Bugzilla details

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Contents

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Purpose

Bugzilla aimed at helping the management of software releases and the development process. Bugzilla is a way to:

  • Track bugs and code changes
  • Communicate with teammates
  • Submit and review patches
  • Manage quality assurance (QA)

We will use bugzilla in this group to track the development process as well as assign work to the many developers. Bugzilla is able to manage different projects, and it is possible to members of many different groups. Users do not need to have an account to file bugs, although requests will be moderated by a manager or administrator before being passed along to a responsible developer. Additionally, requests for features or QA related matters can be assigned, moderated, and handled.


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Instructions

The following is a brief introduction into the workings of bugzilla. This tutorial features only instructions on how to use some of the more relevant features, in depth exploration should be performed individually. There are many hints in the actual pages of bugzilla, and all users are encouraged to read them as they interact with the system.


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Visiting the Bugzilla Site

Bugzilla can be found by visiting http://bugzilla.perfsonar.net/, or https://bugzilla.perfsonar.net/. Bugzilla will force itself into SSL mode no matter which site you start from. Please ensure you are using an SSL capable browser.


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Signing Up For An Account

Click on: Open a new Bugzilla account or visit: https://bugzilla.perfsonar.net/createaccount.cgi. Once there follow these steps:

  • Enter your preferred e-mail address
  • Enter your full name.
  • Click Create Account
  • Instructions will arrive in the mail that look something like this: 
To use the wonders of Bugzilla, you can use the following:

 E-mail address: SOMEONE@SOMETHING
       Password: SOMEPASS

 To change your password, go to:
 http://bugzilla.perfsonar.net/userprefs.cgi
  • Visit the webpage, enter your password to continue.
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Searching Bug Reports

NOTE: An account is not needed to use this feature.

  • Click on Search existing bug reports
  • Choosing Specific Bug:
    • Select Status
    • Select Product
    • Enter any keywords (if applicable)
  • Choosing Advanced Search:
    • More complex, use if you know more about the bug, and want to narrow search.
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Entering Bug Reports

Before you consider entering a new bug report, please use the Search existing bug reports feature to see if anything you are about to contribute is remotely close to another already entered bug. While we can condense duplicates on our end, it is not productive to enter the same information twice. If a bug report already exists (open of closed) to the problem you are encountering, please direct all questions/comments to that specific thread of action.

It may be helpful to read this: https://bugzilla.perfsonar.net/page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html before starting a new bug. The below information is a summary of this page.

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Starting a new Bug

Select necessary info from the drop downs for a specific bug. Try to be exact, although if you don't know something pick cautiously. Assign a priority/severity with a grain of salt: when the system crashes/halts assign something high, assign something lower when the behavior isn't as expected.

Pick an assignee (if you know who is responsible), otherwise it gets assigned to the default engineer. The default engineer is a bit ornery, but will assign the bug to the proper person.

CC a manager or if you happened to submit this on behalf of an end user. Enter in as many as you want, separate with spaces or commas.

Enter a succinct summary. Follow this example: A useful summary might be PCMCIA install fails on Tosh Tecra 780DVD w/ 3c589C. Software fails or install problem would be examples of a bad summary. Be clear; as funny as you might think your bug report title is, this makes it very hard to find bugs in the future. Clarity is the key here.

The description is very important, consider these examples:

  • BAD:
    • "My browser crashed. I think I was on www.foo.com. I play golf with Bill Gates, so you better fix this problem, or I'll report you to him. By the way, your Back icon looks like a squashed rodent. UGGGLY. And my grandmother's home page is all messed up in your browser. Thx 4 UR help."
  • GOOD:
    • "I crashed each time I went to www.foo.com, using the 2002-02-25 build on a Windows 2000 system. I also rebooted into Linux, and reproduced this problem using the 2002-02-24 Linux build. It again crashed each time upon drawing the Foo banner at the top of the page. I broke apart the page, and discovered that the following image link will crash the application reproducibly, unless you remove the "border=0" attribute: <IMG SRC="topicfoos.gif" width="34" height="44" border="0" alt="News">

The best way to consider handling this problem is to put yourself into the shoes of the person who will be getting the bug. What would you need to solve the problem? Knowing information such as build number/date and system information is very important (including versions of other supporting software such as tomcat, axis, or java). Getting a dump from the log files (either from perfSONAR, java, or something internal) is also very important. Perhaps knowing what else the system was currently doing, or any special configuration options you may employ (CLASSPATH, firewall constraints, etc).

In short more information is much better than none, the developer who receives the bug will ask questions when assigned, and will trim the supplied information as needed, but the initial amount of information will streamline this process.

We would like users to follow this basic template for bug entry:

  • Overview Description: More detailed expansion of summary.
    • Drag-selecting any page crashes Mac builds in NSGetFactory
  • Steps to Reproduce: Minimized, easy-to-follow steps that will trigger the bug. Include any special setup steps. This is very important, before submitting a bug ensure that it happens at least more than once. It may be a good idea to reboot your machine, or restart services to ensure that you can reproduce the problem. Bugzilla should help the entire group, not bog down the development process with every little glitch that can occur.
    • 1) View any web page. (I used the default sample page, resource:/res/samples/test0.html)
    • 2) Drag-select the page. (Specifically, while holding down the mouse button, drag the mouse pointer downwards from any point in the browser's content region to the bottom of the browser's content region.)
  • Actual Results: What the application did after performing the above steps.
    • The application crashed. Stack crawl appended below from MacsBug
  • Expected Results: What the application should have done, were the bug not present.
    • The window should scroll downwards. Scrolled content should be selected. (Or, at least, the application should not crash.)
  • Build Date & Platform: Date and platform of the build that you first encountered the bug in.
    • Build 2002-03-15 on Mac OS 9.0
  • Additional Builds and Platforms: Whether or not the bug takes place on other platforms (or browsers, if applicable). This may not always be necessary, but if you have the time and resources, do see if you can reproduce the behavior elsewhere.
    • - Also Occurs On Mozilla (2002-03-15 build on Windows NT 4.0)
    • - Doesn't Occur On Mozilla (2002-03-15 build on Red Hat Linux; feature not supported) Internet Explorer 5.0 (shipping build on Windows NT 4.0) Netscape Communicator 4.5 (shipping build on Mac OS 9.0)
  • Additional Information: Any other debugging information. For crashing bugs:
    • Win32: if you receive a Dr. Watson error, please note the type of the crash, and the module that the application crashed in. (e.g. access violation in apprunner.exe)
    • Mac OS: if you're running MacsBug, please provide the results of a how and an sc: 
        		*** MACSBUG STACK CRAWL OF CRASH (Mac OS)
        		Calling chain using A6/R1 links 
        		Back chain  ISA  Caller 
        		00000000    PPC  0BA85E74   
        		03AEFD80    PPC  0B742248   
        		03AEFD30    PPC  0B50FDDC  NSGetFactory+027FC
        		PowerPC unmapped memory exception at 0B512BD0 NSGetFactory+055F0
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Other Important Notes

  • One bug per report.
  • Nothing is too trivial to report, that's what delete was invented for.
  • Be clear in bug reports, as they will be around for a while.
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Summary Reports And Charts

NOTE: An account is not needed to use this feature.

Use to get a graphical feel of how the software is progressing.

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My Requests

Use this if you want to see items you need to act on, or have requested of others.

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My Votes

Bugzilla has a voting feature. Each product allows users to have a certain number of votes. (Some products may not allow any, which means you can't vote on things in that product at all.) With your vote, you indicate which bugs you think are the most important to be fixed.

Depending on how the administrator has configured the relevant product, you may be able to vote for the same bug more than one time. But remember, you only have so many votes to use in total! So, you can either vote a little for many bugs, or vote a lot for a few bugs. To look at votes

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To look at votes

  • Go to the query page.
  • Do a normal query, but enter 1 in the At least ___ votes field. This will show you items that match your query that have at least one vote.
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To vote for a bug

  • Bring up the bug in question.
  • Click on the Vote for this bug link that appears just above the Additional Comments field. (If no such link appears, then voting may not be allowed in this bug's product.)
  • Indicate how many votes you want to give this bug. This page also displays how many votes you've given to other bugs, so you may re-balance your votes as necessary.

You will automatically get email notifying you of any changes that occur on bugs you vote for.

You may review your votes at any time by clicking on the My Votes link in the page footer.


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Prefs

Use to change user's name, e-mail, or password.

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My Bugs

Shows bugs assigned to you (past or present).

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