BUGFILER(8) BSD System Manager's Manual BUGFILER(8)NAMEbugfiler — file bug reports in folders automatically
SYNOPSISbugfiler [-ar] [-v version]
DESCRIPTION
Bugfiler is a program to automatically intercept, acknowledge, redis‐
tribute and store bug reports. Bugfiler is normally invoked by the mail
delivery program with a line similar to the following in /etc/aliases.
bugs: "|bugfiler"
It should be noted that the login “bugs” must exist for the bugfiler to
run. Unless otherwise noted all paths used by bugfiler are relative to
the home directory of this login. Bugfiler also expects all of its files
and directories to be owned by “bugs”.
Available options.
-a Do not send automatic mail acknowledgement to the bug report
filer. (The default is to send the acknowledgement with the file
~bugs/version/bug:ack appended).
-r Do not redistribute.
-v version
Override the version provided within the bug report itself.
For the bug report to be correctly filed, it must contain a line in the
following format:
Index: folder version
The directories ~bugs/version and ~bugs/version/folder must exist before
bugfiler attempts to store the bug report. Bug reports will be stored in
files named by the concatenation of version, folder, and sequential num‐
bers, i.e. if version is “4.3 BSD” and folder is “ucb” the first bug
report will be placed in ~bugs/4.3BSD/ucb/1. If folder contains more
than one component only the first one will be used, e.g. if folder is
“bin/from.c” or “bin/adb/con.c” it will be treated as if it were simply
“bin”.
If the -r flag is not supplied, redistribution of the bug reports is done
as specified in the file ~bugs/version/bug:redist. This file is in the
format of the aliases(5) file, including comments and entries requiring
multiple lines, with the single exception that the folder component of
the “Index:” line replaces the name to alias. The special folder “all:”
receives a redistribution of all bug reports sent to this version. For
example, the bug:redist file
# bigbug gets a copy of everything
all: bigbug
# ucb folder redistribution list
ucb: karels, kjd@coke.berkeley.edu
ra@beno.css.gov
will send copies of all bug reports with “ucb” as the folder to bigbug,
karels, kjd, and ra.
Reports that cannot be filed, due to an invalid “Index:” line or some
other error, are placed in the directory ~bugs/errors. The bugfiler
maintainer should correct these bug reports and then run bugfiler, with
the corrected report as its standard input, as bug reports with errors
are neither acknowledged or redistributed. All reports that bugfiler
handles are logged in ~bugs/log.
Valid bugs are also logged in the file ~bugs/version/summary. This file
has an entry for each bug report for version in the format:
Filename Date
Subject:
Index:
Owner: Bugs Bunny
Status: Received
Filename is the concatenation of version, folder, and a number as
described above. Date is the date as reported by the system clock, using
ctime(3). The Subject: and Index: lines are copies of the “Subject:” and
“index:” lines contained in the bug report. The Owner and Status fields
are intended to provide a rudimentary method of tracking the status of
bug reports.
The file ~bugs/bug:lock is the focus of all locking for bugfiler. If you
wish to manipulate any of the log or error files, rename or remove it and
bugfiler will treat all bug reports that it receives as if they were
incorrectly formatted, i.e. it will place them in the directory
~bugs/errors, for later recovery by the bugfiler maintainer. Obviously,
this file must be created when you first install bugfiler.
All errors that occur before ~bugs/log is found are logged into the sys‐
tem log file, using syslog(8).
FILES
~bugs/bug:ack the acknowledgement message
~bugs/bug:redist the redistribution list
~bugs/bug:lock the locking file
~bugs/errors/BUG_?????? bug reports with format errors
~bugs/log the log file
~bugs/folder/summary the summary files
/usr/sbin/sendmail the mail delivery program
/usr/share/misc/bugformat a sample bug report format
SEE ALSOsendbug(1), aliases(5), syslog(8)BUGS
Since mail can be forwarded in a number of different ways, bugfiler does
not recognize forwarded mail and will acknowledge to the forwarder
instead of the original sender unless there is a “Reply-To” field in the
header.
This version of bugfiler is not compatible with the version released with
4.3BSD in that it doesn't complain to the sender about incorrectly for‐
matted bug reports. Frankly, we got tired of the profanity, not to men‐
tion the extended conversations bugfiler was holding with vacation(1).
HISTORY
The bugfiler command appeared in 4.2BSD.
4.2 Berkeley Distribution December 11, 1993 4.2 Berkeley Distribution
