using reportbug & reportbug-ng for reporting bugs upstream to debian

[Sarah Hobbs]

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shirish wrote:
> Hi all,
>      I've been reporting bugs for a while & reporting upstream bugs at
> times when it was necessary. Sometime back I was introduced to
> reprortbug & although it is a very good tool it seems something is
> amiss. So lemme make some points & please lemme know how we can
> contribute to having things done in a better way.  The idea is also to
> make a help document after I get all the answers.
>       Now like some users I don't want to use an  MTA  to send &
> receive bug -reports.  I am using gutsy & reportbug v. 3.38ubuntu2
> 
> Now the configuration file at /etc/reportbug.conf is something very
> interesting & I am sure has the answers to quite few questions.

So does the manpage.  Try man reportbug.
> 
> # You can also specify a port other than 25
> smtphost fiordland.ubuntu.com
> 
> # Username and password for SMTP
> # smtpuser bob
> # smtppasswd XXX
> 
> # Use TLS encryption.
> # smtptls
> 
>  Lemme mention that Ms. Sarah Hobbes had been very helpful in her own
> capacity to help me & did the update but some things are still
> missing.

Please learn to spell my name correctly. And don't make me look like an
idiot, because you didn't understand what I was telling you.
Repeatedly.  The other people in the channel appeared to understand it.
> 
> Now while the smtphost thing is cool, what would be the username &
> password, does it need any filling in.

It doesn't need it.  That's why I didn't add it.
> 
> Below is a conversation between reportbug & me. Help me if we can find
> a suitable way to successfully send it to its home doing a cc at
> bugs at launchpad.net (don't know if filing bugs through email is yet
> possible or its a todo thing? )

It's possible, reportbug should really be made compatible with the
current emailing bugs to malone - which requires gpg signing and such.
For more information, see https://help.launchpad.net/UsingMaloneEmail
> 
>  reportbug
> Please enter the name of the package in which you have found a problem.
>> pidgin
> *** Welcome to reportbug.  Use ? for help at prompts. ***
> Detected character set: UTF-8
> Please change your locale if this is incorrect.
> 
> Using 'shirishag75 <shirishag75 at ubuntu.com>' as your from address.

This is because you did not set your email address in DEBEMAIL, etc.
man reportbug would tell you about a *lot* of these options, and tends
to save people looking like fools.  Not saying that you are one - it's a
generic comment.
> 
>  Now is this correct or not? https://launchpad.net/~shirishag75  that's me.

It doesn't check. Downloading a copy of every single user on launchpad,
with all their info, and updating it each time you're going to file a
report is clearly unfeasible.  I guess it could let you specify your
launchpad ID, and look it up from there - however, it's easier just to
specify it in the configuration file.  Again, man reportbug tells you
all of this, explained very clearly.
> 
> Getting status for pidgin...
> Verifying package integrity...
> Will send report to Ubuntu (per request).
> Maintainer for pidgin is 'Ubuntu Core Developers
> <ubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com>'.
> Looking up dependencies of pidgin...

<snip>
> Please select tags: (one at a time) [none]
> Spawning sensible-editor...
> Report will be sent to "Ubuntu Bug Tracking System"
> <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Submit this report on pidgin (e to edit) [Y|n|a|c|e|i|l|m|p|q|?]? Y
> Connecting to bugs.debian.org via SMTP...
> SMTP send failure: {'ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com': (550, 'relay not
> permitted')}
> Wrote bug report to /tmp/reportbug-pidgin-20070616-5078-jgeAxU
> 
> Ok I remember something of this sort also happening an another time.
> Can this be fixed in a short time? The other way is just to use
> reportbug to make a nice bug-report & then use gmail to send it.
> 
You need to actually be a part of ubuntu-members to be able to use this
tool, and be using the email address on launchpad.  Last I knew, that
was the case (as we use it for requestsync too).  You're free to use
your ISP SMTP server, which obviously will not be able to be pre-filled.
 At least this way, all of the ubuntu members can use this without
modification, if they've set DEBEMAIL and such.  If you've got a MTA
installed and configured, it appears that reportbug uses that instead.

> Another thing, there is also a better-looking tool called
> reportbug-ng, the only thing is it has a very sparse configuration
> file known as .reportbugng

This we sync straight from debian.  There are no current plans to change
this, unless someone steps up to do the work.
> 
> Now are there any options or stuff we want by default to be there, I
> have opened a bug-report  at
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=429235 , if anything
> comes to your mind which would improve our communication with them
> using the tool please do so either there or on the mailing list or
> off-list, either way is preferable to me.
> 
> Looking forward to your valuable inputs on this.

I'm sure I'll calm down soon enough.

Hobbsee
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