Bugzilla Tutorial: Defect Management Tool Hands-on Tutorial

Bugzilla is an open-source Bug tracking tool. Many companies are using this open source tool for managing the software development process.

Bugzilla is defect/bug tracking tool. Defect tracking systems allow developers and testers to track all the outstanding defects. Bugzilla can be linked to other testing tools like JIRA, QC or ALM etc. Bugzilla is developed in Perl and runs on MYSQL server. 

Some of the important Features of Bugzilla:

• Search option with advanced features
• Email notifications for any changes in bug report
• History of all the changes
• Can link different defects for tracking purpose
• Attachment support
• Secured
• A stable backend system to store and retrieve all the data
• Various interfaces like Web and console
• Customizable user interface
• Many configuration options useful for project
• Easy and stable upgrade and maintenance

Bugzilla System Requirements

Bugzilla is a freeware and the installation includes certain procedure. It basically requires:

• Perl
• Database Engine (MySQL, Postgre SQL. Oracle)
• Web server (Any web server that can run CGI scripts)
• Bugzilla Files
• Perl Modules
• Mail Transfer Agent

Logging into Bugzilla

In this article, we will consider Landfill which is a demonstration site for Bugzilla. Navigate to Bugzilla.

The Welcome page will look as below:

If you are first time user then click on Open a New Account

Enter the email id with which you want to log in and click send. A confirmation email will be sent

Click on the link in the email to continue setting the password

(Note: Click on any image for enlarged view)

Enter the password and click on Create. You will be automatically logged in and the page is displayed as below

This is your Home page. Let us know look into the icons present in the Home page viz File a Bug, Search, User Preferences and Quick Search.

File a Bug

1) Click on File a Bug icon and the page will navigate to below-displayed page

In this page, we can see all the products classification headers that are available to the user.

2) Now click on All link. This will show you all the products that are present in each of the classification headers.

3) Now click on the product in which you want to log a bug. In this article, we will consider Food Replicator product from the Unclassified header.

The user is now in entering Bug for FoodReplicator screen

The fields that are present in the default bug screen are:

• Product – Which we selected on the previous page
• Component – Each product can be split into one or more components based on the use or functionality etc.
• Version – Version of the product in which the bug was detected
• Reporter – Email id of the person logging the bug
• Severity – Severity of the bug
• Hardware and OS – Machine details from which bug is logged
• Summary – To provide summary for the bug
• Description – A complete description of the bug
• Add an Attachment – To provide any supporting file as attachment
• Submit a Bug – To submit the bug and create a Bug ID

Now let us see what fields are present in the Advanced view. Click on Show Advanced Field Link in the screen.

As seen in the screen above you can provide all these extra information in your bug.

Possible Duplicates: Let us revert back to our default page and type in “test” in the summary text box. Now Bugzilla fetches you any possible duplicate defects that are associated with the Summary that we typed in.

Now click on Add me to the CC List. It will open the bug details along with who all are present in the mailing list for the bug.

No Duplicates: Enter the details for the bug and click Submit Bug

Now let us see the Search icon on the Homepage

Search

Simple Search

Status – Provide bug status

Product – In which product-component it is present

Words – any particular string to search

Click on Search. It will populate all the results for the search criteria mentioned

Now when we scroll down to bottom there is an option to Remember these search criteria

Provide your search name and click on Remember Search

When you go back to the Home page the search that we saved is reflected in the My Bugs section

Advanced Search

There are a lot of search criteria to filter out in Bugzilla. Each of the sections is shown below in the Advanced Search option.

Exporting the Data from Bugzilla

You can export the search results from Bugzilla CSV or XML formats.

User Preferences

There are many customizations that can be done in Bugzilla.

General Preference

Email Preference – Here user can set  any notifications emails that one wants to receive

Saved Searches – Here we can access the searches that have been saved by the user.Also, we can use the other saved searches present in the particular Bugzilla server

Account Information – To manage the account’s password information

Permissions– Gives details about what are the permissions available for the user logged into the system

Reports

Bugzilla has a lot of filter options using which we can generate customized reports.

The fields that are present in the generating a report are

• Vertical Axis – Any field that is represented along your Y axis
• Horizontal Axis – Any field that is represented along your X axis
• Multiple Tables – Defines how the report generated will be grouped

Let us generate a report and see how Bugzilla interprets the options

Now, give the values in Vertical Axis -Assignee, Horizontal Axis-Bug ID field and Multiple tables-Status

Enter some string for the search and click on Generate Report.

The report generated looks like

So the report is grouped based on the field specified in the Multiple Tables field and respective X and Y axis has been populated.

Now in the bottom of the page, there is option for the user to view the same report in Bar chart, Line Chart or a CSV format report

Also, the user can save the report using the Remember Report option at the bottom of the page

Enter a report name and click on Remember Report

The report gets reflected on the homepage

References: https://www.bugzilla.org/docs

Bugzilla User Guide

Application screenshots from – https://landfill.bugzilla.org.

Please share your comments, questions, and thoughts below.