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reportbug(1) - phpMan
reportbug(1) General Commands Manual reportbug(1)
NAME
reportbug - reports a bug to a debbugs server
SYNOPSIS
reportbug [options] <package | pseudo-package | absolute-pathname>
DESCRIPTION
reportbug is primarily designed to report bugs in the Debian distribution; by default, it
creates an email to the Debian bug tracking system at submit AT bugs.org with informa‐
tion about the bug you've found, and makes a carbon copy of the report for you as well.
Using the --bts option, you can also report bugs to other servers that use the Debian bug
tracking system, debbugs.
You may specify either a package name or a filename; if you use a filename, it must either
be an absolute filename (so beginning with a /) or if you want reportbug to search the
system for a filename, see the --filename and --path options below. If installed, also
dlocate is used to identify the filename location and thus the package containing it.
You can also specify a pseudo-package; these are used in the Debian bug tracking system to
track issues that are not related to one specific package. Run reportbug without any
arguments, then enter other at the package prompt, to see a list of the most commonly-used
pseudo-packages.
OPTIONS
The program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two
dashes (`--'). A summary of options are included below.
-h, --help
Show summary of options.
--version
Show the version of reportbug and exit.
-A FILENAME, --attach=FILENAME
Attach a file to the bug report; both text and binary files are acceptable; this
option can be specified multiple times to attach several files. This routine will
create a MIME attachment with the file included; in some cases (usually text
files), it is probably better to use -i/--include option. (Please note that
Debian's bug tracking system has limited support for MIME attachments.)
This option supports also globbing (i.e. names with wildcards, like file.*) but
remember to include them between single quotes (the previous example becomes:
'file.*') else the shell would expand it before calling reportbug leading to an
error.
Be aware that when using an external MUA to send the message (such as mutt), the
attachment feature is not available and no file will be attached at all: the MUA
feature to attach files must be used instead (so from within the MUA).
-b, --no-query-bts
Don't check the Debian bug tracking system to see if this problem has already been
reported; useful for offline use or if you're really sure it's a bug.
--query-bts
Check the Debian bug tracking system to see if this problem has already been
reported (default).
-B SYSTEM, --bts=SYSTEM
Instead of the Debian bug server (or the bug server specified in /etc/report‐
bug.conf, use the server specified by SYSTEM.
--body=BODY
Use the specified BODY as the body of the message. The body text will be wrapped
at 70 columns, and the normal reportbug headers and footers will be added as appro‐
priate. The editor prompt and any "special" prompting will be bypassed.
--body-file=BODYFILE, --bodyfile=BODYFILE
The contents of the (assumed to be) text file BODYFILE will be used as the message
body. This file is assumed to be properly formatted (i.e. reasonable line lengths,
etc.). The usual headers and footers will be added, and the editor step and "spe‐
cial" prompts will be skipped. (BODYFILE may also be a named pipe; using a device
special file may lead to unusual results.)
-c, --no-config-files
Omit configuration files from the bug report without asking. By default, you are
asked if you want to include them; in some cases, doing so may cause sensitive
information to be sent via email.
-C CLASS, --class=CLASS
Specify report class for GNATS BTSes.
--configure
Rerun the reportbug first time configuration routine, and write a new
$HOME/.reportbugrc file. This will erase any pre-existing settings in the file;
however, a backup will be written as $HOME/.reportbugrc~.
--check-available
Check for newer releases of the package at packages.debian.org (default). In
advanced and expert mode, check incoming.debian.org and http://ftp-mas‐
ter.debian.org/new.html too.
--no-check-available
Do not check for newer releases of the package at packages.debian.org.
--debconf
Include debconf settings in your report.
--no-debconf
Do not include debconf settings from your report.
-d, --debug
Don't send a real bug report to Debian; send it to yourself instead. This is pri‐
marily used for testing by the maintainer.
--test Operate in test mode (maintainer use only).
--draftpath=DRAFTPATH
Save the draft (for example, when exiting and saving the report without reporting
it) into DRAFTPATH directory.
-e EDITOR, --editor=EDITOR
Specify the editor to use, overriding any EDITOR or VISUAL environment variable
setting.
--email=ADDRESS
Set the email address your report should appear to be sent from (i.e. the address
that appears in the From header). This should be the actual Internet email address
on its own (i.e. without a real name or comment part, like foo AT example.com). This
setting will override the EMAIL and DEBEMAIL environment variables, but not REPORT‐
BUGEMAIL.
--envelope-from
Specify the Envelope From mail header (also known as Return-path); by default it's
the From address but it can be selected a different one in case the MTA doesn't
canonicalize local users to public addresses.
--mbox-reader-cmd=MBOX_READER_CMD
Specify a command to open the bug reports mbox file. You can use %s to substitute
the mbox file to be used, and %% to insert a literal percent sign. If no %s is
specified, the mbox file name is supplied at the end of the argument list.
--exit-prompt
Display a prompt before exiting; this is useful if reportbug is run in a transient
terminal (i.e. from its Debian menu entry).
-f FILENAME, --filename=FILENAME
Report a bug in the package containing FILENAME so you don't have to figure out
what package the file belongs to. The path will be searched for an exact path for
FILENAME before attempting to broaden the search to all files. If dlocate is
installed, FILENAME is actually a regular expression.
--from-buildd=BUILDD_FORMAT
This options is a shortcut for buildd admins to report bugs from buildd log; the
option expects a value in the format of $source_$version where $source is the
source package the bug will be reported against and $version is its version.
--path If the -f/--filename option is also specified, only search the path for the speci‐
fied FILENAME. Specifying an absolute path with the -f/--filename option (i.e. one
beginning with a /) overrides this behavior.
-g, --gnupg, --gpg
Attach a digital signature to the bug report using GnuPG (the GNU Privacy Guard).
(This argument will be ignored if you are using an MUA to edit and send your
report.)
-G, --gnus
Use the Gnus mail and news reader to send your report, rather than using the edi‐
tor.
-H HEADER, --header=HEADER
Add a custom RFC2822 header to your email; for example, to send a carbon copy of
the report to debian-68k AT lists.org you could use -H 'X-Debbugs-CC:
debian-68k AT lists.org'
-i FILE, --include=FILE
Include the specified FILE as part of the body of the message to be edited. Can be
used multiple times to add multiple files; text-only please! From a suggestion by
Michael Alan Dorman in the bug mailing list. (See also the -a/--attach option.)
-I, --no-check-installed
Do not check whether the package is installed before filing a report. This is gen‐
erally only useful when filing a report on a package you know is not installed on
your system.
--check-installed
Check if the specified package is installed when filing reports. (This is the
default behavior of reportbug.)
-j JUSTIFICATION, --justification=JUSTIFICATION
Bugs in Debian that have serious, grave, or critical severities must meet certain
criteria to be classified as such. This option allows you to specify the justifi‐
cation for a release-critical bug, instead of being prompted for it.
-k, --kudos
Send appreciative email to the recorded maintainer address, rather than filing a
bug report. (You can also send kudos to packagename AT packages.org, for pack‐
ages in the Debian archive; however, this option uses the Maintainer address from
the control file, so it works with other package sources too.)
-K KEYID, --keyid=KEYID
Private key to use for PGP/GnuPG signatures. If not specified, the first key in
the secret keyring that matches your email address will be used.
--latest-first
Display the bug reports list sorted and with the latest reports at the top.
--license
Show reportbug's copyright and license information on standard output.
--list-cc=ADDRESS
Send a carbon copy of the report to the specified list after a report number is
assigned; this is the equivalent to the option -H 'X-Debbugs-CC: ADDRESS'. This
option will only work as intended with debbugs systems.
-m, --maintonly
Only send the bug to the package maintainer; the bug tracking system will not send
a copy to the bug report distribution lists.
--max-attachment-size=MAX_ATTACHMENT_SIZE
Specify the maximum size any attachment file can have (this also include the file
for --body-file option). If an attachment file is too big, there could be problems
in delivering the email (and also to compose it), so we set a limit to attachment
size. By default this is 10 megabytes.
--mirror=MIRRORS
Add a BTS mirror.
--mode=MODE
Set the operating mode for reportbug. reportbug currently has four operating
modes: novice (the default), standard, advanced, and expert.
novice mode is designed to minimize prompting about things that "ordinary users"
would be unlikely to know or care about, shifting the triage burden onto the main‐
tainer. Checking for new versions is only done for the stable distribution in this
mode. It is currently the default mode.
standard mode includes a relatively large number of prompts and tries to encourage
users to not file frivolous or duplicate bug reports.
advanced mode is like standard mode, but may include shortcuts suitable for more
advanced users of Debian, without being as close to the metal (and potential flam‐
age) as expert mode. (Currently, the only differences from standard mode are that
it assumes familiarity with the "incoming" queue; it allows the reporting of bugs
on "dependency" packages; and it does not prompt where to insert the report text in
the editor.)
expert mode is designed to minimize prompts that are designed to discourage frivo‐
lous or unnecessary bug reports, "severity inflation," and the like. In expert
mode, reportbug assumes the user is thoroughly familiar with Debian policies. In
practice, this means that reporters are no longer required to justify setting a
high severity on a bug report, and certain automated cleanups of the message are
bypassed. Individuals who do not regularly contribute to the Debian project are
highly discouraged from using expert mode, as it can lead to flamage from maintain‐
ers when used improperly.
-M, --mutt
Instead of spawning an editor to revise the bug report, use the mutt mail reader to
edit and send it.
--mta=MTA
Specify an alternate MTA, instead of /usr/sbin/sendmail (the default). Any smt‐
phost setting will override this one.
--mua=MUA
Instead of spawning an editor to revise the bug report, use the specified MUA (mail
user agent) to edit and send it. --mutt and --nmh options are processed.
-n, --mh, --nmh
Instead of spawning an editor to revise the bug report, use the comp command (part
of the nmh and mh mail systems) to edit and send it.
-N BUGNUMBER, --bugnumber BUGNUMBER
Run reportbug against the specified bug report, useful when following-up a bug and
its number is already known.
--no-bug-script
Do not execute the bug script (if present); this option can be useful together with
--template to suppress every interactive actions, since some bug scripts can ask
questions.
--no-cc-menu
Don't display the menu to enter additional addresses (CC).
--no-tags-menu
Don't display the menu to enter additional tags.
-o FILE, --output=FILE
Instead of sending an email, redirect it to the specified filename.
The output file is a full dump of the email message, so it contains both headers
and mail body. If you want to use it as a template to create a new bug report, then
you have to remove all the headers (mind the Subject one, though) and start the
report at the Package pseudo-header.
-O, --offline
Disable all external queries. Currently has the same effect as --no-check-avail‐
able --no-query-bts.
-p, --print
Instead of sending an email, print the bug report to standard output, so you can
redirect it to a file or pipe it to another program.
This option only outputs a template for a bug report (but, differently from --tem‐
plate it's more interactive); you will need to fill in the long description.
--paranoid
Show the contents of the message before it is sent, including all headers. Auto‐
matically disabled if in template mode.
--no-paranoid
Don't show the full contents of the message before it is sent (default).
--pgp Attach a digital signature to the bug report using PGP (Pretty Good Privacy).
Please note, however, that the Debian project is phasing out the use of PGP in
favor of GnuPG. (This argument will be ignored if using an MUA to edit and send
your report.)
--proxy=PROXY, --http_proxy=PROXY
Specify the WWW proxy server to use to handle the query of the bug tracking system.
You should only need this parameter if you are behind a firewall. The PROXY argu‐
ment should be formatted as a valid HTTP URL, including (if necessary) a port num‐
ber; for example, http://192.168.1.1:3128/.
-P PSEUDO-HEADER, --pseudo-header=PSEUDO-HEADER
Add a custom pseudo-header to your report; for example, to add the mytag usertag
for the user humberto AT example.com to the bug, you could use -P 'User: hum‐
berto AT example.com' -P 'Usertags: mytag'.
-q, --quiet
Suppress diagnostic messages to standard error.
-Q, --query-only
Do not submit a bug report; just query the BTS. Option ignored if you specify
--no-bts-query.
--query-source
Query on all binary packages built by the same source, not just the binary package
specified.
--no-query-source
Only query on the binary package specified on the command line.
--realname=NAME
Set the real name (human-readable name) to use for your report.
--report-quiet
Register the bug in the bug tracking system, but don't send a report to the package
maintainer or anyone else. Don't do this unless you're the maintainer of the pack‐
age in question, or you really know what you are doing.
--reply-to=ADDRESS, --replyto=ADDRESS
Set the Reply-To address header in your report.
-s SUBJECT, --subject=SUBJECT
Set the subject of the bug report (i.e. a brief explanation of the problem, less
than 60 characters). If you do not specify this switch, you will be prompted for a
subject.
-S SEVERITY, --severity=SEVERITY
Specify a severity level, from critical, grave, serious, important, normal, minor,
and wishlist.
--smtphost=HOST[:PORT]
Use the mail transport agent (MTA) at HOST to send your report, instead of your
local /usr/sbin/sendmail program. This should generally be your ISP's outgoing
mail server; you can also use 'localhost' if you have a working mail server running
on your machine. If the PORT is omitted, the standard port for SMTP, port 25, is
used.
--timeout=SECONDS
Specify the network timeout, the number of seconds to wait for a resource to
respond. If nothing is specified, a default timeout of 1 minute is selected.
In case of a network error, there are chances it's due to a too low timeout: try
passing the --timeout option with a higher value than default.
--tls If using SMTP, use Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption to secure the connec‐
tion to the mail server. Some SMTP servers may require this option.
--smtpuser=USERNAME
If using SMTP, use the specified USERNAME for authentication.
--smtppasswd=PASSWORD
If using SMTP, use the specified PASSWORD for authentication. If the password
isn't specified on the command line or in the configuration file, a prompt will be
displayed asking for it.
Use of this option is insecure on multiuser systems. Instead, you should set this
option in $HOME/.reportbugrc and ensure it is only readable by your user (e.g. with
chmod 600 $HOME/.reportbugrc).
--src, --source
Specify to report the bug against the source package, and not the binary package
(default behaviour). In order for this option to work, you have to populate the
relevant 'deb-src' lines in /etc/apt/sources.list so that apt cache will know about
source packages too.
-t TYPE, --type=TYPE
Specify the type of report to be submitted; currently accepts either gnats or deb‐
bugs.
-T TAG, --tag=TAG
Specify a tag to be filed on this report, for example --tag=patch. Multiple tags
can be specified using multiple -T/--tag arguments.
Alternatively, you can specify the 'tag' none to bypass the tags prompt without
specifying any tags; this will also ignore any tags specified on the command line.
--template
Output a template report to standard output. Differently from -p/--print, it tries
to be not interactive, and presents a template without user's input.
-u INTERFACE, --interface=INTERFACE, --ui=INTERFACE
Specify the user interface to use. Valid options are text, urwid, and gtk2;
default is taken from the reportbug configuration files.
-v, --verify
Verify the integrity of the package (if installed) using debsums before reporting.
--no-verify
Do not verify the integrity of the package with debsums.
-V VERSION, --package-version=VERSION
Specify the version of the package the problem was found in. This is probably most
useful if you are reporting a bug in a package that is not installable or installed
on a different system.
-x, --no-cc
Don't send a blind carbon copy (BCC) of the bug report to the submitter (i.e. your‐
self).
-z, --no-compress
Don't compress configuration files by removing comments and blank lines.
EXAMPLES
reportbug lynx-ssl
Report a bug in the lynx-ssl package.
reportbug --path --filename=ls
Report a bug in the installed package that includes a program in your path called
ls.
CONFIGURATION FILES
From version 0.22 on, reportbug has supported a simple run control file syntax. Commands
are read from /etc/reportbug.conf and $HOME/.reportbugrc with commands in the latter over‐
riding those in the former.
Commands are not case sensitive, and currently take 0 or 1 argument; arguments containing
whitespace must be enclosed in quotes.
Any line starting with # is taken to be a comment and will be ignored.
Generally, options corresponding to the long options for reportbug are supported, without
leading -- sequences. See reportbug.conf(5) for all acceptable options and detailed
information.
ENVIRONMENT
VISUAL Editor to use for editing your bug report.
EDITOR Editor to use for editing the bug report (overridden by VISUAL).
REPORTBUGEMAIL, EMAIL, DEBEMAIL
Email address to use as your from address (in this order). If no environment vari‐
able exists, the default is taken from your user name and /etc/mailname.
DEBFULLNAME, DEBNAME, NAME
Real name to use; default is taken from /etc/passwd.
REPLYTO
Address for Reply-To header in outgoing mail.
MAILCC Use the specified CC address on your email. Note you can also use the -H option
for this (and for Bcc's too).
MAILBCC
Use the specified BCC address, instead of your email address. (CC and BCC based on
suggestions from Herbert Thielen in the bug wishlist).
http_proxy
Provides the address of a proxy server to handle the BTS query. This should be a
valid http URL for a proxy server, including any required port number (simply spec‐
ifying a hostname, or omitting a port other than 80, WILL NOT WORK).
NOTES
reportbug should probably be compatible with other bug tracking systems, like bugzilla
(used by the GNOME and Mozilla projects) and jitterbug (used by Samba, AbiSource and
FreeCiv) but it isn't.
SEE ALSO
reportbug.conf(5), http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#tags for available tags,
querybts(1)
AUTHOR
Chris Lawrence <lawrencc AT debian.org>, Sandro Tosi <morph AT debian.org>.
reportbug(1)
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