<HTML>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<!--
     The contents of this file are subject to the Mozilla Public
     License Version 1.1 (the "License"); you may not use this file
     except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of
     the License at http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
    
     Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS
     IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or
     implied. See the License for the specific language governing
     rights and limitations under the License.
    
     The Original Code is the Bugzilla Bug Tracking System.
    
     Contributor(s): Klaas Freitag <Freitag@SuSE.de>
-->

<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 dont 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 dont 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 dont 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 dont 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 dont 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 dont get help for them unless you dont 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 dont 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> (Dont 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>

</BODY>
</HTML>