Bugzilla

An introduction

CONFIDENTIAL

October 15, 2010

Summary
• What is Bugzilla
• What does Bugzilla do?
• Uses
• Features
• Core components of Bugzilla

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What is Bugzilla
• Web based Defect/Bug tracking system
• Developed using free open source tools and is itself free
• Allows individuals/groups to keep track of outstanding bugs in their product effectively
• Supported by a dedicated team
• Constantly being put to the test by the Mozilla foundation
• Has countless features that most expensive solutions lack

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What does Bugzilla do?
• Track bugs and code changes
• Communicate with teammates
• Submit and review patches
• Manage the Quality Assurance

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• Uses

• Systems administration
• Deployment management
• Chip design and development problem tracking (both pre-and-post fabrication)
• Software and hardware bug tracking
• IT support queues

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Features – User level
• User level features are
- Advance search capabilities
- Email notifications controlled by user preferences
- Bug Lists in Multiple Formats (Atom, iCal, etc.)
- Scheduled Reports (Daily, Weekly, Hourly, etc.) by Email
- Reports and Charts
- File/Modify Bugs By Email
- Time Tracking
- Request System
- Private Attachments and Comments
- Automatic Username Completion or Drop-Down User Lists
- Patch Viewer
- "Watch" Other Users
- Move Bugs Between Installs
- Save and Share Searches

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Features – User level Contd..
• Advanced Search Capabilities
- Bugzilla offers two forms of search:
- A basic Google-like bug search that is simple for new users and searches the full text
of a bug.
- A very advanced search system where you can create any search you want, including time-
based searches (such as "show me bugs where the priority has changed in the last 3
days") and other very-specific queries.

• Email Notifications Controlled By User Preferences

- When a bug changes the email can be sent to a number of users
- The bug’s owner
- The bug’s reporter
- The bug’s QA contact (If the “useqacontact” parameter is set)
- All the users who have explicitly asked to be notified when the bug changes
- All the users who have voted for this bug

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Features – User level Contd..
• Bug Lists in Multiple Formats (Atom, iCal, etc.)
- When a user searches for the bugs the results can be in the following formats
- Basic HTML layout
- Atom
- Feed
- iCalender
- XML
- CSV

• Scheduled Reports (Daily, Weekly, Hourly, etc.) by Email

- Bugzilla has a system that will send the results of a particular search on a schedule that a
user specify
- It can be at any time of day, and it can happen as often as every fifteen minutes
- Access to this system is controlled by Bugzilla's groups system, so you can limit who has access to
it, and separately, who is able to send reports to users other than themselves

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Features – User level Contd..
• Reports and Charts
- Bugzilla has very advanced reporting systems. The reports can be retrieved as a line graph, bar
graph and pie chart.
- Reports also can be exported as CSV

• File/Modify Bugs By Email

- In addition to the web interface, an email can be sent to Bugzilla to create a new bug, or will
modify an existing bug

• Time tracking
- The time tracking feature is to
- Estimate how many hours a bug will take to fix
- Keep track of hours spent on a bug
- Set a deadline that a bug must complete

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Features – User level Contd..
• Request system feature is used for
– Asking other users to do something with a particular bug or attachment.
– Allwoing other users to grant yes/no to the request or deny the request
– And for various purposes like whether you need to ask for code review, request information from
a specific user, or get a sign-off from a manager, the system is extremely flexible and can do what
you need.

• Private Attachments and Comments feature enables a user to mark certain attachments and
comments as privarte and tehn these will be invisible to users who are not in the insider group.

• Automatic Username Completion or Drop-Down User Lists

- This feature enables Bugzilla to support showing all users in the drop down list to select from
- Enables the administrators to control the users appears in the drop down list for each user with “user
visibility” controls
- Also gives us the feature of choosing the user from the list generated after entering only a part of the
user name in the assignee, CC or other fields

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CONFIDENTIAL
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Features – User level Contd..
• Patch Viewer Patch Viewer gives you a nice, colorful view of any patch attached to a bug. It also
integrates with LXR, CVS, and Bonsai to provide you even more information about a patch.In
particular, it makes code review much easier

• "Watch" Other Users enables a user to say that he want to “watch” other user and thus enables the
user to get the mails that the other user gets from Bugzilla

• Move Bugs Between Installations feature enable to move a bug from one Bugzilla installation to
another. This even works across versions

• Save and Share Searches feature is to

- save the search performed by any user, sothat it appears in the footer of every page and all you
have to do to run it again is click the link
- If the has the right permissions, the user can share that serach with any group that the user
belong to in Bugzilla

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CONFIDENTIAL
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Features – Admin level
• Admin level features are
- Excellent Security
- Highly Customizable
- Custom Fields
- Full Unicode Support
- Localization
- mod_perl Support for Excellent Performance
- Webservices (XML-RPC) Interface
- Control Bug Visibility/Editing with Groups
- Impersonate Users
- Multiple Authentication Methods
- Support for Multiple Database Engines
- Sanity Check

- 12 Repository Management Recommendations

CONFIDENTIAL
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A Bugs Life

Repository Management Recommendations

CONFIDENTIAL
Thank You