What, Why, How, & Where?

Bugzilla is one example of a class of programs called "Defect Tracking Systems", or, more commonly, "Bug-Tracking Systems". Defect Tracking Systems allow individual or groups of developers to keep track of outstanding bugs in their product effectively. Bugzilla was originally written by Terry Weissman in a programming language called "TCL", to replace a crappy 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 has matured immensely, and now 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

No, Who's on first... 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, Loki software, 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 by using Bugzilla's e-mail integration features be able to 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.

Hey! I'm Woody! Howdy, Howdy, Howdy! This section contains information for end-users of Bugzilla. If you are administering a Bugzilla installation, please consult the Installing and Administering Bugzilla portions of this Guide. There is a Bugzilla test installation, called Landfill, which you are welcome to play with. However, it does not necessarily have all Bugzilla features enabled, and often runs cutting-edge versions of Bugzilla for testing, so some things may work slightly differently than mentioned here.

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: http://landfill.tequilarista.org/bugzilla-tip/ Click the Open a new Bugzilla account link, enter your email address and, optionally, your name in the spaces provided, then click Create Account. 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. 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.

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 names of most fields are hyperlinks; clicking them will take you to context-sensitive help on that particular field. 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, including editcomponents.cgi, editgroups.cgi, editkeywords.cgi, editparams.cgi, editproducts.cgi, editusers.cgi, editversions.cgi, and sanitycheck.cgi. Bugzilla-General, Anything that doesn't fit in the other components, or spans multiple components. Creating/Changing Bugs, Creating, changing, and viewing bugs. enter_bug.cgi, post_bug.cgi, show_bug.cgi and process_bug.cgi. Documentation, The bugzilla documentation, including anything in the docs/ directory and The Bugzilla Guide Email, Anything to do with email sent by Bugzilla. processmail Installation, The installation process of Bugzilla. This includes checksetup.pl and whatever else it evolves into. Query/Buglist, Anything to do with searching for bugs and viewing the buglists. query.cgi and buglist.cgi Reporting/Charting, Getting reports from Bugzilla. reports.cgi and duplicates.cgi User Accounts, Anything about managing a user account from the user's perspective. userprefs.cgi, 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. Status and Resolution: A bug passes through several Statuses in its lifetime, and ends up in the RESOLVED status, with one of a set of Resolutions (e.g. FIXED, INVALID.) The different possible values for Status and Resolution on your installation will be documented in the context-sensitive help for those items. Assigned To: The person responsible for fixing the bug. URL: A URL associated with the bug, if any. Summary: A one-sentence summary of the problem. Status Whiteboard: (a.k.a. Whiteboard) A free-form text area for adding short notes and tags to a bug. 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. Platform and OS: These indicate the computing environment where the bug was found. 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. 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. 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. 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. Reporter: The person who filed the bug. CC list: A list of people who get mail when the bug changes. Attachments: You can attach files (e.g. testcases or patches) to bugs. If there are any attachments, they are listed in this section. 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. Votes: Whether this bug has any votes. Additional Comments: You can add your two cents to the bug discussion here, if you have something worthwhile to say.

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: landfill.tequilarista.org/bugzilla-tip/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.

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.

And all this time, I thought we were taking bugs out... 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: Go to Landfill in your browser and click Enter a new bug report. Select a product - any one will do. 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. Select "Commit" and send in your bug report.

Indiana, it feels like we walking on fortune cookies! These ain't fortune cookies, kid... Customized User Preferences offer tremendous versatility to your individual Bugzilla experience. Let's plunge into what you can do! The first step is to click the "Edit prefs" link at the footer of each page once you have logged in to Landfill.

On this page, you can change your basic Account Settings, including your password and full name. For security reasons, in order to change anything on this page you must type your current password into the Old Password field. If you wish to change your password, type the new password you want into the New Password field and again into the Re-enter new password field to ensure you typed your new password correctly. Select the Submit button and you are done.

Here you can reduce or increase the amount of email sent you from Bugzilla. Although this is referred to as Advanced Email Filtering Options, they are, in fact, the standard email filter set. All of them are self-explanatory, but you can use the filters in interesting ways. For instance, some people (notably Quality Assurance personnel) often only care to receive updates regarding a bug when the bug changes state, so they can track bugs on their flow charts and know when it is time to pull the bug onto a quality assurance platform for inspection. Other people set up email gateways to or , and restrict which types of Bugzilla information are fed to these systems..

This option may not be available in all Bugzilla installations, depending upon the preferences of the systems administrator responsible for the setup of your Bugzilla. However, if you really want this functionality, ask her to "enable newemailtech in Params" and "make it the default for all new users", referring her to the Administration section of this Guide. Disregard the warnings about "experimental and bleeding edge"; the code to handle email in a cleaner manner than that historically used for Bugzilla is quite robust and well-tested now. I recommend you enable the option, "Click here to sign up (and risk any bugs)". Your email-box will thank you for it. The fundamental shift in "newemailtech" is away from standard UNIX "diff" output, which is quite ugly, to a prettier, better laid-out email.

This option may not be available in all Bugzilla installations, depending upon the preferences of the systems administrator responsible for the setup of your Bugzilla. However, if you really want this functionality, ask her to "enable watchers in Params". By entering user email names into the "Users to watch" text entry box, delineated by commas, you can watch bugs of other users. This powerful functionality enables seamless transitions as developers change projects, managers wish to get in touch with the issues faced by their direct reports, or users go on vacation. If any of these three situations apply to you, you will undoubtedly find this feature quite convenient.

By default, this page is quite barren. However, go explore the Query Page some more; you will find that you can store numerous queries on the server, so if you regularly run a particular query it is just a drop-down menu away. On this page of Preferences, if you have many stored queries you can elect to have them always one-click away! If you have many stored queries on the server, here you will find individual drop-downs for each stored query. Each drop-down gives you the option of that query appearing on the footer of every page in Bugzilla! This gives you powerful one-click access to any complex searches you may set up, and is an excellent way to impress your boss... By default, the "My Bugs" link appears at the bottom of each page. However, this query gives you both the bugs you have reported, as well as those you are assigned. One of the most common uses for this page is to remove the "My Bugs" link, replacing it with two other queries, commonly called "My Bug Reports" and "My Bugs" (but only referencing bugs assigned to you). This allows you to distinguish those bugs you have reported from those you are assigned. I commonly set up complex Boolean queries in the Query page and link them to my footer in this page. When they are significantly complex, a one-click reference can save hours of work.

This is a purely informative page which outlines your current permissions on this installation of Bugzilla. If you have permissions to grant certain permissions to other users, the "other users" link appears on this page as well as the footer. For more information regarding user administration, please consult the Administration section of this Guide.

Thank you for reading through this portion of the Bugzilla Guide. I anticipate it may not yet meet the needs of all readers. If you have additional comments or corrections to make, please submit your contributions to the mozilla-webtools mailing list/newsgroup. The mailing list is mirrored to the netscape.public.mozilla.webtools newsgroup, and the newsgroup is mirrored to mozilla-webtools@mozilla.org