.\" Copyright (c) 1983 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\" @(#)bugfiler.8 6.4 (Berkeley) %G%
bugfiler \- file bug reports in folders automatically
\fIBugfiler\fP is a program to automatically intercept, acknowledge,
redistribute and store bug reports. \fIBugfiler\fP is normally invoked
by the mail delivery program with a line similar to the following in
bugs: "|bugfiler /usr/bugs/mail"
All file paths in this man page that use \fIhome_dir\fP reference
the optional \fIhome_dir\fP argument, or, if that is not supplied, the
home directory of the login "bugs". In either case, the login "bugs"
must exist, as \fIbugfiler\fP expects its files and directories to
A mail acknowledgement is automatically sent to the bug report filer
unless the \fB-a\fP flag is supplied. If the file \fIhome_dir\fP/.ack
exists, it is appended to this acknowledgement.
For the bug report to be correctly filed, it must contain a line
Index: \fIfolder\fP \fIsystem\fP
The directories \fIhome_dir\fP/system and \fIhome_dir\fP/system/folder
must exist before \fIbugfiler\fP attempts to store the bug report. Bug
reports will be stored in files named by the concatenation of
\fIsystem, folder,\fP and sequential numbers, e.g., if \fIsystem\fP
is "4.3BSD" and \fIfolder\fP is "ucb" the first bug report will
be placed in \fIhome_dir\fP/4.3BSD/ucb/1. To maintain backward
compatibility, if \fIfolder\fP contains more than one component only
the first one will be used, e.g. if \fIfolder\fP is "bin/from.c" or
"bin/adb/con.c" it will be treated as if it were just "bin".
If the \fB-r\fP flag is not supplied, redistribution of the bug reports
is done as specified in the file \fIhome_dir\fP/.redist. This file is
file, including comments and entries requiring multiple lines, with
the single exception that the \fIfolder\fP component of the "Index:"
line replaces the name to alias. For example, the \fI.redist\fP file
# ucb folder redistribution list
ucb: karels, kjd@coke.berkeley.edu
will send copies of all bug reports with "ucb" as the \fIfolder\fP
to the logins karels, kjd, and ra.
Reports that cannot be filed due to an invalid "Index:" line are placed
in the directory \fIhome_dir\fP/errors. The \fIbugfiler\fP maintainer
should correct these bug reports and then run \fIbugfiler\fP, with the
corrected report as its standard input, as bug reports with errors are
neither acknowledged or redistributed. All reports that \fIbugfiler\fP
handles are logged in \fIhome_dir\fP/log.
Valid reports are also entered in the file
\fIhome_dir/folder\fP/summary. This file has an entry for each bug
report in the \fIfolder\fP in the format:
"Filename" is the concatenation of \fIsystem, folder,\fP and a number as
described above. The "Subject:" and "Index:" lines are copies of the
"Subject:" and "Index:" lines contained in the bug report. The "Owner"
and "Status" fields are intended to provide a rudimentary method of
tracking the status of bug reports.
The file \fIhome_dir\fP/bug:lock is the focus of all locking for
\fIbugfiler.\fP If you wish to manipulate any of the log or error
files, remove it and \fIbugfiler\fP will treat all bug reports that
it receives as if they were incorrectly formatted and place them
in the directory \fIhome_dir\fP/errors, where they can be recovered by
the \fIbugfiler\fP maintainer.
All errors that occur before \fIhome_dir\fP/log is found are logged
into the system log file, using
home_dir/.ack the message sent in acknowledgement
home_dir/.redist the redistribution list
home_dir/bug:lock the locking file
home_dir/errors/BUG_?????? bug reports with format errors
home_dir/log the log file
home_dir/folder/summary the summary files
/usr/lib/sendmail the mail delivery program
/usr/lib/bugformat a sample bug report format
sendbug(1), aliases(5), syslog(8)
Since mail can be forwarded in a number of different ways, \fIbugfiler\fP
does not recognize forwarded mail and will acknowledge to the forwarder
instead of the original sender unless there is a `Reply-To' field in the
Duplicate messages should be recognized and handled in some
This version of the bugfiler is not compatible with the version
released with 4.3BSD in that it doesn't complain to the sender about
incorrectly formatted bug reports.
Frankly, we got tired of the profanity, not to mention the extended
projects / unix-history / blob