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<HTML>
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     The Original Code is the Bugzilla Bug Tracking System.
    
     Contributor(s): Klaas Freitag <Freitag@SuSE.de>
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<HEAD> <TITLE>Bugzilla Mail Interface</TITLE> </HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">
<CENTER><H1>The Bugzilla Mail Interface</H1>
Contributor: <A HREF="mailto:freitag@suse.de">Klaas Freitag</A>, SuSE GmbH 
</CENTER>
<P>
The bugzilla Mail interface allows the registered bugzilla users to submit bugs by 
sending email with a bug description. This is usefull for people, who do not work 
inhouse and want to submitt bugs to the bugzilla system.
<p>


I know, show me the <A HREF="#examplemail">example-mail !</A>


<H2>What do you need to do to submitt a bug by mail ?</H2>
You need to send a email in the described format to the bugmail-user of the 
bugzilla-system. This is <A HREF="mailto:our_bugzilla@xyz.com">yourbugzilla@here.com</A>

You receive a reply mail with the new bug-ID if your request was ok. 
If not, you get a mail with 
some help on the bugmail system and a specific analysis of your request.
<P>
Please don't refuse to send one or two wrong mails, you will get all the information 
you need in the replies, and <I>only</I> in the mail replies. The information on this
page, concerning available products, versions and so on, is not dynamicly generated and 
may  be old therefore.

<H1>The Mail Format</H1>
The bugmail needs a special format , which consists of some keywords and suitable 
values for them and a description text. Note that the keyword block needs to be
above of the description text.

<H2>Keywords</H2>
You need to tell bugzilla some properties of the bugs. This is done by keywords, which
start on a new line with a @, followed by the keyword and and equal-sign, followed by a
hopefully valid value.


<TABLE BORDER=4 FRAME=box CELLSPACING="5" width=95%> <COLGROUP> <col width="2*"> 
<col width="5*"> <col width="1*"> </COLGROUP>
	<TR>
		<TH>Keyword</TH>
		<TH>Value description</TH>
		<TH>required and default value</TH>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@product</TD>
	        <TD>The product which has a bug</TD>
	        <TD>yes. <br> This is the most important information. Many other
		fields depend on the product.</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@component</TD>
	        <TD>the desired component which is affected by the bug</TD>
	        <TD>yes. <br> As the @product, this is a very important 
		field.</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@version</TD>
	        <TD>The version of the product</TD>
	        <TD>yes. <br>See @product and @component</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@short_desc</TD>
	        <TD>A summary of your bug report</TD>
	        <TD>yes. <br>This summary of the error you want to report 
		describes what happen. You may skip the long description,
		but not this summary.<br>
		<b>Note:</b>The short description may be given in the mail subject
		instead of using the keyword !</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@rep_platform</TD>
	        <TD>The desired platform</TD>
	        <TD>no.<br>If you don't give a value, this field is set to <I>All</I>.</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@bug_severity</TD>
	        <TD>The severity of the bug</TD>
	        <TD>no. <br> If you don't give a value, this field is set to 
		<I>normal</I></TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@priority</TD>
	        <TD>The priority of the bug</TD>
	        <TD>no.<br>If you don't give a value, this field is set to <I>P3</I></TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@op_sys</TD>
	        <TD>The operating system</TD>
	        <TD>no.<br>If you don't give a value, this field is set to <I>Linux</I>.</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@assigned_to</TD>
	        <TD>The one to whom the bug is assigned to</TD>
	        <TD>no. <br>There is a default assignee for every product/version/component.
		He owns the bug by default. The default assignee can only be found if 
		product, version and component are valid.</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@bug_file_loc</TD>
	        <TD>?</TD>
	        <TD>no.</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@status_whiteboard</TD>
	        <TD>?</TD>
	        <TD>no.</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@target_milestone</TD>
	        <TD>?</TD>
	        <TD>no.</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@groupset</TD>
	        <TD>rules the visibility of the bug.</TD>
	        <TD>no.<br>This value defaults to the smallest of the available groups,
		which is <I>readInternal</I>.</TD>
	</TR>
	<TR>
	        <TD>@qa_contact</TD>
	        <TD>the quality manager for the product</TD>
	        <TD>no.<br>This value can be retrieved from product, component and 
		version</TD>
	</TR>

</TABLE>
<H2>Valid values</H2>
Give string values for the most keys above. Some keywords  require special values:<br>
<ol>
<li>E-Mail adresses: If you want to set the qa-contact, specify a email-adress for @qa_contact. The email must be known by bugzilla of course.</li>
<li>Listvalues: Most of the values have to be one of a list of valid values. Try by sending
a mail and read the reply. Skip fields if you don't get help for them unless you don't know
which values you may choose.</li>
<li>free Text: The descriptions may be free text. </li>
<li>Special: The field groupset may be specified in different in three different kinds:
 <ol>
    <li> A plain numeric way, which is one usually huge number, e. g. <I>65536</I></li>
    <li> a string with added numbers e.g. <I>65536+131072</I></li>
    <li> a string list, e.g. <I>ReadInternal, ReadBeta </I></li>
 </ol>
</li>
</ol>

<p>

But most of them need <b>valid</b> values.
<p>
Sorry, you will not find lists of valid products, components and the other stuff
here. Send a mail to with any text, and you will get a list of valid keywords in the reply.

<p>
Some of the values must be choosen from a list:<br>
<ol>
  <li>bug_severity: blocker, critical, major, normal, minor, trivial, enhancement</li>
  <li>op_sys: Linux </li>
  <li>priority: P1, P2, P3, P4, P5</li>
  <li>rep_platform: All, i386, AXP, i686, Other</li></ol>
  

<p>

After you have specified the required keywords and maybe some other value, you may 
describe your bug. You don't need  a keyword for starting your bug description. All 
text which follows the keyword block is handled as long description of the bug.
<p>

The bugmail interface is able to find required information by itself. E.g. if you specify
a product which has exactly one component, this component will be found by the interface
automatically. 

<H1>Attachments</H1>

The mail interface is able to cope with MIME-attachments. 
People could for example add a logfile as a mail attachment, and it will appear in 
bugzilla as attachment. A comment for the attachment should be added, it will describe
the attachment in bugzilla.

<H1><A NAME="examplemail">Example Mail</A></H1>

See the example of the mail <b>body</b> (Don't forget to specify the short description
in the mail subject):<hr><pre>

  @product      = Bugzilla
  @component    = general
  @version      = All
  @groupset     = ReadWorld ReadPartners
  @op_sys       = Linux
  @priority     = P3
  @rep_platform = i386


  This is the description of the bug I found. It is not neccessary to start
  it with a keyword. 

  Note: The short_description is neccessary and may be given with the keyword
  @short_description or will be retrieved from the mail subject.


</pre><hr>

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