4.1. Step-by-step Install

4.1.1. Introduction

Please note that Bugzilla 2.16.x will become unsupported with the release of Bugzilla 2.22. If you're installing Bugzilla for the first time, please consider a newer stable version. Stable versions of Bugzilla can be found at https://www.bugzilla.org/

Bugzilla has been successfully installed under Solaris, Linux, and Win32. Win32 is not yet officially supported, but many people have got it working fine. Please see the Win32 Installation Notes for further advice on getting Bugzilla to work on Microsoft Windows.

4.1.2. Package List

If you are running the very most recent version of Perl and MySQL (both the executables and development libraries) on your system, you can skip these manual installation steps for the Perl modules by using Bundle::Bugzilla; see Using Bundle::Bugzilla instead of manually installing Perl modules.

The software packages necessary for the proper running of Bugzilla (with download links) are:

1. MySQL database server (3.22.5 or greater. Note that versions of Bugzilla prior to 2.20RC1 do not work with MySQL 5.0.12 or higher. If you intend to install Bugzilla using MySQL 5.x as your back-end, please use a more current release of Bugzilla).

2. Perl (5.005 or greater, 5.6.1 is recommended if you wish to use Bundle::Bugzilla)

3. Perl Modules (minimum version):

   1. Template (v2.07)

   2. AppConfig (v1.52)

   3. Text::Wrap (v2001.0131)

   4. File::Spec (v0.8.2)

   5. Data::Dumper (any)

   6. DBD::mysql (v1.2209)

   7. DBI (v1.13)

   8. Date::Parse (any)

   9. CGI::Carp (any)

   and, optionally:

   1. GD (v1.19) for bug charting

   2. Chart::Base (v0.99c) for bug charting

   3. XML::Parser (any) for the XML interface

   4. MIME::Parser (any) for the email interface

4. The web server of your choice. Apache is highly recommended.

5. At least version 8.7 of Sendmail, or any Sendmail-compatible MTA congruent with this version or higher.

   Windows users will have to see the Win32 Installation Notes for one alternative to Sendmail for Windows.

It is a good idea, while installing Bugzilla, to ensure that there is some kind of firewall between you and the rest of the Internet, because your machine may be insecure for periods during the install. Many installation steps require an active Internet connection to complete, but you must take care to ensure that at no point is your machine vulnerable to an attack.

Linux-Mandrake 8.0 includes every required and optional library for Bugzilla. The easiest way to install them is by using the urpmi utility. If you follow these commands, you should have everything you need for Bugzilla, and checksetup.pl should not complain about any missing libraries. You may already have some of these installed. bash# urpmi perl-mysql bash# urpmi perl-chart bash# urpmi perl-gd bash# urpmi perl-MailTools (for Bugzilla email integration) bash# urpmi apache-modules

4.1.3. MySQL

Visit the MySQL homepage at www.mysql.com to grab and install the latest stable 4.x release of MySQL. Note that versions of Bugzilla prior to 2.20RC1 do not work with MySQL 5.0.12 or higher. If you intend to install Bugzilla using MySQL 5.x as your back-end, please use a more current release of Bugzilla).

Many of the binary versions of MySQL store their data files in /var. On some Unix systems, this is part of a smaller root partition, and may not have room for your bug database. You can set the data directory as an option to configure if you build MySQL from source yourself.

If you install from something other than an RPM or Debian package, you will need to add mysqld to your init scripts so the server daemon will come back up whenever your machine reboots. Further discussion of UNIX init sequences are beyond the scope of this guide.

By default, MySQL will only accept packets up to 64Kb in size. If you want to have attachments larger than this, you will need to modify your /etc/my.cnf as below.

If you are using MySQL 4.0 or newer, enter:

  [mysqld]
  # Allow packets up to 1M
  max_allowed_packet=1M

If you are using an older version of MySQL, enter:

  [mysqld]
  # Allow packets up to 1M
  set-variable = max_allowed_packet=1M

There is also a parameter in Bugzilla called 'maxattachmentsize' (default = 1000 Kb) that controls the maximum allowable attachment size. Attachments larger than either the 'max_allowed_packet' or 'maxattachmentsize' value will not be accepted by Bugzilla.

If you plan on running Bugzilla and MySQL on the same machine, consider using the --skip-networking option in the init script. This enhances security by preventing network access to MySQL.

4.1.4. Perl

Any machine that doesn't have Perl on it is a sad machine indeed. Perl can be got in source form from perl.com for the rare *nix systems which don't have it. Although Bugzilla runs with all post-5.005 versions of Perl, it's a good idea to be up to the very latest version if you can when running Bugzilla. As of this writing, that is Perl version 5.6.1.

You can skip the following Perl module installation steps by installing Bundle::Bugzilla from CPAN, which installs all required modules for you. bash# perl -MCPAN -e 'install "Bundle::Bugzilla"' Bundle::Bugzilla doesn't include GD, Chart::Base, or MIME::Parser, which are not essential to a basic Bugzilla install. If installing this bundle fails, you should install each module individually to isolate the problem.

4.1.5. Perl Modules

All Perl modules can be found on the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). The CPAN servers have a real tendency to bog down, so please use mirrors.

Quality, general Perl module installation instructions can be found on the CPAN website, but the easy thing to do is to just use the CPAN shell which does all the hard work for you. To use the CPAN shell to install a module:

bash# perl -MCPAN -e 'install "<modulename>"'

To do it the hard way:

Untar the module tarball -- it should create its own directory

CD to the directory just created, and enter the following commands:

1. bash# perl Makefile.PL

2. bash# make

3. bash# make test

4. bash# make install

Many people complain that Perl modules will not install for them. Most times, the error messages complain that they are missing a file in "@INC". Virtually every time, this error is due to permissions being set too restrictively for you to compile Perl modules or not having the necessary Perl development libraries installed on your system. Consult your local UNIX systems administrator for help solving these permissions issues; if you are the local UNIX sysadmin, please consult the newsgroup/mailing list for further assistance or hire someone to help you out.

4.1.5.5. GD (optional)

The GD library was written by Thomas Boutell a long while ago to programatically generate images in C. Since then it's become the defacto standard for programatic image construction. The Perl bindings to it found in the GD library are used on millions of web pages to generate graphs on the fly. That's what Bugzilla will be using it for so you must install it if you want any of the graphing to work.

The Perl GD library requires some other libraries that may or may not be installed on your system, including libpng and libgd. The full requirements are listed in the Perl GD library README. If compiling GD fails, it's probably because you're missing a required library.

4.1.6. HTTP Server

You have a freedom of choice here - Apache, Netscape or any other server on UNIX would do. You can run the web server on a different machine than MySQL, but need to adjust the MySQL "bugs" user permissions accordingly.

We strongly recommend Apache as the web server to use. The Bugzilla Guide installation instructions, in general, assume you are using Apache. If you have got Bugzilla working using another webserver, please share your experiences with us.

You'll want to make sure that your web server will run any file with the .cgi extension as a CGI and not just display it. If you're using Apache that means uncommenting the following line in the httpd.conf file:

AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

With Apache you'll also want to make sure that within the httpd.conf file the line:

Options ExecCGI AllowOverride Limit

is in the stanza that covers the directories into which you intend to put the bugzilla .html and .cgi files.

AllowOverride Limit allows the use of a Deny statement in the .htaccess file generated by checksetup.pl Users of older versions of Apache may find the above lines in the srm.conf and access.conf files, respectively.

There are important files and directories that should not be a served by the HTTP server - most files in the "data" and "shadow" directories and the "localconfig" file. You should configure your HTTP server to not serve these files. Failure to do so will expose critical passwords and other data. Please see .htaccess files and security for details on how to do this for Apache; the checksetup.pl script should create appropriate .htaccess files for you.

4.1.7. Bugzilla

You should untar the Bugzilla files into a directory that you're willing to make writable by the default web server user (probably "nobody"). You may decide to put the files in the main web space for your web server or perhaps in /usr/local with a symbolic link in the web space that points to the Bugzilla directory.

If you symlink the bugzilla directory into your Apache's HTML heirarchy, you may receive Forbidden errors unless you add the "FollowSymLinks" directive to the <Directory> entry for the HTML root in httpd.conf.

Add index.cgi to the end of the DirectoryIndex line.

Once all the files are in a web accessible directory, make that directory writable by your webserver's user. This is a temporary step until you run the post-install checksetup.pl script, which locks down your installation.

Lastly, you'll need to set up a symbolic link to /usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl for the correct location of your Perl executable (probably /usr/bin/perl). Otherwise you must hack all the .cgi files to change where they look for Perl. This can be done using the following Perl one-liner, but I suggest using the symlink approach to avoid upgrade hassles.

perl -pi -e 's@#\!/usr/bonsaitools/bin/perl@#\!/usr/bin/perl@' *cgi *pl Bug.pm processmail syncshadowdb

Change /usr/bin/perl to match the location of Perl on your machine.

4.1.8. Setting Up the MySQL Database

After you've gotten all the software installed and working you're ready to start preparing the database for its life as the back end to a high quality bug tracker.

First, you'll want to fix MySQL permissions to allow access from Bugzilla. For the purpose of this Installation section, the Bugzilla username will be "bugs", and will have minimal permissions.

Begin by giving the MySQL root user a password. MySQL passwords are limited to 16 characters.

Next, we use an SQL GRANT command to create a "bugs" user, and grant sufficient permissions for checksetup.pl, which we'll use later, to work its magic. This also restricts the "bugs" user to operations within a database called "bugs", and only allows the account to connect from "localhost". Modify it to reflect your setup if you will be connecting from another machine or as a different user.

Remember to set <bugs_password> to some unique password.

If you are using MySQL 4.x or newer, enter:

  mysql> GRANT SELECT, INSERT,
         UPDATE, DELETE, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE, LOCK TABLES,
         CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, DROP, REFERENCES ON bugs.*
         TO bugs@localhost IDENTIFIED BY '$db_pass';
  mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

If you are using an older version of MySQL, the LOCK TABLES and CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES permissions will be unavailable and should be removed from the permissions list. In this case, the following command line can be used:

  mysql> GRANT SELECT, INSERT,
         UPDATE, DELETE, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE, DROP,
         REFERENCES ON bugs.* TO bugs@localhost IDENTIFIED BY
         '$db_pass';
    mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

4.1.9. checksetup.pl

Next, run the magic checksetup.pl script. (Many thanks to Holger Schurig for writing this script!) This script is designed to make sure your MySQL database and other configuration options are consistent with the Bugzilla CGI files. It will make sure Bugzilla files and directories have reasonable permissions, set up the data directory, and create all the MySQL tables.

At this point, you need to su to root. You should remain as root until the end of the install. Then run:

bash# ./checksetup.pl

The first time you run it, it will create a file called localconfig. This file contains a variety of settings you may need to tweak including how Bugzilla should connect to the MySQL database.

The connection settings include:

1. server's host: just use "localhost" if the MySQL server is local

2. database name: "bugs" if you're following these directions

3. MySQL username: "bugs" if you're following these directions

4. Password for the "bugs" MySQL account; (<bugs_password>) above

Once you are happy with the settings, re-run checksetup.pl. On this second run, it will create the database and an administrator account for which you will be prompted to provide information.

The checksetup.pl script is designed so that you can run it at any time without causing harm. You should run it after any upgrade to Bugzilla.

4.1.10. Mail Transfer Agent (MTA)

Bugzilla is dependent on the availability of an e-mail system for its user authentication and for other tasks.

On Linux, any Sendmail-compatible MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) will suffice. Sendmail, Postfix, qmail and Exim are examples of common MTAs. Sendmail is the original Unix MTA, but the others are easier to configure, and therefore many people replace Sendmail with Postfix or Exim. They are drop-in replacements, so that Bugzilla will not distinguish between them.

Consult the manual for the specific MTA you choose for detailed installation instructions. Each of these programs will have their own configuration files where you must configure certain parameters to ensure that the mail is delivered properly. They are implemented as services, and you should ensure that the MTA is in the auto-start list of services for the machine.

If a simple mail sent with the command-line 'mail' program succeeds, then Bugzilla should also be fine.

4.1.11. Configuring Bugzilla

You should run through the parameters on the Edit Parameters page (link in the footer) and set them all to appropriate values. They key parameters are documented in Section 5.1.