NAME¶
send-pr, sendbug - send problem report (PR) to a central support site
SYNOPSIS¶
send-pr [
site ] [
-f problem-report ] [
-t
mail-address ]
[
-P ] [
-L ] [
-s severity ] [
-V ]
[
--version ] [
-c address ] [
-a file ]
DESCRIPTION¶
send-pr is a tool used to submit
problem reports (PRs) to a
central support site. In most cases the correct
site will be the
default. This argument indicates the support site which is responsible for the
category of problem involved. Some sites may use a local address as a default.
site values are defined by using the
aliases(5).
send-pr invokes an editor on a problem report template (after trying to
fill in some fields with reasonable default values). When you exit the editor,
send-pr sends the completed form to the
Problem Report Management
System (
GNATS) at a central support site. At the support site, the
PR is assigned a unique number and is stored in the
GNATS database
according to its category and submitter-id.
GNATS automatically replies
with an acknowledgement, citing the category and the PR number.
To ensure that a PR is handled promptly, it should contain one of the available
categories to identify the problem area. (Use
`send-pr -L' to
see a list of categories.)
The more precise your problem description and the more complete your
information, the faster your support team can solve your problems.
send-pr depends on a correctly configured mail submission system to work
correctly. If, for any reason, sending mail is not working, problem reports
can be submitted over the web, through:
- http://www.freebsd.org/send-pr.html
OPTIONS¶
- -f problem-report
- specify a file (problem-report) which already
contains a complete problem report. send-pr sends the contents of
the file without invoking the editor. If the value for
problem-report is `-', then send-pr reads from
standard input.
- -s severity
- Give the problem report the severity severity.
- -t mail-address
- Change mail address at the support site for problem
reports. The default mail-address is the address used for the
default site. Use the site argument rather than this option
in nearly all cases.
- -c address
- Put address in the Cc: header of the
message.
- -a file
- Copy the specified file into the Fix:
section. Binary files are uuencoded.
- -P
- print the form specified by the environment variable
PR_FORM on standard output. If PR_FORM is not set, print the
standard blank PR template. No mail is sent.
- -L
- print the list of available categories. No mail is
sent.
- -V
- Display the send-pr version number. This may also be
specified as --version.
Note: use
send-pr to submit problem reports rather than mailing them
directly. Using both the template and
send-pr itself will help ensure
all necessary information will reach the support site.
FREEBSD CATEGORIES¶
- advocacy
- This used to be for the advocacy WWW pages. Now deprecated
in favour of the www category, relevant alternative use of this
category is encouraged.
- alpha
- Alpha processor specific problems.
- amd64
- AMD64 processor specific problems.
- arm
- ARM processor specific problems.
- bin
- Corrections or enhancements to system executables.
- conf
- Corrections or enhancements to the system configuration
files.
- docs
- Corrections or enhancements to the manpages or other
documentation.
- gnu
- Corrections or enhancements to the GNU contributed
software.
- i386
- Intel x86 processor specific problems.
- ia64
- Intel ia64 processor specific problems.
- java
- Problems related to Java.
- kern
- Changes or enhancements to the architecture independent
kernel sources.
- misc
- Problems that do not fit into any of the other
categories.
- ports
- Corrections or enhancements (including new ports) to the
ports collection.
- powerpc
- PowerPC processor specific problems.
- sparc64
- SPARC processor specific problems.
- standards
- Standards conformance issues.
- sun4v
- Problems specific to the SPARC sun4v architecture and
processors.
- threads
- Problems related to threading on FreeBSD.
- usb
- Problems related to the USB subsystem.
- www
- Changes or enhancements to the FreeBSD website.
ENVIRONMENT¶
The environment variable
EDITOR specifies the editor to invoke on the
template.
default:
vi
If the environment variable
MAIL_AGENT is set, its value is used as the
path + command line arguments of the executable to be invoked for sending the
problem report (which will be provided via standard input).
This can be useful if you either use a MTA other than sendmail or need to
provide additional parameters, such as the envelope sender on machines without
a valid FQDN.
Default value:
/usr/sbin/sendmail -oi -t
If the environment variable
PR_FORM is set, then its value is used as the
file name of the template for your problem-report editing session. You can use
this to start with a partially completed form (for example, a form with the
identification fields already completed).
HOW TO FILL OUT A PROBLEM REPORT¶
Problem reports have to be in a particular form so that a program can easily
manage them. Please remember the following guidelines:
- •
- describe only one problem with each problem
report.
- •
- For follow-up mail, use the same subject line as the one in
the automatic acknowledgement. It consists of category, PR number and the
original synopsis line. This allows the support site to relate several
mail messages to a particular PR and to record them automatically.
- •
- Please try to be as accurate as possible in the subject
and/or synopsis line.
- •
- The subject and the synopsis line are not confidential.
This is because open-bugs lists are compiled from them. Avoid confidential
information there.
See the GNU
Info file
send-pr.info or the document
Reporting
Problems With send-pr for detailed information on reporting problems
HOW TO SUBMIT TEST CASES, CODE, ETC.¶
Submit small code samples with the PR. Contact the support site for instructions
on submitting larger test cases and problematic source code.
FILES¶
/tmp/pf.XXXXXXXX copy of PR used in editing session
/tmp/pf.XXXXXXXX copy of empty PR form, for testing purposes
/tmp/pr.XXXXXXXX copy of filled PR form, created on interrupt
/tmp/pbad.XXXXXXXX file for rejected PRs
EMACS USER INTERFACE¶
An Emacs user interface for
send-pr with completion of field values is
part of the
send-pr distribution (invoked with
M-x send-pr). See
the file
send-pr.info or the ASCII file
INSTALL in the top level
directory of the distribution for configuration and installation information.
The Emacs LISP template file is
send-pr-el.in and is installed as
send-pr.el.
INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION¶
See
send-pr.info or
INSTALL for installation instructions.
SEE ALSO¶
Reporting Problems Using send-pr (also installed as the GNU Info file
send-pr.info).
AUTHORS¶
Jeffrey Osier, Brendan Kehoe, Jason Merrill, Heinz G. Seidl (Cygnus Support)
COPYING¶
Copyright (c) 1992, 1993 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual
provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all
copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual
under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting
derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical
to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into
another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except
that this permission notice may be included in translations approved by the
Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English.