The Bugzilla Guide
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3.6. Win32 Installation Notes

This section covers installation on Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, and 2000. Bugzilla works fine on Win32 platforms, but please remember that the Bugzilla team and the author of the Guide neither endorse nor support installation on Microsoft Windows. Bugzilla installs and runs best and easiest on UNIX-like operating systems, and that is the way it will stay for the foreseeable future. The Bugzilla team is considering supporting Win32 for the 2.16 release and later.

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.

3.6.1. Win32 Installation: Step-by-step

Note

You should be familiar with, and cross-reference, the rest of the Chapter 3 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 both strong troubleshooting abilities and a high tolerance for pain. 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 The Bugzilla FAQ.

  1. Install Apache Web Server for Windows.

    Note

    You may also use Internet Information Server or Personal Web Server for this purpose. However, setup is slightly more difficult. If ActivePerl doesn't seem to handle your file associations correctly (for .cgi and .pl files), please consult The Bugzilla FAQ.

    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, and GD. You may need to extract them from .zip format using Winzip or other unzip program first. These additional ppm modules can be downloaded from ActiveState.

    Note

    You can find a list of modules at http://www.activestate.com/PPMPackages/zips/5xx-builds-only/

    The syntax for ppm is: C:> ppm <modulename>

    Example 3-3. Installing ActivePerl ppd Modules on Microsoft Windows

    C:>ppm DBD-Mysql

    Watch your capitalization!

    You can find ActiveState ppm modules at http://www.activestate.com/PPMPackages/5.6plus

  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

    1. C:> C:\mysql\bin\mysql -u root mysql

    2. mysql> DELETE FROM user WHERE Host='localhost' AND User='';

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

    5. mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

    6. mysql> create database bugs;

    7. mysql> exit;

    8. 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; "

  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 occurences 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

      The code above needs testing as well to make sure it is correct.

  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 server
$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 completely 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. For instance, change this line in processmail: 
    system ("./processmail.pl",@ARGLIST);
    to 
    system ("perl processmail.pl",@ARGLIST);

Tip

If you are using IIS 5.0 or higher, 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.

3.6.2. 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\Parameters\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

"Brian" had this to add, about upgrading to Bugzilla 2.12 from previous versions:

Hi - I am updating bugzilla to 2.12 so I can tell you what I did (after I deleted the current dir and copied the files in).

In checksetup.pl, I did the following... 

  1. my $webservergid = getgrnam($my_webservergroup);

    to

    my $webservergid = 'Administrators'

  2. I then ran checksetup.pl

  3. I removed all the encrypt()

    Example 3-4. Removing encrypt() for Windows NT installations

    Replace this: 
    SendSQL("SELECT encrypt(" . SqlQuote($enteredpwd) . ", " .
    SqlQuote(substr($realcryptpwd, 0, 2)) . ")");
my $enteredcryptpwd = FetchOneColumn();
    with this: 
    my $enteredcryptpwd = $enteredpwd
    in cgi.pl.

  4. I renamed processmail to processmail.pl

  5. I altered the sendmail statements to windmail: 
      
open SENDMAIL, "|\"C:/General/Web/tools/Windmail 4.0 Beta/windmail\" -t > mail.log";

    The quotes around the dir is for the spaces. mail.log is for the output

Tip

This was some late breaking information from Jan Evert. Sorry for the lack of formatting.

I'm busy installing bugzilla on a WinNT machine and I thought I'd notify you
at this moment of the commments I have to section 2.2.1 of the bugzilla
guide (at http://www.trilobyte.net/barnsons/html/).

Step 1:
I've used apache, installation is really straightforward.
After reading the Unix installation instructions, I found that it is
necessary to add the ExecCGI option to the bugzilla directory. Also the
'AddHandler' line for .cgi is by default commented out.

Step 3: although just a detail, 'ppm install <module%gt;' will also work
(without .ppd). And, it can also download these automatically from
ActiveState.

Step 4: although I have cygwin installed, it seems that it is not necessary.
On my machine cygwin is not in the PATH and everything seems to work as
expected.
However, I've not used everything yet.

Step 6: the 'bugs_password' given in SQL command d needs to be edited into
localconfig later on (Step 7) if the password is not empty. I've also edited
it into globals.pl, but I'm not sure that is needed. In both places, the
variable is named db_pass.

Step 8: all the sendmail replacements mentioned are not as simple as
described there. Since I am not familiar (yet) with perl, I don't have any
mail working yet.

Step 9: in globals.pl the encrypt() call can be replaced by just the
unencrypted password. In CGI.pl, the complete SQL command can be removed.

Step 11: I've only changed the #! lines in *.cgi. I haven't noticed problems
with the system() call yet.
There seem to be only four system() called programs: processmail.pl (handled
by step 10), syncshadowdb (which should probably get the same treatment as
processmail.pl), diff and mysqldump. The last one is only needed with the
shadowdb feature (which I don't use).

There seems to be one step missing: copying the bugzilla files somehwere
that apache can serve them.

Just noticed the updated guide... Brian's comment is new. His first comment
will work, but opens up a huge security hole.

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