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><H1
CLASS="section"
><A
NAME="postinstall-check"
>4.1. Post-Installation Checklist</A
></H1
><P
> After installation, follow the checklist below to help ensure
that you have a successful installation. If you do not see a
recommended setting for a parameter, consider leaving it at the
default while you perform your initial tests on your Bugzilla
setup.
</P
><DIV
CLASS="procedure"
><OL
TYPE="1"
><LI
><P
> Bring up <TT
CLASS="filename"
>editparams.cgi</TT
> in your web
browser. This should be available as the <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"edit
parameters"</SPAN
> link from any Bugzilla screen once you
have logged in.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>The <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"maintainer"</SPAN
> is the email address of
the person responsible for maintaining this Bugzilla
installation. The maintainer need not be a valid Bugzilla
user. Error pages, error emails, and administrative mail
will be sent with the maintainer as the return email
address.</P
><P
> Set <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"maintainer"</SPAN
> to <EM
>your</EM
> email address.
This allows Bugzilla's error messages to display your email
address and allow people to contact you for help.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>The <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"urlbase"</SPAN
> parameter defines the fully
qualified domain name and web server path to your Bugzilla
installation.</P
><P
> For example, if your bugzilla query page is
http://www.foo.com/bugzilla/query.cgi, set your
<SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"urlbase"</SPAN
> is http://www.foo.com/bugzilla/.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
><SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"usebuggroups"</SPAN
> dictates whether or not to
implement group-based security for Bugzilla. If set,
Bugzilla bugs can have an associated groupmask defining
which groups of users are allowed to see and edit the
bug.</P
><P
> Set "usebuggroups" to "on" <EM
>only</EM
> if you
may wish to restrict access to products. I suggest leaving
this parameter <EM
>off</EM
> while initially
testing your Bugzilla.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"usebuggroupsentry"</SPAN
>, when set to
<SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"on"</SPAN
>, requires that all bugs have an associated
groupmask when submitted. This parameter is made for those
installations where product isolation is a necessity.
</P
><P
> Set "usebuggroupsentry" to "on" if you absolutely need to
restrict access to bugs from the moment they are submitted
through resolution. Once again, if you are simply testing
your installation, I suggest against turning this parameter
on; the strict security checking may stop you from being
able to modify your new entries.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> You run into an interesting problem when Bugzilla reaches a
high level of continuous activity. MySQL supports only
table-level write locking. What this means is that if
someone needs to make a change to a bug, they will lock the
entire table until the operation is complete. Locking for
write also blocks reads until the write is complete. The
<SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"shadowdb"</SPAN
> parameter was designed to get around
this limitation. While only a single user is allowed to
write to a table at a time, reads can continue unimpeded on
a read-only shadow copy of the database. Although your
database size will double, a shadow database can cause an
enormous performance improvement when implemented on
extremely high-traffic Bugzilla databases.
</P
><P
> Set "shadowdb" to "bug_shadowdb" if you will be running a
*very* large installation of Bugzilla. The shadow database
enables many simultaneous users to read and write to the
database without interfering with one another.
<DIV
CLASS="note"
><P
></P
><TABLE
CLASS="note"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="25"
ALIGN="CENTER"
VALIGN="TOP"
><IMG
SRC="../images/note.gif"
HSPACE="5"
ALT="Note"></TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
VALIGN="TOP"
><P
> Enabling "shadowdb" can adversely affect the stability
of your installation of Bugzilla. You should regularly
check that your database is in sync. It is often
advisable to force a shadow database sync nightly via
<SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"cron"</SPAN
>.
</P
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
></DIV
> Once again, in testing you should avoid this option
-- use it if or when you <EM
>need</EM
> to use
it, and have repeatedly run into the problem it was designed
to solve -- very long wait times while attempting to commit
a change to the database. Mozilla.org began needing
<SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"shadowdb"</SPAN
> when they reached around 40,000
Bugzilla users with several hundred Bugzilla bug changes and
comments per day.
</P
><P
> If you use the "shadowdb" option, it is only natural that
you should turn the "queryagainstshadowdb" option "On" as
well. Otherwise you are replicating data into a shadow
database for no reason!
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
><SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"headerhtml"</SPAN
>, <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"footerhtml"</SPAN
>,
<SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"errorhtml"</SPAN
>, <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"bannerhtml"</SPAN
>, and
<SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"blurbhtml"</SPAN
> are all templates which control
display of headers, footers, errors, banners, and additional
data. We could go into some detail regarding the usage of
these, but it is really best just to monkey around with them
a bit to see what they do. I strongly recommend you copy
your <TT
CLASS="filename"
>data/params</TT
> file somewhere safe
before playing with these values, though. If they are
changed dramatically, it may make it impossible for you to
display Bugzilla pages to fix the problem until you have
restored your <TT
CLASS="filename"
>data/params</TT
> file.</P
><P
> If you have custom logos or HTML you must put in place to
fit within your site design guidelines, place the code in
the "headerhtml", "footerhtml", "errorhtml", "bannerhtml",
or "blurbhtml" text boxes.
<DIV
CLASS="note"
><P
></P
><TABLE
CLASS="note"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="25"
ALIGN="CENTER"
VALIGN="TOP"
><IMG
SRC="../images/note.gif"
HSPACE="5"
ALT="Note"></TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
VALIGN="TOP"
><P
> The "headerhtml" text box is the HTML printed out
<EM
>before</EM
> any other code on the page,
except the CONTENT-TYPE header sent by the Bugzilla
engine. If you have a special banner, put the code for
it in "bannerhtml". You may want to leave these settings
at the defaults initially.
</P
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
></DIV
>
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
><SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"passwordmail"</SPAN
> is rather simple. Every
time a user creates an account, the text of this parameter
is read as the text to send to the new user along with their
password message.</P
><P
> Add any text you wish to the "passwordmail" parameter box.
For instance, many people choose to use this box to give a
quick training blurb about how to use Bugzilla at your site.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
><SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"useqacontact"</SPAN
> allows you to define an
email address for each component, in addition to that of the
default owner, who will be sent carbon copies of incoming
bugs. The critical difference between a QA Contact and an
Owner is that the QA Contact follows the component. If you
reassign a bug from component A to component B, the QA
Contact for that bug will change with the reassignment,
regardless of owner.</P
><P
><SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"usestatuswhiteboard"</SPAN
> defines whether you
wish to have a free-form, overwritable field associated with
each bug. The advantage of the Status Whiteboard is that it
can be deleted or modified with ease, and provides an
easily-searchable field for indexing some bugs that have
some trait in common. Many people will put <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"help
wanted"</SPAN
>, <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"stalled"</SPAN
>, or <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"waiting
on reply from somebody"</SPAN
> messages into the Status
Whiteboard field so those who peruse the bugs are aware of
their status even more than that which can be indicated by
the Resolution fields.</P
><P
> Do you want to use the QA Contact ("useqacontact") and
status whiteboard ("usestatuswhiteboard") fields? These
fields are useful because they allow for more flexibility,
particularly when you have an existing Quality Assurance
and/or Release Engineering team, but they may not be needed
for many smaller installations.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
> Set "whinedays" to the amount of days you want to let bugs
go in the "New" or "Reopened" state before notifying people
they have untouched new bugs. If you do not plan to use
this feature, simply do not set up the whining cron job
described in the installation instructions, or set this
value to "0" (never whine).
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
><SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"commenton"</SPAN
> fields allow you to dictate
what changes can pass without comment, and which must have a
comment from the person who changed them. Often,
administrators will allow users to add themselves to the CC
list, accept bugs, or change the Status Whiteboard without
adding a comment as to their reasons for the change, yet
require that most other changes come with an
explanation.</P
><P
> Set the "commenton" options according to your site policy.
It is a wise idea to require comments when users resolve,
reassign, or reopen bugs at the very least.
<DIV
CLASS="note"
><P
></P
><TABLE
CLASS="note"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="25"
ALIGN="CENTER"
VALIGN="TOP"
><IMG
SRC="../images/note.gif"
HSPACE="5"
ALT="Note"></TD
><TD
ALIGN="LEFT"
VALIGN="TOP"
><P
> It is generally far better to require a developer
comment when resolving bugs than not. Few things are
more annoying to bug database users than having a
developer mark a bug "fixed" without any comment as to
what the fix was (or even that it was truly fixed!)
</P
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
></DIV
>
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>The <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"supportwatchers"</SPAN
> option can be an
exceptionally powerful tool in the hands of a power Bugzilla
user. By enabling this option, you allow users to receive
email updates whenever other users receive email updates.
This is, of course, subject to the groupset restrictions on
the bug; if the <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"watcher"</SPAN
> would not normally be
allowed to view a bug, the watcher cannot get around the
system by setting herself up to watch the bugs of someone
with bugs outside her priveleges. She would still only
receive email updates for those bugs she could normally
view.</P
><P
>For Bugzilla sites which require strong inter-Product
security to prevent snooping, watchers are not a good
idea.</P
><P
> However, for most sites you should set
<SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"supportwatchers"</SPAN
> to "On". This feature is
helpful for team leads to monitor progress in their
respective areas, and can offer many other benefits, such as
allowing a developer to pick up a former engineer's bugs
without requiring her to change all the information in the
bug.
</P
></LI
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