{{{ Overview -------- Launchpad's bug tracker sends you email about the bugs you're interested in. If you see something that requires your attention - for example, you want to comment on a bug - rather than leaving your email client to fire up a web browser, all you need to do is reply to the email. It's not just limited to replying to bug notifications, though. The bug tracker's email interface allows you to do just about everything you can in the web interface. Within time, you may find that email is the main way you interact with the bug tracker. Before you start ---------------- Launchpad only accepts email that is GPG signed. Read our guide on adding your GPG key to your Launchpad account for more info: https://help.launchpad.net/YourAccount/ImportingYourPGPKey Anatomy of an email to the bug tracker -------------------------------------- Let's look at the elements of a bug report email: * From address: the address from which you send the email must be registered in your Launchpad account - https://launchpad.net/people/+me/+editemails * To address: "new@bugs.launchpad.net" to report a new bug, "bugnumber@bugs.launchpad.net" to manipulate an existing bug report or for bulk edits "edit@bugs.launchpad.net" * Subject: Launchpad uses this as the bug report or comment summary. * Email body: the text of your email forms the bug report or comment detail. This is also where you can supply commands to manipulate the bug. That last item, the email body, needs a little more explanation. When you want to use one of the email interface's commands, you need to start the line with a space. Everything else is treated as part of your bug report or comment detail. Getting started with the email interface ---------------------------------------- Let's take a look at an imaginary scenario, in which someone reports a bug requesting a screen cast to help demonstrate the bug tracker's email interface. Reporting a bug --------------- Reporting a new bug by email is simple. Send an email to new@bugs.launchpad.net and describe the problem you're having. Tell Launchpad which project, distribution or distribution package the bug affects by using the "affects" command. Here's an example bug report email: From: im-in-yr-emailz@gmail.com To: new@bugs.launchpad.net Subject: Bug tracker email interface needs a screen cast Body: I looked on the Launchpad help wiki for information on using the bug tracker's email interface. I found the user guide helpful but wanted a screen cast to demonstrate it at my local LUG. affects launchpad-documentation If the bug affects a distribution package, state the distribution name followed by a slash and the package name. For example: "affects ubuntu/firefox". Similarly, if the bug affects more than onevproject or package, use a new line for each project/package: affects exaile affects ubuntu/exaile Commenting on and changing the status of a bug ---------------------------------------------- If you've received a notification about a bug and you want to leave a comment, simply reply to the email. Otherwise, to comment on a bug, send your email to "bugnumber@bugs.launchpad.net". For example: "123@bugs.launchpad.net". Here's an example bug comment email, with a command to change its status to "Confirmed": From: joey@canonical.com To: 123@bugs.launchpad.net Subject: Neat idea Body: What a neat idea! Matt R: can you schedule some time to create a screen cast? We should put the screen cast directly in the bug tracker's interface. status confirmed affects malone Joey has also marked the bug as affecting the Launchpad bug tracker itself, using its project name "malone". Assigning and targeting the bug -------------------------------- Matthew sees that his boss, Joey, thinks this a good idea, so he assigns it to himself and targets it to a future milestone: From: matthew.revell@canonical.com To: 123@bugs.launchpad.net Subject: I'll tackle this in September Body: > What a neat idea! Matt R: can you schedule some time to create a screen cast? Yeah, this is a great idea. I'll have time for this in September. assignee matthew.revell milestone 1.2.9 affects launchpad-documentation Note that Matthew used the "affects" command. Earlier, Joey marked the bug as also affecting another project. Here, "affects" lets Matthew ensure the assignee and milestone are applied to the bug as it affects the Launchpad Documentation project. Matthew could just as easily have left out the "affects" command and Launchpad would have selected the most likely project that bug is reported against. Attaching files to bug reports ------------------------------ Once Matthew's started work on the bug, he can attach an image from the screen cast to the bug report to show how he's getting on. In most cases, file attachments are useful for screen shots that demonstrate the bug or for log files. You can attach a file to a bug report by attaching the file to the email you send to Launchpad. The attachment must have its content-disposition set to "attachment" and not "inline". Images pasted into emails in Mozilla Thunderbird have a content-disposition of "inline", so attach them rather than paste them into the email body. To help prevent unwanted files being attached to bug reports, Launchpad filters files that are unlikely to be intended for the bug report, including: * signatures * VCards * MacOS resource forks. Editing a bug that affects multiple contexts --------------------------------------------- Every package or project affected by a bug has its own fix status, assignee, milestone and so on. Use the "affects" command to edit each of these as it affects a particular context. For example: From: you@example.com To: 29760@bugs.launchpad.net Subject: affects ubuntu/flash-player status fixreleased When a bug affects only one package or product, the "affects" command is unnecessary. What to expect when you submit an email ---------------------------------------- Launchpad processes incoming bug mail every three minutes, so a slight delay between sending a mail and receiving a response is normal. On success ----------- If Launchpad processed your email successfully, it will reply by email to confirm the changes. This email is identical to the bug notification that would get if you had made the same changes using the web interface. For example, if you sent an email like: From: you@example.com To: 28919@bugs.launchpad.net Subject: Re: [Bug 28919] error signing code of conduct: "str: No public key" status incomplete You'll receive a response like: From: you@example.com To: you@example.com Subject: [Bug 28919] error signing code of conduct: "str: No public key" Public bug report changed: https://launchpad.net/malone/bugs/28919 Changed in: Launchpad (upstream) Status: Unconfirmed => Incomplete On failure ----------- If an error occurs while processing your email, Launchpad will send you a failure message. For example, if you forget to GPG-sign an email reporting a new bug, you'll receive an error message similar to: From: noreply@bugs.launchpad.net To: you@example.com Subject: Submit Request Failure An error occurred while processing a mail you sent to Malone's email interface. Error message: In order to submit bugs via email you have to sign the message with a GPG key that is registered in Launchpad. -- For more information about using Malone's email interface, please see: https://wiki.launchpad.canonical.com/Bugs/EmailInterface If you've waited several minutes and still not received either a change notification or an error message, please email feedback@launchpad.net Filtering bug mail ------------------- If you deal with a large number of bug reports by email, you may find that you want to filter them to stop them cluttering your in-box. Launchpad appends custom headers to bug emails to help you filter them. You can find out more about the headers that Launchpad uses in our article on bug subscriptions: https://help.launchpad.net/Bugs/Subscriptions#headers Commands reference ------------------- You must write one email command per line. For example: status confirmed assignee foobar You can mix commands with non-command text, such as the description when filing a bug, or comment text when replying to a bug notification. For example: This is an example bit of bug description. affects ubuntu/firefox And this is some more description. assignee bradb affects ------- "affects [distribution|package|product]" When filing a bug, "affects $target" marks the bug as affecting "$target". You can also, optionally, use "affects" when you're editing a bug. For example, if you want to set the status of a bug as it affects Zope 3, you'd use "affects zope3". If you leave out "affects", Launchpad will make your changes to the bug the following context: 1. the project, distribution or package for which you are a bug supervisor 2. the distribution of which you're a member If Launchpad can't determine the context in which to make your changes, it will email you with an error message. The "affects" target can take the following forms: * affects ubuntu/$packagename * affects $distroname * affects $productname summary ------- "summary '$summary'" Change the one-line summary of the bug. Quotes are required. summary 'A better summary' assignee -------- "assignee [name|email|nobody]" Assign a bug to someone: assignee bac or: assignee brad.crittenden@canonical.com Unassign the bug: assignee nobody status ------- "status [new|incomplete|invalid|wontfix|confirmed|triaged|inprogress|fixcommitted|fixreleased]" Change the status of a bug: status fixreleased importance "importance [wishlist|low|medium|high|critical]" Change the importance of a bug: importance high milestone --------- "milestone $milestone" Sets or clears the milestone of the bug. The milestone must already exist in Launchpad: milestone 1.1.10 You can clear the milestone by sending a hyphen: milestone - informationtype --------------- "informationtype [public|publicsecurity|privatesecurity|private|proprietary]" Changes the information type of the bug that affects visibility of the bug. Only the people that the project shares confidential information with can see "Private", "Private Security", and "Proprietary" bugs. informationtype privatesecurity subscribe --------- "subscribe [name|email]" Subscribe yourself or someone else to the bug. If you don't specify a name or email, Launchpad will subscribe you, the send of the email, to the bug. Subscribe yourself to the bug: subscribe Subscribe Foo Bar to the bug: subscribe foo.bar@canonical.com Subscribe the user bjornt to the bug: subscribe bjornt unsubscribe ----------- "unsubscribe [name|email]" The opposite of the subscribe command. duplicate --------- "duplicate $bugid" Mark the bug as a duplicate of another bug: duplicate 42 To unmark the bug as a duplicate, specify "no" in place of a bug id: duplicate no bug --- "bug $bugid" The "bug"` command is useful if you want to use one email to make changes to several bugs. Send such emails to "edit@bugs.launchpad.net" From: terry.tibbs@tibbsmotors.com To: edit@bugs.launchpad.net Subject: bug 42 status confirmed bug 49 status confirmed tag --- "tag $tag" Assign a tag to a bug. You can specify multiple tags with a single command: tag foo Or: tag foo bar Remove a tag by prefixing the tag name with "-": tag -foo done ---- "done" tells Launchpad to process no further commands. For example: tag foo status confirmed done affects everyone using version 1.0.1 The line below "done" looks like an "affects" command but Launchpad will ignore it. }}}