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 a 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 an MYSQL server.

Hands-On Bugzilla Tutorial

Important Features of Bugzilla

• Search option with advanced features.
• Email notifications for any changes in the bug report.
• History of all the changes
• Can link different defects for tracking purposes.
• 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 projects.
• Easy and stable upgrade and maintenance.

Bugzilla System Requirements

Bugzilla is freeware, and the installation includes certain procedures.

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

NOTE: To explore the features of Bugzilla, please create a new account at this link – Bugzilla Test On Mozilla.

Logging in to Bugzilla

The Welcome page will look as shown 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.

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

This is your Home Page. Let us now 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 the below page.

On this page, you can see all the product classification headers that are available to the user.

2) Now click on All. 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 tutorial, we will consider the Food Replicator product from the Unclassified header.

The user is now entering Bug for the FoodReplicator screen.

The fields present in the default bug screen include:

• 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 summarize the bug.
• Description – A complete description of the bug.
• Add an attachment – To provide any supporting file as an attachment.
• Submit a Bug – To submit the bug and create a Bug ID.

Now let’s see which fields are present in the Advanced View. Click on Show Advanced Field Link on the screen.

As seen on the screen above, you can provide all this extra information in your bug.

Possible Duplicates: Let us revert 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’s 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 the 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 “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, the user can set any notifications emails they want 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 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 as shown below.

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

Now, at the page’s bottom, there is an 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.

Reference: Bugzilla

We hope this tutorial would have enriched your knowledge of Bugzilla. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.