path: root/docs/txt/Bugzilla-Guide.txt

The Bugzilla Guide

Matthew P. Barnson

The Bugzilla Team

   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 SGML diffs, attached to a bug
   filed in mozilla.org's Bugzilla.
     _________________________________________________________________

   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. 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. Change Permission Customisation
        5.9. Upgrading to New Releases
        5.10. Integrating Bugzilla with Third-Party Tools

   A. The Bugzilla FAQ
   B. The Bugzilla Database

        B.1. Modifying Your Running System
        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

   Glossary

   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 below.

   --Copyright (c) 2000-2002 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

1.1.1. 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

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  version  of The Bugzilla Guide. It is so named to
   match  the  current  version of Bugzilla. 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.

   This document can be found in the following places:

     * bugzilla.org
     * The Linux Documentation Project

   The latest version of this document can always be checked out via CVS.
   Please  follow the instructions available at the Mozilla CVS page, and
   check out the mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/docs/ subtree.

   The  Bugzilla  Guide  is  currently  only available in English. If you
   would like to volunteer to translate it, 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  for  the Herculaean task of pulling together the
   Bugzilla Guide and shepherding it to 2.14.

   Terry  Weissman for initially writing Bugzilla and creating the README
   upon which the UNIX installation documentation is largely based.

   Tara  Hernandez  for  keeping  Bugzilla development going strong after
   Terry left mozilla.org

   Dave  Lawrence  for providing insight into the key differences between
   Red  Hat's  customized Bugzilla, and being largely responsible for the
   "Red Hat Bugzilla" appendix

   Dawn  Endico  for being a hacker extraordinaire and putting up with my
   incessant questions and arguments on irc.mozilla.org in #mozwebtools

   Last but not least, all the members of the
   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 no particular order):

   Zach  Liption,  Andrew  Pearson,  Spencer  Smith,  Eric  Hanson, Kevin
   Brannen,   Ron  Teitelbaum,  Jacob  Steenhagen,  Joe  Robins,  Gervase
   Markham.
     _________________________________________________________________

1.5. Document Conventions

   This document uses the following conventions:

   Descriptions Appearance
   Warnings

   Caution

   Don't run with scissors!
   Hint

   Tip

   Would you like a breath mint?
   Notes

   Note

   Dear John...
   Information requiring special attention

   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
   Code Example
<para>
Beginning and end of paragraph
</para>
     _________________________________________________________________

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
     _________________________________________________________________

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, 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

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

    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.
     _________________________________________________________________

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. 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: landfill.bugzilla.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 .
     _________________________________________________________________

3.1.4. 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

3.1.5. 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 http://www.bugzilla.org will
   be  turned  into  http://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.
     _________________________________________________________________

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.
     _________________________________________________________________

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.
     _________________________________________________________________

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.
     _________________________________________________________________

3.2.5. 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:
     _________________________________________________________________

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

   On  this  tab  you can reduce or increase the amount of email sent you
   from Bugzilla, opting in our out depending on your relationship to the
   bug  and  the  change  that was made to it. (Note that you can also do
   client-side   filtering   using  the  X-Bugzilla-Reason  header  which
   Bugzilla adds to all bugmail.)

   By entering user email names, delineated by commas, into the "Users to
   watch"  text  entry  box  you can receive a copy of all the bugmail of
   other    users   (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 can't see it, ask your administrator.
     _________________________________________________________________

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

   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)
    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. File::Temp (v1.804) (Prerequisite for Template)
         c. AppConfig (v1.52)
         d. Text::Wrap (v2001.0131)
         e. File::Spec (v0.8.2)
         f. Data::Dumper (any)
         g. DBD::mysql (v1.2209)
         h. DBI (v1.13)
         i. Date::Parse (any)
         j. 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.

   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 release of the server.

   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.

   Change  your  init  script  to start mysqld with the ability to accept
   large packets. By default, mysqld only accepts packets up to 64K long.
   This limits the size of attachments you may put on bugs. If you add -O
   max_allowed_packet=1M   to   the   command   that  starts  mysqld  (or
   safe_mysqld),  then you will be able to have attachments up to about 1
   megabyte.  There  is a Bugzilla parameter for maximum attachment size;
   you should configure it to match the value you choose here.

   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  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 program and not simply display the source
   code.  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 these lines:
Options +ExecCGI
AllowOverride Limit

   are 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" directory 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.

   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.

   Note

   "Bonsaitools" is the name Terry Weissman, the original author of
   Bugzilla, created for his suite of webtools at the time he created
   Bugzilla and several other tools in use at mozilla.org. He created a
   directory, /usr/bonsaitools to house his specific versions of perl and
   other utilities. This usage is still current at bugzilla.mozilla.org,
   but in general most other places do not use it. You can either edit
   the paths at the start of each perl file to the correct location of
   perl on your system, or simply bow to history and create a
   /usr/bonsaitools and /usr/bonsaitools/bin directory, placing a symlink
   to perl on your system inside /usr/bonsaitools/bin

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.

   mysql> GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,INDEX,
   ALTER,CREATE,DROP,REFERENCES ON bugs.* TO bugs@localhost IDENTIFIED BY
   '<bugs_password>';
   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.

   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, su to the user your web server
   runs  as,  and re-run checksetup.pl. (Note: on some security-conscious
   systems,  you  may  need  to  change the login shell for the webserver
   account  before  you  can do this.) 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. Securing MySQL

   If  you  followed  the  installation  instructions for setting up your
   "bugs" and "root" user in MySQL, much of this should not apply to you.
   If  you are upgrading an existing installation of Bugzilla, you should
   pay close attention to this section.

   Most MySQL installs have "interesting" default security parameters:

   mysqld defaults to running as root
   it defaults to allowing external network connections
   it has a known port number, and is easy to detect
   it defaults to no passwords whatsoever
   it defaults to allowing "File_Priv"

   This  means anyone from anywhere on the internet can not only drop the
   database  with  one  SQL  command,  and  they can write as root to the
   system.

   To see your permissions do:

   bash# mysql -u root -p
   mysql> use mysql;
   mysql> show tables;
   mysql> select * from user;
   mysql> select * from db;

   To fix the gaping holes:

   DELETE FROM user WHERE User='';
   UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('new_password') WHERE user='root';
   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

   If you're not running "mit-pthreads" you can use:

   GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO bugs@localhost;
   GRANT ALL ON bugs.* TO bugs@localhost;
   REVOKE DROP ON bugs.* FROM bugs@localhost;
   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

   With   "mit-pthreads"   you'll   need   to   modify  the  "globals.pl"
   Mysql->Connect  line  to  specify  a  specific  host  name  instead of
   "localhost", and accept external connections:

   GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO bugs@bounce.hop.com;
   GRANT ALL ON bugs.* TO bugs@bounce.hop.com;
   REVOKE DROP ON bugs.* FROM bugs@bounce.hop.com;
   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

   Consider also:

    1. Turning  off  external networking with "--skip-networking", unless
       you   have  "mit-pthreads",  in  which  case  you  can't.  Without
       networking, MySQL connects with a Unix domain socket.
    2. using  the  --user=  option to mysqld to run it as an unprivileged
       user.
    3. running MySQL in a chroot jail
    4. running the httpd in a chroot jail
    5. making  sure  the  MySQL  passwords  are  different  from  the  OS
       passwords (MySQL "root" has nothing to do with system "root").
    6. running MySQL on a separate untrusted machine
    7. making backups ;-)
     _________________________________________________________________

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.

   You  can  also try using OpenLDAP with Bugzilla, using any of a number
   of administration tools. You should apply the patch attached this bug:
   http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=158630,   then   set   the
   following object classes for your users:

    1. objectClass: person
    2. objectClass: organizationalPerson
    3. objectClass: inetOrgPerson
    4. objectClass: top
    5. objectClass: posixAccount
    6. objectClass: shadowAccount

   Please  note that this patch has not yet been accepted by the Bugzilla
   team,  and  so  you may need to do some manual tweaking. That said, it
   looks like Net::LDAP is probably the way to go in the future.
     _________________________________________________________________

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. directoryindex for the Bugzilla default page.

   You  should  modify  the  <DirectoryIndex>  parameter  for  the Apache
   virtual  host running your Bugzilla installation to allow index.cgi as
   the  index  page  for  a  directory,  as well as the usual index.html,
   index.htm, and so forth.
     _________________________________________________________________

4.2.8. Bugzilla and mod_perl

   Bugzilla  is unsupported under mod_perl. Effort is underway to make it
   work cleanly in a mod_perl environment, but it is slow going.
     _________________________________________________________________

4.2.9. 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/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 <modulename>
       Example  4-1.  Installing  ActivePerl  ppd  Modules  on  Microsoft
       Windows
       C:> ppm DBD-Mysql 
       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 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

   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);



   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
   &bz-ver;.

   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

   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
   <http://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. Troubleshooting

   This section gives solutions to common Bugzilla installation problems.
     _________________________________________________________________

4.5.1. 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

4.5.2. 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.)
     _________________________________________________________________

4.5.3. 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

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.
    1. 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.
    2. 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/.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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, 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. You will need to set the host and port settings from the
       params  page,  and  set  up replication in your database server so
       that  updates  reach  this  readonly mirror. Consult your database
       documentation for more detail.
    6. shutdownhtml:  If  you  need  to  shut  down  Bugzilla  to perform
       administration,  enter  some  descriptive HTML here and anyone who
       tries  to  use  Bugzilla  will  receive  a  page  to  that effect.
       Obviously,  editparams.cgi  will  still  be  accessible so you can
       remove the HTML and re-enable Bugzilla. :-)
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
   10. 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.
   11. 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).
   12. 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!)
   13. supportwatchers:  Turning  on  this  option allows users to ask to
       receive  copies  of  all a particular other user's bug email. This
       is, of course, subject to the groupset restrictions on the bug; if
       the  "watcher"  would  not  normally be allowed to view a bug, the
       watcher  cannot  get  around  the  system by setting herself up to
       watch  the  bugs of someone with bugs outside her privileges. They
       would  still  only  receive email updates for those bugs she could
       normally view.
     _________________________________________________________________

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, add them to the "admin"
   group and, optionally, add edit the tweakparams, editusers,
   creategroups, editcomponents, and editkeywords groups to add the
   entire admin group to those groups.
     _________________________________________________________________

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.

       Warning

   Don't disable the administrator account!

   Note

   The user can still submit bugs via the e-mail gateway, if you set it
   up, even if the disabled text field is filled in. The e-mail gateway
   should not be enabled for secure installations of Bugzilla.
     * <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
   UNCOMFIRMED  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  "Group",  "Description", and "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".

   Warning

   The User Regexp is a perl regexp and, if not anchored, will match any
   part of an address. So, if you do not want to grant access into
   'mycompany.com' to 'badperson@mycompany.com.hacker.net', use
   '@mycompany\.com$' as the regexp.
    4. After  you  add  your  new  group, edit the new group. On the edit
       page, you can specify other groups that should be included in this
       group and which groups should be permitted to add and delete users
       from this group.

   To use Product-Based Groups:

    1. Turn  on  "usebuggroups"  and  "usebuggroupsentry"  in  the  "Edit
       Parameters" screen.
    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.

   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.
     _________________________________________________________________

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 for specific platforms, please submit them to
   mozilla-webtools@mozilla.org

   To secure your installation:

    1. Ensure  you  are  running at least MysQL version 3.22.32 or newer.
       Earlier  versions  had notable security holes and (from a security
       point of view) poor default configuration choices.
    2. There is no substitute for understanding the tools on your system!
       Read  The  MySQL  Privilege  System  until  you can recite it from
       memory!
    3. Lock  down  /etc/inetd.conf.  Heck,  disable inet entirely on this
       box. It should only listen to port 25 for Sendmail and port 80 for
       Apache.
    4. Do  not  run  Apache  as  "nobody"  .  This  will require very lax
       permissions  in  your  Bugzilla directories. Run it, instead, as a
       user with a name, set via your httpd.conf file.

   Note

   "nobody" is a real user on UNIX systems. Having a process run as user
   id "nobody" is absolutely no protection against system crackers versus
   using any other user account. As a general security measure, I
   recommend you create unique user ID's for each daemon running on your
   system and, if possible, use "chroot" to jail that process away from
   the rest of your system.
    5. Ensure    you    have    adequate    access   controls   for   the
       $BUGZILLA_HOME/data/     directory,     as     well     as     the
       $BUGZILLA_HOME/localconfig  file. The localconfig file stores your
       "bugs"  database  account  password. In addition, some files under
       $BUGZILLA_HOME/data/ store sensitive information.
       Bugzilla  provides  default  .htaccess  files  to protect the most
       common  Apache installations. However, you should verify these are
       adequate  according  to  the site-wide security policy of your web
       server,  and  ensure  that  the  .htaccess  files  are  allowed to
       "override"  default  permissions  set in your Apache configuration
       files. Covering Apache security is beyond the scope of this Guide;
       please consult the Apache documentation for details.
       If  you are using a web server that does not support the .htaccess
       control method, you are at risk! After installing, check to see if
       you  can  view  the  file "localconfig" in your web browser (e.g.:
       http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/localconfig  ).  If  you  can read the
       contents  of  this  file,  your  web  server  has not secured your
       bugzilla  directory  properly and you must fix this problem before
       deploying Bugzilla. If, however, it gives you a "Forbidden" error,
       then  it  probably  respects the .htaccess conventions and you are
       good to go.
       When  you  run  checksetup.pl,  the  script will attempt to modify
       various  permissions  on  files which Bugzilla uses. If you do not
       have  a  webservergroup set in the localconfig file, then Bugzilla
       will  have  to  make certain files world readable and/or writable.
       THIS  IS  INSECURE! . This means that anyone who can get access to
       your   system   can   do  whatever  they  want  to  your  Bugzilla
       installation.

   Note

   This also means that if your webserver runs all cgi scripts as the
   same user/group, anyone on the system who can run cgi scripts will be
   able to take control of your Bugzilla installation.
       On  Apache, you can use .htaccess files to protect access to these
       directories,  as  outlined  in Bug 57161 for the localconfig file,
       and Bug 65572 for adequate protection in your data/ directory.
       Note the instructions which follow are Apache-specific. If you use
       IIS,  Netscape,  or  other  non-Apache web servers, please consult
       your system documentation for how to secure these files from being
       transmitted to curious users.
       Place  the  following text into a file named ".htaccess", readable
       by your web server, in your $BUGZILLA_HOME/data directory.
       <Files comments> allow from all </Files>
               deny from all
       Place  the  following text into a file named ".htaccess", readable
       by your web server, in your $BUGZILLA_HOME/ directory.
       <Files localconfig> deny from all </Files>
               allow from all
     _________________________________________________________________

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. What to Edit

   There  are  two different ways of editing of Bugzilla's templates, and
   which you use depends mainly on how you upgrade Bugzilla. The template
   directory  structure  is that there's a top level directory, template,
   which  contains  a  directory  for  each  installed  localisation. The
   default  English templates are therefore in en. Underneath that, there
   is  the  default  directory  and  optionally the custom directory. The
   default  directory  contains  all the templates shipped with Bugzilla,
   whereas  the  custom  directory  does  not  exist at first and must be
   created if you want to use it.

   The  first  method  of  making  customisations is to directly edit the
   templates in template/en/default. This is probably the best method for
   small  changes  if  you  are going to use the CVS method of upgrading,
   because  if you then execute a cvs update, any template fixes will get
   automagically merged into your modified versions.

   If  you use this method, your installation will break if CVS conflicts
   occur.

   The  other  method  is to copy the templates into a mirrored directory
   structure  under  template/en/custom.  The templates in this directory
   automatically  override  those  in  default. This is the technique you
   need  to  use  if  you  use the overwriting method of upgrade, because
   otherwise your changes will be lost. This method is also 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.

   If  you  use  this method, your installation may break if incompatible
   changes  are  made to the template interface. If such changes are made
   they will 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

   Don't directly edit the compiled templates in data/template/* - your
   changes will be lost when Template Toolkit recompiles them.
     _________________________________________________________________

5.7.2. How To Edit Templates

   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.  However,  you  should particularly remember (for
   security  reasons)  to  always  HTML filter things which come from the
   database or user input, to prevent cross-site scripting attacks.

   However,  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 &lt;. You use the 'html'
   filter in the Template Toolkit to do this. If you fail to do this, 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.

   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.
     _________________________________________________________________

5.7.3. Template Formats

   Some CGIs have the ability to use more than one template. For example,
   buglist.cgi can output bug lists as RDF or two different forms of HTML
   (complex  and  simple). (Try this out by appending &format=simple to a
   buglist.cgi URL on your Bugzilla installation.) This mechanism, called
   template 'formats', 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 you 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> .
     _________________________________________________________________

5.7.4. 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.

   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
   wish  to  get  bug  submitters  to  give  certain  bits  of structured
   information, each in a separate input widget, for which there is not a
   field  in  the  database. The bug entry system has been designed in an
   extensible  fashion  to  enable  you  to  define  arbitrary fields and
   widgets,  and  have  their  values  appear  formatted  in  the initial
   Description, rather than in database fields. An example of this is the
   mozilla.org guided bug submission form.

   To  make  this  work,  create a custom template for enter_bug.cgi (the
   default  template,  on  which you could base it, is create.html.tmpl),
   and  either  call  it  create.html.tmpl  or  use  a format and call it
   create-<formatname>.html.tmpl.   Put   it   in  the  custom/bug/create
   directory. 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, also
   named  after  your  format  if you are using one, which references the
   form  fields  you  have  created.  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. Change Permission Customisation

   Warning

   This feature should be considered experimental; the Bugzilla code you
   will be changing is not stable, and could change or move between
   versions. Be aware that if you make modifications to it, you may have
   to re-make them or port them if Bugzilla changes internally between
   versions.

   Companies  often  have  rules  about  which  employees,  or classes of
   employees, are allowed to change certain things in the bug system. For
   example, only the bug's designated QA Contact may be allowed to VERIFY
   the  bug.  Bugzilla has been designed to make it easy for you to write
   your  own  custom rules to define who is allowed to make what sorts of
   value transition.

   For  maximum  flexibility,  customising  this means editing Bugzilla's
   Perl  code. This gives the administrator complete control over exactly
   who   is   allowed  to  do  what.  The  relevant  function  is  called
   CheckCanChangeField(),   and  is  found  in  process_bug.cgi  in  your
   Bugzilla   directory.  If  you  open  that  file  and  grep  for  "sub
   CheckCanChangeField", you'll find it.

   This function has been carefully commented to allow you to see exactly
   how  it  works,  and  give  you  an idea of how to make changes to it.
   Certain  marked  sections  should  not  be  changed  -  these  are the
   "plumbing" which makes the rest of the function work. In between those
   sections, you'll find snippets of code like:
    # Allow the owner to change anything.
    if ($ownerid eq $whoid) {
        return 1;
    }

   It's fairly obvious what this piece of code does.

   So, how does one go about changing this function? Well, simple changes
   can  be  made  just be removing pieces - for example, if you wanted to
   prevent  any  user  adding  a  comment to a bug, just remove the lines
   marked "Allow anyone to change comments." And if you want the reporter
   to  have  no  special  rights on bugs they have filed, just remove the
   entire section which refers to him.

   More  complex customisations are not much harder. Basically, you add a
   check in the right place in the function, i.e. after all the variables
   you  are  using  have  been  set up. So, don't look at $ownerid before
   $ownerid  has  been  obtained  from the database. You can either add a
   positive  check,  which  returns  1  (allow) if certain conditions are
   true, or a negative check, which returns 0 (deny.) E.g.:
    if ($field eq "qacontact") {
        if (UserInGroup("quality_assurance")) {
            return 1;
        }
        else {
            return 0;
        }
    }

   This  says that only users in the group "quality_assurance" can change
   the QA Contact field of a bug. Getting more weird:
    if (($field eq "priority") &&
        ($vars->{'user'}{'login'} =~ /.*\@example\.com$/))
    {
        if ($oldvalue eq "P1") {
            return 1;
        }
        else {
            return 0;
        }
    }

   This says that if the user is trying to change the priority field, and
   their  email  address  is @example.com, they can only do so if the old
   value of the field was "P1". Not very useful, but illustrative.

   For  a list of possible field names, look in data/versioncache for the
   list  called @::log_columns. If you need help writing custom rules for
   your organisation, ask in the newsgroup.
     _________________________________________________________________

5.9. Upgrading to New Releases

   A plain Bugzilla is fairly easy to upgrade from one version to a newer
   one. Always read the release notes to see if there are any issues that
   you  might  need  to  take  note of. It is recommended that you take a
   backup  of  your database and your entire Bugzilla installation before
   attempting  an  upgrade.  You  can  upgrade  a 'clean' installation by
   untarring  a  new  tarball  over  the  old  installation.  If  you are
   upgrading from 2.12 or later, and have cvs installed, you can type cvs
   -z3 update, and resolve conflicts if there are any.

   However,  things  get a bit more complicated if you've made changes to
   Bugzilla's  code.  In  this  case,  you may have to re-make or reapply
   those  changes.  One  good method is to take a diff of your customised
   version  against  the  original,  so  you  can  survey all that you've
   changed.  Hopefully,  templatisation  will reduce the need for this in
   the future.

   From  version  2.8  onwards,  Bugzilla  databases can be automatically
   carried  forward during an upgrade. However, because the developers of
   Bugzilla  are constantly adding new tables, columns and fields, you'll
   probably get SQL errors if you just update the code and attempt to use
   Bugzilla.  Always  run  the  checksetup.pl script whenever you upgrade
   your installation.

   If  you are running Bugzilla version 2.8 or lower, and wish to upgrade
   to the latest version, please consult the file, "UPGRADING-pre-2.8" in
   the Bugzilla root directory after untarring the archive.
     _________________________________________________________________

5.10. Integrating Bugzilla with Third-Party Tools

5.10.1. 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

5.10.2. 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 have
   your check-in script include an @resolution field, you can even change
   the Bugzilla bug state.

   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/.
     _________________________________________________________________

5.10.3. 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.
     _________________________________________________________________

5.10.4. 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
                compatability 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. 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.2.19. 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.2.20. Is there any licensing fee or other fees for using
                Bugzilla? Any out-of-pocket cost other than the bodies
                needed as identified above? 

   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 try to add myself as a user, but Bugzilla always tells
                me my password is wrong. 

        A.5.5. I think I've set up MySQL permissions correctly, but
                Bugzilla still can't connect. 

        A.5.6. 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. Email submissions to Bugzilla that have attachments end up
                asking me to save it as a "cgi" file. 

        A.7.6. How do I change a keyword in Bugzilla, once some bugs are
                using it? 

   8. Bugzilla Hacking

        A.8.1. What kind of style should I use for templatization? 
        A.8.2. What bugs are in Bugzilla right now? 
        A.8.3. How can I change the default priority to a null value? For
                instance, have the default priority be "---" instead of
                "P2"? 

        A.8.4. 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
   http://www.bugzilla.org/

   A.1.2. What license is Bugzilla distributed under?

   Bugzilla  is  covered  by  the  Mozilla Public License. See details at
   http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/

   A.1.3. How do I get commercial support 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 comapanies with public Bugzilla sites to
   track bugs in their products. A few include:

   Netscape/AOL
   Mozilla.org
   NASA
   AtHome Corporation
   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@syndicomm.com).

   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
   compatability 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.

   There is DB-independence work afoot. PostgreSQL support is planned for
   2.18, and full DB-independence can't be far further on.

   A.1.9.  Why  do the scripts say "/usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl" instead of
   "/usr/bin/perl" or something else?

   Mozilla.org  uses  /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.

   We   always  recommend  that,  if  possible,  you  keep  the  path  as
   /usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl,  and  simply  add  symlink.  This will make
   upgrading your Bugzilla much easier in the future.

   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 (although you are
   limited to about 55 or so if you are using Product-Based Groups), that
   can each be composed of any number of Components.

   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. There are many specific MIME-types that are
   pre-defined  by  Bugzilla, but you may specify any arbitrary MIME-type
   you need when you upload the file.

   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
   http://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   http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/reports.cgi  for  basic
   reporting and graphing facilities.

   For  more  advanced  reporting,  I recommend hooking up a professional
   reporting package, such as Crystal Reports, and use ODBC to access the
   MySQL database. You can do a lot through the Query page of Bugzilla as
   well,  but  right  now  Advanced Reporting is much better accomplished
   through  third-party  utilities  that  can interface with the database
   directly.

   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?

   Mozilla allows data export through a custom DTD in XML format. It does
   not,  however,  export  to specific formats other than the XML Mozilla
   DTD. Importing the data into Excel or any other application is left as
   an exercise for the reader.

   If you create import filters to other applications from Mozilla's XML,
   please  submit  your  modifications  for  inclusion in future Bugzilla
   distributions.

   As  for data import, any application can send data to Bugzilla through
   the  HTTP  protocol,  or  through Mozilla's XML API. However, it seems
   kind  of silly to put another front-end in front of Bugzilla; it makes
   more sense to create a simplified bug submission form in HTML. You can
   find an excellent example at
   http://www.mozilla.org/quality/help/bugzilla-helper.html

   A.2.12.  Has  anyone converted Bugzilla to another language to be used
   in other countries? Is it localizable?

   To  a certain extent, yes. 2.16's templates mean that you can localise
   the  user-facing  UI  (and  several  projects are doing exactly that.)
   However,  error  messages  and  the  admin interface are currently not
   localisable. This should be achieved by 2.18.

   A.2.13.  Can  a user create and save reports? Can they do this in Word
   format? Excel format?

   Yes. No. No.

   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
   http://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.  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.2.19.  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.2.20.  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.

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.)

   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 "changedmail" 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
   http://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  Bugzilla  works  with  Oracle.  The  current  version  from
   Mozilla.org  does  not have this capability. Unfortunately, though you
   will  sacrifice  a  lot  of  the  really  great  features available in
   Bugzilla 2.14 and 2.16 if you go with the 2.8-based Redhat version.

   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
   mysqladmin  utility  to  manually  insert,  delete,  and  modify table
   information. Personally, I use "phpMyAdmin". You have to compile a PHP
   module  with  MySQL  support  to make it work, but it's very clean and
   easy to use.

   A.5.4.  I try to add myself as a user, but Bugzilla always tells me my
   password is wrong.

   Certain  version  of MySQL (notably, 3.23.29 and 3.23.30) accidentally
   disabled  the  "crypt()"  function.  This prevented MySQL from storing
   encrypted passwords. Upgrade to the "3.23 stable" version of MySQL and
   you should be good to go.

   A.5.5.  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. However, I do not recommend you run it this way on a
   regular  basis,  unless you really want your web site defaced and your
   machine cracked.

   A.5.6.  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.  Email  submissions  to  Bugzilla  that have attachments end up
   asking me to save it as a "cgi" file.

   Yup. Just rename it once you download it, or save it under a different
   filename.  This  will  not  be  fixed  anytime  soon, because it would
   cripple some other functionality.

   A.7.6. 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.

8. Bugzilla Hacking

   A.8.1. What kind of style should I use for templatization?

   Gerv  and Myk suggest a 2-space endent, with embedded code sections on
   their own line, in line with outer tags. Like this:
<fred>
[% IF foo %]
  <bar>
  [% FOREACH x = barney %]
    <tr>
      <td>
        [% x %]
      </td>
    <tr>
  [% END %]
[% END %]
</fred>

   Myk   also   recommends   you   turn  on  PRE_CHOMP  in  the  template
   initialization   to   prevent   bloating   of  HTML  with  unnecessary
   whitespace.

   Please note that many have differing opinions on this subject, and the
   existing  templates in Bugzilla espouse both this and a 4-space style.
   Either is acceptable; the above is preferred.

   A.8.2. 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.8.3.  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:
   http://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.8.4. 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
       (http://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. Modifying Your Running System

   Bugzilla  optimizes  database lookups by storing all relatively static
   information   in   the   versioncache   file,  located  in  the  data/
   subdirectory under your installation directory.

   If  you  make  a  change  to the structural data in your database (the
   versions  table  for  example),  or  to  the  "constants"  encoded  in
   defparams.pl, you will need to remove the cached content from the data
   directory  (by doing a "rm data/versioncache" ), or your changes won't
   show up.

   versioncache gets automatically regenerated whenever it's more than an
   hour  old,  so Bugzilla will eventually notice your changes by itself,
   but  generally  you want it to notice right away, so that you can test
   things.
     _________________________________________________________________

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, ou 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 |
| tokens            |
| versions          |
| votes             |
| watch             |
+-------------------+

     Here's an overview of what each table does.  Most columns in each ta
   ble have
   descriptive names that make it fairly trivial to figure out their jobs
   .
   attachments: This table stores all attachments to bugs.  It tends to b
   e 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 mad
   e to bugs
   when -- a history file.
   cc:  This tiny table simply stores all the CC information for any bug
   which has
   any entries in the CC field of the bug.  Note that, like most other ta
   bles 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 othe
   r 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, wh
   en you
   submit a form that changes the value of "AssignedTo" this table allows
   translation to the actual field name "assigned_to" for entry into MySQ
   L.
   groups:  defines bitmasks for groups.  A bitmask is a number that can
   uniquely
   identify group memberships.  For instance, say the group that is allow
   ed 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 g
   roups 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 bitm
   ask 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
   every
   machine you've ever logged into Bugzilla from.  Curiously, it never do
   es 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 m
   akes
   sense.
   longdescs:  The meat of bugzilla -- here is where all user comments ar
   e stored!
   You've only got 2^24 bytes per comment (it's a mediumtext field), so s
   peak
   sparingly -- that's only the amount of space the Old Testament from th
   e Bible
   would take (uncompressed, 16 megabytes).  Each comment is keyed to the
   bug_id to which it's attached, so the order is necessarily chronologic
   al, for
   comments are played back in the order in which they are received.
   milestones:  Interesting that milestones are associated with a specifi
   c product
   in this table, but Bugzilla does not yet support differing milestones
   by
   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 que
   ry 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,
   etc.  It
   will be nice when the components table supports these same features, s
   o you
   could close a particular component for bug entry without having to clo
   se an
   entire product...
   profiles:  Ahh, so you were wondering where your precious user informa
   tion 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?
   This'll
   tell you, it's a pretty complete history.
   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 tabl
   e 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"
   table 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, wher
   e
   "column" is the name of the column for which you wish to restrict info
   rmation:
   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 fr
   om the
   above information that the resolution is likely to be stored in the "b
   ugs"
   table. Note we'll need to change a little perl code as well as this da
   tabase
   change, but I won't plunge into that in this document. Let's verify th
   e
   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"
   column is
   an "enum field", which is a MySQL peculiarity where a string type fiel
   d can
   only have certain types of entries.  While I think this is very cool,
   it'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 befor
   e 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 th
   at's
   available!  Cool thing, too, is that this is reflected on your query p
   age as
   well -- you can query by the new status.  But how's it fit into the ex
   isting
   scheme of things?
     Looks like you need to go back and look for instances of the word "v
   erified"
   in the perl code for Bugzilla -- wherever you find "verified", change
   it 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 s
   tatus
   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
   "http://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 Bugzilla is a fork of Bugzilla 2.8. One of its major benefits
   is  the  ability  to work with Oracle, MySQL, and PostGreSQL databases
   serving  as  the back-end, instead of just MySQL. Dave Lawrence of Red
   Hat  is  active  in  the  Bugzilla  community,  and  we  hope to see a
   reunification of the fork before too long.

   URL: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/
     _________________________________________________________________

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.
     _________________________________________________________________

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, Scarab.
     _________________________________________________________________

D.4. Scarab

   Scarab  is  a  new  open  source  bug-tracking system built using Java
   Serlet technology. It is currently at version 1.0 beta 8.

   URL: http://scarab.tigris.org
     _________________________________________________________________

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 
     _________________________________________________________________

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

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.

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.

   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.

   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

   mysqld
          mysqld  is  the  name  of the daemon for the MySQL database. In
          general,  it  is  invoked  automatically through the use of the
          System  V  init  scripts  on  GNU/Linux and AT&T System V-based
          systems,  such  as Solaris and HP/UX, or through the RC scripts
          on BSD-based systems.

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.

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.

Z

   Zarro Boogs Found
          This  is  the  cryptic  response  sent by Bugzilla when a query
          returned  no  results.  It  is just a goofy way of saying "Zero
          Bugs Found".