- DEBIAN BUG TRACKING SYSTEM
- --------------------------
+ debbugs, Debian bug tracking system
+ -----------------------------------
This bug tracking system was developed by Ian Jackson from 1994-1997,
-with assistance from nCipher Corporation Limited in 1997. I am grateful to
-nCipher for allowing me to redistribute modifications I have made to the
-system while working as an employee of nCipher (obviously I gave my
-permission for nCipher to use and modify my work in this way).
+with assistance from nCipher Corporation Limited in 1997. nCipher allowed
+Ian to redistribute modifications he made to the system while working as an
+employee of nCipher.
+Since then, it has been developed by the various administrators of
+bugs.debian.org, including Darren Benham, Adam Heath, Josip Rodin, Anthony
+Towns, and Colin Watson. As in the case of Ian, nCipher allowed Colin to
+redistribute modifications he made while working as an employee of nCipher.
+
+=============================================================================
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
- - GNU m4
+=============================================================================
+
- GNU date
- GNU gzip
- - Perl 5 (5.004 is known to work)
+ - Perl 5 (5.005 is known to work)
+ - Mailtools and MIME-tools perl modules to manipulate email
- Lynx 2.7 or later
- - atob/btoa
- The bug system requires its own mail domain. It comes with code
- which understands how exim and qmail deliver mail for such a domain to a
- script.
- - If the local MTA is qmail you _must_ install a different MTA
- somewhere (eg in a subdirectory) and tell the bug system to use that;
- qmail has broken command-line parsing in its /usr/lib/sendmail
- emulation.
- - A webserver (this is easiest if the bug system can write
- directly to the webspace).
- - Somewhere to run CGI scripts (unless you don't need the `go to
- bug' and `go to package' forms to work).
+ which understands how exim, qmail and sendmail deliver mail for such a
+ domain to a script.
+ - A webserver. For the old system of static HTML pages generated for
+ bug reports and index pages, this is easiest if the bug system can
+ write directly to the webspace; for the new system of CGI scripts
+ that generate web pages on the fly, write access is not required.
+ - Somewhere to run CGI scripts (unless you don't need the web forms for
+ searching for bugs by number, package, maintainer or submitter).
+=============================================================================
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
+=============================================================================
+
+Install the Debian package and read /usr/share/doc/debbugs/README.Debian file.
-1. Create a directory `config/local', alongside `config/common' and
-`config/debian'.
+If you can't use the .deb, do the following:
-2. Copy the template files from `config/template' to `config/local'
-and edit them. There is currently no documentation about the meanings
-of the config variables, I'm afraid. The m4 quotes have been set to
-[[ and ]], so almost all definitions should use these. Pieces of text
-which do not contain DBC_... macros should be enclosed in further sets
-of [[ ]] (making [[[[ ]]]] in all), as commas and other metacharacters
-might otherwise be interpreted by m4 in undesirable ways. Note that
-you can also add settings for the variables mentioned in defaults.m4.
+1. Run "make install" from the source directory.
+
+2. Edit the config files in /etc/debbugs/ directory to suit your needs.
+Re-run debbugsconfig when you're finished to regenerate the
+documentation.
3. Set up the mail arrangements to deliver mail to the right place, and to
-set up a blackhole mail alias if you need one. Ensure that owner@bugs, if
-that's what you're using, is handled by the MTA.
+set up a blackhole mail alias if you need one. Ensure that owner@bugs, the
+address of the BTS owner, if that's what you're using, is handled by the MTA.
+All other email should be piped into the receive script.
-4. Run `./build'; if all was well run `./install'. If `./build'
-complains or there are brokennesses in the results then the files
-`config/trace' (for failures during the check by `build') and
-`*.trace' for each `*.in' and `*.out' may be useful.
+4. Set up your HTTP server to point people looking for bug reports to
+/var/lib/debbugs/www and set /var/lib/debbugs/www/cgi as a valid CGI
+directory.
5. Test things a bit, by sending mail messages to the bug system and
-running .../scripts/processall and/or .../scripts/update-html.
+running /usr/lib/debbugs/processall and/or /usr/lib/debbugs/rebuild.
+The latter updates index files used by the CGI scripts. If you're
+feeling brave, you can link /var/lib/debbugs/spool/index.db to
+index.db.realtime and .../index.archive to index.archive.realtime to
+remove the need for the rebuild script; this is still semi-experimental.
+
+6. If all seems well then install the crontab from
+/usr/share/doc/debbugs/examples/crontab.
-6. If all seems well then install the crontab in `misc/crontab.out'.
+Notes:
+Each line of /etc/debbugs/Maintainers file needs to be formatted like
+this: "package maintainer name <e-mail@address>".
+
+If you need a template, look in /usr/share/doc/debbugs/examples/ directory.
+
+=============================================================================
+FURTHER INFORMATION
+=============================================================================
+
+Email: debian-debbugs@lists.debian.org (mailing list)
+ To subscribe, email debian-debbugs-request@lists.debian.org
+ with the word "subscribe" in the subject line
+Outdated web site: http://benham.net/debbugs/
+
+=============================================================================
COPYRIGHT AND LACK-OF-WARRANTY NOTICE
+=============================================================================
-Copyright 1994,1995,1996,1997 Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
-Copyright 1997 nCipher Corporation Limited
-Copyright 1995 Steven Brenner (for cgi-lib.pl).
+Copyright 1999 Darren O. Benham
+Copyright 1994-1997 Ian Jackson
+Copyright 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Limited
This bug system is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
-Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option)
-any later version.
+Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.
This program and documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with this program, or one should be available above; if not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
-02111-1307, USA, or email debbugs-maint@chiark.greenend.org.uk.
-
- - Ian Jackson 30.10.1997
+02111-1307, USA.