Initially, a $gBug report is submitted by a user as an ordinary mail
message to submit\@$gEmailDomain. This will then be
given a number, acknowledged to the user, and forwarded to a mailing
list (if configured). If the submitter included a Package
line listing a package with a known maintainer the maintainer will get
a copy too.
The Subject line will have
$gBug#nnn: added, and the
Reply-To will be set to include both the submitter of the
report and nnn\@$gEmailDomain.
A developer who receives a $gBug from the tracking system, or sees it on
the mailing list, and takes responsibility for it should hit Reply in
their favourite mailreader,
and then edit the To field to say
nnn-done\@$gEmailDomain instead of
nnn\@$gEmailDomain
(nnn-close is provided as an alias for
nnn-done).
The address of the original submitter of the $gBug report will be
included in the default To field, because the $gBug system
included it in the Reply-To.
Where applicable, please supply a Version line in the
pseudo-header of your message when
closing a $gBug, so that the $gBug tracking system knows which releases of the
package contain the fix.
`Done' messages are automatically forwarded to the $gDoneList
mailing list, if the mailing list has been set up.
The person closing the $gBug and the person who submitted it will each get a notification about the change in status of the report.
If a developer wishes to reply to a $gBug report they may simply reply
to the message (that will not mark the bug as done). Their reply will
(by default, if they respect the Reply-To: header) go to
nnn\@$gEmailDomain, and to the original submitter of
the $gBug report (note: this is two distinct addresses). The $gBug tracking
system will receive the message at nnn\@$gEmailDomain,
pass it on to the package maintainer, file the reply with the rest of the
logs for that bug report and forward it to a designated mailing list
($gSubmitList\@$gEmailDomain).
A developer may explicitly mail the bug's submitter with an email to
nnn-submitter\@$gEmailDomain.
If you wish to send a followup message which is not appropriate for
any mailing list you can do so by sending it to
nnn-quiet\@$gEmailDomain or
nnn-maintonly\@$gEmailDomain.
Mail to nnn-quiet\@$gEmailDomain is filed in the
$gBug Tracking System but is not delivered to any individuals or mailing
lists. Mail to nnn-maintonly\@$gEmailDomain is
filed in the $gBug Tracking System and is delivered only to the maintainer
of the package in question.
Do not use the `reply to all recipients' or `followup'
feature of your mailer unless you intend to edit down the recipients
substantially. In particular, see that you don't send followup messages
both to nnn\@$gEmailDomain and to
submit\@$gEmailDomain, because the $gBug system will then
get two copies of it and each one will be forwarded to the designated
mailing list separately.
The $gBug system records a severity level with each $gBug report. This
is set to $gDefaultSeverity by default, but can be overridden
either by supplying a Severity line in the pseudo-header when
the $gBug is submitted (see the
instructions for reporting $gBugs),
or by using the severity command with the
control request server.
Separate multiple tags with commas, spaces, or both.
The severity levels are:
Each $gBug can have zero or more of a set of given tags. These tags are displayed in the list of $gBugs when you look at a package's page, and when you look at the full $gBug log.
Tags can be set by supplying a Tags line in the
pseudo-header when the $gBug is submitted (see the
instructions for reporting $gBugs),
or by using the tags command with the
control request server.
The current $gBug tags are:
When a developer forwards a $gBug report to the developer of the upstream source package from which the $gProject package is derived, they should note this in the $gBug tracking system as follows:
Make sure that the To field of your message to the author
has only the author(s) address(es) in it; put both the person who
reported the $gBug,
nnn-forwarded\@$gEmailDomain and
nnn\@$gEmailDomain in the
CC field.
Ask the author to preserve the CC to
nnn-forwarded\@$gEmailDomain
and nnn\@$gEmailDomain when they reply, so
that the $gBug tracking system will file their reply with the original
report. These messages are only filed and are not sent on; to send a
message as normal, send them
to nnn\@$gEmailDomain as well.
When the $gBug tracking system gets a message at
nnn-forwarded it will mark the relevant $gBug as
having been forwarded to the address(es) in the To field
of the message it gets, if the $gBug is not already marked as forwarded.
You can also manipulate the `forwarded to' information by sending
messages to control\@$gEmailDomain.
In cases where the person responsible for fixing a $gBug is not the assigned maintainer for the associated package (for example, when the package is maintained by a team), it may be useful to record this fact in the $gBug tracking system. To help with this, each $gBug may optionally have an owner.
The owner can be set by supplying an Owner line in the
pseudo-header when the $gBug is submitted (see the
instructions for reporting
$gBugs),
or by using the owner and noowner commands
with the control request server.
Every Friday, a list of outstanding $gBug reports is posted to a summary mailing list (if set up), sorted by age of report. Every Tuesday, a list of $gBug reports that have gone unanswered too long is posted, sorted by package maintainer. $gBadMaintHtml
It is possible to reassign $gBug reports to other packages, to reopen
erroneously-closed ones, to modify the information saying to where, if
anywhere, a $gBug report has been forwarded, to change the severities
and titles of reports, to set the ownership of $gBugs, to merge and unmerge
$gBug reports, and to record the versions of packages in which $gBugs were
found and in which they were fixed. This is done by sending mail to
control\@$gEmailDomain.
The format of these messages is
described in another document available on the World Wide Web or in
the file bug-maint-mailcontrol.txt. A plain text version
can also be obtained by mailing the word help to the
server at the address above.
Messages that arrive at submit or $gBugs whose
Subject starts Bug#nnn will be treated as
having been sent to nnn\@$gEmailDomain. This is both
for backwards compatibility with mail forwarded from the old
addresses, and to catch followup mail sent to submit by
mistake (for example, by using reply to all recipients).
A similar scheme operates for maintonly,
done, quiet and forwarded,
which treat mail arriving with a Subject tag as having been sent to
the corresponding nnn-whatever\@$gEmailDomain address.
Messages arriving at plain forwarded and
done - ie, with no $gBug report number in the address - and
without a $gBug number in the Subject will be filed under `junk' and
kept for a few weeks, but otherwise ignored.
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