. checksetup.pl
Next, run the magic checksetup.pl script. (Many thanks to Holger
Schurig for writing this script!) This script is designed to make sure
your MySQL database and other configuration options are consistent with
the Bugzilla CGI files. It will make sure Bugzilla files and
directories have reasonable permissions, set up the data directory, and
create all the MySQL tables.
At this point, you need to su to root. You should remain as root until
the end of the install. Then run:
bash# ./checksetup.pl
The first time you run it, it will create a file called localconfig.
This file contains a variety of settings you may need to tweak
including how Bugzilla should connect to the MySQL database.
The connection settings include:
1. server's host: just use "localhost" if the MySQL server is local
2. database name: "bugs" if you're following these directions
3. MySQL username: "bugs" if you're following these directions
4. Password for the "bugs" MySQL account; (<bugs_password>) above
Once you are happy with the settings, re-run checksetup.pl. On this
second run, it will create the database and an administrator account
for which you will be prompted to provide information.
Note
The checksetup.pl script is designed so that you can run it at any time
without causing harm. You should run it after any upgrade to Bugzilla.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.10. Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)
Bugzilla is dependent on the availability of an e-mail system for its
user authentication and for other tasks.
On Linux, any Sendmail-compatible MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) will
suffice. Sendmail, Postfix, qmail and Exim are examples of common MTAs.
Sendmail is the original Unix MTA, but the others are easier to
configure, and therefore many people replace Sendmail with Postfix or
Exim. They are drop-in replacements, so that Bugzilla will not
distinguish between them.
Consult the manual for the specific MTA you choose for detailed
installation instructions. Each of these programs will have their own
configuration files where you must configure certain parameters to
ensure that the mail is delivered properly. They are implemented as
services, and you should ensure that the MTA is in the auto-start list
of services for the machine.
If a simple mail sent with the command-line 'mail' program succeeds,
then Bugzilla should also be fine.
__________________________________________________________________
4.1.11. Configuring Bugzilla
You should run through the parameters on the Edit Parameters page (link
in the footer) and set them all to appropriate values. They key
parameters are documented in Section 5.1.
__________________________________________________________________
4.2. Optional Additional Configuration
4.2.1. Dependency Charts
As well as the text-based dependency graphs, Bugzilla also supports
dependency graphing, using a package called 'dot'. Exactly how this
works is controlled by the 'webdotbase' parameter, which can have one
of three values:
1. A complete file path to the command 'dot' (part of GraphViz) will
generate the graphs locally
2. A URL prefix pointing to an installation of the webdot package will
generate the graphs remotely
3. A blank value will disable dependency graphing.
So, to get this working, install GraphViz. If you do that, you need to
enable server-side image maps in Apache. Alternatively, you could set
up a webdot server, or use the AT&T public webdot server (the default
for the webdotbase param). Note that AT&T's server won't work if
Bugzilla is only accessible using HTTPS.
__________________________________________________________________
4.2.2. Bug Graphs
As long as you installed the GD and Graph::Base Perl modules you might
as well turn on the nifty Bugzilla bug reporting graphs.
Add a cron entry like this to run collectstats.pl daily at 5 after
midnight:
bash# crontab -e
5 0 * * * cd <your-bugzilla-directory> ; ./collectstats.pl
After two days have passed you'll be able to view bug graphs from the
Bug Reports page.
__________________________________________________________________
4.2.3. The Whining Cron
By now you have a fully functional Bugzilla, but what good are bugs if
they're not annoying? To help make those bugs more annoying you can set
up Bugzilla's automatic whining system to complain at engineers which
leave their bugs in the NEW state without triaging them.
This can be done by adding the following command as a daily crontab
entry (for help on that see that crontab man page):
cd <your-bugzilla-directory> ; ./whineatnews.pl
Tip
Depending on your system, crontab may have several manpages. The
following command should lead you to the most useful page for this
purpose:
man 5 crontab
__________________________________________________________________
4.2.4. LDAP Authentication
Warning
This information on using the LDAP authentication options with Bugzilla
is old, and the authors do not know of anyone who has tested it.
Approach with caution.
The existing authentication scheme for Bugzilla uses email addresses as
the primary user ID, and a password to authenticate that user. All
places within Bugzilla where you need to deal with user ID (e.g
assigning a bug) use the email address. The LDAP authentication builds
on top of this scheme, rather than replacing it. The initial log in is
done with a username and password for the LDAP directory. This then
fetches the email address from LDAP and authenticates seamlessly in the
standard Bugzilla authentication scheme using this email address. If an
account for this address already exists in your Bugzilla system, it
will log in to that account. If no account for that email address
exists, one is created at the time of login. (In this case, Bugzilla
will attempt to use the "displayName" or "cn" attribute to determine
the user's full name.) After authentication, all other user-related
tasks are still handled by email address, not LDAP username. You still
assign bugs by email address, query on users by email address, etc.
Using LDAP for Bugzilla authentication requires the Mozilla::LDAP (aka
PerLDAP) Perl module. The Mozilla::LDAP module in turn requires
Netscape's Directory SDK for C. After you have installed the SDK, then
install the PerLDAP module. Mozilla::LDAP and the Directory SDK for C
are both available for download from mozilla.org.
Set the Param 'useLDAP' to "On" **only** if you will be using an LDAP
directory for authentication. Be very careful when setting up this
parameter; if you set LDAP authentication, but do not have a valid LDAP
directory set up, you will not be able to log back in to Bugzilla once
you log out. (If this happens, you can get back in by manually editing
the data/params file, and setting useLDAP back to 0.)
If using LDAP, you must set the three additional parameters: Set
LDAPserver to the name (and optionally port) of your LDAP server. If no
port is specified, it defaults to the default port of 389. (e.g
"ldap.mycompany.com" or "ldap.mycompany.com:1234") Set LDAPBaseDN to
the base DN for searching for users in your LDAP directory. (e.g.
"ou=People,o=MyCompany") uids must be unique under the DN specified
here. Set LDAPmailattribute to the name of the attribute in your LDAP
directory which contains the primary email address. On most directory
servers available, this is "mail", but you may need to change this.
__________________________________________________________________
4.2.5. Preventing untrusted Bugzilla content from executing malicious
Javascript code
It is possible for a Bugzilla to execute malicious Javascript code. Due
to internationalization concerns, we are unable to incorporate the code
changes necessary to fulfill the CERT advisory requirements mentioned
in http://www.cet.org/tech_tips/malicious_code_mitigation.html/#3.
Executing the following code snippet from a UNIX command shell will
rectify the problem if your Bugzilla installation is intended for an
English-speaking audience. As always, be sure your Bugzilla
installation has a good backup before making changes, and I recommend
you understand what the script is doing before executing it.
bash# perl -pi -e "s/Content-Type\: text\/html/Content-Type\: text\/html\; char
set=ISO-8859-1/i" *.cgi *.pl
All this one-liner command does is search for all instances of
"Content-type: text/html" and replaces it with "Content-Type:
text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" . This specification prevents possible
Javascript attacks on the browser, and is suggested for all
English-speaking sites. For non-English-speaking Bugzilla sites, I
suggest changing "ISO-8859-1", above, to "UTF-8".
Note: using <meta> tags to set the charset is not recommended, as
there's a bug in Netscape 4.x which causes pages marked up in this way
to load twice.
__________________________________________________________________
4.2.6. .htaccess files and security
To enhance the security of your Bugzilla installation, Bugzilla's
checksetup.pl script will generate .htaccess files which the Apache
webserver can use to restrict access to the bugzilla data files. These
.htaccess files will not work with Apache 1.2.x - but this has security
holes, so you shouldn't be using it anyway.
Note
If you are using an alternate provider of webdot services for graphing
(as described when viewing editparams.cgi in your web browser), you
will need to change the ip address in data/webdot/.htaccess to the ip
address of the webdot server that you are using.
The default .htaccess file may not provide adequate access
restrictions, depending on your web server configuration. Be sure to
check the <Directory> entries for your Bugzilla directory so that the
.htaccess file is allowed to override web server defaults. For
instance, let's assume your installation of Bugzilla is installed to
/usr/local/bugzilla . You should have this <Directory> entry in your
httpd.conf file:
<Directory /usr/local/bugzilla/>
Options +FollowSymLinks +Indexes +Includes +ExecCGI
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
The important part above is "AllowOverride All" . Without that, the
.htaccess file created by checksetup.pl will not have sufficient
permissions to protect your Bugzilla installation.
If you are using Internet Information Server (IIS) or another web
server which does not observe .htaccess conventions, you can disable
their creation by editing localconfig and setting the $create_htaccess
variable to 0.
__________________________________________________________________
4.2.7. mod_throttle and Security
It is possible for a user, by mistake or on purpose, to access the
database many times in a row which can result in very slow access
speeds for other users. If your Bugzilla installation is experiencing
this problem , you may install the Apache module mod_throttle which can
limit connections by ip-address. You may download this module at
http://www.snert.com/Software/mod_throttle/ Follow the instructions to
install into your Apache install. This module only functions with the
Apache web server! You may use the ThrottleClientIP command provided by
this module to accomplish this goal. See the Module Instructions for
more information.
__________________________________________________________________
4.3. Win32 Installation Notes
This section covers installation on Microsoft Windows. Bugzilla has
been made to work on Win32 platforms, but the Bugzilla team wish to
emphasise that The easiest way to install Bugzilla on Intel-archiecture
machines is to install some variant of GNU/Linux, then follow the UNIX
installation instructions in this Guide. If you have any influence in
the platform choice for running this system, please choose GNU/Linux
instead of Microsoft Windows.
Warning
After that warning, here's the situation for 2.16 and Windows. It
doesn't work at all out of the box. You are almost certainly better off
getting the 2.17 version from CVS (after consultation with the Bugzilla
Team to make sure you are pulling on a stable day) because we'll be
doing a load of work to make the Win32 experience more pleasant than it
is now.
If you still want to try this, to have any hope of getting it to work,
you'll need to apply the mail patch from bug 124174. After that, you'll
need to read the (outdated) installation instructions below, some
(probably a lot better) more recent ones kindly provided by Toms Baugis
and Jean-Sebastien Guay, and also check the Bugzilla 2.16 Win32 update
page . If we get time, we'll write some better installation
instructions for 2.16 and put them up there. But no promises.
__________________________________________________________________
4.3.1. Win32 Installation: Step-by-step
Note
You should be familiar with, and cross-reference, the rest of the
Bugzilla Installation section while performing your Win32 installation.
Making Bugzilla work on Microsoft Windows is no picnic. Support for
Win32 has improved dramatically in the last few releases, but, if you
choose to proceed, you should be a very skilled Windows Systems
Administrator with strong troubleshooting abilities, a high tolerance
for pain, and moderate perl skills. Bugzilla on NT requires hacking
source code and implementing some advanced utilities. What follows is
the recommended installation procedure for Win32; additional
suggestions are provided in Appendix A .
1. Install Apache Web Server for Windows, and copy the Bugzilla files
somewhere Apache can serve them. Please follow all the instructions
referenced in Bugzilla Installation regarding your Apache
configuration, particularly instructions regarding the "AddHandler"
parameter and "ExecCGI" .
Note
You may also use Internet Information Server or Personal Web Server for
this purpose. However, setup is quite different. If ActivePerl doesn't
seem to handle your file associations correctly (for .cgi and .pl
files), please consult Appendix A .
If you are going to use IIS, if on Windows NT you must be updated to at
least Service Pack 4. Windows 2000 ships with a sufficient version of
IIS.
2. Install ActivePerl for Windows. Check
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/ActivePerl for a current
compiled binary.
Please also check the following links to fully understand the
status of ActivePerl on Win32: Perl Porting , and Perl on Win32 FAQ
3. Use ppm from your perl\bin directory to install the following
packs: DBI, DBD-Mysql, TimeDate, Chart, Date-Calc, Date-Manip, GD,
AppConfig, and Template. You may need to extract them from .zip
format using Winzip or other unzip program first. Most of these
additional ppm modules can be downloaded from ActiveState, but
AppConfig and Template should be obtained from OpenInteract using
the instructions on the Template Toolkit web site .
Note
You can find a list of modules at
http://www.activestate.com/PPMPackages/zips/5xx-builds-only/ or
http://www.activestate.com/PPMPackages/5.6plus
The syntax for ppm is: C:> ppm install <modulename>
Example 4-1. Installing ActivePerl ppd Modules on Microsoft Windows
ppm repository add oi http://openinteract.sourceforge.net/ppmpackages
ppm install DBD-mysql
ppm install Template-Toolkit
ppm install TimeDate
Watch your capitalization!
ActiveState's 5.6Plus directory also contains an AppConfig ppm, so
you might see the following error when trying to install the
version at OpenInteract:
Error installing package 'AppConfig': Read a PPD for 'AppConfig',
but it is not intended for this build of Perl
(MSWin32-x86-multi-thread)
If so, download both the tarball and the ppd directly from
OpenInteract, then run ppm from within the same directory to which
you downloaded those files and install the package by referencing
the ppd file explicitly via in the install command, f.e.:
Example 4-2. Installing OpenInteract ppd Modules manually on
Microsoft Windows
install C:\AppConfig.ppd
4. Install MySQL for NT.
Note
You can download MySQL for Windows NT from MySQL.com . Some find it
helpful to use the WinMySqlAdmin utility, included with the download,
to set up the database.
5. Setup MySQL
a. C:> C:\mysql\bin\mysql -u root mysql
b. mysql> DELETE FROM user WHERE Host='localhost' AND User='';
c. mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD ('new_password')
WHERE user='root';
"new_password" , above, indicates whatever password you wish
to use for your "root" user.
d. mysql> GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, INDEX, ALTER,
CREATE, DROP, REFERENCES ON bugs.* to bugs@localhost
IDENTIFIED BY 'bugs_password';
"bugs_password" , above, indicates whatever password you wish
to use for your "bugs" user.
e. mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
f. mysql> create database bugs;
g. mysql> exit;
h. C:> C:\mysql\bin\mysqladmin -u root -p reload
6. Edit checksetup.pl in your Bugzilla directory. Change this line:
my $webservergid =
getgrnam($my_webservergroup);
to
my $webservergid =
$my_webservergroup;
or the name of the group you wish to own the files explicitly:
my $webservergid =
'Administrators'
7. Run checksetup.pl from the Bugzilla directory.
8. Edit localconfig to suit your requirements. Set $db_pass to your
"bugs_password" from step 5.d , and $webservergroup to "8" .
Note
Not sure on the "8" for $webservergroup above. If it's wrong, please
send corrections.
9. Edit defparams.pl to suit your requirements. Particularly, set
DefParam("maintainer") and DefParam("urlbase") to match your
install.
Note
This is yet another step I'm not sure of, since the maintainer of this
documentation does not maintain Bugzilla on NT. If you can confirm or
deny that this step is required, please let me know.
10.
Note
There are several alternatives to Sendmail that will work on Win32. The
one mentioned here is a suggestion , not a requirement. Some other mail
packages that can work include BLAT , Windmail , Mercury Sendmail , and
the CPAN Net::SMTP Perl module (available in .ppm). Every option
requires some hacking of the Perl scripts for Bugzilla to make it work.
The option here simply requires the least.
1. Download NTsendmail, available from www.ntsendmail.com . You
must have a "real" mail server which allows you to relay off
it in your $ENV{"NTsendmail"} (which you should probably place
in globals.pl)
2. Put ntsendmail.pm into your .\perl\lib directory.
3. Add to globals.pl:
# these settings configure the NTsendmail
process use NTsendmail;
$ENV{"NTsendmail"}="your.smtpserver.box";
$ENV{"NTsendmail_debug"}=1;
$ENV{"NTsendmail_max_tries"}=5;
Note
Some mention to also edit $db_pass in globals.pl to be your
"bugs_password" . Although this may get you around some problem
authenticating to your database, since globals.pl is not normally
restricted by .htaccess , your database password is exposed to whoever
uses your web server.
4. Find and comment out all occurrences of " open(SENDMAIL " in
your Bugzilla directory. Then replace them with:
# new sendmail functionality my $mail=new
NTsendmail; my $from="bugzilla\@your.machine.name.tld"; my
$to=$login; my $subject=$urlbase;
$mail->send($from,$to,$subject,$msg);
Note
Some have found success using the commercial product, Windmail . You
could try replacing your sendmail calls with:
open SENDMAIL,
"|\"C:/General/Web/tools/Windmail 4.0 Beta/windmail\" -t >
mail.log";
or something to that effect.
11. Change all references in all files from processmail to
processmail.pl , and rename processmail to processmail.pl .
Note
Many think this may be a change we want to make for main-tree Bugzilla.
It's painless for the UNIX folks, and will make the Win32 people
happier.
Note
Some people have suggested using the Net::SMTP Perl module instead of
NTsendmail or the other options listed here. You can change
processmail.pl to make this work.
my $smtp = Net::SMTP->new('<Name of your SMTP server>'); #connect to SMTP ser
ver
$smtp->mail('<your name>@<you smpt server>');# use the sender's adress here
$smtp->to($tolist); # recipient's address
$smtp->data(); # Start the mail
$smtp->datasend($msg);
$smtp->dataend(); # Finish sending the mail
$smtp->quit; # Close the SMTP connection
$logstr = "$logstr; mail sent to $tolist $cclist";
}
here is a test mail program for Net::SMTP:
use Net::SMTP;
my $smtp = Net::SMTP->new('<Name of your SMTP server', Timeout => 30, Debug
=> 1, ); # connect to SMTP server
$smtp->auth;
$smtp->mail('you@yourcompany.com');# use the sender's adress
here
$smtp->to('someotherAddress@someotherdomain.com'); #
recipient's address
$smtp->data(); # Start the mail
$smtp->datasend('test');
$smtp->dataend(); # Finish sending the mail
$smtp->quit; # Close the SMTP connection
exit;
12.
Note
This step is optional if you are using IIS or another web server which
only decides on an interpreter based upon the file extension (.pl),
rather than the "shebang" line (#/usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl)
Modify the path to perl on the first line (#!) of all files to
point to your Perl installation, and add "perl" to the beginning of
all Perl system calls that use a perl script as an argument. This
may take you a while. There is a "setperl.csh" utility to speed
part of this procedure, available in the Useful Patches and
Utilities for Bugzilla section of The Bugzilla Guide. However, it
requires the Cygwin GNU-compatible environment for Win32 be set up
in order to work. See http://www.cygwin.com/ for details on
obtaining Cygwin.
13. Modify the invocation of all system() calls in all perl scripts in
your Bugzilla directory. You should specify the full path to perl
for each system() call. For instance, change this line in
processmail:
system ("./processmail",@ARGLIST);
</programlisting> to
<programlisting>
system ("C:\\perl\\bin\\perl", "processmail", @ARGLIST);
14. Add binmode() calls so attachments will work ( bug 62000 ).
Because Microsoft Windows based systems handle binary files
different than Unix based systems, you need to add the following
lines to createattachment.cgi and showattachment.cgi before the
require 'CGI.pl'; line.
binmode(STDIN);
binmode(STDOUT);
Note
According to bug 62000 , the perl documentation says that you should
always use binmode() when dealing with binary files, but never when
dealing with text files. That seems to suggest that rather than
arbitrarily putting binmode() at the beginning of the attachment files,
there should be logic to determine if binmode() is needed or not.
Tip
If you are using IIS or Personal Web Server, you must add cgi
relationships to Properties -> Home directory (tab) -> Application
Settings (section) -> Configuration (button), such as:
.cgi to: <perl install directory>\perl.exe %s
%s .pl to: <perl install directory>\perl.exe %s %s
GET,HEAD,POST
Change the path to Perl to match your install, of course.
__________________________________________________________________
4.3.2. Additional Windows Tips
Tip
From Andrew Pearson:
You can make Bugzilla work with Personal Web Server for Windows 98
and higher, as well as for IIS 4.0. Microsoft has information
available at
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q231/9/98.ASP
Basically you need to add two String Keys in the registry at the
following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W3SVC\Paramete
rs\ScriptMap
The keys should be called ".pl" and ".cgi", and both should have a
value something like: c:/perl/bin/perl.exe "%s" "%s"
The KB article only talks about .pl, but it goes into more detail
and provides a perl test script.
Tip
If attempting to run Bugzilla 2.12 or older, you will need to remove
encrypt() calls from the Perl source. This is not necessary for
Bugzilla 2.13 and later, which includes the current release, Bugzilla
2.16.11.
Example 4-3. Removing encrypt() for Windows NT Bugzilla version 2.12 or
earlier
Replace this:
SendSQL("SELECT encrypt(" . SqlQuote($enteredpwd) .
", " . SQLQuote(substr($realcryptpwd, 0, 2)) . ")"); my
$enteredcryptpwd = FetchOneColumn();
with this:
my $enteredcryptpwd = $enteredpwd
in cgi.pl.
__________________________________________________________________
4.4. Mac OS X Installation Notes
4.4.1. Sendmail
In Mac OS X 10.3 and later, Postfix is used as the built-in email
server. Postfix provides an executable that mimics sendmail enough to
fool Bugzilla, as long as Bugzilla can find it.
The substitute Sendmail executable is located at /usr/sbin/sendmail,
while Bugzilla expects the executable to be located at
/usr/lib/sendmail. Rather than copying the sendmail executable, a
symbolic link can be used. To create the symbolic link, launch the
Terminal application and execute the following command:
[localhost:~] sudo ln -s /usr/sbin/sendmail
/usr/lib/sendmail (1)
Enter Password: ********
(1)
You must be logged in as administrator to run this command.
Enter your password if prompted.
The other change to be made involves turning on the sendmailnow
Bugzilla parameter, which is described in Section 5.1.
__________________________________________________________________
4.4.2. Libraries & Perl Modules on Mac OS X
There are a lot of common libraries and utilities out there that Apple
did not include with Mac OS X, but which run perfectly well on it. The
GD library, which Bugzilla needs to do bug graphs, is one of these.
The easiest way to get a lot of these is with a program called Fink,
which is similar in nature to the CPAN installer, but installs common
GNU utilities. Fink is available from
<https://sourceforge.net/projects/fink/>.
Follow the instructions for setting up Fink. Once it's installed,
you'll want to run the following as root: fink install gd
It will prompt you for a number of dependencies, type 'y' and hit enter
to install all of the dependencies. Then watch it work.
To prevent creating conflicts with the software that Apple installs by
default, Fink creates its own directory tree at /sw where it installs
most of the software that it installs. This means your libraries and
headers for libgd will be at /sw/lib and /sw/include instead of
/usr/lib and /usr/local/include. Because of these changed locations for
the libraries, the Perl GD module will not install directly via CPAN,
because it looks for the specific paths instead of getting them from
your environment. But there's a way around that :-)
Instead of typing "install GD" at the cpan> prompt, type look GD. This
should go through the motions of downloading the latest version of the
GD module, then it will open a shell and drop you into the build
directory. Apply this patch to the Makefile.PL file (save the patch
into a file and use the command patch < patchfile.)
Then, run these commands to finish the installation of the GD module:
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
And don't forget to run exit to get back to CPAN.
__________________________________________________________________
4.5. UNIX (non-root) Installation Notes
4.5.1. Introduction
If you are running a *NIX OS as non-root, either due to lack of access
(web hosts, for example) or for security reasons, this will detail how
to install Bugzilla on such a setup. It is recommended that you read
through the Bugzilla Installation first to get an idea on the
installation steps required. (These notes will reference to steps in
that guide.)
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.2. MySQL
You may have MySQL installed as root. If you're setting up an account
with a web host, a MySQL account needs to be set up for you. From
there, you can create the bugs account, or use the account given to
you.
Warning
You may have problems trying to set up GRANT permissions to the
database. If you're using a web host, chances are that you have a
separate database which is already locked down (or one big database
with limited/no access to the other areas), but you may want to ask
your system administrator what the security settings are set to, and/or
run the GRANT command for you.
Also, you will probably not be able to change the MySQL root user
password (for obvious reasons), so skip that step.
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.2.1. Running MySQL as Non-Root
4.5.2.1.1. The Custom Configuration Method
Create a file .my.cnf in your home directory (using /home/foo in this
example) as follows....
[mysqld]
datadir=/home/foo/mymysql
socket=/home/foo/mymysql/thesock
port=8081
[mysql]
socket=/home/foo/mymysql/thesock
port=8081
[mysql.server]
user=mysql
basedir=/var/lib
[safe_mysqld]
err-log=/home/foo/mymysql/the.log
pid-file=/home/foo/mymysql/the.pid
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.2.1.2. The Custom Built Method
You can install MySQL as a not-root, if you really need to. Build it
with PREFIX set to /home/foo/mysql, or use pre-installed executables,
specifying that you want to put all of the data files in
/home/foo/mysql/data. If there is another MySQL server running on the
system that you do not own, use the -P option to specify a TCP port
that is not in use.
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.2.1.3. Starting the Server
After your mysqld program is built and any .my.cnf file is in place,
you must initialize the databases (ONCE).
bash$
mysql_install_db
Then start the daemon with
bash$
safe_mysql &
After you start mysqld the first time, you then connect to it as "root"
and GRANT permissions to other users. (Again, the MySQL root account
has nothing to do with the *NIX root account.)
Note
You will need to start the daemons yourself. You can either ask your
system administrator to add them to system startup files, or add a
crontab entry that runs a script to check on these daemons and restart
them if needed.
Warning
Do NOT run daemons or other services on a server without first
consulting your system administrator! Daemons use up system resources
and running one may be in violation of your terms of service for any
machine on which you are a user!
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.3. Perl
On the extremely rare chance that you don't have Perl on the machine,
you will have to build the sources yourself. The following commands
should get your system installed with your own personal version of
Perl:
bash$
wget http://perl.com/CPAN/src/stable.tar.gz
bash$
tar zvxf stable.tar.gz
bash$
cd perl-5.8.1 (or whatever the version of Perl is called)
bash$
sh Configure -de -Dprefix=/home/foo/perl
bash$
make && make test && make install
Once you have Perl installed into a directory (probably in ~/perl/bin),
you'll have to change the locations on the scripts, which is detailed
later on this page.
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.4. Perl Modules
Installing the Perl modules as a non-root user is probably the hardest
part of the process. There are two different methods: a completely
independant Perl with its own modules, or personal modules using the
current (root installed) version of Perl. The independant method takes
up quite a bit of disk space, but is less complex, while the mixed
method only uses as much space as the modules themselves, but takes
more work to setup.
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.4.1. The Independant Method
The independant method requires that you install your own personal
version of Perl, as detailed in the previous section. Once installed,
you can start the CPAN shell with the following command:
bash$
/home/foo/perl/bin/perl -MCPAN -e 'shell'
And then:
cpan>
install Bundle::Bugzilla
With this method, module installation will usually go a lot smoother,
but if you have any hang-ups, you can consult the next section.
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.4.2. The Mixed Method
First, you'll need to configure CPAN to install modules in your home
directory. The CPAN FAQ says the following on this issue:
5) I am not root, how can I install a module in a personal directory?
You will most probably like something like this:
o conf makepl_arg "LIB=~/myperl/lib \
INSTALLMAN1DIR=~/myperl/man/man1 \
INSTALLMAN3DIR=~/myperl/man/man3"
install Sybase::Sybperl
You can make this setting permanent like all "o conf" settings with "o conf
commit".
You will have to add ~/myperl/man to the MANPATH environment variable and a
lso tell your Perl programs to
look into ~/myperl/lib, e.g. by including
use lib "$ENV{HOME}/myperl/lib";
or setting the PERL5LIB environment variable.
Another thing you should bear in mind is that the UNINST parameter should n
ever be set if you are not root.
So, you will need to create a Perl directory in your home directory, as
well as the lib, man, man/man1, and man/man3 directories in that Perl
directory. Set the MANPATH variable and PERL5LIB variable, so that the
installation of the modules goes smoother. (Setting UNINST=0 in your
"make install" options, on the CPAN first-time configuration, is also a
good idea.)
After that, go into the CPAN shell:
bash$
perl -MCPAN -e 'shell'
From there, you will need to type in the above "o conf" command and
commit the changes. Then you can run through the installation:
cpan>
install Bundle::Bugzilla
Most of the module installation process should go smoothly. However,
you may have some problems with Template. When you first start, you
will want to try to install Template with the XS Stash options on. If
this doesn't work, it may spit out C compiler error messages and croak
back to the CPAN shell prompt. So, redo the install, and turn it off.
(In fact, say no to all of the Template questions.) It may also start
failing on a few of the tests. If the total tests passed is a
reasonable figure (90+%), force the install with the following command:
cpan>
force install Template
You may also want to install the other optional modules:
cpan>
install GD
cpan>
install Chart::Base
cpan>
install MIME::Parser
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.5. HTTP Server
Ideally, this also needs to be installed as root and run under a
special webserver account. As long as the web server will allow the
running of *.cgi files outside of a cgi-bin, and a way of denying web
access to certain files (such as a .htaccess file), you should be good
in this department.
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.5.1. Running Apache as Non-Root
You can run Apache as a non-root user, but the port will need to be set
to one above 1024. If you type httpd -V, you will get a list of the
variables that your system copy of httpd uses. One of those, namely
HTTPD_ROOT, tells you where that installation looks for its config
information.
From there, you can copy the config files to your own home directory to
start editing. When you edit those and then use the -d option to
override the HTTPD_ROOT compiled into the web server, you get control
of your own customized web server.
Note
You will need to start the daemons yourself. You can either ask your
system administrator to add them to system startup files, or add a
crontab entry that runs a script to check on these daemons and restart
them if needed.
Warning
Do NOT run daemons or other services on a server without first
consulting your system administrator! Daemons use up system resources
and running one may be in violation of your terms of service for any
machine on which you are a user!
__________________________________________________________________
4.5.6. Bugzilla
Since you probably can't set up a symbolic link to
/usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl as a non-root user, you will need to hack the
scripts to point to the right Perl:
perl -pi -e
's@#\!/usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl@#\!/usr/bin/perl@' *cgi *pl Bug.pm
processmail syncshadowdb
Change /usr/bin/perl to match the location of Perl on your machine. If
you had to install Perl as non-root, this would be the location in your
home directory.
Note
Version 2.17+ of Bugzilla now already has the scripts pointing to
/usr/bin/perl.
Of course, the scripts will not work if they don't know the location of
your newly install Perl modules, so you will have to hack the scripts
to look for those, too:
perl -pi -e
's@use strict\;@use strict\; use lib \"/home/foo/perl/lib\"\;@'
*cgi *pl Bug.pm processmail syncshadowdb
Change /home/foo/perl/lib to your personal Perl library directory. You
can probably skip this step if you are using the independant method of
Perl module installation.
When you run ./checksetup.pl to create the localconfig file, it will
list the Perl modules it finds. If one is missing, go back and
double-check the module installation from the CPAN shell, then delete
the localconfig file and try again.
Warning
The one option in localconfig you might have problems with is the web
server group. If you can't successfully browse to the index.cgi (like a
Forbidden error), you may have to relax your permissions, and blank out
the web server group. Of course, this may pose as a security risk.
Having a properly jailed shell and/or limited access to shell accounts
may lessen the security risk, but use at your own risk.
__________________________________________________________________
4.6. Troubleshooting
This section gives solutions to common Bugzilla installation problems.
__________________________________________________________________
4.6.1. Bundle::Bugzilla makes me upgrade to Perl 5.6.1
Try executing perl -MCPAN -e 'install CPAN' and then continuing.
Certain older versions of the CPAN toolset were somewhat naive about
how to upgrade Perl modules. When a couple of modules got rolled into
the core Perl distribution for 5.6.1, CPAN thought that the best way to
get those modules up to date was to haul down the Perl distribution
itself and build it. Needless to say, this has caused headaches for
just about everybody. Upgrading to a newer version of CPAN with the
commandline above should fix things.
__________________________________________________________________
4.6.2. DBD::Sponge::db prepare failed
The following error message may appear due to a bug in DBD::mysql (over
which the Bugzilla team have no control):
DBD::Sponge::db prepare failed: Cannot determine NUM_OF_FIELDS at D:/Perl/site
/lib/DBD/mysql.pm line 248.
SV = NULL(0x0) at 0x20fc444
REFCNT = 1
FLAGS = (PADBUSY,PADMY)
To fix this, go to <path-to-perl>/lib/DBD/sponge.pm in your Perl
installation and replace
my $numFields;
if ($attribs->{'NUM_OF_FIELDS'}) {
$numFields = $attribs->{'NUM_OF_FIELDS'};
} elsif ($attribs->{'NAME'}) {
$numFields = @{$attribs->{NAME}};
by
my $numFields;
if ($attribs->{'NUM_OF_FIELDS'}) {
$numFields = $attribs->{'NUM_OF_FIELDS'};
} elsif ($attribs->{'NAMES'}) {
$numFields = @{$attribs->{NAMES}};
(note the S added to NAME.)
__________________________________________________________________
4.6.3. cannot chdir(/var/spool/mqueue)
If you are installing Bugzilla on SuSE Linux, or some other
distributions with "paranoid" security options, it is possible that the
checksetup.pl script may fail with the error:
cannot chdir(/var/spool/mqueue): Permission denied
This is because your /var/spool/mqueue directory has a mode of
"drwx------". Type chmod 755 /var/spool/mqueue as root to fix this
problem.
__________________________________________________________________
4.6.4. Your vendor has not defined Fcntl macro O_NOINHERIT
This is caused by a bug in the version of File::Temp that is
distributed with perl 5.6.0. Many minor variations of this error have
been reported. Examples can be found in Figure 4-1.
Figure 4-1. Other File::Temp error messages
Your vendor has not defined Fcntl macro O_NOINHERIT, used
at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/File/Temp.pm line 208.
Your vendor has not defined Fcntl macro O_EXLOCK, used
at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/File/Temp.pm line 210.
Your vendor has not defined Fcntl macro O_TEMPORARY, used
at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/File/Temp.pm line 233.
Numerous people have reported that upgrading to version 5.6.1 or higher
solved the problem for them. A less involved fix is to apply the patch
in Figure 4-2. The patch is also available as a patch file.
Figure 4-2. Patch for File::Temp in Perl 5.6.0
--- File/Temp.pm.orig Thu Feb 6 16:26:00 2003
+++ File/Temp.pm Thu Feb 6 16:26:23 2003
@@ -205,6 +205,7 @@
# eg CGI::Carp
local $SIG{__DIE__} = sub {};
local $SIG{__WARN__} = sub {};
+ local *CORE::GLOBAL::die = sub {};
$bit = &$func();
1;
};
@@ -226,6 +227,7 @@
# eg CGI::Carp
local $SIG{__DIE__} = sub {};
local $SIG{__WARN__} = sub {};
+ local *CORE::GLOBAL::die = sub {};
$bit = &$func();
1;
};
__________________________________________________________________
Chapter 5. Administering Bugzilla
5.1. Bugzilla Configuration
Bugzilla is configured by changing various parameters, accessed from
the "Edit parameters" link in the page footer. Here are some of the key
parameters on that page. You should run down this list and set them
appropriately after installing Bugzilla.
maintainer
The maintainer parameter is the email address of the person
responsible for maintaining this Bugzilla installation. The
address need not be that of a valid Bugzilla account.
urlbase
This parameter defines the fully qualified domain name and web
server path to your Bugzilla installation.
For example, if your Bugzilla query page is
http://www.foo.com/bugzilla/query.cgi, set your "urlbase" to
http://www.foo.com/bugzilla/.
usebuggroups
This dictates whether or not to implement group-based security
for Bugzilla. If set, Bugzilla bugs can have an associated
'group', defining which users are allowed to see and edit the
bug.
Set "usebuggroups" to "on" only if you may wish to restrict
access to particular bugs to certain groups of users. I suggest
leaving this parameter off while initially testing your
Bugzilla.
For more information see Section 5.5.
usebuggroupsentry
Bugzilla Products can have a group associated with them, so that
certain users can only see bugs in certain products. When this
parameter is set to "on", this places all newly-created bugs in
the group for their product immediately.
shadowdb
You run into an interesting problem when Bugzilla reaches a high
level of continuous activity. MySQL supports only table-level
write locking. What this means is that if someone needs to make
a change to a bug, they will lock the entire table until the
operation is complete. Locking for write also blocks reads until
the write is complete. Note that more recent versions of mysql
support row level locking using different table types. These
types are slower than the standard type, and Bugzilla does not
yet take advantage of features such as transactions which would
justify this speed decrease. The Bugzilla team are, however,
happy to hear about any experiences with row level locking and
Bugzilla.
The "shadowdb" parameter was designed to get around this
limitation. While only a single user is allowed to write to a
table at a time, reads can continue unimpeded on a read-only
shadow copy of the database. Although your database size will
double, a shadow database can cause an enormous performance
improvement when implemented on extremely high-traffic Bugzilla
databases.
As a guide, on reasonably old hardware, mozilla.org began
needing "shadowdb" when they reached around 40,000 Bugzilla
users with several hundred Bugzilla bug changes and comments per
day.
The value of the parameter defines the name of the shadow bug
database. Set "shadowdb" to e.g. "bug_shadowdb" if you will be
running a *very* large installation of Bugzilla.
Note
Enabling "shadowdb" can adversely affect the stability of your
installation of Bugzilla. You should regularly check that your database
is in sync. It is often advisable to force a shadow database sync
nightly via "cron".
If you use the "shadowdb" option, it is only natural that you
should turn the "queryagainstshadowdb" option on as well.
Otherwise you are replicating data into a shadow database for no
reason!
shutdownhtml
If you need to shut down Bugzilla to perform administration,
enter some descriptive text (with embedded HTML codes, if you'd
like) into this box. Anyone who tries to use Bugzilla (including
admins) will receive a page displaying this text. Users can
neither log in nor log out while shutdownhtml is enabled.
Note
Although regular log-in capability is disabled while 'shutdownhtml' is
enabled, safeguards are in place to protect the unfortunate admin who
loses connection to Bugzilla. Should this happen to you, go directly to
the editparams.cgi (by typing the URL in manually, if necessary). Doing
this will prompt you to log in, and your name/password will be accepted
here (but nowhere else).
passwordmail
Every time a user creates an account, the text of this parameter
(with substitutions) is sent to the new user along with their
password message.
Add any text you wish to the "passwordmail" parameter box. For
instance, many people choose to use this box to give a quick
training blurb about how to use Bugzilla at your site.
movebugs
This option is an undocumented feature to allow moving bugs
between separate Bugzilla installations. You will need to
understand the source code in order to use this feature. Please
consult movebugs.pl in your Bugzilla source tree for further
documentation, such as it is.
useqacontact
This allows you to define an email address for each component,
in addition to that of the default owner, who will be sent
carbon copies of incoming bugs.
usestatuswhiteboard
This defines whether you wish to have a free-form, overwritable
field associated with each bug. The advantage of the Status
Whiteboard is that it can be deleted or modified with ease, and
provides an easily-searchable field for indexing some bugs that
have some trait in common.
whinedays
Set this to the number of days you want to let bugs go in the
NEW or REOPENED state before notifying people they have
untouched new bugs. If you do not plan to use this feature,
simply do not set up the whining cron job described in the
installation instructions, or set this value to "0" (never
whine).
commenton*
All these fields allow you to dictate what changes can pass
without comment, and which must have a comment from the person
who changed them. Often, administrators will allow users to add
themselves to the CC list, accept bugs, or change the Status
Whiteboard without adding a comment as to their reasons for the
change, yet require that most other changes come with an
explanation.
Set the "commenton" options according to your site policy. It is
a wise idea to require comments when users resolve, reassign, or
reopen bugs at the very least.
Note
It is generally far better to require a developer comment when
resolving bugs than not. Few things are more annoying to bug database
users than having a developer mark a bug "fixed" without any comment as
to what the fix was (or even that it was truly fixed!)
supportwatchers
Turning on this option allows users to ask to receive copies of
bug mail sent to another user. Watching a user with different
group permissions is not a way to 'get around' the system;
copied emails are still subject to the normal groupset
permissions of a bug, and "watchers" will only be copied on
emails from bugs they would normally be allowed to view.
sendmailnow
When Bugzilla is using Sendmail older than 8.12, turning this
option off will improve performance by not waiting for Sendmail
to actually send mail. If Sendmail 8.12 or later is being used,
there is nothing to gain by turning this off. If another MTA is
being used, such as Postfix, then this option *must* be turned
on (even if you are using the fake sendmail executable that
Postfix provides).
__________________________________________________________________
5.2. User Administration
5.2.1. Creating the Default User
When you first run checksetup.pl after installing Bugzilla, it will
prompt you for the administrative username (email address) and password
for this "super user". If for some reason you delete the "super user"
account, re-running checksetup.pl will again prompt you for this
username and password.
Tip
If you wish to add more administrative users, you must use the MySQL
interface. Run "mysql" from the command line, and use these commands:
mysql> use bugs;
mysql> update profiles set groupset=0x7fffffffffffffff where login_name
= "(user's login name)";
Yes, that is fifteen "f" 's. A whole lot of f-ing going on if you want
to create a new administator.
__________________________________________________________________
5.2.2. Managing Other Users
5.2.2.1. Creating new users
Your users can create their own user accounts by clicking the "New
Account" link at the bottom of each page (assuming they aren't logged
in as someone else already.) However, should you desire to create user
accounts ahead of time, here is how you do it.
1. After logging in, click the "Users" link at the footer of the query
page, and then click "Add a new user".
2. Fill out the form presented. This page is self-explanatory. When
done, click "Submit".
Note
Adding a user this way will not send an email informing them of their
username and password. While useful for creating dummy accounts
(watchers which shuttle mail to another system, for instance, or email
addresses which are a mailing list), in general it is preferable to log
out and use the "New Account" button to create users, as it will
pre-populate all the required fields and also notify the user of her
account name and password.
__________________________________________________________________
5.2.2.2. Modifying Users
To see a specific user, search for their login name in the box provided
on the "Edit Users" page. To see all users, leave the box blank.
You can search in different ways the listbox to the right of the text
entry box. You can match by case-insensitive substring (the default),
regular expression, or a reverse regular expression match, which finds
every user name which does NOT match the regular expression. (Please
see the man regexp manual page for details on regular expression
syntax.)
Once you have found your user, you can change the following fields:
* Login Name: This is generally the user's full email address.
However, if you have are using the emailsuffix Param, this may just
be the user's login name. Note that users can now change their
login names themselves (to any valid email address.)
* Real Name: The user's real name. Note that Bugzilla does not
require this to create an account.
* Password: You can change the user's password here. Users can
automatically request a new password, so you shouldn't need to do
this often. If you want to disable an account, see Disable Text
below.
* Disable Text: If you type anything in this box, including just a
space, the user is prevented from logging in, or making any changes
to bugs via the web interface. The HTML you type in this box is
presented to the user when they attempt to perform these actions,
and should explain why the account was disabled.
Users with disabled accounts will continue to receive mail from
Bugzilla; furthermore, they will not be able to log in themselves
to change their own preferences and stop it. If you want an account
(disabled or active) to stop receiving mail, add the account name
(one account per line) to the file data/nomail.
Note
Even users whose accounts have been disabled can still submit bugs via
the e-mail gateway, if one exists. The e-mail gateway should not be
enabled for secure installations of Bugzilla.
Warning
Don't disable all the administrator accounts!
* <groupname>: If you have created some groups, e.g.
"securitysensitive", then checkboxes will appear here to allow you
to add users to, or remove them from, these groups.
* canconfirm: This field is only used if you have enabled the
"unconfirmed" status. If you enable this for a user, that user can
then move bugs from "Unconfirmed" to a "Confirmed" status (e.g.:
"New" status).
* creategroups: This option will allow a user to create and destroy
groups in Bugzilla.
* editbugs: Unless a user has this bit set, they can only edit those
bugs for which they are the assignee or the reporter. Even if this
option is unchecked, users can still add comments to bugs.
* editcomponents: This flag allows a user to create new products and
components, as well as modify and destroy those that have no bugs
associated with them. If a product or component has bugs associated
with it, those bugs must be moved to a different product or
component before Bugzilla will allow them to be destroyed.
* editkeywords: If you use Bugzilla's keyword functionality, enabling
this feature allows a user to create and destroy keywords. As
always, the keywords for existing bugs containing the keyword the
user wishes to destroy must be changed before Bugzilla will allow
it to die.
* editusers: This flag allows a user to do what you're doing right
now: edit other users. This will allow those with the right to do
so to remove administrator privileges from other users or grant
them to themselves. Enable with care.
* tweakparams: This flag allows a user to change Bugzilla's Params
(using editparams.cgi.)
* <productname>: This allows an administrator to specify the products
in which a user can see bugs. The user must still have the
"editbugs" privilege to edit bugs in these products.
__________________________________________________________________
5.3. Product, Component, Milestone, and Version Administration
5.3.1. Products
Products are the broadest category in Bugzilla, and tend to represent
real-world shipping products. E.g. if your company makes computer
games, you should have one product per game, perhaps a "Common" product
for units of technology used in multiple games, and maybe a few special
products (Website, Administration...)
Many of Bugzilla's settings are configurable on a per-product basis.
The number of "votes" available to users is set per-product, as is the
number of votes required to move a bug automatically from the
UNCONFIRMED status to the NEW status.
To create a new product:
1. Select "products" from the footer
2. Select the "Add" link in the bottom right
3. Enter the name of the product and a description. The Description
field may contain HTML.
Don't worry about the "Closed for bug entry", "Maximum Votes per
person", "Maximum votes a person can put on a single bug", "Number of
votes a bug in this Product needs to automatically get out of the
UNCONFIRMED state", and "Version" options yet. We'll cover those in a
few moments.
__________________________________________________________________
5.3.2. Components
Components are subsections of a Product. E.g. the computer game you are
designing may have a "UI" component, an "API" component, a "Sound
System" component, and a "Plugins" component, each overseen by a
different programmer. It often makes sense to divide Components in
Bugzilla according to the natural divisions of responsibility within
your Product or company.
Each component has a owner and (if you turned it on in the parameters),
a QA Contact. The owner should be the primary person who fixes bugs in
that component. The QA Contact should be the person who will ensure
these bugs are completely fixed. The Owner, QA Contact, and Reporter
will get email when new bugs are created in this Component and when
these bugs change. Default Owner and Default QA Contact fields only
dictate the default assignments; these can be changed on bug
submission, or at any later point in a bug's life.
To create a new Component:
1. Select the "Edit components" link from the "Edit product" page
2. Select the "Add" link in the bottom right.
3. Fill out the "Component" field, a short "Description", the "Initial
Owner" and "Initial QA Contact" (if enabled.) The Component and
Description fields may contain HTML; the "Initial Owner" field must
be a login name already existing in the database.
__________________________________________________________________
5.3.3. Versions
Versions are the revisions of the product, such as "Flinders 3.1",
"Flinders 95", and "Flinders 2000". Version is not a multi-select
field; the usual practice is to select the most recent version with the
bug.
To create and edit Versions:
1. From the "Edit product" screen, select "Edit Versions"
2. You will notice that the product already has the default version
"undefined". Click the "Add" link in the bottom right.
3. Enter the name of the Version. This field takes text only. Then
click the "Add" button.
__________________________________________________________________
5.3.4. Milestones
Milestones are "targets" that you plan to get a bug fixed by. For
example, you have a bug that you plan to fix for your 3.0 release, it
would be assigned the milestone of 3.0.
Note
Milestone options will only appear for a Product if you turned on the
"usetargetmilestone" Param in the "Edit Parameters" screen.
To create new Milestones, set Default Milestones, and set Milestone
URL:
1. Select "Edit milestones" from the "Edit product" page.
2. Select "Add" in the bottom right corner. text
3. Enter the name of the Milestone in the "Milestone" field. You can
optionally set the "sortkey", which is a positive or negative
number (-255 to 255) that defines where in the list this particular
milestone appears. This is because milestones often do not occur in
alphanumeric order For example, "Future" might be after "Release
1.2". Select "Add".
4. From the Edit product screen, you can enter the URL of a page which
gives information about your milestones and what they mean.
Tip
If you want your milestone document to be restricted so that it can
only be viewed by people in a particular Bugzilla group, the best way
is to attach the document to a bug in that group, and make the URL the
URL of that attachment.
__________________________________________________________________
5.4. Voting
Voting allows users to be given a pot of votes which they can allocate
to bugs, to indicate that they'd like them fixed. This allows
developers to gauge user need for a particular enhancement or bugfix.
By allowing bugs with a certain number of votes to automatically move
from "UNCONFIRMED" to "NEW", users of the bug system can help
high-priority bugs garner attention so they don't sit for a long time
awaiting triage.
To modify Voting settings:
1. Navigate to the "Edit product" screen for the Product you wish to
modify
2. Maximum Votes per person: Setting this field to "0" disables
voting.
3. Maximum Votes a person can put on a single bug": It should probably
be some number lower than the "Maximum votes per person". Don't set
this field to "0" if "Maximum votes per person" is non-zero; that
doesn't make any sense.
4. Number of votes a bug in this product needs to automatically get
out of the UNCONFIRMED state: Setting this field to "0" disables
the automatic move of bugs from UNCONFIRMED to NEW.
5. Once you have adjusted the values to your preference, click
"Update".
__________________________________________________________________
5.5. Groups and Group Security
Groups allow the administrator to isolate bugs or products that should
only be seen by certain people. There are two types of group - Generic
Groups, and Product-Based Groups.
Product-Based Groups are matched with products, and allow you to
restrict access to bugs on a per-product basis. They are enabled using
the usebuggroups Param. Turning on the usebuggroupsentry Param will
mean bugs automatically get added to their product group when filed.
Generic Groups have no special relationship to products; you create
them, and put bugs in them as required. One example of the use of
Generic Groups is Mozilla's "Security" group, into which
security-sensitive bugs are placed until fixed. Only the Mozilla
Security Team are members of this group.
To create Generic Groups:
1. Select the "groups" link in the footer.
2. Take a moment to understand the instructions on the "Edit Groups"
screen, then select the "Add Group" link.
3. Fill out the "New Name", "New Description", and "New User RegExp"
fields. "New User RegExp" allows you to automatically place all
users who fulfill the Regular Expression into the new group. When
you have finished, click "Add".
To use Product-Based Groups:
1. Turn on "usebuggroups" and "usebuggroupsentry" in the "Edit
Parameters" screen.
Warning
XXX is this still true? "usebuggroupsentry" has the capacity to prevent
the administrative user from directly altering bugs because of
conflicting group permissions. If you plan on using
"usebuggroupsentry", you should plan on restricting administrative
account usage to administrative duties only. In other words, manage
bugs with an unpriveleged user account, and manage users, groups,
Products, etc. with the administrative account.
2. In future, when you create a Product, a matching group will be
automatically created. If you need to add a Product Group to a
Product which was created before you turned on usebuggroups, then
simply create a new group, as outlined above, with the same name as
the Product.
Warning
Bugzilla currently has a limit of 64 groups per installation. If you
have more than about 50 products, you should consider running multiple
Bugzillas. Ask in the newsgroup for other suggestions for working
around this restriction.
Note that group permissions are such that you need to be a member of
all the groups a bug is in, for whatever reason, to see that bug.
Note
By default, bugs can also be seen by the Assignee, the Reporter, and by
everyone on the CC List, regardless of whether or not the bug would
typically be viewable by them. Visibility to the Reporter and CC List
can be overridden (on a per-bug basis) by bringing up the bug, finding
the section that starts with "Users in the roles selected below..." and
un-checking the box next to either 'Reporter' or 'CC List' (or both).
__________________________________________________________________
5.6. Bugzilla Security
Warning
Poorly-configured MySQL and Bugzilla installations have given attackers
full access to systems in the past. Please take these guidelines
seriously, even for Bugzilla machines hidden away behind your firewall.
80% of all computer trespassers are insiders, not anonymous crackers.
Note
These instructions must, of necessity, be somewhat vague since Bugzilla
runs on so many different platforms. If you have refinements of these
directions, please submit a bug to Bugzilla.
Warning
This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of every possible security
issue regarding the tools mentioned in this section. There is no
subsitute for reading the information written by the authors of any
software running on your system.
__________________________________________________________________
5.6.1. TCP/IP Ports
TCP/IP defines 65,000 some ports for trafic. Of those, Bugzilla only
needs 1... 2 if you need to use features that require e-mail such as
bug moving or the e-mail interface from contrib. You should audit your
server and make sure that you aren't listening on any ports you don't
need to be. You may also wish to use some kind of firewall software to
be sure that trafic can only be recieved on ports you specify.
__________________________________________________________________
5.6.2. MySQL
MySQL ships by default with many settings that should be changed. By
defaults it allows anybody to connect from localhost without a password
and have full administrative capabilities. It also defaults to not have
a root password (this is not the same as the system root). Also, many
installations default to running mysqld as the system root.
1. Make sure you are running at least version 3.22.32 of MySQL as
earlier versions had notable security holes.
2. Consult the documentation that came with your system for
information on making mysqld run as an unprivileged user.
3. You should also be sure to disable the anonymous user account and
set a password for the root user. This is accomplished using the
following commands:
bash$ mysql mysql
mysql> DELETE FROM user WHERE user = '';
mysql> UPDATE user SET password = password('new_password') WHERE user = 'root';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
From this point forward you will need to use mysql -u root -p and
enter new_password when prompted when using the mysql client.
4. If you run MySQL on the same machine as your httpd server, you
should consider disabling networking from within MySQL by adding
the following to your /etc/my.cnf:
[myslqd]
# Prevent network access to MySQL.
skip-networking
5. You may also consider running MySQL, or even all of Bugzilla in a
chroot jail; however, instructions for doing that are beyond the
scope of this document.
__________________________________________________________________
5.6.3. Daemon Accounts
Many daemons, such as Apache's httpd and MySQL's mysqld default to
running as either "root" or "nobody". Running as "root" introduces
obvious security problems, but the problems introduced by running
everything as "nobody" may not be so obvious. Basically, if you're
running every daemon as "nobody" and one of them gets compromised, they
all get compromised. For this reason it is recommended that you create
a user account for each daemon.
Note
You will need to set the webservergroup to the group you created for
your webserver to run as in localconfig. This will allow
./checksetup.pl to better adjust the file permissions on your Bugzilla
install so as to not require making anything world-writable.
__________________________________________________________________
5.6.4. Web Server Access Controls
There are many files that are placed in the Bugzilla directory area
that should not be accessable from the web. Because of the way Bugzilla
is currently layed out, the list of what should and should not be
accessible is rather complicated. A new installation method is
currently in the works which should solve this by allowing files that
shouldn't be accessible from the web to be placed in directory outside
the webroot. See bug 44659 for more information.
* In the main Bugzilla directory, you should:
+ Block: *.pl, *localconfig*, runtests.sh, processmail,
syncshadowdb
+ But allow: localconfig.js, localconfig.rdf
* In data:
+ Block everything
+ But allow: duplicates.rdf
* In data/webdot:
+ If you use a remote webdot server:
o Block everything
o But allow *.dot only for the remote webdot server
+ Otherwise, if you use a local GraphViz:
o Block everything
o But allow: *.png, *.gif, *.jpg, *.map
+ And if you don't use any dot:
o Block everything
* In Bugzilla:
+ Block everything
* In template:
+ Block everything
Tip
Bugzilla ships with the ability to generate .htaccess files instructing
Apache which files should and should not be accessible.
You should test to make sure that the files mentioned above are not
accessible from the Internet, especially your localconfig file which
contains your database password. To test, simply point your web browser
at the file; for example, to test mozilla.org's installation, we'd try
to access https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/localconfig. You should get a 403
Forbidden error.
Caution
Not following the instructions in this section, including testing, may
result in sensitive information being globally accessible.
__________________________________________________________________
5.7. Template Customisation
One of the large changes for 2.16 was the templatisation of the entire
user-facing UI, using the Template Toolkit. Administrators can now
configure the look and feel of Bugzilla without having to edit Perl
files or face the nightmare of massive merge conflicts when they
upgrade to a newer version in the future.
Templatisation also makes localised versions of Bugzilla possible, for
the first time. In the future, a Bugzilla installation may have
templates installed for multiple localisations, and select which ones
to use based on the user's browser language setting.
__________________________________________________________________
5.7.1. Template Directory Structure
The template directory structure starts with top level directory named
template, which contains a directory for each installed localization.
The next level defines the language used in the templates. Bugzilla
comes with English templates, so the directory name is en, and we will
discuss template/en throughout the documentation. Below template/en is
the default directory, which contains all the standard templates
shipped with Bugzilla.
Warning
A directory data/templates also exists; this is where Template Toolkit
puts the compiled versions of the templates from either the default or
custom directories. Do not directly edit the files in this directory,
or all your changes will be lost the next time Template Toolkit
recompiles the templates.
__________________________________________________________________
5.7.2. Choosing a Customization Method
If you want to edit Bugzilla's templates, the first decision you must
make is how you want to go about doing so. There are two choices, and
which you use depends mainly on the scope of your modifications, and
the method you plan to use to upgrade Bugzilla.
The first method of making customizations is to directly edit the
templates found in template/en/default. This is probably the best way
to go about it if you are going to be upgrading Bugzilla through CVS,
because if you then execute a cvs update, any changes you have made
will be merged automagically with the updated versions.
Note
If you use this method, and CVS conflicts occur during an update, the
conflicted templates (and possibly other parts of your installation)
will not work until they are resolved.
The second method is to copy the templates to be modified into a
mirrored directory structure under template/en/custom. Templates in
this directory structure automatically override any identically-named
and identically-located templates in the default directory.
Note
The custom directory does not exist at first and must be created if you
want to use it.
The second method of customization should be used if you use the
overwriting method of upgrade, because otherwise your changes will be
lost. This method may also be better if you are using the CVS method of
upgrading and are going to make major changes, because it is guaranteed
that the contents of this directory will not be touched during an
upgrade, and you can then decide whether to continue using your own
templates, or make the effort to merge your changes into the new
versions by hand.
Using this method, your installation may break if incompatible changes
are made to the template interface. Such changes should be documented
in the release notes, provided you are using a stable release of
Bugzilla. If you use using unstable code, you will need to deal with
this one yourself, although if possible the changes will be mentioned
before they occur in the deprecations section of the previous stable
release's release notes.
Note
Regardless of which method you choose, it is recommended that you run
./checksetup.pl after creating or editing any templates in the
template/en/default directory, and after editing any templates in the
custom directory.
Warning
It is required that you run ./checksetup.pl after creating a new
template in the custom directory. Failure to do so will raise an
incomprehensible error message.
__________________________________________________________________
5.7.3. How To Edit Templates
Note
If you are making template changes that you intend on submitting back
for inclusion in standard Bugzilla, you should read the relevant
sections of the Developers' Guide.
The syntax of the Template Toolkit language is beyond the scope of this
guide. It's reasonably easy to pick up by looking at the current
templates; or, you can read the manual, available on the Template
Toolkit home page.
One thing you should take particular care about is the need to properly
HTML filter data that has been passed into the template. This means
that if the data can possibly contain special HTML characters such as
<, and the data was not intended to be HTML, they need to be converted
to entity form, ie <. You use the 'html' filter in the Template
Toolkit to do this. If you forget, you may open up your installation to
cross-site scripting attacks.
Also note that Bugzilla adds a few filters of its own, that are not in
standard Template Toolkit. In particular, the 'url_quote' filter can
convert characters that are illegal or have special meaning in URLs,
such as &, to the encoded form, ie %26. This actually encodes most
characters (but not the common ones such as letters and numbers and so
on), including the HTML-special characters, so there's never a need to
HTML filter afterwards.
Editing templates is a good way of doing a "poor man's custom fields".
For example, if you don't use the Status Whiteboard, but want to have a
free-form text entry box for "Build Identifier", then you can just edit
the templates to change the field labels. It's still be called
status_whiteboard internally, but your users don't need to know that.
__________________________________________________________________
5.7.4. Template Formats
Some CGIs have the ability to use more than one template. For example,
buglist.cgi can output itself as RDF, or as two formats of HTML
(complex and simple). If you would like to retrieve a certain format,
you can use the &format=<format> (such as simple or complex) in the
URL. (Try this out by appending &format=simple to a buglist.cgi URL on
your Bugzilla installation.) The mechanism that provides this feature
is extensible.
To see if a CGI supports multiple output formats, grep the CGI for
"ValidateOutputFormat". If it's not present, adding multiple format
support isn't too hard; see how it's done in other CGIs.
To make a new format template for a CGI which supports this, open a
current template for that CGI and take note of the INTERFACE comment
(if present.) This comment defines what variables are passed into this
template. If there isn't one, I'm afraid you'll have to read the
template and the code to find out what information you get.
Write your template in whatever markup or text style is appropriate.
You now need to decide what content type you want your template served
as. Open up the localconfig file and find the $contenttypes variable.
If your content type is not there, add it. Remember the three- or
four-letter tag assigned to your content type. This tag will be part of
the template filename.
Save the template as <stubname>-<formatname>.<contenttypetag>.tmpl. Try
out the template by calling the CGI as
<cginame>.cgi?format=<formatname> .
__________________________________________________________________
5.7.5. Particular Templates
There are a few templates you may be particularly interested in
customising for your installation.
index.html.tmpl: This is the Bugzilla front page.
global/header.html.tmpl: This defines the header that goes on all
Bugzilla pages. The header includes the banner, which is what appears
to users and is probably what you want to edit instead. However the
header also includes the HTML HEAD section, so you could for example
add a stylesheet or META tag by editing the header.
global/banner.html.tmpl: This contains the "banner", the part of the
header that appears at the top of all Bugzilla pages. The default
banner is reasonably barren, so you'll probably want to customise this
to give your installation a distinctive look and feel. It is
recommended you preserve the Bugzilla version number in some form so
the version you are running can be determined, and users know what docs
to read.
global/footer.html.tmpl: This defines the footer that goes on all
Bugzilla pages. Editing this is another way to quickly get a
distinctive look and feel for your Bugzilla installation.
list/table.html.tmpl: This template controls the appearance of the bug
lists created by Bugzilla. Editing this template allows per-column
control of the width and title of a column, the maximum display length
of each entry, and the wrap behaviour of long entries. For long bug
lists, Bugzilla inserts a 'break' every 100 bugs by default; this
behaviour is also controlled by this template, and that value can be
modified here.
bug/create/user-message.html.tmpl: This is a message that appears near
the top of the bug reporting page. By modifying this, you can tell your
users how they should report bugs.
bug/process/midair.html.tmpl: This is the page used if two people
submit simultaneous changes to the same bug. The second person to
submit their changes will get this page to tell them what the first
person did, and ask if they wish to overwrite those changes or go back
and revisit the bug. The default title and header on this page read
"Mid-air collision detected!" If you work in the aviation industry, or
other environment where this might be found offensive (yes, we have
true stories of this happening) you'll want to change this to something
more appropriate for your environment.
bug/create/create.html.tmpl and bug/create/comment.txt.tmpl: You may
not wish to go to the effort of creating custom fields in Bugzilla, yet
you want to make sure that each bug report contains a number of pieces
of important information for which there is not a special field. The
bug entry system has been designed in an extensible fashion to enable
you to add arbitrary HTML widgets, such as drop-down lists or
textboxes, to the bug entry page and have their values appear formatted
in the initial comment.
An example of this is the mozilla.org guided bug submission form. The
code for this comes with the Bugzilla distribution as an example for
you to copy. It can be found in the files create-guided.html.tmpl and
comment-guided.html.tmpl.
So to use this feature, create a custom template for enter_bug.cgi. The
default template, on which you could base it, is
custom/bug/create/create.html.tmpl. Call it
create-<formatname>.html.tmpl, and in it, add widgets for each piece of
information you'd like collected - such as a build number, or set of
steps to reproduce.
Then, create a template like custom/bug/create/comment.txt.tmpl, and
call it comment-<formatname>.txt.tmpl. This template should reference
the form fields you have created using the syntax [% form.<fieldname>
%]. When a bug report is submitted, the initial comment attached to the
bug report will be formatted according to the layout of this template.
For example, if your enter_bug template had a field
<input type="text" name="buildid" size="30">
and then your comment.txt.tmpl had
BuildID: [% form.buildid %]
then
BuildID: 20020303
would appear in the initial checkin comment.
__________________________________________________________________
5.8. Upgrading to New Releases
Upgrading Bugzilla is something we all want to do from time to time, be
it to get new features or pick up the latest security fix. How easy it
is to update depends on a few factors:
* If the new version is a revision or a new point release
* How many local changes (if any) have been made
__________________________________________________________________
5.8.1. Version Definitions
Bugzilla displays the version you are using at the top of most pages
you load. It will look something like '2.16.7' or '2.18rc3' or
'2.19.1+'. The first number in this series is the Major Version. This
does not change very often (that is to say, almost never); Bugzilla was
1.x.x when it was first created, and went to 2.x.x when it was
re-written in perl in Sept 1998. If/When the major version is changed
to 3.x.x, it will signify a significant structural change and will be
accompanied by much fanfare and many instructions on how to upgrade,
including a revision to this page. :)
The second number in the version is called the 'minor number', and a
release that changes the minor number is called a 'point release'. An
even number in this position (2.14, 2.16, 2.18, 2.20, etc.) represents
a stable version, while an odd number (2.17, 2.19, etc.) represents a
development version. In the past, stable point releases were
feature-based, coming when certain enhancements had been completed, or
the Bugzilla development team felt that enough progress had been made
overall. As of version 2.18, however, Bugzilla has moved to a
time-based release schedule; current plans are to create a stable point
release every 6 months or so after 2.18 is deployed.
The third number in the Bugzilla version represents a bugfix version.
Bugfix Revisions are normally released only to address security
vulnerabilities; in the future, it is likely that the Bugzilla
development team will back-port bugfixes in a new point release to the
old point release for a limited period. Once enough of these bugfixes
have accumulated (or a new security vulnerability is identified and
closed), a bugfix release will be made. As an example, 2.16.6 was a
bugfix release, and improved on 2.16.5.
Note
When reading version numbers, everything separated by a point ('.')
should be read as a single number. It is not the same as decimal. 2.14
is newer than 2.8 because minor version 14 is greater than minor
version 8. 2.24.11 would be newer than 2.24.9 (because bugfix 11 is
greater than bugfix 9. This is confusing to some people who aren't used
to dealing with software.
__________________________________________________________________
5.8.2. Upgrading - Methods and Procedure
There are three different ways to upgrade your installation.
1. Using CVS (Section 5.8.2.1)
2. Downloading a new tarball (Section 5.8.2.2)
3. Applying the relevant patches (Section 5.8.2.3)
Each of these options has its own pros and cons; the one that's right
for you depends on how long it has been since you last installed, the
degree to which you have customized your installation, and/or your
network configuration. (Some discussion of the various methods of
updating compared with degree and methods of local customization can be
found in Section 5.7.2.)
The larger the jump you are trying to make, the more difficult it is
going to be to upgrade if you have made local customizations. Upgrading
from 2.18 to 2.18.1 should be fairly painless even if you are heavily
customized, but going from 2.14 to 2.18 is going to mean a fair bit of
work re-writing your local changes to use the new files, logic,
templates, etc. If you have done no local changes at all, however, then
upgrading should be approximately the same amount of work regardless of
how long it has been since your version was released.
Warning
Upgrading is a one-way process. You should backup your database and
current Bugzilla directory before attempting the upgrade. If you wish
to revert to the old Bugzilla version for any reason, you will have to
restore from these backups.
The examples in the following sections are written as though the user
were updating to version 2.18.1, but the procedures are the same
regardless of whether one is updating to a new point release or simply
trying to obtain a new bugfix release. Also, in the examples the user's
Bugzilla installation is found at /var/www/html/bugzilla. If that is
not the same as the location of your Bugzilla installation, simply
substitute the proper paths where appropriate.
__________________________________________________________________
5.8.2.1. Upgrading using CVS
Every release of Bugzilla, whether it is a point release or a bugfix,
is tagged in CVS. Also, every tarball that has been distributed since
version 2.12 has been created in such a way that it can be used with
CVS once it is unpacked. Doing so, however, requires that you are able
to access cvs-mirror.mozilla.org on port 2401, which may not be an
option or a possibility for some users, especially those behind a
highly restrictive firewall.
Tip
If you can, updating using CVS is probably the most painless method,
especially if you have a lot of local changes.
The following shows the sequence of commands needed to update a
Bugzilla installation via CVS, and a typical series of results.
bash$ cd /var/www/html/bugzilla
bash$ cvs login
Logging in to :pserver:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:2401/cvsroot
CVS password: ('anonymous', or just leave it blank)
bash$ cvs -q update -r BUGZILLA-2_18_1 -dP
P checksetup.pl
P collectstats.pl
P globals.pl
P docs/rel_notes.txt
P template/en/default/list/quips.html.tmpl
(etc.)
Caution
If a line in the output from cvs update begins with a C, then that
represents a file with local changes that CVS was unable to properly
merge. You need to resolve these conflicts manually before Bugzilla (or
at least the portion using that file) will be usable.
__________________________________________________________________
5.8.2.2. Upgrading using the tarball
If you are unable (or unwilling) to use CVS, another option that's
always available is to obtain the latest tarball from the Download Page
and create a new Bugzilla installation from that.
This sequence of commands shows how to get the tarball from the
command-line; it is also possible to download it from the site directly
in a web browser. If you go that route, save the file to the
/var/www/html directory (or its equivalent, if you use something else)
and omit the first three lines of the example.
bash$ cd /var/www/html
bash$ wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/webtools/bugzilla-2.18.1.tar.g
z
(Output omitted)
bash$ tar xzvf bugzilla-2.18.1.tar.gz
bugzilla-2.18.1/
bugzilla-2.18.1/.cvsignore
bugzilla-2.18.1/1x1.gif
(Output truncated)
bash$ cd bugzilla-2.18.1
bash$ cp ../bugzilla/localconfig* .
bash$ cp -r ../bugzilla/data .
bash$ cd ..
bash$ mv bugzilla bugzilla.old
bash$ mv bugzilla-2.18.1 bugzilla
Warning
The cp commands both end with periods which is a very important detail,
it tells the shell that the destination directory is the current
working directory.
This upgrade method will give you a clean install of Bugzilla with the
same version as the tarball. That's fine if you don't have any local
customizations that you want to maintain, but if you do then you will
need to reapply them by hand to the appropriate files.
It's worth noting that since 2.12, the Bugzilla tarballs come
CVS-ready, so if you decide at a later date that you'd rather use CVS
as an upgrade method, your code will already be set up for it.
__________________________________________________________________
5.8.2.3. Upgrading using patches
If you are doing a bugfix upgrade -- that is, one where only the last
number of the revision changes, such as from 2.16.6 to 2.16.7 -- then
you have the option of obtaining and applying a patch file from the
Download Page. This file is made available by the Bugzilla Development
Team, and is a collection of all the bug fixes and security patches
that have been made since the last bugfix release. If you are planning
to upgrade via patches, it is safer to grab this developer-made patch
file than to read the patch notes and apply all (or even just some of)
the patches oneself, as sometimes patches on bugs get changed before
they get checked in.
As above, this example starts with obtaining the file via the command
line. If you have already downloaded it, you can omit the first two
commands.
bash$ cd /var/www/html/bugzilla
bash$ wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/webtools/bugzilla-2.18.0-to-2.
18.1.diff.gz
(Output omitted)
bash$ gunzip bugzilla-2.18.0-to-2.18.1.diff.gz
bash$ patch -p1 < bugzilla-2.18.0-to-2.18.1.diff
patching file checksetup.pl
patching file collectstats.pl
patching file globals.pl
(etc.)
Warning
Be aware that upgrading from a patch file does not change the entries
in your CVS directory. This could make it more difficult to upgrade
using CVS (Section 5.8.2.1) in the future.
__________________________________________________________________
5.8.3. Completing Your Upgrade
Regardless of which upgrade method you choose, you will need to run
./checksetup.pl before your Bugzilla upgrade will be complete.
bash$ cd bugzilla
bash$ ./checksetup.pl
Warning
The period at the beginning of the command ./checksetup.pl is important
and can not be omitted.
If you have done a lot of local modifications, it wouldn't hurt to run
the Bugzilla Testing suite. This is not a required step, but it isn't
going to hurt anything, and might help point out some areas that could
be improved. (More information on the test suite can be had by
following this link to the appropriate section in the Developers'
Guide.)
__________________________________________________________________
5.9. Integrating Bugzilla with Third-Party Tools
5.9.1. Bonsai
Bonsai is a web-based tool for managing CVS, the Concurrent Versioning
System . Using Bonsai, administrators can control open/closed status of
trees, query a fast relational database back-end for change, branch,
and comment information, and view changes made since the last time the
tree was closed. Bonsai also integrates with Tinderbox, the Mozilla
automated build management system.
__________________________________________________________________
5.9.2. CVS
CVS integration is best accomplished, at this point, using the Bugzilla
Email Gateway.
Follow the instructions in this Guide for enabling Bugzilla e-mail
integration. Ensure that your check-in script sends an email to your
Bugzilla e-mail gateway with the subject of "[Bug XXXX]", and you can
have CVS check-in comments append to your Bugzilla bug. If you want to
have the bug be closed automatically, you'll have to modify the
contrib/bugzilla_email_append.pl script.
There is also a CVSZilla project, based upon somewhat dated Bugzilla
code, to integrate CVS and Bugzilla through CVS' ability to email.
Check it out at: http://homepages.kcbbs.gen.nz/~tonyg/.
Another system capable of CVS integration with Bugzilla is Scmbug. This
system provides generic integration of Source code Configuration
Management with Bugtracking. Check it out at:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/scmbug/.
__________________________________________________________________
5.9.3. Perforce SCM
You can find the project page for Bugzilla and Teamtrack Perforce
integration (p4dti) at: http://www.ravenbrook.com/project/p4dti .
"p4dti" is now an officially supported product from Perforce, and you
can find the "Perforce Public Depot" p4dti page at
http://public.perforce.com/public/perforce/p4dti/index.html .
Integration of Perforce with Bugzilla, once patches are applied, is
seamless. Perforce replication information will appear below the
comments of each bug. Be certain you have a matching set of patches for
the Bugzilla version you are installing. p4dti is designed to support
multiple defect trackers, and maintains its own documentation for it.
Please consult the pages linked above for further information.
__________________________________________________________________
5.9.4. Subversion
Subversion is a free/open-source version control system, designed to
overcome various limitations of CVS. Integration of Subversion with
Bugzilla is possible using Scmbug, a system providing generic
integration of Source Code Configuration Management with Bugtracking.
Scmbug is available at http://freshmeat.net/projects/scmbug/.
__________________________________________________________________
5.9.5. Tinderbox/Tinderbox2
We need Tinderbox integration information.
__________________________________________________________________
Appendix A. The Bugzilla FAQ
This FAQ includes questions not covered elsewhere in the Guide.
1. General Questions
A.1.1. Where can I find information about Bugzilla?
A.1.2. What license is Bugzilla distributed under?
A.1.3. How do I get commercial support for Bugzilla?
A.1.4. What major companies or projects are currently using
Bugzilla for bug-tracking?
A.1.5. Who maintains Bugzilla?
A.1.6. How does Bugzilla stack up against other bug-tracking
databases?
A.1.7. Why doesn't Bugzilla offer this or that feature or
compatibility with this other tracking software?
A.1.8. Why MySQL? I'm interested in seeing Bugzilla run on
Oracle/Sybase/Msql/PostgreSQL/MSSQL.
A.1.9. Why do the scripts say /usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl instead of
/usr/bin/perl or something else?
A.1.10. Is there an easy way to change the Bugzilla cookie name?
2. Managerial Questions
A.2.1. Is Bugzilla web-based, or do you have to have specific
software or a specific operating system on your machine?
A.2.2. Can Bugzilla integrate with Perforce (SCM software)?
A.2.3. Does Bugzilla allow the user to track multiple projects?
A.2.4. If I am on many projects, and search for all bugs assigned
to me, will Bugzilla list them for me and allow me to sort
by project, severity etc?
A.2.5. Does Bugzilla allow attachments (text, screenshots, URLs
etc)? If yes, are there any that are NOT allowed?
A.2.6. Does Bugzilla allow us to define our own priorities and
levels? Do we have complete freedom to change the labels
of fields and format of them, and the choice of acceptable
values?
A.2.7. Does Bugzilla provide any reporting features, metrics,
graphs, etc? You know, the type of stuff that management
likes to see. :)
A.2.8. Is there email notification and if so, what do you see when
you get an email?
A.2.9. Can email notification be set up to send to multiple
people, some on the To List, CC List, BCC List etc?
A.2.10. Do users have to have any particular type of email
application?
A.2.11. Does Bugzilla allow data to be imported and exported? If I
had outsiders write up a bug report using a MS Word bug
template, could that template be imported into "matching"
fields? If I wanted to take the results of a query and
export that data to MS Excel, could I do that?
A.2.12. Has anyone converted Bugzilla to another language to be
used in other countries? Is it localizable?
A.2.13. Can a user create and save reports? Can they do this in
Word format? Excel format?
A.2.14. Does Bugzilla have the ability to search by word, phrase,
compound search?
A.2.15. Does Bugzilla provide record locking when there is
simultaneous access to the same bug? Does the second
person get a notice that the bug is in use or how are they
notified?
A.2.16. Are there any backup features provided?
A.2.17. Can users be on the system while a backup is in progress?
A.2.18. How can I update the code and the database using CVS?
A.2.19. What type of human resources are needed to be on staff to
install and maintain Bugzilla? Specifically, what type of
skills does the person need to have? I need to find out if
we were to go with Bugzilla, what types of individuals
would we need to hire and how much would that cost vs
buying an "Out-of-the-Box" solution.
A.2.20. What time frame are we looking at if we decide to hire
people to install and maintain the Bugzilla? Is this
something that takes hours or weeks to install and a
couple of hours per week to maintain and customize or is
this a multi-week install process, plus a full time job
for 1 person, 2 people, etc?
A.2.21. Is there any licensing fee or other fees for using
Bugzilla? Any out-of-pocket cost other than the bodies
needed as identified above?
A.2.22. Why do users have to log in every time they access a page?
This affects everyone who accesses my Bugzilla. (If this
only affects some of your users, see the next FAQ item.)
A.2.23. Why do users have to log in every time they access a page?
This only seems to affect some of my Bugzilla's users,
others stay logged in.
3. Bugzilla Security
A.3.1. How do I completely disable MySQL security if it's giving
me problems (I've followed the instructions in the
installation section of this guide)?
A.3.2. Are there any security problems with Bugzilla?
A.3.3. I've implemented the security fixes mentioned in Chris
Yeh's security advisory of 5/10/2000 advising not to run
MySQL as root, and am running into problems with MySQL no
longer working correctly.
4. Bugzilla Email
A.4.1. I have a user who doesn't want to receive any more email
from Bugzilla. How do I stop it entirely for this user?
A.4.2. I'm evaluating/testing Bugzilla, and don't want it to send
email to anyone but me. How do I do it?
A.4.3. I want whineatnews.pl to whine at something more, or other
than, only new bugs. How do I do it?
A.4.4. I don't like/want to use Procmail to hand mail off to
bug_email.pl. What alternatives do I have?
A.4.5. How do I set up the email interface to submit/change bugs
via email?
A.4.6. Email takes FOREVER to reach me from Bugzilla -- it's
extremely slow. What gives?
A.4.7. How come email from Bugzilla changes never reaches me?
5. Bugzilla Database
A.5.1. I've heard Bugzilla can be used with Oracle?
A.5.2. I think my database might be corrupted, or contain invalid
entries. What do I do?
A.5.3. I want to manually edit some entries in my database. How?
A.5.4. I think I've set up MySQL permissions correctly, but
Bugzilla still can't connect.
A.5.5. How do I synchronize bug information among multiple
different Bugzilla databases?
6. Bugzilla and Win32
A.6.1. What is the easiest way to run Bugzilla on Win32
(Win98+/NT/2K)?
A.6.2. Is there a "Bundle::Bugzilla" equivalent for Win32?
A.6.3. CGI's are failing with a "something.cgi is not a valid
Windows NT application" error. Why?
A.6.4. I'm having trouble with the perl modules for NT not being
able to talk to to the database.
7. Bugzilla Usage
A.7.1. How do I change my user name (email address) in Bugzilla?
A.7.2. The query page is very confusing. Isn't there a simpler way
to query?
A.7.3. I'm confused by the behavior of the "accept" button in the
Show Bug form. Why doesn't it assign the bug to me when I
accept it?
A.7.4. I can't upload anything into the database via the "Create
Attachment" link. What am I doing wrong?
A.7.5. How do I change a keyword in Bugzilla, once some bugs are
using it?
A.7.6. Why can't I close bugs from the "Change Several Bugs at
Once" page?
8. Bugzilla Hacking
A.8.1. What bugs are in Bugzilla right now?
A.8.2. How can I change the default priority to a null value? For
instance, have the default priority be "---" instead of
"P2"?
A.8.3. What's the best way to submit patches? What guidelines
should I follow?
1. General Questions
A.1.1. Where can I find information about Bugzilla?
You can stay up-to-date with the latest Bugzilla information at
https://www.bugzilla.org/
A.1.2. What license is Bugzilla distributed under?
Bugzilla is covered by the Mozilla Public License. See details at
https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
A.1.3. How do I get commercial support for Bugzilla?
https://www.bugzilla.org/support/consulting.html is a list of people and
companies who have asked us to list them as consultants for Bugzilla.
www.collab.net offers Bugzilla as part of their standard offering to
large projects. They do have some minimum fees that are pretty hefty,
and generally aren't interested in small projects.
There are several experienced Bugzilla hackers on the mailing
list/newsgroup who are willing to make themselves available for
generous compensation. Try sending a message to the mailing list asking
for a volunteer.
A.1.4. What major companies or projects are currently using Bugzilla
for bug-tracking?
There are dozens of major companies with public Bugzilla sites to track
bugs in their products. A few include:
Netscape/AOL
Mozilla.org
NASA
Red Hat Software
SuSe Corp
The Horde Project
AbiSource
Real Time Enterprises, Inc
Eggheads.org
Strata Software
RockLinux
Creative Labs (makers of SoundBlaster)
The Apache Foundation
The Gnome Foundation
Ximian
Linux-Mandrake
Suffice to say, there are more than enough huge projects using Bugzilla
that we can safely say it's extremely popular.
A.1.5. Who maintains Bugzilla?
A core team, led by Dave Miller (justdave@bugzilla.org).
A.1.6. How does Bugzilla stack up against other bug-tracking databases?
We can't find any head-to-head comparisons of Bugzilla against other
defect-tracking software. If you know of one, please get in touch.
However, from the author's personal experience with other bug-trackers,
Bugzilla offers superior performance on commodity hardware, better
price (free!), more developer- friendly features (such as stored
queries, email integration, and platform independence), improved
scalability, open source code, greater flexibility, and superior
ease-of-use.
If you happen to be a commercial bug-tracker vendor, please step
forward with a list of advantages your product has over Bugzilla. We'd
be happy to include it in the "Competitors" section.
A.1.7. Why doesn't Bugzilla offer this or that feature or compatibility
with this other tracking software?
It may be that the support has not been built yet, or that you have not
yet found it. Bugzilla is making tremendous strides in usability,
customizability, scalability, and user interface. It is widely
considered the most complete and popular open-source bug-tracking
software in existence.
That doesn't mean it can't use improvement! You can help the project
along by either hacking a patch yourself that supports the
functionality you require, or else submitting a "Request for
Enhancement" (RFE) using the bug submission interface at
bugzilla.mozilla.org.
A.1.8. Why MySQL? I'm interested in seeing Bugzilla run on
Oracle/Sybase/Msql/PostgreSQL/MSSQL.
MySQL was originally chosen because it is free, easy to install, and
was available for the hardware Netscape intended to run it on.
There is currently work in progress to make Bugzilla work on PostgreSQL
and Sybase in the default distribution. You can track the progress of
these initiatives in bugs 98304 and 173130 respectively.
Once both of these are done, adding support for additional database
servers should be trivial.
A.1.9. Why do the scripts say /usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl instead of
/usr/bin/perl or something else?
Mozilla.org used /usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl, because originally Terry
wanted a place to put a version of Perl and other tools that was
strictly under his control.
Note
This convention was abonded during the 2.17 development cycle so it
will no longer be an issue when 2.18 comes out.
A.1.10. Is there an easy way to change the Bugzilla cookie name?
At present, no.
2. Managerial Questions
Note
Questions likely to be asked by managers. :-)
A.2.1. Is Bugzilla web-based, or do you have to have specific software
or a specific operating system on your machine?
It is web and e-mail based. You can edit bugs by sending specially
formatted email to a properly configured Bugzilla, or control via the
web.
A.2.2. Can Bugzilla integrate with Perforce (SCM software)?
Yes! You can find more information elsewhere in "The Bugzilla Guide" in
the "Integration with Third-Party Products" section.
A.2.3. Does Bugzilla allow the user to track multiple projects?
Absolutely! You can track any number of Products that can each be
composed of any number of Components.
Note
There are only 55 groups available in version 2.16 of Bugzilla. If you
are using product groups, this will also limit the number of products
you can have. This limit does not exist in the current 2.17 development
releases and will not exist in 2.18.
A.2.4. If I am on many projects, and search for all bugs assigned to
me, will Bugzilla list them for me and allow me to sort by project,
severity etc?
Yes.
A.2.5. Does Bugzilla allow attachments (text, screenshots, URLs etc)?
If yes, are there any that are NOT allowed?
Yes - any sort of attachment is allowed, although administrators can
configure a maximum size. Bugzilla gives the user the option of either
using the MIME-type supplied by the browser, choosing from a
pre-defined list or manually typing any arbitrary MIME-type.
A.2.6. Does Bugzilla allow us to define our own priorities and levels?
Do we have complete freedom to change the labels of fields and format
of them, and the choice of acceptable values?
Yes. However, modifying some fields, notably those related to bug
progression states, also require adjusting the program logic to
compensate for the change.
There is no GUI for adding fields to Bugzilla at this time. You can
follow development of this feature at
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91037.
A.2.7. Does Bugzilla provide any reporting features, metrics, graphs,
etc? You know, the type of stuff that management likes to see. :)
Yes. Look at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/reports.cgi for samples of
what Bugzilla can do in reporting and graphing.
If you can not get the reports you want from the included reporting
scripts, it is possible to hook up a professional reporting package
such as Crystal Reports using ODBC. If you choose to do this, beware
that giving direct access to the database does contain some security
implications. Even if you give read-only access to the bugs database it
will bypass the secure bugs features of Bugzilla.
Note
Bugzilla's current development versions can do a lot more in the way of
reporting. To see examples, check out
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/report.cgi.
A.2.8. Is there email notification and if so, what do you see when you
get an email?
Email notification is user-configurable. By default, the bug id and
Summary of the bug report accompany each email notification, along with
a list of the changes made.
A.2.9. Can email notification be set up to send to multiple people,
some on the To List, CC List, BCC List etc?
Yes.
A.2.10. Do users have to have any particular type of email application?
Bugzilla email is sent in plain text, the most compatible mail format
on the planet.
Note
If you decide to use the bugzilla_email integration features to allow
Bugzilla to record responses to mail with the associated bug, you may
need to caution your users to set their mailer to "respond to messages
in the format in which they were sent". For security reasons Bugzilla
ignores HTML tags in comments, and if a user sends HTML-based email
into Bugzilla the resulting comment looks downright awful.
A.2.11. Does Bugzilla allow data to be imported and exported? If I had
outsiders write up a bug report using a MS Word bug template, could
that template be imported into "matching" fields? If I wanted to take
the results of a query and export that data to MS Excel, could I do
that?
Bugzilla can only output buglists as HTML in version 2.16. There are
other formats available (CSV and RDF) in the newer development
versions.
Bugzilla can export bugs using xml.cgi with either a bug number or list
of bug numbers.
Currently the only script included with Bugzilla that can import data
is importxml.pl which is intended to be used for importing the data
generated by xml.cgi in association with bug moving. Any other use is
left as an exercise for the user.
There are also scripts included in the contrib/ directory for using
e-mail to import information into Bugzilla, but these scripts are not
currently supported and included for educational purposes.
A.2.12. Has anyone converted Bugzilla to another language to be used in
other countries? Is it localizable?
Yes. For more information including available translated templates, see
https://www.bugzilla.org/download.html#localizations. The admin
interfaces are still not included in these translated templates and is
therefore still English only. Also, there may be issues with the
charset not being declared. See bug 126226 for more information.
A.2.13. Can a user create and save reports? Can they do this in Word
format? Excel format?
Yes. No. Not in 2.16.
A.2.14. Does Bugzilla have the ability to search by word, phrase,
compound search?
You have no idea. Bugzilla's query interface, particularly with the
advanced Boolean operators, is incredibly versatile.
A.2.15. Does Bugzilla provide record locking when there is simultaneous
access to the same bug? Does the second person get a notice that the
bug is in use or how are they notified?
Bugzilla does not lock records. It provides mid-air collision
detection, and offers the offending user a choice of options to deal
with the conflict.
A.2.16. Are there any backup features provided?
MySQL, the database back-end for Bugzilla, allows hot-backup of data.
You can find strategies for dealing with backup considerations at
https://www.mysql.com/doc/B/a/Backup.html
A.2.17. Can users be on the system while a backup is in progress?
Yes. However, commits to the database must wait until the tables are
unlocked. Bugzilla databases are typically very small, and backups
routinely take less than a minute.
A.2.18. How can I update the code and the database using CVS?
1. Make a backup of both your Bugzilla directory and the database. For
the Bugzilla directory this is as easy as doing cp -rp bugzilla
bugzilla.bak. For the database, there's a number of options - see
the MySQL docs and pick the one that fits you best (the easiest is
to just make a physical copy of the database on the disk, but you
have to have the database server shut down to do that without
risking dataloss).
2. Make the Bugzilla directory your current directory.
3. Use cvs -q update -AdP if you want to update to the tip or cvs -q
update -dP -rTAGNAME if you want a specific version (in that case
you'll have to replace TAGNAME with a CVS tag name such as
BUGZILLA-2_16_5).
If you've made no local changes, this should be very clean. If you
have made local changes, then watch the cvs output for C results.
If you get any lines that start with a C it means there were
conflicts between your local changes and what's in CVS. You'll need
to fix those manually before continuing.
4. After resolving any conflicts that the cvs update operation
generated, running ./checksetup.pl will take care of updating the
database for you as well as any other changes required for the new
version to operate.
Warning
Once you run checksetup.pl, the only way to go back is to restore the
database backups. You can't "downgrade" the system cleanly under most
circumstances.
A.2.19. What type of human resources are needed to be on staff to
install and maintain Bugzilla? Specifically, what type of skills does
the person need to have? I need to find out if we were to go with
Bugzilla, what types of individuals would we need to hire and how much
would that cost vs buying an "Out-of-the-Box" solution.
If Bugzilla is set up correctly from the start, continuing maintenance
needs are minimal and can be done easily using the web interface.
Commercial Bug-tracking software typically costs somewhere upwards of
$20,000 or more for 5-10 floating licenses. Bugzilla consultation is
available from skilled members of the newsgroup. Simple questions are
answered there and then.
A.2.20. What time frame are we looking at if we decide to hire people
to install and maintain the Bugzilla? Is this something that takes
hours or weeks to install and a couple of hours per week to maintain
and customize or is this a multi-week install process, plus a full time
job for 1 person, 2 people, etc?
It all depends on your level of commitment. Someone with much Bugzilla
experience can get you up and running in less than a day, and your
Bugzilla install can run untended for years. If your Bugzilla strategy
is critical to your business workflow, hire somebody with reasonable
UNIX or Perl skills to handle your process management and bug-tracking
maintenance & customization.
A.2.21. Is there any licensing fee or other fees for using Bugzilla?
Any out-of-pocket cost other than the bodies needed as identified
above?
No. MySQL asks, if you find their product valuable, that you purchase a
support contract from them that suits your needs.
A.2.22. Why do users have to log in every time they access a page? This
affects everyone who accesses my Bugzilla. (If this only affects some
of your users, see the next FAQ item.)
The most-likely cause is that the "cookiepath" parameter is not set
correctly in the Bugzilla configuration. You can change this (if you're
a Bugzilla administrator) from the editparams.cgi page via the web.
The value of the cookiepath parameter should be the actual directory
containing your Bugzilla installation, as seen by the end-user's web
browser. Leading and trailing slashes are mandatory. You can also set
the cookiepath to any directory which is a parent of the Bugzilla
directory (such as '/', the root directory). But you can't put
something that isn't at least a partial match or it won't work. What
you're actually doing is restricting the end-user's browser to sending
the cookies back only to that directory.
How do you know if you want your specific Bugzilla directory or the
whole site?
If you have only one Bugzilla running on the server, and you don't mind
having other applications on the same server with it being able to see
the cookies (you might be doing this on purpose if you have other
things on your site that share authentication with Bugzilla), then
you'll want to have the cookiepath set to "/", or to a
sufficiently-high enough directory that all of the involved apps can
see the cookies.
Examples:
urlbase is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/
cookiepath is /
urlbase is http://tools.mysite.tld/bugzilla/
but you have http://tools.mysite.tld/someotherapp/ w
hich shares
authentication with your Bugzilla
cookiepath is /
On the other hand, if you have more than one Bugzilla running on the
server (some people do - we do on landfill) then you need to have the
cookiepath restricted enough so that the different Bugzillas don't
confuse their cookies with one another.
Examples:
urlbase is https://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/
cookiepath is /bugzilla-tip/
urlbase is https://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-2.16-branch
/
cookiepath is /bugzilla-2.16-branch/
If you had cookiepath set to / at any point in the past and need to set
it to something more restrictive (i.e. /bugzilla/), you can safely do
this without requiring users to delete their Bugzilla-related cookies
in their browser (this is true starting with Bugzilla 2.17.7 and
Bugzilla 2.16.5).
A.2.23. Why do users have to log in every time they access a page? This
only seems to affect some of my Bugzilla's users, others stay logged
in.
First, make sure cookies are enabled in the user's browser.
If that doesn't fix the problem, it may be that the user's ISP
implements a rotating proxy server. This causes the user's effective IP
address (the address which the Bugzilla server perceives him coming
from) to change periodically. Since Bugzilla cookies are tied to a
specific IP address, each time the effective address changes, the user
will have to log in again.
In newer versions of Bugzilla (2.17.1 and later) there is a parameter
called "loginnetmask", which you can use to set the number of bits of
the user's IP address to require to be matched when authenticating the
cookies. If you set this to something less than 32, then the user will
be given a checkbox for "Restrict this login to my IP address" on the
login screen, which defaults to checked. If they leave the box checked,
Bugzilla will behave the same as it did before, requiring an exact
match on their IP address to remain logged in. If they uncheck the box,
then only the left side of their IP address (up to the number of bits
you specified in the parameter) has to match to remain logged in.
3. Bugzilla Security
A.3.1. How do I completely disable MySQL security if it's giving me
problems (I've followed the instructions in the installation section of
this guide)?
Run MySQL like this: "mysqld --skip-grant-tables". Please remember this
makes MySQL as secure as taping a $100 to the floor of a football
stadium bathroom for safekeeping.
A.3.2. Are there any security problems with Bugzilla?
The Bugzilla code has undergone a reasonably complete security audit,
and user-facing CGIs run under Perl's taint mode. However, it is
recommended that you closely examine permissions on your Bugzilla
installation, and follow the recommended security guidelines found in
The Bugzilla Guide.
A.3.3. I've implemented the security fixes mentioned in Chris Yeh's
security advisory of 5/10/2000 advising not to run MySQL as root, and
am running into problems with MySQL no longer working correctly.
This is a common problem, related to running out of file descriptors.
Simply add "ulimit -n unlimited" to the script which starts mysqld.
4. Bugzilla Email
A.4.1. I have a user who doesn't want to receive any more email from
Bugzilla. How do I stop it entirely for this user?
The user should be able to set this in user email preferences (uncheck
all boxes) or you can add their email address to the data/nomail file.
A.4.2. I'm evaluating/testing Bugzilla, and don't want it to send email
to anyone but me. How do I do it?
Edit the "newchangedmail" Param. Replace "To:" with "X-Real-To:",
replace "Cc:" with "X-Real-CC:", and add a "To: <youremailaddress>".
A.4.3. I want whineatnews.pl to whine at something more, or other than,
only new bugs. How do I do it?
Try Klaas Freitag's excellent patch for "whineatassigned"
functionality. You can find it at
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6679. This patch is against
an older version of Bugzilla, so you must apply the diffs manually.
A.4.4. I don't like/want to use Procmail to hand mail off to
bug_email.pl. What alternatives do I have?
You can call bug_email.pl directly from your aliases file, with an
entry like this:
bugzilla-daemon: "|/usr/local/bin/bugzilla/contrib/bug_email.pl"
However, this is fairly nasty and subject to problems; you also need to
set up your smrsh (sendmail restricted shell) to allow it. In a pinch,
though, it can work.
A.4.5. How do I set up the email interface to submit/change bugs via
email?
You can find an updated README.mailif file in the contrib/ directory of
your Bugzilla distribution that walks you through the setup.
A.4.6. Email takes FOREVER to reach me from Bugzilla -- it's extremely
slow. What gives?
If you are using an alternate Mail Transport Agent (MTA other than
sendmail), make sure the options given in the "processmail" and other
scripts for all instances of "sendmail" are correct for your MTA.
If you are using Sendmail, try enabling "sendmailnow" in
editparams.cgi. If you are using Postfix, you will also need to enable
"sendmailnow".
A.4.7. How come email from Bugzilla changes never reaches me?
Double-check that you have not turned off email in your user
preferences. Confirm that Bugzilla is able to send email by visiting
the "Log In" link of your Bugzilla installation and clicking the "Email
me a password" button after entering your email address.
If you never receive mail from Bugzilla, chances you do not have
sendmail in "/usr/lib/sendmail". Ensure sendmail lives in, or is
symlinked to, "/usr/lib/sendmail".
5. Bugzilla Database
A.5.1. I've heard Bugzilla can be used with Oracle?
Red Hat's old version of Bugzilla (based on 2.8) worked on Oracle. Red
Hat's newer version (based on 2.17.1 and soon to be merged into the
main distribution) runs on PostgreSQL. At this time we know of no
recent ports of Bugzilla to Oracle but do intend to support it in the
future (possibly the 2.20 time-frame).
A.5.2. I think my database might be corrupted, or contain invalid
entries. What do I do?
Run the "sanity check" utility (./sanitycheck.cgi in the Bugzilla_home
directory) from your web browser to see! If it finishes without errors,
you're probably OK. If it doesn't come back OK (i.e. any red letters),
there are certain things Bugzilla can recover from and certain things
it can't. If it can't auto-recover, I hope you're familiar with
mysqladmin commands or have installed another way to manage your
database. Sanity Check, although it is a good basic check on your
database integrity, by no means is a substitute for competent database
administration and avoiding deletion of data. It is not exhaustive, and
was created to do a basic check for the most common problems in
Bugzilla databases.
A.5.3. I want to manually edit some entries in my database. How?
There is no facility in Bugzilla itself to do this. It's also generally
not a smart thing to do if you don't know exactly what you're doing.
However, if you understand SQL you can use the mysql command line
utility to manually insert, delete and modify table information. There
are also more intuitive GUI clients available. Personal favorites of
the Bugzilla team are phpMyAdmin and MySQL Control Center.
A.5.4. I think I've set up MySQL permissions correctly, but Bugzilla
still can't connect.
Try running MySQL from its binary: "mysqld --skip-grant-tables". This
will allow you to completely rule out grant tables as the cause of your
frustration. If this Bugzilla is able to connect at this point then you
need to check that you have granted proper permission to the user
password combo defined in localconfig.
Warning
Running MySQL with this command line option is very insecure and should
only be done when not connected to the external network as a
troubleshooting step.
A.5.5. How do I synchronize bug information among multiple different
Bugzilla databases?
Well, you can synchronize or you can move bugs. Synchronization will
only work one way -- you can create a read-only copy of the database at
one site, and have it regularly updated at intervals from the main
database.
MySQL has some synchronization features builtin to the latest releases.
It would be great if someone looked into the possibilities there and
provided a report to the newsgroup on how to effectively synchronize
two Bugzilla installations.
If you simply need to transfer bugs from one Bugzilla to another,
checkout the "move.pl" script in the Bugzilla distribution.
6. Bugzilla and Win32
A.6.1. What is the easiest way to run Bugzilla on Win32 (Win98+/NT/2K)?
Remove Windows. Install Linux. Install Bugzilla. The boss will never
know the difference.
A.6.2. Is there a "Bundle::Bugzilla" equivalent for Win32?
Not currently. Bundle::Bugzilla enormously simplifies Bugzilla
installation on UNIX systems. If someone can volunteer to create a
suitable PPM bundle for Win32, it would be appreciated.
A.6.3. CGI's are failing with a "something.cgi is not a valid Windows
NT application" error. Why?
Depending on what Web server you are using, you will have to configure
the Web server to treat *.cgi files as CGI scripts. In IIS, you do this
by adding *.cgi to the App Mappings with the <path>\perl.exe %s %s as
the executable.
Microsoft has some advice on this matter, as well:
"Set application mappings. In the ISM, map the extension for the
script file(s) to the executable for the script interpreter. For
example, you might map the extension .py to Python.exe, the
executable for the Python script interpreter. Note For the
ActiveState Perl script interpreter, the extension .pl is associated
with PerlIS.dll by default. If you want to change the association of
.pl to perl.exe, you need to change the application mapping. In the
mapping, you must add two percent (%) characters to the end of the
pathname for perl.exe, as shown in this example:
c:\perl\bin\perl.exe %s %s"
A.6.4. I'm having trouble with the perl modules for NT not being able
to talk to to the database.
Your modules may be outdated or inaccurate. Try:
1. Hitting http://www.activestate.com/ActivePerl
2. Download ActivePerl
3. Go to your prompt
4. Type 'ppm'
5. PPM> install DBI DBD-mysql GD
I reckon TimeDate and Data::Dumper come with the activeperl. You can
check the ActiveState site for packages for installation through PPM.
http://www.activestate.com/Packages/
7. Bugzilla Usage
A.7.1. How do I change my user name (email address) in Bugzilla?
New in 2.16 - go to the Account section of the Preferences. You will be
emailed at both addresses for confirmation.
A.7.2. The query page is very confusing. Isn't there a simpler way to
query?
The interface was simplified by a UI designer for 2.16. Further
suggestions for improvement are welcome, but we won't sacrifice power
for simplicity.
A.7.3. I'm confused by the behavior of the "accept" button in the Show
Bug form. Why doesn't it assign the bug to me when I accept it?
The current behavior is acceptable to bugzilla.mozilla.org and most
users. You have your choice of patches to change this behavior,
however.
Add a "and accept bug" radio button
"Accept" button automatically assigns to you
Note that these patches are somewhat dated. You will need to apply them
manually.
A.7.4. I can't upload anything into the database via the "Create
Attachment" link. What am I doing wrong?
The most likely cause is a very old browser or a browser that is
incompatible with file upload via POST. Download the latest Netscape,
Microsoft, or Mozilla browser to handle uploads correctly.
A.7.5. How do I change a keyword in Bugzilla, once some bugs are using
it?
In the Bugzilla administrator UI, edit the keyword and it will let you
replace the old keyword name with a new one. This will cause a problem
with the keyword cache. Run sanitycheck.cgi to fix it.
A.7.6. Why can't I close bugs from the "Change Several Bugs at Once"
page?
The logic flow currently used is RESOLVED, then VERIFIED, then CLOSED.
You can mass-CLOSE bugs from the change several bugs at once page. but,
every bug listed on the page has to be in VERIFIED state before the
control to do it will show up on the form. You can also mass-VERIFY,
but every bug listed has to be RESOLVED in order for the control to
show up on the form. The logic behind this is that if you pick one of
the bugs that's not VERIFIED and try to CLOSE it, the bug change will
fail miserably (thus killing any changes in the list after it while
doing the bulk change) so it doesn't even give you the choice.
8. Bugzilla Hacking
A.8.1. What bugs are in Bugzilla right now?
Try this link to view current bugs or requests for enhancement for
Bugzilla.
You can view bugs marked for 2.18 release here. This list includes bugs
for the 2.18 release that have already been fixed and checked into CVS.
Please consult the Bugzilla Project Page for details on how to check
current sources out of CVS so you can have these bug fixes early!
A.8.2. How can I change the default priority to a null value? For
instance, have the default priority be "---" instead of "P2"?
This is well-documented here:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49862. Ultimately, it's as
easy as adding the "---" priority field to your localconfig file in the
appropriate area, re-running checksetup.pl, and then changing the
default priority in your browser using "editparams.cgi".
A.8.3. What's the best way to submit patches? What guidelines should I
follow?
1. Enter a bug into bugzilla.mozilla.org for the "Bugzilla" product.
2. Upload your patch as a unified diff (having used "diff -u" against
the current sources checked out of CVS), or new source file by
clicking "Create a new attachment" link on the bug page you've just
created, and include any descriptions of database changes you may
make, into the bug ID you submitted in step #1. Be sure and click
the "Patch" checkbox to indicate the text you are sending is a
patch!
3. Announce your patch and the associated URL
(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=XXXXXX) for discussion
in the newsgroup (netscape.public.mozilla.webtools). You'll get a
really good, fairly immediate reaction to the implications of your
patch, which will also give us an idea how well-received the change
would be.
4. If it passes muster with minimal modification, the person to whom
the bug is assigned in Bugzilla is responsible for seeing the patch
is checked into CVS.
5. Bask in the glory of the fact that you helped write the most
successful open-source bug-tracking software on the planet :)
__________________________________________________________________
Appendix B. The Bugzilla Database
Note
This document really needs to be updated with more fleshed out
information about primary keys, interrelationships, and maybe some
nifty tables to document dependencies. Any takers?
__________________________________________________________________
B.1. Database Schema Chart
[dbschema.jpg]
Bugzilla database relationships chart
__________________________________________________________________
B.2. MySQL Bugzilla Database Introduction
This information comes straight from my life. I was forced to learn how
Bugzilla organizes database because of nitpicky requests from users for
tiny changes in wording, rather than having people re-educate
themselves or figure out how to work our procedures around the tool. It
sucks, but it can and will happen to you, so learn how the schema works
and deal with it when it comes.
So, here you are with your brand-new installation of Bugzilla. You've
got MySQL set up, Apache working right, Perl DBI and DBD talking to the
database flawlessly. Maybe you've even entered a few test bugs to make
sure email's working; people seem to be notified of new bugs and
changes, and you can enter and edit bugs to your heart's content.
Perhaps you've gone through the trouble of setting up a gateway for
people to submit bugs to your database via email, have had a few people
test it, and received rave reviews from your beta testers.
What's the next thing you do? Outline a training strategy for your
development team, of course, and bring them up to speed on the new tool
you've labored over for hours.
Your first training session starts off very well! You have a captive
audience which seems enraptured by the efficiency embodied in this
thing called "Bugzilla". You are caught up describing the nifty
features, how people can save favorite queries in the database, set
them up as headers and footers on their pages, customize their layouts,
generate reports, track status with greater efficiency than ever
before, leap tall buildings with a single bound and rescue Jane from
the clutches of Certain Death!
But Certain Death speaks up -- a tiny voice, from the dark corners of
the conference room. "I have a concern," the voice hisses from the
darkness, "about the use of the word 'verified'.
The room, previously filled with happy chatter, lapses into reverential
silence as Certain Death (better known as the Vice President of
Software Engineering) continues. "You see, for two years we've used the
word 'verified' to indicate that a developer or quality assurance
engineer has confirmed that, in fact, a bug is valid. I don't want to
lose two years of training to a new software product. You need to
change the bug status of 'verified' to 'approved' as soon as possible.
To avoid confusion, of course."
Oh no! Terror strikes your heart, as you find yourself mumbling "yes,
yes, I don't think that would be a problem," You review the changes
with Certain Death, and continue to jabber on, "no, it's not too big a
change. I mean, we have the source code, right? You know, 'Use the
Source, Luke' and all that... no problem," All the while you quiver
inside like a beached jellyfish bubbling, burbling, and boiling on a
hot Jamaican sand dune...
Thus begins your adventure into the heart of Bugzilla. You've been
forced to learn about non-portable enum() fields, varchar columns, and
tinyint definitions. The Adventure Awaits You!
__________________________________________________________________
B.2.1. Bugzilla Database Basics
If you were like me, at this point you're totally clueless about the
internals of MySQL, and if it weren't for this executive order from the
Vice President you couldn't care less about the difference between a
"bigint" and a "tinyint" entry in MySQL. I recommend you refer to the
MySQL documentation, available at MySQL.com . Below are the basics you
need to know about the Bugzilla database. Check the chart above for
more details.
1. To connect to your database:
bash# mysql -u root
If this works without asking you for a password, shame on you ! You
should have locked your security down like the installation
instructions told you to. You can find details on locking down your
database in the Bugzilla FAQ in this directory (under "Security"),
or more robust security generalities in the MySQL searchable
documentation.
2. You should now be at a prompt that looks like this:
mysql>
At the prompt, if "bugs" is the name you chose in the localconfig
file for your Bugzilla database, type:
mysql use bugs;
__________________________________________________________________
B.2.1.1. Bugzilla Database Tables
Imagine your MySQL database as a series of spreadsheets, and you won't
be too far off. If you use this command:
mysql> show tables from bugs;
you'll be able to see the names of all the "spreadsheets" (tables) in
your database.
From the command issued above, you should have some output that looks
like this:
+-------------------+
| Tables in bugs |
+-------------------+
| attachments |
| bugs |
| bugs_activity |
| cc |
| components |
| dependencies |
| fielddefs |
| groups |
| keyworddefs |
| keywords |
| logincookies |
| longdescs |
| milestones |
| namedqueries |
| products |
| profiles |
| profiles_activity |
| shadowlog |
| tokens |
| versions |
| votes |
| watch |
+-------------------+
Here's an overview of what each table does. Most columns in each tab
le have
descriptive names that make it fairly trivial to figure out their jobs.
attachments: This table stores all attachments to bugs. It tends to be
your
largest table, yet also generally has the fewest entries because file
attachments are so (relatively) large.
bugs: This is the core of your system. The bugs table stores most of
the
current information about a bug, with the exception of the info stored
in the
other tables.
bugs_activity: This stores information regarding what changes are made
to bugs
when -- a history file.
cc: This tiny table simply stores all the CC information for any bug w
hich has
any entries in the CC field of the bug. Note that, like most other tab
les in
Bugzilla, it does not refer to users by their user names, but by their
unique
userid, stored as a primary key in the profiles table.
components: This stores the programs and components (or products and
components, in newer Bugzilla parlance) for Bugzilla. Curiously, the "
program"
(product) field is the full name of the product, rather than some other
unique
identifier, like bug_id and user_id are elsewhere in the database.
dependencies: Stores data about those cool dependency trees.
fielddefs: A nifty table that defines other tables. For instance, whe
n you
submit a form that changes the value of "AssignedTo" this table allows
translation to the actual field name "assigned_to" for entry into MySQL
.
groups: defines bitmasks for groups. A bitmask is a number that can u
niquely
identify group memberships. For instance, say the group that is allowe
d to
tweak parameters is assigned a value of "1", the group that is allowed
to edit
users is assigned a "2", and the group that is allowed to create new gr
oups is
assigned the bitmask of "4". By uniquely combining the group bitmasks
(much
like the chmod command in UNIX,) you can identify a user is allowed to
tweak
parameters and create groups, but not edit users, by giving him a bitma
sk of
"5", or a user allowed to edit users and create groups, but not tweak
parameters, by giving him a bitmask of "6" Simple, huh?
If this makes no sense to you, try this at the mysql prompt:
mysql> select * from groups;
You'll see the list, it makes much more sense that way.
keyworddefs: Definitions of keywords to be used
keywords: Unlike what you'd think, this table holds which keywords are
associated with which bug id's.
logincookies: This stores every login cookie ever assigned to you for e
very
machine you've ever logged into Bugzilla from. Curiously, it never doe
s any
housecleaning -- I see cookies in this file I've not used for months.
However,
since Bugzilla never expires your cookie (for convenience' sake), it ma
kes
sense.
longdescs: The meat of bugzilla -- here is where all user comments are
stored!
You've only got 2^24 bytes per comment (it's a mediumtext field), so sp
eak
sparingly -- that's only the amount of space the Old Testament from the
Bible
would take (uncompressed, 16 megabytes). Each comment is keyed to the
bug_id to which it's attached, so the order is necessarily chronologica
l, for
comments are played back in the order in which they are received.
milestones: Interesting that milestones are associated with a specific
product
in this table, but Bugzilla does not yet support differing milestones b
y
product through the standard configuration interfaces.
namedqueries: This is where everybody stores their "custom queries".
Very
cool feature; it beats the tar out of having to bookmark each cool quer
y you
construct.
products: What products you have, whether new bug entries are allowed
for the
product, what milestone you're working toward on that product, votes, e
tc. It
will be nice when the components table supports these same features, so
you
could close a particular component for bug entry without having to clos
e an
entire product...
profiles: Ahh, so you were wondering where your precious user informat
ion was
stored? Here it is! With the passwords in plain text for all to see!
(but
sshh... don't tell your users!)
profiles_activity: Need to know who did what when to who's profile? T
his'll
tell you, it's a pretty complete history.
shadowlog: I could be mistaken here, but I believe this table tells yo
u when
your shadow database is updated and what commands were used to update i
t. We
don't use a shadow database at our site yet, so it's pretty empty for u
s.
versions: Version information for every product
votes: Who voted for what when
watch: Who (according to userid) is watching who's bugs (according to
their
userid).
===
THE DETAILS
===
Ahh, so you're wondering just what to do with the information above?
At the
mysql prompt, you can view any information about the columns in a table
with
this command (where "table" is the name of the table you wish to view):
mysql> show columns from table;
You can also view all the data in a table with this command:
mysql> select * from table;
-- note: this is a very bad idea to do on, for instance, the "bugs" t
able if
you have 50,000 bugs. You'll be sitting there a while until you ctrl-c
or
50,000 bugs play across your screen.
You can limit the display from above a little with the command, where
"column" is the name of the column for which you wish to restrict infor
mation:
mysql> select * from table where (column = "some info");
-- or the reverse of this
mysql> select * from table where (column != "some info");
Let's take our example from the introduction, and assume you need to
change
the word "verified" to "approved" in the resolution field. We know fro
m the
above information that the resolution is likely to be stored in the "bu
gs"
table. Note we'll need to change a little perl code as well as this dat
abase
change, but I won't plunge into that in this document. Let's verify the
information is stored in the "bugs" table:
mysql> show columns from bugs
(exceedingly long output truncated here)
| bug_status| enum('UNCONFIRMED','NEW','ASSIGNED','REOPENED','RESOLVED'
,'VERIFIED','CLOSED')||MUL | UNCONFIRMED||
Sorry about that long line. We see from this that the "bug status" c
olumn is
an "enum field", which is a MySQL peculiarity where a string type field
can
only have certain types of entries. While I think this is very cool, i
t's not
standard SQL. Anyway, we need to add the possible enum field entry
'APPROVED' by altering the "bugs" table.
mysql> ALTER table bugs CHANGE bug_status bug_status
-> enum("UNCONFIRMED", "NEW", "ASSIGNED", "REOPENED", "RESOLVED",
-> "VERIFIED", "APPROVED", "CLOSED") not null;
(note we can take three lines or more -- whatever you put in before
the
semicolon is evaluated as a single expression)
Now if you do this:
mysql> show columns from bugs;
you'll see that the bug_status field has an extra "APPROVED" enum tha
t's
available! Cool thing, too, is that this is reflected on your query pa
ge as
well -- you can query by the new status. But how's it fit into the exi
sting
scheme of things?
Looks like you need to go back and look for instances of the word "ve
rified"
in the perl code for Bugzilla -- wherever you find "verified", change i
t to
"approved" and you're in business (make sure that's a case-insensitive
search).
Although you can query by the enum field, you can't give something a st
atus
of "APPROVED" until you make the perl changes. Note that this change
I
mentioned can also be done by editing checksetup.pl, which automates a
lot of
this. But you need to know this stuff anyway, right?
__________________________________________________________________
Appendix C. Useful Patches and Utilities for Bugzilla
Are you looking for a way to put your Bugzilla into overdrive? Catch
some of the niftiest tricks here in this section.
__________________________________________________________________
C.1. Apache mod_rewrite magic
Apache's mod_rewrite module lets you do some truly amazing things with
URL rewriting. Here are a couple of examples of what you can do.
1. Make it so if someone types http://www.foo.com/12345 , Bugzilla
spits back http://www.foo.com/show_bug.cgi?id=12345. Try setting up
your VirtualHost section for Bugzilla with a rule like this:
<VirtualHost 12.34.56.78>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/([0-9]+)$ http://foo.bar.com/show_bug.cgi?id=$1 [L,R]
</VirtualHost>
2. There are many, many more things you can do with mod_rewrite.
Please refer to the mod_rewrite documentation at
http://www.apache.org.
__________________________________________________________________
C.2. Command-line Bugzilla Queries
There are a suite of Unix utilities for querying Bugzilla from the
command line. They live in the contrib/cmdline directory. However, they
have not yet been updated to work with 2.16 (post-templatisation.).
There are three files - query.conf, buglist and bugs.
query.conf contains the mapping from options to field names and
comparison types. Quoted option names are "grepped" for, so it should
be easy to edit this file. Comments (#) have no effect; you must make
sure these lines do not contain any quoted "option".
buglist is a shell script which submits a Bugzilla query and writes the
resulting HTML page to stdout. It supports both short options, (such as
"-Afoo" or "-Rbar") and long options (such as "--assignedto=foo" or
"--reporter=bar"). If the first character of an option is not "-", it
is treated as if it were prefixed with "--default=".
The column list is taken from the COLUMNLIST environment variable. This
is equivalent to the "Change Columns" option when you list bugs in
buglist.cgi. If you have already used Bugzilla, grep for COLUMNLIST in
your cookies file to see your current COLUMNLIST setting.
bugs is a simple shell script which calls buglist and extracts the bug
numbers from the output. Adding the prefix
"https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_id=" turns the bug list
into a working link if any bugs are found. Counting bugs is easy. Pipe
the results through sed -e 's/,/ /g' | wc | awk '{printf $2 "\n"}'
Akkana Peck says she has good results piping buglist output through w3m
-T text/html -dump
__________________________________________________________________
Appendix D. Bugzilla Variants and Competitors
I created this section to answer questions about Bugzilla competitors
and variants, then found a wonderful site which covers an awful lot of
what I wanted to discuss. Rather than quote it in its entirety, I'll
simply refer you here: http://linas.org/linux/pm.html
__________________________________________________________________
D.1. Red Hat Bugzilla
Red Hat's old fork of Bugzilla which was based on version 2.8 is now
obsolete. The newest version in use is based on version 2.17.1 and is
in the process of being integrated into the main Bugzilla source tree.
The back-end is modified to work with PostgreSQL instead of MySQL and
they have custom templates to get their desired look and feel, but
other than that it is Bugzilla 2.17.1. Dave Lawrence of Red Hat put
forth a great deal of effort to make sure that the changes he made
could be integrated back into the main tree. Bug 98304 exists to track
this integration.
URL: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/
This section last updated 24 Dec 2002
__________________________________________________________________
D.2. Loki Bugzilla (Fenris)
Fenris was a fork from Bugzilla made by Loki Games; when Loki went into
receivership, it died. While Loki's other code lives on, its custodians
recommend Bugzilla for future bug-tracker deployments.
This section last updated 27 Jul 2002
__________________________________________________________________
D.3. Issuezilla
Issuezilla was another fork from Bugzilla, made by collab.net and
hosted at tigris.org. It is also dead; the primary focus of
bug-tracking at tigris.org is their Java-based bug-tracker, Section
D.4.
This section last updated 27 Jul 2002
__________________________________________________________________
D.4. Scarab
Scarab is a new open source bug-tracking system built using Java
Servlet technology. It is currently at version 1.0 beta 13.
URL: http://scarab.tigris.org
This section last updated 18 Jan 2003
__________________________________________________________________
D.5. Perforce SCM
Although Perforce isn't really a bug tracker, it can be used as such
through the "jobs" functionality.
URL: http://www.perforce.com/perforce/technotes/note052.html
This section last updated 27 Jul 2002
__________________________________________________________________
D.6. SourceForge
SourceForge is a way of coordinating geographically distributed free
software and open source projects over the Internet. It has a built-in
bug tracker, but it's not highly thought of.
URL: http://www.sourceforge.net
This section last updated 27 Jul 2002
__________________________________________________________________
Appendix E. GNU Free Documentation License
Version 1.1, March 2000
Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place,
Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA Everyone is permitted to copy
and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but
changing it is not allowed.
__________________________________________________________________
0. PREAMBLE
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other
written document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the
effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without
modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this
License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for
their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications
made by others.
This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works
of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It
complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license
designed for free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free
software, because free software needs free documentation: a free
program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the
software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it
can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or
whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License
principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
__________________________________________________________________
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
This License applies to any manual or other work that contains a notice
placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the
terms of this License. The "Document", below, refers to any such manual
or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as
"you".
A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing the
Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with
modifications and/or translated into another language.
A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section of
the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the
publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject
(or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly
within that overall subject. (For example, if the Document is in part a
textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any
mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical
connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal,
commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding
them.
The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles
are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice
that says that the Document is released under this License.
The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed,
as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that
the Document is released under this License.
A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy,
represented in a format whose specification is available to the general
public, whose contents can be viewed and edited directly and
straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of
pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available
drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or
for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to
text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format
whose markup has been designed to thwart or discourage subsequent
modification by readers is not Transparent. A copy that is not
"Transparent" is called "Opaque".
Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII
without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML
using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML
designed for human modification. Opaque formats include PostScript,
PDF, proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by
proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or
processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated
HTML produced by some word processors for output purposes only.
The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus
such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this
License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats
which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text
near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the
beginning of the body of the text.
__________________________________________________________________
2. VERBATIM COPYING
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either
commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the
copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies
to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other
conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use
technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further
copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept
compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough
number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and
you may publicly display copies.
__________________________________________________________________
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
If you publish printed copies of the Document numbering more than 100,
and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must
enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these
Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts
on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify
you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the
full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible.
You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with
changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of
the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim
copying in other respects.
If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit
legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit
reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent
pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering
more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent
copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy
a publicly-accessible computer-network location containing a complete
Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material, which the
general network-using public has access to download anonymously at no
charge using public-standard network protocols. If you use the latter
option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin
distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this
Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location
until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque
copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to
the public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the
Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give
them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.
__________________________________________________________________
4. MODIFICATIONS
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under
the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the
Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified
Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution
and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of
it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct
from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions
(which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section
of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version
if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of
the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has less than
five).
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified
Version, as the publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent
to the other copyright notices.
F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice
giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the
terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant
Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license
notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. Preserve the section entitled "History", and its title, and add to
it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and
publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If
there is no section entitled "History" in the Document, create one
stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as
given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified
Version as stated in the previous sentence.
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for
public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise
the network locations given in the Document for previous versions
it was based on. These may be placed in the "History" section. You
may omit a network location for a work that was published at least
four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher
of the version it refers to gives permission.
K. In any section entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications",
preserve the section's title, and preserve in the section all the
substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements
and/or dedications given therein.
L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in
their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent
are not considered part of the section titles.
M. Delete any section entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not
be included in the Modified Version.
N. Do not retitle any existing section as "Endorsements" or to
conflict in title with any Invariant Section.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or
appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material
copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all
of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the
list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice.
These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
You may add a section entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains
nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various
parties--for example, statements of peer review or that the text has
been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a
standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a
passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list
of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover
Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through
arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes
a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by
arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you
may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit
permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License
give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or
imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
__________________________________________________________________
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this
License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified
versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the
Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and
list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its
license notice.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and
multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single
copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but
different contents, make the title of each such section unique by
adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original
author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number.
Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant
Sections in the license notice of the combined work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled "History" in
the various original documents, forming one section entitled "History";
likewise combine any sections entitled "Acknowledgements", and any
sections entitled "Dedications". You must delete all sections entitled
"Endorsements."
__________________________________________________________________
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other
documents released under this License, and replace the individual
copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that
is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of
this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other
respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and
distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a
copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this
License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that
document.
__________________________________________________________________
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate
and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium, does not as a whole count as a Modified Version of
the Document, provided no compilation copyright is claimed for the
compilation. Such a compilation is called an "aggregate", and this
License does not apply to the other self-contained works thus compiled
with the Document, on account of their being thus compiled, if they are
not themselves derivative works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these
copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one quarter
of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on
covers that surround only the Document within the aggregate. Otherwise
they must appear on covers around the whole aggregate.
__________________________________________________________________
8. TRANSLATION
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute
translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing
Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from
their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or
all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these
Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License
provided that you also include the original English version of this
License. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the
original English version of this License, the original English version
will prevail.
__________________________________________________________________
9. TERMINATION
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except
as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to
copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will
automatically terminate your rights under this License. However,
parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this
License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties
remain in full compliance.
__________________________________________________________________
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the
GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions
will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in
detail to address new problems or concerns. See
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/ .
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number.
If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this
License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of
following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or
of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the
Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version
number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not
as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.
__________________________________________________________________
How to use this License for your documents
To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of
the License in the document and put the following copyright and license
notices just after the title page:
Copyright (c) YEAR YOUR NAME. Permission is granted to copy,
distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU
Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version
published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant
Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the Front-Cover Texts being
LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST. A copy of the
license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation
License".
If you have no Invariant Sections, write "with no Invariant Sections"
instead of saying which ones are invariant. If you have no Front-Cover
Texts, write "no Front-Cover Texts" instead of "Front-Cover Texts being
LIST"; likewise for Back-Cover Texts.
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we
recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of
free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to
permit their use in free software.
Glossary
0-9, high ascii
.htaccess
Apache web server, and other NCSA-compliant web servers, observe
the convention of using files in directories called .htaccess to
restrict access to certain files. In Bugzilla, they are used to
keep secret files which would otherwise compromise your
installation - e.g. the localconfig file contains the password
to your database. curious.
A
Apache
In this context, Apache is the web server most commonly used for
serving up Bugzilla pages. Contrary to popular belief, the
apache web server has nothing to do with the ancient and noble
Native American tribe, but instead derived its name from the
fact that it was "a patchy" version of the original NCSA
world-wide-web server.
Useful Directives when configuring Bugzilla
AddHandler
Tell Apache that it's OK to run CGI scripts.
AllowOverride, Options
These directives are used to tell Apache many things about
the directory they apply to. For Bugzilla's purposes, we
need them to allow script execution and .htaccess
overrides.
DirectoryIndex
Used to tell Apache what files are indexes. If you can not
add index.cgi to the list of valid files, you'll need to
set $index_html to 1 in localconfig so ./checksetup.pl
will create an index.html that redirects to index.cgi.
ScriptInterpreterSource
Used when running Apache on windows so the shebang line
doesn't have to be changed in every Bugzilla script.
B
Bug
A "bug" in Bugzilla refers to an issue entered into the database
which has an associated number, assignments, comments, etc. Some
also refer to a "tickets" or "issues"; in the context of
Bugzilla, they are synonymous.
Bug Number
Each Bugzilla bug is assigned a number that uniquely identifies
that bug. The bug associated with a bug number can be pulled up
via a query, or easily from the very front page by typing the
number in the "Find" box.
Bugzilla
Bugzilla is the world-leading free software bug tracking system.
C
Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
CGI is an acronym for Common Gateway Interface. This is a
standard for interfacing an external application with a web
server. Bugzilla is an example of a CGI application.
Component
A Component is a subsection of a Product. It should be a narrow
category, tailored to your organization. All Products must
contain at least one Component (and, as a matter of fact,
creating a Product with no Components will create an error in
Bugzilla).
CPAN
CPAN stands for the "Comprehensive Perl Archive Network". CPAN
maintains a large number of extremely useful Perl modules -
encapsulated chunks of code for performing a particular task.
D
daemon
A daemon is a computer program which runs in the background. In
general, most daemons are started at boot time via System V init
scripts, or through RC scripts on BSD-based systems. mysqld, the
MySQL server, and apache, a web server, are generally run as
daemons.
G
Groups
The word "Groups" has a very special meaning to Bugzilla.
Bugzilla's main security mechanism comes by placing users in
groups, and assigning those groups certain privileges to view
bugs in particular Products in the Bugzilla database.
M
Message Transport Agent (MTA)
A Message Transport Agent is used to control the flow of email
on a system. Many unix based systems use sendmail which is what
Bugzilla expects to find by default at /usr/sbin/sendmail. Many
other MTA's will work, but they all require that the sendmailnow
param be set to on.
MySQL
MySQL is currently the required RDBMS for Bugzilla. MySQL can be
downloaded from https://www.mysql.com. While you should
familiarize yourself with all of the documentation, some high
points are:
+ MySQL Privilege System - Much more detailed information about
the suggestions in Section 5.6.2.
P
Product
A Product is a broad category of types of bugs, normally
representing a single piece of software or entity. In general,
there are several Components to a Product. A Product may define
a group (used for security) for all bugs entered into its
Components.
Perl
First written by Larry Wall, Perl is a remarkable program
language. It has the benefits of the flexibility of an
interpreted scripting language (such as shell script), combined
with the speed and power of a compiled language, such as C.
Bugzilla is maintained in Perl.
Q
QA
"QA", "Q/A", and "Q.A." are short for "Quality Assurance". In
most large software development organizations, there is a team
devoted to ensuring the product meets minimum standards before
shipping. This team will also generally want to track the
progress of bugs over their life cycle, thus the need for the
"QA Contact" field in a bug.
R
Relational DataBase Management System (RDBMS)
A relational database management system is a database system
that stores information in tables that are related to each
other.
S
SGML
SGML stands for "Standard Generalized Markup Language". Created
in the 1980's to provide an extensible means to maintain
documentation based upon content instead of presentation, SGML
has withstood the test of time as a robust, powerful language.
XML is the "baby brother" of SGML; any valid XML document it, by
definition, a valid SGML document. The document you are reading
is written and maintained in SGML, and is also valid XML if you
modify the Document Type Definition.
T
Target Milestone
Target Milestones are Product goals. They are configurable on a
per-Product basis. Most software development houses have a
concept of "milestones" where the people funding a project
expect certain functionality on certain dates. Bugzilla
facilitates meeting these milestones by giving you the ability
to declare by which milestone a bug will be fixed, or an
enhancement will be implemented.
Tool Command Language (TCL)
TCL is an open source scripting language available for Windows,
Macintosh, and Unix based systems. Bugzilla 1.0 was written in
TCL but never released. The first release of Bugzilla was 2.0,
which was when it was ported to perl.
Z
Zarro Boogs Found
This is just a goofy way of saying that there were no bugs found
matching your query. When asked to explain this message, Terry
had the following to say:
I've been asked to explain this ... way back when, when Netscape
released version 4.0 of its browser, we had a release party. Naturally,
there had been a big push to try and fix every known bug before the
release. Naturally, that hadn't actually happened. (This is not unique
to Netscape or to 4.0; the same thing has happened with every software
project I've ever seen.) Anyway, at the release party, T-shirts were
handed out that said something like "Netscape 4.0: Zarro Boogs". Just
like the software, the T-shirt had no known bugs. Uh-huh.
So, when you query for a list of bugs, and it gets no results, you can
think of this as a friendly reminder. Of *course* there are bugs
matching your query, they just aren't in the bugsystem yet...
--Terry Weissman
