<!-- <!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.1//EN"> -->
<chapter id="administration">
<title>Administering Bugzilla</title>
<subtitle>Or, I just got this cool thing installed. Now what the heck do I
do with it?</subtitle>
<para>So you followed
<quote>
<xref linkend="installation" />
</quote>
to the letter, and logged into Bugzilla for the very first time with your
super-duper god account. You sit, contentedly staring at the Bugzilla Query
Screen, the worst of the whole mad business of installing this terrific
program behind you. It seems, though, you have nothing yet to query! Your
first act of business should be to setup the operating parameters for
Bugzilla so you can get busy getting data into your bug tracker.</para>
<section id="postinstall-check">
<title>Post-Installation Checklist</title>
<para>After installation, follow the checklist below to help ensure that
you have a successful installation. If you do not see a recommended
setting for a parameter, consider leaving it at the default while you
perform your initial tests on your Bugzilla setup.</para>
<indexterm>
<primary>checklist</primary>
</indexterm>
<procedure>
<step>
<para>Bring up
<filename>editparams.cgi</filename>
in your web browser. This should be available as the
<quote>edit parameters</quote>
link from any Bugzilla screen once you have logged in.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>The
<quote>maintainer</quote>
is the email address of the person responsible for maintaining this
Bugzilla installation. The maintainer need not be a valid Bugzilla
user. Error pages, error emails, and administrative mail will be sent
with the maintainer as the return email address.</para>
<para>Set
<quote>maintainer</quote>
to
<emphasis>your</emphasis>
email address. This allows Bugzilla's error messages to display your
email address and allow people to contact you for help.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>The
<quote>urlbase</quote>
parameter defines the fully qualified domain name and web server path
to your Bugzilla installation.</para>
<para>For example, if your bugzilla query page is
http://www.foo.com/bugzilla/query.cgi, set your
<quote>urlbase</quote>
is http://www.foo.com/bugzilla/.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>
<quote>usebuggroups</quote>
dictates whether or not to implement group-based security for
Bugzilla. If set, Bugzilla bugs can have an associated groupmask
defining which groups of users are allowed to see and edit the
bug.</para>
<para>Set "usebuggroups" to "on"
<emphasis>only</emphasis>
if you may wish to restrict access to products. I suggest leaving
this parameter
<emphasis>off</emphasis>
while initially testing your Bugzilla.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>
<quote>usebuggroupsentry</quote>
, when set to
<quote>on</quote>
, requires that all bugs have an associated groupmask when submitted.
This parameter is made for those installations where product
isolation is a necessity.</para>
<para>Set "usebuggroupsentry" to "on" if you absolutely need to
restrict access to bugs from the moment they are submitted through
resolution. Once again, if you are simply testing your installation,
I suggest against turning this parameter on; the strict security
checking may stop you from being able to modify your new
entries.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>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. The
<quote>shadowdb</quote>
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.</para>
<para>Set "shadowdb" to "bug_shadowdb" if you will be running a
*very* large installation of Bugzilla. The shadow database enables
many simultaneous users to read and write to the database without
interfering with one another.
<note>
<para>Enabling "shadowdb" can adversely affect the stability of
your installation of Bugzilla. You should regularly check that your
database is in sync. It is often advisable to force a shadow
database sync nightly via
<quote>cron</quote>
.</para>
</note>
Once again, in testing you should avoid this option -- use it if or
when you
<emphasis>need</emphasis>
to use it, and have repeatedly run into the problem it was designed
to solve -- very long wait times while attempting to commit a change
to the database. Mozilla.org began needing
<quote>shadowdb</quote>
when they reached around 40,000 Bugzilla users with several hundred
Bugzilla bug changes and comments per day.</para>
<para>If you use the "shadowdb" option, it is only natural that you
should turn the "queryagainstshadowdb" option "On" as well. Otherwise
you are replicating data into a shadow database for no reason!</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>
<quote>headerhtml</quote>
,
<quote>footerhtml</quote>
,
<quote>errorhtml</quote>
,
<quote>bannerhtml</quote>
, and
<quote>blurbhtml</quote>
are all templates which control display of headers, footers, errors,
banners, and additional data. We could go into some detail regarding
the usage of these, but it is really best just to monkey around with
them a bit to see what they do. I strongly recommend you copy your
<filename>data/params</filename>
file somewhere safe before playing with these values, though. If they
are changed dramatically, it may make it impossible for you to
display Bugzilla pages to fix the problem until you have restored
your
<filename>data/params</filename>
file.</para>
<para>If you have custom logos or HTML you must put in place to fit
within your site design guidelines, place the code in the
"headerhtml", "footerhtml", "errorhtml", "bannerhtml", or "blurbhtml"
text boxes.
<note>
<para>The "headerhtml" text box is the HTML printed out
<emphasis>before</emphasis>
any other code on the page, except the CONTENT-TYPE header sent by
the Bugzilla engine. If you have a special banner, put the code for
it in "bannerhtml". You may want to leave these settings at the
defaults initially.</para>
</note>
</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>
<quote>passwordmail</quote>
is rather simple. Every time a user creates an account, the text of
this parameter is read as the text to send to the new user along with
their password message.</para>
<para>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.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>
<quote>useqacontact</quote>
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. The critical difference between a QA Contact and an
Owner is that the QA Contact follows the component. If you reassign a
bug from component A to component B, the QA Contact for that bug will
change with the reassignment, regardless of owner.</para>
<para>
<quote>usestatuswhiteboard</quote>
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. Many people will put
<quote>help wanted</quote>
,
<quote>stalled</quote>
, or
<quote>waiting on reply from somebody</quote>
messages into the Status Whiteboard field so those who peruse the
bugs are aware of their status even more than that which can be
indicated by the Resolution fields.</para>
<para>Do you want to use the QA Contact ("useqacontact") and status
whiteboard ("usestatuswhiteboard") fields? These fields are useful
because they allow for more flexibility, particularly when you have
an existing Quality Assurance and/or Release Engineering team, but
they may not be needed for many smaller installations.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Set "whinedays" to the amount 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).</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>
<quote>commenton</quote>
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.</para>
<para>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>
<para>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!)</para>
</note>
</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>The
<quote>supportwatchers</quote>
option can be an exceptionally powerful tool in the hands of a power
Bugzilla user. By enabling this option, you allow users to receive
email updates whenever other users receive email updates. This is, of
course, subject to the groupset restrictions on the bug; if the
<quote>watcher</quote>
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. She would still only receive email
updates for those bugs she could normally view.</para>
<para>For Bugzilla sites which require strong inter-Product security
to prevent snooping, watchers are not a good idea.</para>
<para>However, for most sites you should set
<quote>supportwatchers</quote>
to "On". This feature is helpful for team leads to monitor progress
in their respective areas, and can offer many other benefits, such as
allowing a developer to pick up a former engineer's bugs without
requiring her to change all the information in the bug.</para>
</step>
</procedure>
</section>
<section id="useradmin">
<title>User Administration</title>
<para>User administration is one of the easiest parts of Bugzilla.
Keeping it from getting out of hand, however, can become a
challenge.</para>
<section id="defaultuser">
<title>Creating the Default User</title>
<para>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 were to delete
the "super user" account, re-running checksetup.pl will again prompt
you for this username and password.</para>
<tip>
<para>If you wish to add more administrative users, you must use the
MySQL interface. Run "mysql" from the command line, and use these
commands ("mysql>" denotes the mysql prompt, not something you
should type in):
<command>
<prompt>mysql></prompt>
use bugs;</command>
<command>
<prompt>mysql></prompt>
update profiles set groupset=0x7ffffffffffffff where login_name =
"(user's login name)";</command>
</para>
<para>Yes, that is
<emphasis>fourteen</emphasis>
<quote>f</quote>
's. A whole lot of f-ing going on if you want to create a new
administator.</para>
</tip>
</section>
<section id="manageusers">
<title>Managing Other Users</title>
<section id="login">
<title>Logging In</title>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Open the index.html page for your Bugzilla installation in
your browser window.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Click the "Query Existing Bug Reports" link.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Click the "Log In" link at the foot of the page.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Type your email address, and the password which was emailed
to you when you created your Bugzilla account, into the spaces
provided.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>Congratulations, you are logged in!</para>
</section>
<section id="createnewusers">
<title>Creating new users</title>
<para>Your users can create their own user accounts by clicking the
"New Account" link at the bottom of each page. However, should you
desire to create user accounts ahead of time, here is how you do
it.</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>After logging in, click the "Users" link at the footer of
the query page.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>To see a specific user, type a portion of their login name
in the box provided and click "submit". To see all users, simply
click the "submit" button. You must click "submit" here to be
able to add a new user.</para>
<tip>
<para>More functionality is available via the list on the
right-hand side of the text entry box. You can match what you
type as a case-insensitive substring (the default) of all users
on your system, a case-sensitive regular expression (please see
the
<command>man regexp</command>
manual page for details on regular expression syntax), or a
<emphasis>reverse</emphasis>
regular expression match, where every user name which does NOT
match the regular expression is selected.</para>
</tip>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Click the "Add New User" link at the bottom of the user
list</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Fill out the form presented. This page is self-explanatory.
When done, click "submit".</para>
<note>
<para>Adding a user this way will
<emphasis>not</emphasis>
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
<quote>New Account</quote>
button to create users, as it will pre-populate all the
required fields and also notify the user of her account name
and password.</para>
</note>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</section>
<section id="disableusers">
<title>Disabling Users</title>
<para>I bet you noticed that big "Disabled Text" entry box available
from the "Add New User" screen, when you edit an account? By entering
any text in this box and selecting "submit", you have prevented the
user from using Bugzilla via the web interface. Your explanation,
written in this text box, will be presented to the user the next time
she attempts to use the system.
<warning>
<para>Don't disable your own administrative account, or you will
hate life!</para>
<para>At this time,
<quote>Disabled Text</quote>
does not prevent a user from using the email interface. If you have
the email interface enabled, they can still continue to submit bugs
and comments that way. We need a patch to fix this.</para>
</warning>
</para>
</section>
<section id="modifyusers">
<title>Modifying Users</title>
<para>Here I will attempt to describe the function of each option on
the Edit User screen.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Login Name</emphasis>
: This is generally the user's email address. However, if you
have edited your system parameters, this may just be the user's
login name or some other identifier.
<tip>
<para>For compatability reasons, you should probably stick with
email addresses as user login names. It will make your life
easier.</para>
</tip>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Real Name</emphasis>
: Duh!</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Password</emphasis>
: You can change the user password here. It is normal to only see
asterisks.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Disable Text</emphasis>
: If you type anything in this box, including just a space, the
user account is disabled from making any changes to bugs via the
web interface, and what you type in this box is presented as the
reason.
<warning>
<para>Don't disable the administrator account!</para>
</warning>
<note>
<para>As of this writing, the user can still submit bugs via
the e-mail gateway, if you set it up, despite the disabled text
field. The e-mail gateway should
<emphasis>not</emphasis>
be enabled for secure installations of Bugzilla.</para>
</note>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>CanConfirm</emphasis>
: This field is only used if you have enabled "unconfirmed"
status in your parameters screen. If you enable this for a user,
that user can then move bugs from "Unconfirmed" to "Confirmed"
status (e.g.: "New" status). Be judicious about allowing users to
turn this bit on for other users.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Creategroups</emphasis>
: This option will allow a user to create and destroy groups in
Bugzilla. Unless you are using the Bugzilla GroupSentry security
option "usebuggroupsentry" in your parameters, this setting has
no effect.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Editbugs</emphasis>
: Unless a user has this bit set, they can only edit those bugs
for which they are the assignee or the reporter.
<note>
<para>Leaving this option unchecked does not prevent users from
adding comments to a bug! They simply cannot change a bug
priority, severity, etc. unless they are the assignee or
reporter.</para>
</note>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Editcomponents</emphasis>
: 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. The name of a
product or component can be changed without affecting the
associated bugs, but it tends to annoy the hell out of your users
when these change a lot.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Editkeywords</emphasis>
: If you use Bugzilla's keyword functionality, enabling this
feature allows a user can 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. You must be very careful about creating too many new
keywords if you run a very large Bugzilla installation; keywords
are global variables across products, and you can often run into
a phenomenon called "keyword bloat". This confuses users, and
then the feature goes unused.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Editusers</emphasis>
: This flag allows a user 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.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>PRODUCT</emphasis>
: PRODUCT bugs access. This allows an administrator, with
product-level granularity, to specify in which products a user
can edit bugs. The user must still have the "editbugs" privelege
to edit bugs in this area; this simply restricts them from even
seeing bugs outside these boundaries if the administrator has
enabled the group sentry parameter "usebuggroupsentry". Unless
you are using bug groups, this option has no effect.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section id="programadmin">
<title>Product, Component, Milestone, and Version Administration</title>
<epigraph>
<para>Dear Lord, we have to get our users to do WHAT?</para>
</epigraph>
<section id="products">
<title>Products</title>
<subtitle>Formerly, and in some spots still, called
"Programs"</subtitle>
<para>
<glossterm linkend="gloss-product" baseform="product">
Products</glossterm>
are the broadest category in Bugzilla, and you should have the least of
these. If your company makes computer games, you should have one
product per game, and possibly a few special products (website,
meetings...)</para>
<para>A Product (formerly called "Program", and still referred to that
way in some portions of the source code) controls some very important
functions. The number of "votes" available for users to vote for the
most important bugs is set per-product, as is the number of votes
required to move a bug automatically from the UNCONFIRMED status to the
NEW status. One can close a Product for further bug entry and define
various Versions available from the Edit product screen.</para>
<para>To create a new product:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Select "components" from the yellow footer</para>
<tip>
<para>It may seem counterintuitive to click "components" when you
want to edit the properties associated with Products. This is one
of a long list of things we want in Bugzilla 3.0...</para>
</tip>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Select the "Add" link to the right of "Add a new
product".</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Enter the name of the product and a description. The
Description field is free-form.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<tip>
<para>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.</para>
</tip>
</section>
<section id="components">
<title>Components</title>
<para>Components are subsections of a Product.
<example>
<title>Creating some Components</title>
<informalexample>
<para>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.</para>
</informalexample>
</example>
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
<emphasis>default assignments</emphasis>
; the Owner and QA Contact fields in a bug are otherwise unrelated to
the Component.</para>
<para>To create a new Component:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Select the "Edit components" link from the "Edit product"
page</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Select the "Add" link to the right of the "Add a new
component" text on the "Select Component" page.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Fill out the "Component" field, a short "Description", and
the "Initial Owner". The Component and Description fields are
free-form; the "Initial Owner" field must be that of a user ID
already existing in the database. If the initial owner does not
exist, Bugzilla will refuse to create the component.
<tip>
<para>Is your "Default Owner" a user who is not yet in the
database? No problem.
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Select the "Log out" link on the footer of the
page.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Select the "New Account" link on the footer of the
"Relogin" page</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Type in the email address of the default owner you want
to create in the "E-mail address" field, and her full name in
the "Real name" field, then select the "Submit Query"
button.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Now select "Log in" again, type in your login
information, and you can modify the product to use the
Default Owner information you require.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>
</tip>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Either Edit more components or return to the Bugzilla Query
Page. To return to the Product you were editing, you must select
the Components link as before.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</section>
<section id="versions">
<title>Versions</title>
<para>Versions are the revisions of the product, such as "Flinders
3.1", "Flinders 95", and "Flinders 2000". Using Versions helps you
isolate code changes and are an aid in reporting.
<example>
<title>Common Use of Versions</title>
<informalexample>
<para>A user reports a bug against Version "Beta 2.0" of your
product. The current Version of your software is "Release Candidate
1", and no longer has the bug. This will help you triage and
classify bugs according to their relevance. It is also possible
people may report bugs against bleeding-edge beta versions that are
not evident in older versions of the software. This can help
isolate code changes that caused the bug</para>
</informalexample>
</example>
<example>
<title>A Different Use of Versions</title>
<informalexample>
<para>This field has been used to good effect by an online service
provider in a slightly different way. They had three versions of
the product: "Production", "QA", and "Dev". Although it may be the
same product, a bug in the development environment is not normally
as critical as a Production bug, nor does it need to be reported
publicly. When used in conjunction with Target Milestones, one can
easily specify the environment where a bug can be reproduced, and
the Milestone by which it will be fixed.</para>
</informalexample>
</example>
</para>
<para>To create and edit Versions:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>From the "Edit product" screen, select "Edit Versions"</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>You will notice that the product already has the default
version "undefined". If your product doesn't use version numbers,
you may want to leave this as it is or edit it so that it is "---".
You can then go back to the edit versions page and add new versions
to your product.</para>
<para>Otherwise, click the "Add" button to the right of the "Add a
new version" text.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Enter the name of the Version. This can be free-form
characters up to the limit of the text box. Then select the "Add"
button.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>At this point you can select "Edit" to edit more Versions, or
return to the "Query" page, from which you can navigate back to the
product through the "components" link at the foot of the Query
page.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</section>
<section id="milestones">
<title>Milestones</title>
<para>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. Or, you have a bug that you
plan to fix for 2.8, this would have a milestone of 2.8.</para>
<note>
<para>Milestone options will only appear for a Product if you turned
the "usetargetmilestone" field in the "Edit Parameters" screen
"On".</para>
</note>
<para>To create new Milestones, set Default Milestones, and set
Milestone URL:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Select "edit milestones"</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Select "Add" to the right of the "Add a new milestone"
text</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>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. Select "Add".</para>
<example>
<title>Using SortKey with Target Milestone</title>
<informalexample>
<para>Let's say you create a target milestone called "Release
1.0", with Sortkey set to "0". Later, you realize that you will
have a public beta, called "Beta1". You can create a Milestone
called "Beta1", with a Sortkey of "-1" in order to ensure
people will see the Target Milestone of "Beta1" earlier on the
list than "Release 1.0"</para>
</informalexample>
</example>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If you want to add more milestones, select the "Edit" link.
If you don't, well shoot, you have to go back to the "query" page
and select "components" again, and make your way back to the
Product you were editing.
<note>
<para>This is another in the list of unusual user interface
decisions that we'd like to get cleaned up. Shouldn't there be a
link to the effect of "edit the Product I was editing when I
ended up here"? In any case, clicking "components" in the footer
takes you back to the "Select product" screen, from which you can
begin editing your product again.</para>
</note>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>From the Edit product screen again (once you've made your way
back), enter the URL for a description of what your milestones are
for this product in the "Milestone URL" field. It should be of the
format "http://www.foo.com/bugzilla/product_milestones.html"</para>
<para>Some common uses of this field include product descriptions,
product roadmaps, and of course a simple description of the meaning
of each milestone.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If you're using Target Milestones, the "Default Milestone"
field must have some kind of entry. If you really don't care if
people set coherent Target Milestones, simply leave this at the
default, "---". However, controlling and regularly updating the
Default Milestone field is a powerful tool when reporting the
status of projects.</para>
<para>Select the "Update" button when you are done.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</section>
<section id="voting">
<title>Voting</title>
<para>The concept of "voting" is a poorly understood, yet powerful
feature for the management of open-source projects. Each user is
assigned so many Votes per product, which they can freely reassign (or
assign multiple votes to a single bug). 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.</para>
<para>The daunting challenge of Votes is deciding where you draw the
line for a "vocal majority". If you only have a user base of 100 users,
setting a low threshold for bugs to move from UNCONFIRMED to NEW makes
sense. As the Bugzilla user base expands, however, these thresholds
must be re-evaluated. You should gauge whether this feature is worth
the time and close monitoring involved, and perhaps forego
implementation until you have a critical mass of users who demand
it.</para>
<para>To modify Voting settings:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Navigate to the "Edit product" screen for the Product you
wish to modify</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Set "Maximum Votes per person" to your calculated value.
Setting this field to "0" disables voting.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Set "Maximum Votes a person can put on a single bug" to your
calculated value. It should probably be some number lower than the
"Maximum votes per person". Setting this field to "0" disables
voting, but leaves the voting options open to the user. This is
confusing.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Set "Number of votes a bug in this product needs to
automatically get out of the UNCONFIRMED state" to your calculated
number. Setting this field to "0" disables the automatic move of
bugs from UNCONFIRMED to NEW. Some people advocate leaving this at
"0", but of what use are Votes if your Bugzilla user base is unable
to affect which bugs appear on Development radar?
<tip>
<para>You should probably set this number to higher than a small
coalition of Bugzilla users can influence it. Most sites use this
as a "referendum" mechanism -- if users are able to vote a bug
out of UNCONFIRMED, it is a
<emphasis>really</emphasis>
bad bug!</para>
</tip>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Once you have adjusted the values to your preference, select
the "Update" button.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</section>
<section id="groups">
<title>Groups and Group Security</title>
<para>Groups can be very useful in bugzilla, because they allow users
to isolate bugs or products that should only be seen by certain people.
Groups can also be a complicated minefield of interdependencies and
weirdness if mismanaged.
<example>
<title>When to Use Group Security</title>
<informalexample>
<para>Many Bugzilla sites isolate "Security-related" bugs from all
other bugs. This way, they can have a fix ready before the security
vulnerability is announced to the world. You can create a
"Security" product which, by default, has no members, and only add
members to the group (in their individual User page, as described
under User Administration) who should have priveleged access to
"Security" bugs. Alternately, you may create a Group independently
of any Product, and change the Group mask on individual bugs to
restrict access to members only of certain Groups.</para>
</informalexample>
</example>
Groups only work if you enable the "usebuggroups" paramater. In
addition, if the "usebuggroupsentry" parameter is "On", one can
restrict access to products by groups, so that only members of a
product group are able to view bugs within that product. Group security
in Bugzilla can be divided into two categories: Generic and
Product-Based.</para>
<note>
<para>Groups in Bugzilla are a complicated beast that evolved out of
very simple user permission bitmasks, apparently itself derived from
common concepts in UNIX access controls. A "bitmask" is a
fixed-length number whose value can describe one, and only one, set
of states. For instance, UNIX file permissions are assigned bitmask
values: "execute" has a value of 1, "write" has a value of 2, and
"read" has a value of 4. Add them together, and a file can be read,
written to, and executed if it has a bitmask of "7". (This is a
simplified example -- anybody who knows UNIX security knows there is
much more to it than this. Please bear with me for the purpose of
this note.) The only way a bitmask scheme can work is by doubling the
bit count for each value. Thus if UNIX wanted to offer another file
permission, the next would have to be a value of 8, then the next 16,
the next 32, etc.</para>
<para>Similarly, Bugzilla offers a bitmask to define group
permissions, with an internal limit of 64. Several are already
occupied by built-in permissions. The way around this limitation is
to avoid assigning groups to products if you have many products,
avoid bloating of group lists, and religiously prune irrelevant
groups. In reality, most installations of Bugzilla support far fewer
than 64 groups, so this limitation has not hit for most sites, but it
is on the table to be revised for Bugzilla 3.0 because it interferes
with the security schemes of some administrators.</para>
</note>
<para>To enable Generic Group Security ("usebuggroups"):</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Turn "On" "usebuggroups" in the "Edit Parameters"
screen.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>You will generally have no groups set up. Select the "groups"
link in the footer.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Take a moment to understand the instructions on the "Edit
Groups" screen. Once you feel confident you understand what is
expected of you, select the "Add Group" link.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Fill out the "New Name" (remember, no spaces!), "New
Description", and "New User RegExp" fields. "New User RegExp"
allows you to automatically place all users who fulfill the Regular
Expression into the new group.
<example>
<title>Creating a New Group</title>
<informalexample>
<para>I created a group called DefaultGroup with a description
of
<quote>This is simply a group to play with</quote>
, and a New User RegExp of
<quote>.*@mydomain.tld</quote>
. This new group automatically includes all Bugzilla users with
"@mydomain.tld" at the end of their user id. When I finished,
my new group was assigned bit #128.</para>
</informalexample>
</example>
When you have finished, select the Add button.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>To enable Product-Based Group Security
(usebuggroupsentry):</para>
<warning>
<para>Don't forget that you only have 64 groups masks available,
total, for your installation of Bugzilla! If you plan on having more
than 50 products in your individual Bugzilla installation, and
require group security for your products, you should consider either
running multiple Bugzillas or using Generic Group Security instead of
Product-Based ("usebuggroupsentry") Group Security.</para>
</warning>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Turn "On" "usebuggroups" and "usebuggroupsentry" in the "Edit
Parameters" screen.</para>
<warning>
<para>"usebuggroupsentry" has the capacity to prevent the
administrative user from directly altering bugs because of
conflicting group permissions. If you plan on using
"usebuggroupsentry", you should plan on restricting
administrative account usage to administrative duties only. In
other words, manage bugs with an unpriveleged user account, and
manage users, groups, Products, etc. with the administrative
account.</para>
</warning>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>You will generally have no Groups set up, unless you enabled
"usebuggroupsentry" prior to creating any Products. To create
"Generic Group Security" groups, follow the instructions given
above. To create Product-Based Group security, simply follow the
instructions for creating a new Product. If you need to add users
to these new groups as you create them, you will find the option to
add them to the group available under the "Edit User"
screens.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>You may find this example illustrative for how bug groups work.
<example>
<title>Bugzilla Groups</title>
<literallayout>Bugzilla Groups example ----------------------- For
this example, let us suppose we have four groups, call them Group1,
Group2, Group3, and Group4. We have 5 users, User1, User2, User3,
User4, User5. We have 8 bugs, Bug1, ..., Bug8. Group membership is
defined by this chart: (X denotes that user is in that group.) (I
apologize for the nasty formatting of this table. Try viewing it in a
text-based browser or something for now. -MPB) G G G G r r r r o o o
o u u u u p p p p 1 2 3 4 +-+-+-+-+ User1|X| | | | +-+-+-+-+ User2|
|X| | | +-+-+-+-+ User3|X| |X| | +-+-+-+-+ User4|X|X|X| | +-+-+-+-+
User5| | | | | +-+-+-+-+ Bug restrictions are defined by this chart:
(X denotes that bug is restricted to that group.) G G G G r r r r o o
o o u u u u p p p p 1 2 3 4 +-+-+-+-+ Bug1| | | | | +-+-+-+-+ Bug2|
|X| | | +-+-+-+-+ Bug3| | |X| | +-+-+-+-+ Bug4| | | |X| +-+-+-+-+
Bug5|X|X| | | +-+-+-+-+ Bug6|X| |X| | +-+-+-+-+ Bug7|X|X|X| |
+-+-+-+-+ Bug8|X|X|X|X| +-+-+-+-+ Who can see each bug? Bug1 has no
group restrictions. Therefore, Bug1 can be seen by any user, whatever
their group membership. This is going to be the only bug that User5
can see, because User5 isn't in any groups. Bug2 can be seen by
anyone in Group2, that is User2 and User4. Bug3 can be seen by anyone
in Group3, that is User3 and User4. Bug4 can be seen by anyone in
Group4. Nobody is in Group4, so none of these users can see Bug4.
Bug5 can be seen by anyone who is in _both_ Group1 and Group2. This
is only User4. User1 cannot see it because he is not in Group2, and
User2 cannot see it because she is not in Group1. Bug6 can be seen by
anyone who is in both Group1 and Group3. This would include User3 and
User4. Similar to Bug5, User1 cannot see Bug6 because he is not in
Group3. Bug7 can be seen by anyone who is in Group1, Group2, and
Group3. This is only User4. All of the others are missing at least
one of those group privileges, and thus cannot see the bug. Bug8 can
be seen by anyone who is in Group1, Group2, Group3, and Group4. There
is nobody in all four of these groups, so nobody can see Bug8. It
doesn't matter that User4 is in Group1, Group2, and Group3, since he
isn't in Group4.</literallayout>
</example>
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="security">
<title>Bugzilla Security</title>
<epigraph>
<para>Putting your money in a wall safe is better protection than
depending on the fact that no one knows that you hide your money in a
mayonnaise jar in your fridge.</para>
</epigraph>
<note>
<para>Poorly-configured MySQL, Bugzilla, and FTP 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.</para>
</note>
<para>Secure your installation.
<note>
<para>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
<ulink url="mailto://mozilla-webtools@mozilla.org">
mozilla-webtools@mozilla.org</ulink>
</para>
</note>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Ensure you are running at least MysQL version 3.22.32 or newer.
Earlier versions had notable security holes and poorly secured
default configuration choices.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>There is no substitute for understanding the tools on your
system!</emphasis>
Read
<ulink
url="http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Privilege_system.html">
The MySQL Privilege System</ulink>
until you can recite it from memory!</para>
<para>At the very least, ensure you password the "mysql -u root"
account and the "bugs" account, establish grant table rights (consult
the Keystone guide in Appendix C: The Bugzilla Database for some
easy-to-use details) that do not allow CREATE, DROP, RELOAD,
SHUTDOWN, and PROCESS for user "bugs". I wrote up the Keystone advice
back when I knew far less about security than I do now : )</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>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.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Do not run Apache as
<quote>nobody</quote>
. 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>
<para>
<quote>nobody</quote>
is a real user on UNIX systems. Having a process run as user id
<quote>nobody</quote>
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.</para>
</note>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Ensure you have adequate access controls for the
$BUGZILLA_HOME/data/ and $BUGZILLA_HOME/shadow/ directories, as well
as the $BUGZILLA_HOME/localconfig and $BUGZILLA_HOME/globals.pl
files. The localconfig file stores your "bugs" user password, which
would be terrible to have in the hands of a criminal, while the
"globals.pl" stores some default information regarding your
installation which could aid a system cracker. In addition, some
files under $BUGZILLA_HOME/data/ store sensitive information, and
$BUGZILLA_HOME/shadow/ stores bug information for faster retrieval.
If you fail to secure these directories and this file, you will
expose bug information to those who may not be allowed to see
it.</para>
<note>
<para>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.</para>
<para>If you are using a web server that does not support the
.htaccess control method,
<emphasis>you are at risk!</emphasis>
After installing, check to see if you can view the file
"localconfig" in your web browser (e.g.:
<ulink url="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/localconfig">
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/localconfig</ulink>
). 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.</para>
</note>
<para>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.
<emphasis>THIS IS INSECURE!</emphasis>
. This means that anyone who can get access to your system can do
whatever they want to your Bugzilla installation.</para>
<note>
<para>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.</para>
</note>
<para>On Apache, you can use .htaccess files to protect access to
these directories, as outlined in
<ulink url="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=57161">Bug
57161</ulink>
for the localconfig file, and
<ulink url="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=65572">Bug
65572</ulink>
for adequate protection in your data/ and shadow/ directories.</para>
<para>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.</para>
<para>Place the following text into a file named ".htaccess",
readable by your web server, in your $BUGZILLA_HOME/data directory.
<literallayout><Files comments> allow from all </Files>
deny from all</literallayout>
</para>
<para>Place the following text into a file named ".htaccess",
readable by your web server, in your $BUGZILLA_HOME/ directory.
<literallayout><Files localconfig> deny from all </Files>
allow from all</literallayout>
</para>
<para>Place the following text into a file named ".htaccess",
readable by your web server, in your $BUGZILLA_HOME/shadow directory.
<literallayout>deny from all</literallayout>
</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>
</section>
</chapter>
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