Release of Bugzilla 3.4.3, 3.0.10, and 3.5.1

by Max Kanat-Alexander (mkanat)

Here we are in our new home on Wordpress.com! This should be generally easier to keep up with and is a better, more “official” place than my personal blog. As of now, the Bugzilla “Status Update” page is dead and this is the official location of Bugzilla status updates.

For the first post on the new blog, I’ve released Bugzilla 3.4.3, Bugzilla 3.0.10 and Bugzilla 3.5.1. The Release Announcement has all the details about the two stable releases. What we’re going to cover in this update is 3.5.1, our development release, which has a ton of new features and major improvements.

I’m only going to cover things that are new since our last Bugzilla Update, so if you want to know the whole history of Bugzilla 3.5 (what will become 3.6), read the prior updates about Bugzilla 3.5.

Bugzilla 3.5.1

I’d like to remind everybody that 3.5.1 is unstable. It had little to no testing at all, so shouldn’t be used in a production environment. You should test it out and report bugs or make suggestions, though! Now is the time to suggest changes in our major new features. By the time we get to the Release Candidate stage, it’s often too late to make major changes! So if you want any major changes to how things work in 3.5.1, let us know soon!

The Bugzilla Migration Framework

One of the biggest new features in 3.5.1 is migrate.pl, a script that allows easy migration from a different bug-tracking system to Bugzilla.

The exciting news is that this makes it very easy to write new migrators to migrate from any bug-tracking system to Bugzilla.

Also, this makes migration a first-class part of Bugzilla, not part of contrib/. This means that we will maintain the migration framework, and the migrators themselves, and if they break, that’s a regression.

The first migrator implemented is for GNATS. The code is in Bugzilla/Migrate/GNATS.pm, if you want to see what a migrator looks like.

The migration framework has the following features:

1. It is non-destructive. You can migrate into an existing Bugzilla installation!
2. It’s relatively easy to implement new migrators for systems. Basically all you have to do is provide arrays of hashes describing the products, users, and bugs in your bug-tracker, and Bugzilla::Migrate does the rest of the work. It even contains a facility to translate values from the old bug-tracker to Bugzilla, and allows the end user to specify how that translation should work.
3. It is capable of doing a “dry-run” of your migration, so that you can see if everything is going to go well before actually committing anything to the database.

We would love to see new systems implemented to migrate from! The review requirements for new migrators are slightly relaxed–we will believe you when you say that they work, as long as they are coded well and follow the Bugzilla Developers’ Guide.

Also, if anybody wants to provide me (or the Bugzilla project in general) a dump of a large working installation of a bug-tracker, that will also help people who want to write a migrator.

Finally, this makes it much easier for consultants to write migrators, so if you were thinking of hiring a Bugzilla Consultant to help you migrate to Bugzilla, now is an ideal time!

Improvements in 3.5.1 for Administrators

• The default priority values are now human-readable words instead of P1, P2, etc.
• I spent a lot of time making checksetup.pl faster at updating Bugzillas, particularly older Bugzillas. If you wanted to upgrade in the past, but you were worried that running checksetup.pl would cause too much downtime, I’d suggest trying an upgrade to 3.5.1 and see how it goes.
• checksetup.pl now displays important messages in red.
• The code that optionally converted BMPs to PNGs has been made into an extension, and is disabled by default. If you want to enable it, delete extensions/bmp_convert/disabled and run checksetup.pl. In the future, this extension will be removed from Bugzilla and shipped separately.
• checksetup.pl now displays warnings when it fails to fix permissions on files, and dies with an error if it fails to create a directory.
• checksetup.pl no longer dies when it cannot delete the data/template directory–instead it moves the directory out of the way.
• duplicates.cgi now gets all of its information directly from the database, meaning that it no longer stores huge numbers of files in the data/ directory, and no longer requires that collectstats.pl be run nightly in order for it to work.
• ssl options are simpler–there is now a parameter called ssl\_redirect which, if on, will always redirect users to the SSL version of your Bugzilla.
• The loginnetmask parameter has been removed. Users are always allowed to use their cookie from any IP address, unless they choose to restrict it to their IP address when they log in.
• email\_in.pl now runs in taint mode for increased security.

Improvements in 3.5.1 for Users

• There are now arrows on the bug list which indicate what direction each column is currently sorting in.
• There is no longer a maximum length for passwords.
• request.cgi now groups the Product drop-down by Classification, if you are using Classifications.
• Users are now automatically logged in after changing their password.
• You can now load a saved search as the search for a New Charts series.
• You can now see flags on a bug as part of search results.
• Dependency Graph arrows now go the other direction, which seems to make more sense.
• When creating an attachment, you will now be warned via a popup if you attempt to submit it without a description (instead of only being warned with an error after submitting the attachment).
• You can now make comments on attachments even if you can’t edit their properties.
• Links are now more visible, in the Dusk skin.
• If you are logged out or don’t have permissions to edit the properties of attachments, you will now get a read-only page when viewing an attachment’s details.
• If a user in the “insider group” adds a private comment and also makes public changes, an email about those public changes will now be sent to users who can see them. (In the past, adding a private comment entirely prevented email to users who were not in the “insider group”.)

Improvements in 3.5.1 for Customizers and Extension Authors

• There is now a $bug-\>set\_flags and $attachment-\>set\_flags, which are used to create and update flags on bugs and attachments.
• Bugzilla::Template::quoteUrls now has a hook that should be pretty easy to use, if you want to adjust how Bugzilla highlights comments. (The hook is bug-format\_comment.)
• There is now a hook for page.cgi, which allows extensions to add their own new pages to Bugzilla.
• You can now use Bugzilla-\>feature to detect if the modules for a certain feature are installed, instead of having to attempt to load those modules yourself.
• The bug/show.html.tmpl template now requires far fewer variables in order to display it.
• There is now a hook that allows you to modify an attachment’s data before it goes into the database.
• Hooks can now call exit safely under mod_perl.
• There is now a template-before\_process hook which allows you to modify variables before $template->process is called. It will be improved before Bugzilla 3.6 is released to allow for modifying variables before any template is ever loaded..
• There are many other new hooks.
• There is now a basic infrastructure in place that will allow localizers to translate field values for every field on display.

Upcoming Improvements For Bugzilla 3.6

There is a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon for Bugzilla 3.6, with patches written and awaiting review before they become an official part of Bugzilla:

• Adding attachments to a bug by email (via email\_in.pl).
• Tons of new hooks. Extensions are becoming very powerful.
• QuickSearch is becoming simplified and improved, and getting new documentation. It will be merged into the Simple Search page, as well.
• WebService clients will be able to authenticate by passing the arguments Bugzilla\_login and Bugzilla\_password to any method.
• The default statuses and status workflow are going to change, based on 10 years of Bugzilla experience.
• Some UI improvements for the bug editing page are on the way.
• The WebService will respect taint mode, for improved security.
• You will be able to specify groups for a bug when creating it via email\_in.pl or the Bug.create WebService function.
• There is going to be a Bugzilla::Comment object in the code to assist with loading and creating comments.
• Users who fail to guess a password too many times will be locked out of their account for a certain amount of time.

Also, we expect Bugzilla 3.8 (but not Bugzilla 3.6) to support MS-SQL Server as a backend database.

Whew!

That was quite a Bugzilla Update! As you can see, the Bugzilla team is busier and more productive than ever, working to make you a better bug-tracker! One thing we always need, though, are more contributors! See our Contribute Page for more details on all the ways you can help out Bugzilla–you don’t just have to be a programmer!

Until next time, happy bug-tracking!

Release of Bugzilla 3.4.2, 3.2.5, and 3.0.9

by Bugzilla Team

Today the Bugzilla Project is releasing Bugzilla 3.4.2, 3.2.5, and 3.0.9. All of these releases contain a very important security fix. See the Security Advisory for details. If you are running 2.23 or newer, you should upgrade immediately. If you are unable to update to the latest version, then please apply the patches for the issues as described in the Security Advisory.

Bugzilla 3.4.2 is our latest stable release. In addition to the security fix, it contains various useful bug fixes and minor improvements:

• Download 3.4.2
• Release Notes for 3.4.2

Bugzilla 3.2.5 is a security update for the 3.2 branch which also contains a few minor bug fixes for the 3.2 series:

• Download 3.2.5
• Release Notes for 3.2.5

Bugzilla 3.0.9 is a security update for the 3.0 branch:

• Download 3.0.9
• Release Notes for 3.0.9

Warning: Major Bugzilla Security Release Coming Soon

by Max Kanat-Alexander (mkanat)

A major security issue has been discovered in versions of Bugzilla back to 3.0. We will be releasing a version of Bugzilla which fixes the issue within 48 hours (possibly within 24 hours), and all administrators should be ready to perform the upgrade (which does not require any database changes) shortly after the new version is released.

If you do not wish to do a full upgrade, patches for just the security issue will be available. The patches are relatively small and do not modify very much of Bugzilla.

Release of Bugzilla 3.4.1

by Bugzilla Team

A security issue was found in Bugzilla 3.4 after its release. We are releasing 3.4.1 to address this issue. We recommend that all Bugzilla administrators running 3.3.4, 3.4rc1, or 3.4 read the Security Advisory that was published along with this release, and upgrade immediately if your installation is affected.

• Download 3.4.1
• Release Notes for 3.4.1

Release of Bugzilla 3.4

by Bugzilla Team

Bugzilla 3.4 is a new major release from the Bugzilla Project! It contains a LOT of great new features, including:

• A greatly-simplified bug-filing page.
• A new front page for Bugzilla.
• Users’ email addresses are now hidden from logged-out users (helps prevent users receiving spam)
• Emails can be sent in the background (which greatly speeds up editing bugs)
• URLs of searches are now much shorter, so they can be more easily shared.
• Exciting new custom field enhancements
• A field that allows you to refer to bugs in other Bugzillas.

And lots of other exciting new features! You can see the complete list in the Release Notes.

• Download 3.4
• Release Notes for 3.4
• New Features in Bugzilla 3.4

The Bugzilla Project would like to thank all of the organizations and individuals that contributed to Bugzilla 3.4! Without you, there wouldn’t be any Bugzilla at all!

EOL For Bugzilla 2.22

The release of Bugzilla 3.4 marks the End Of Life for the Bugzilla 2.22.x series. This means that there will be no further updates released for Bugzilla 2.22.x, even if there are security holes found in that release. If you are running Bugzilla 2.22.x, we recommend that you upgrade to 3.4 immediately.

Instructions for upgrading Bugzilla are in the Upgrading section of the Bugzilla Guide. You should also read the Notes for Upgraders in the Release Notes for Bugzilla 3.4, 3.2, and 3.0.

Release of Bugzilla 3.4rc1 and 3.2.4

by Bugzilla Team

Today we have two releases for you, a new release candidate for 3.4, and an update for the stable 3,2 branch.

All of today’s releases contain security fixes. We recommend that all Bugzilla administrators read the Security Advisory that was published along with these releases.

Bugzilla 3.4rc1 is our first Release Candidate for Bugzilla 3.4. This release has received QA testing, and should be considerably more stable than the development releases before it. It is still not considered fully stable, and so you should understand that if you use it, you use it at your own risk. However, it should be fine for smaller or non-critical production installations.

If feedback from this release candidate indicates that it is mostly stable, then Bugzilla 3.4 will be released in a few weeks. If feedback indicates that more extensive fixes are needed, there may be another release candidate after this one.

• Download 3.4rc1
• Release Notes for 3.4rc1

Bugzilla 3.2.4 is our latest stable release. It contains various useful bug fixes and security improvements:

• Download 3.2.4
• Release Notes for 3.2.4

Bugzilla Update: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 (Release of Bugzilla 3.4rc1 and Bugzilla 3.2.4)

by Max Kanat-Alexander (mkanat)

Well, it’s time for another Bugzilla update! And today I just did two releases, Bugzilla 3.4rc1 and Bugzilla 3.2.4.

Bugzilla 3.4rc1

Bugzilla 3.4rc1 is particularly exciting, because it’s our first Release Candidate for 3.4. We did a really good job on this Release Candidate, I think–there’s only one 3.4 blocker remaining (and it’s only still there because we’re waiting on an external party to do something). In other words, there are no known issues with the Release Candidate that are so bad that we couldn’t just call it 3.4 next week if all goes well, and we’ve never actually been in that state for a Release Candidate, at least not as long as I’ve been around the Bugzilla Project.

One of the particularly exciting thing about a Release Candidate is that it has release notes! That means that all the new features are listed. There’s a lot of really exciting stuff in 3.4, and you should take a look. There are some gems in the “Other Enhancements and Changes” section, too, so make sure you read that too. :-)

WebService Changes Since 3.3.4

Anybody who was writing WebService clients against 3.3.x development releases should know: we renamed the Bug.get\_history method to Bug.history. You can still call it as Bug.get\_history if you want, but that’s undocumented and not recommended.

Also, we don’t send \<nil\> for NULL items anymore–too many clients didn’t support it. Now we just remove items from the returned result if they are undefined. (This is documented in the Bugzilla::WebService documentation.)

Progress Toward Bugzilla 3.6

There’s been some activity on HEAD since our last update. We got a new WebService method to get attachment information, Bug.attachments. I’ve been working on making Quicksearch (the search box in the header and footer) even faster. Greg Hendricks (of Testopia fame) has been working on the ability for administrators to “disable” certain field values (so that they don’t show up as options anymore, but remain set on existing bugs). And Bradley Baetz has been adding new hooks and working on improving performance in some important areas.

There’s no ETA for Bugzilla 3.6, but if it works anything like how Bugzilla 3.4 works, we will have open development on it until two months after Bugzilla 3.4 is released, and then we will branch for 3.6 and the 3.6 branch will be “frozen” to only bug-fixes.

Bugzilla Meeting

We have a Bugzilla Meeting next week, on Tuesday, July 14. Just read the page if you want more information! Anybody is welcome to attend.

Bugzilla Update: Thursday, June 4, 2009

by Max Kanat-Alexander (mkanat)

Well, it’s time for another Bugzilla update!

Bugzilla 3.4

In the Bugzilla 3.4 area, we just made some more changes to how the login form in the header and footer work. Now it’s easy again for users to discover how to reset their password–when we moved the login forms into the header/footer, we at first didn’t have any way for people to discover how to reset their password, but now there’s a link and everything works really nicely. You can see how it all works on the Bugzilla 3.4 Test Installation.

We’re getting somewhat closer to Bugzilla 3.4rc1. We found a few more blockers, so those have to be resolved, and there’s also release notes that need to be written before we can have a Release Candidate.

One new feature of Bugzilla 3.4 that we haven’t talked much about is the “See Also” field. This is a field where you can put a URL to a bug in another Bugzilla installation or to a Launchpad bug. The “See Also” feature isn’t quite complete–in the future, we also want to make it update the other installation so that the other installation knows that you’re referring to it. We also want to fix up the display, and get summary/status/resolution information on the remote bug, etc. But for now it does check that you’ve entered a valid bug URL, and at least you can somehow record that bugs in different Bugzilla installations are related to each other, and there’s a WebService interface for updating the field.

For installations that don’t need the “See Also” field, you can turn it off by disabling the “use_see_also” Parameter.

Bugzilla 3.6 (HEAD)

We’re working on various interesting things for Bugzilla 3.6, though our focus recently has been on 3.4rc1, so there are a lot of patches awaiting review for HEAD that haven’t had the time to be reviewed. People are working on the ability to disable field values and some cool WebService enhancements, but of course our main focus is fixing up the HCI issues that the Carnegie-Mellon research team discovered in their 2008 study.

Bugzilla Update: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

by Max Kanat-Alexander (mkanat)

Hey hey. So, I was thinking that I’d do a regular (or semi-regular) post on the status of the Bugzilla Project, for anybody interested. This is the first one.

Bugzilla 3.4

We’re getting pretty close to releasing Bugzilla 3.4rc1, now. There are only a few blockers left. Mostly they’re just awaiting review. I’ll also need some help with the release process for Bugzilla 3.4rc1, if anybody wants to help out.

The only significant changes since 3.3.4 will be a lot of bug fixes, a change to the Bug.search WebServices API, and the ability to hide the “See Also” field. The bug fixes are pretty important, though, so if you’re using 3.3.4 you definitely want to update to the most recent BUGZILLA-3\_4-BRANCH code regularly or update to 3.4rc1 when it comes out.

There are a lot of significant changes in 3.4 compared to Bugzilla 3.2, though. Those will all be listed in the release notes for 3.4rc1. The difference between 3.2 and 3.4 is not as great as the difference between 3.0 and 3.2 though. We’re working on having smaller releases more often (starting with 3.4), and it seems to be working pretty well so far.

HEAD (Bugzilla 3.6)

On trunk (which will be Bugzilla 3.6), we’ve done a fair bit. There’s a JSON-RPC interface, support for suexec environments in checksetup, and a lot of HCI improvements. We’ve decided that for Bugzilla 3.6, our focus isn’t going to be adding major new features, but fixing up the features we already have. I wrote a message to the Bugzilla Developers List about it, a week ago or so, and I got a lot of positive responses (mostly on IRC or by private email). If you’re interested in helping out, feel free to check out the list of bugs we’d like to fix for Bugzilla 3.6.

Status Update

by Max Kanat-Alexander (mkanat)

Introduction and Updates

We released two versions of Bugzilla today. Bugzilla 3.2.3 has some important bug fixes, and Bugzilla 3.3.4 is our latest development snapshot.

About Bugzilla 3.3.4

Bugzilla 3.3.4 is our latest development release leading up to Bugzilla 3.4. Bugzilla 3.3.4 is feature-complete. This means that from here on out until the final release of Bugzilla 3.4, we will only be fixing bugs on the 3.4 branch–we won’t be adding any new features.

Bugzilla 3.3.4 is still unstable, and should not be used in production environments. There are still known bugs that have not been fixed, in this release.

There have been a few big changes since Bugzilla 3.3.3:

• There is a brand-new super-simple front page for Bugzilla.
• The form for filing a bug is now much simpler by default.
• Obsolete attachments are now hidden by default, on a bug.
• You can now log in using a form in the header and footer on every page in Bugzilla.
• When editing a bug, text inputs grow with your browser window.
• When you log out of Bugzilla, you will be sent to the front page, not just a blank page with a message saying you’ve logged out.
• The Bug.get WebService function now accepts a “permissive” argument that can be used to make it not die on errors.
• You can now have custom fields only show up in a particular product.

Development for Bugzilla 3.4 is now done on the BUGZILLA-3_4-BRANCH branch in CVS instead of on trunk. So if you are updating via CVS, make sure to do cvs -q up -dP -r BUGZILLA-3_4-BRANCH when updating, if you want to stay on the 3.4 branch.

The trunk (HEAD) is open for feature development toward Bugzilla 3.6.

Stay Updated About Bugzilla

As usual, we’d like to remind all Bugzilla administrators that to assist them in keeping up-to-date with release announcements and security advisories, we provide an ultra-low-volume administrator mailing list ([email protected]). We advise all Bugzilla administrators to subscribe so they can keep up with important Bugzilla announcements.

Those looking to get involved with Bugzilla development may want to consider joining the developers list ([email protected]). This list offers discussion on new features and issues. Developers are invited to subscribe to the list. You may also want to read our Contributor’s Guide. You might also want to contribute to other Bugzilla areas.

Bugzilla Meetings

Come to our meetings every month! Anybody is welcome to attend who is interested in helping out with the Bugzilla Project, or just anybody who wants to put in their two cents on how development should go.

You can learn more about the meetings at the wiki page about Bugzilla Meetings.