Enter Bugzilla

Bugzilla is open source, Web-based, defect-tracking software. Bugzilla is created in Perl CGI and HTML, and like CVS you are most likely to encounter it running on a Linux or UNIX system. Bugzilla began in the early days of Mozilla.org, the open source development center for the code behind Netscape browsers. The Mozilla browser project became the first project to use Bugzilla for defect tracking. Bugzilla was shown to lend itself quite well to a distributed development project such as Mozilla, and since then many commercial and open source projects have adopted Bugzilla for defect tracking. What features of Bugzilla make it suitable for open source and distributed projects?

• Communication: Bugzilla makes it easy for all the stakeholders of a project to communicate over an open system. By stakeholders we mean anyone who is interested; software developers, users of the system being developed, and management responsible for steering the project can benefit from Bugzilla. Bugzilla relies on e-mail notification to inform interested parties of significant events such as a bug being assigned to a developer, the status of a bug changes, etc.
• Internet based: Unlike many commercial defect-tracking programs, Bugzilla uses a database-backed Web site to handle defect tracking. No software (other than a browser) need be installed; Bugzilla is inherently cross-platform.
• Task management: Bugzilla can help developers track their time.

How Does Bugzilla Work?

Bugzilla ties the developers, users, and modules of a project together. How? Bugzilla uses a Web-based administration piece to create users and projects-and ultimately bugs in the system. The Bugzilla administrator, a role you will fulfill for this appendix, creates users and takes note of e-mail addresses. The administrator also sets up projects, modules within those projects, and milestones for those projects. Once these things are entered into the Bugzilla system, bug entry may begin. Bugzilla makes it easy for everyone involved with a project to enter bugs. The Bugzilla administrator can create login IDs for quality assurance team members, end users, project managers, and, of course, all the developers, since Bugzilla is able to track defects for many projects simultaneously.

Now that we have a general idea of the benefit Bugzilla will provide, it's time to install Bugzilla.

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