Bug Tracker

[Andy Stone]

Hello all,

We've been looking for an alternative bug tracking system. We were
using Bugzilla, for a long time, but when we opened it up for client
entries we found the interface non-geek friendly. So, we went to
Mantis which is ok, but we had to write some additional modules to get
our base requirements (i.e. LDAP authentication). We never fell in
love with the features of Mantis and missed some of the capabilities
of Bugzilla. So, after looking around for a while the CTO asked if I
would like to write one using Ruby/Rails. I should also mention that
this will be open-sourced. Has anyone started such a project that I
may be able to help with? I will be writing one regardless, just
thought it would be better to ask the group and combine forces rather
than to split up the effort.

thanks,
andy

 

[Jon Lim]

Bugtrack?

http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/show/OpenSourceProjects

 

[Andy Stone]

Thanks for the link Jon!

Bugtrack?

http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/show/OpenSourceProjects

 

[Jason Sweat]

Hello all,

We've been looking for an alternative bug tracking system. We were
using Bugzilla, for a long time, but when we opened it up for client
entries we found the interface non-geek friendly. So, we went to
Mantis which is ok, but we had to write some additional modules to get
our base requirements (i.e. LDAP authentication). We never fell in
love with the features of Mantis and missed some of the capabilities
of Bugzilla. So, after looking around for a while the CTO asked if I
would like to write one using Ruby/Rails. I should also mention that
this will be open-sourced. Has anyone started such a project that I
may be able to help with? I will be writing one regardless, just
thought it would be better to ask the group and combine forces rather
than to split up the effort.

thanks,
andy

Not written in Ruby, but Scarab (http://scarab.tigris.org/) has a
clean interface and a very configurable issue tracking system which
might be at least worth reviewing.

Regards,
Jason
http://blog.casey-sweat.us/

 

[Tom Copeland]

Hello all,

We've been looking for an alternative bug tracking system. We were
using Bugzilla, for a long time, but when we opened it up for client
entries we found the interface non-geek friendly. So, we went to
Mantis which is ok, but we had to write some additional modules to get
our base requirements (i.e. LDAP authentication). We never fell in
love with the features of Mantis and missed some of the capabilities
of Bugzilla. So, after looking around for a while the CTO asked if I
would like to write one using Ruby/Rails. I should also mention that
this will be open-sourced. Has anyone started such a project that I
may be able to help with? I will be writing one regardless, just
thought it would be better to ask the group and combine forces rather
than to split up the effort.

There's BugTrack:

http://rubyforge.org/projects/bugtrack/

Yours,

Tom

 

[Kristofer Goss]

You could also look at FogBugz. Its pretty affordable, and has
features geared towards customer facing tasks like forums, defect
reporting, etc. It also runs on both Unix and Windows. BugTrack
seems to have drawn some inspiration from it as well IMHO.

-Kris

 

[Andy Stone]

Thanks Jason,

From an extremely quick review, the main problem with Scarab is that
it uses Java. We are a very small IT department for a decent sized
company. We have one CTO, one coder (me) and one network admin to
handle two completely different (lines of business) web sites not to
mention the Intranet,Email server and all the other day-to-day admin
stuff. We currently use Java/JSP (etc..) and I'm trying to reduce the
amount of code I have to maintain. Also, using Ruby removes the Tomcat
layer. Small things, sure..but they add up. There is also the issue
of trying to reduce the technologies we have to maintain. I won't go
into the list, but right now we use way too many.

I guess that was more than expected of a reply

Thanks for the infor Jason.

 

[Dema]

If you're using Subversion for source-code repository, I would stronly
recommend using TRAC (http://www.edgewall.com/trac/) (even if you
don't). The ticket system they have is simple but just works(tm), the
interface is beautiful and the whole thing is written in our
friend-language Python.

 

[Stephan Kämper]

Hello all,

We've been looking for an alternative bug tracking system. We were
using Bugzilla, for a long time, but when we opened it up for client
entries we found the interface non-geek friendly. So, we went to
Mantis which is ok, but we had to write some additional modules to get
our base requirements (i.e. LDAP authentication). We never fell in
love with the features of Mantis and missed some of the capabilities
of Bugzilla. So, after looking around for a while the CTO asked if I
would like to write one using Ruby/Rails. I should also mention that
this will be open-sourced. Has anyone started such a project that I
may be able to help with? I will be writing one regardless, just
thought it would be better to ask the group and combine forces rather
than to split up the effort.

thanks,
andy

Could trac do it?

http://www.edgewall.com/trac/

Has anybody any experience with it?

Happy rubying

Stephan

 

[Andy Stone]

Trac seems to be popular. I'll have to review it more, but didn't see
where it did LDAP authentication. We are trying to consolidate all
authentication via LDAP. As I mentioned earlier (too many
technologies). We are using subversion, so that is a nice feature.
Another drawback is that it doesn't have PostgreSQL support (yet).
This is another consolidation we are planning.

thanks Dema and Stephan,
andy

 

[Caleb Tennis]

Trac seems to be popular. I'll have to review it more, but didn't see
where it did LDAP authentication. We are trying to consolidate all
authentication via LDAP. As I mentioned earlier (too many
technologies). We are using subversion, so that is a nice feature.
Another drawback is that it doesn't have PostgreSQL support (yet).
This is another consolidation we are planning.

I put this in my apache config for trac:

<Location "/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/login">
AuthLDAPEnabled on
AuthLDAPAuthoritative on
AuthType Basic
AuthName "trac"
AuthLDAPURL ldap://url/ou=Accounts,dc=aei-tech,dc=com?uid?sub?
Require valid-user
</Location>

And it uses ldap for logins quite beautifully.

 

[Andreas Schwarz]

Trac seems to be popular. I'll have to review it more, but didn't see
where it did LDAP authentication. We are trying to consolidate all
authentication via LDAP.

Trac doesn't do any authentication, it relies on the webserver for that.
So if your webserver has LDAP auth support there won't be any problems.

 

[Andy Stone]

FogBugz has the same technical drawbacks (in our view) as Trac. And
unless it does everything we would like out of the box, we wouldn't
pay for the product.

I guess it seems I'm being strict and close minded about these issues,
but really I'm not. I promise We have spent considerable time
reviewing the technologies that have been implemented over the course
of mergers and acquisitions and have a developed a restructuring plan
that will make our lives easier and possibly free up a weekend here or
there

 

[Digikata]

If you're looking for a good starting design document you might look at
RoundUp too. http://roundup.sourceforge.net/

 

[Andy Stone]

Thanks to everyone for their input,links, etc... You guys are fantastic!

 

[Phil Tomson]

If you're using Subversion for source-code repository, I would stronly
recommend using TRAC (http://www.edgewall.com/trac/) (even if you
don't). The ticket system they have is simple but just works(tm), the
interface is beautiful and the whole thing is written in our
friend-language Python.

It's funny how everyone is trying to talk Andy out of this project. If
the CTO wants him to write this thing and even wants him to use
Ruby/Rails and will allow it to be open sourced - well, it sounds like a
great opportunity.

It would be great if we had a 'best-of-breed' bug tracking system that just
happened to be written in Ruby/Rails. It seems like a great combination
and it could only help further the reach of both Ruby and Rails. Yeah
there are a lot of bug tracking systems out there, but there's always
room for improvement.

I would suggest some sort of a pluggable architechture that allows
for easy customization - but you probably already were planning something
like that. Like Rails, it should also be very easy to set up and use
immediately.

Phil

 

[Andy Stone]

Thanks Phil,

As I said with the initial post, I was writing this regardless, but
just wanted to see what had been done with Ruby/Rails that I could
possibly extend. Our feature request is very specific and it's nice
to see the alternatives the other people have mentioned. (Especially
like the subversion interface)

It will definitely have a pluggable architecture as we would like to
include portions of this system into our intranet. We are also
planning on writing an inventory system with ruby/rails that will
integrate with the bug tracker. So, for instance, "john" reports a
bug with some application he has installed. We want the ability to
link (plug into) to the inventory system to see what type of computer
he has, the applications he has installed, etc... This is a very
specific, but beneficial feature that we want and knowing that's not
the norm, we decided to write such a beast. There are a host of other
features that we need and will include.

My plans for setting this up would be to use gems so it would be as
simple as rails.

I'm a big fan of Ruby and would like to see it rule the world.

thanks,
andy

 

[Wayne Pierce]

It's funny how everyone is trying to talk Andy out of this project. If

the CTO wants him to write this thing and even wants him to use
Ruby/Rails and will allow it to be open sourced - well, it sounds like a
great opportunity.

I've been looking at the same problem here too. If I can get BugTrack
working with PostgreSQL I plan to build upon that, the main reason is
that I am planning to build a log analysis package with RoR. My
current applicaiton is written with Python right now, but I've hit
some design issues and need to re-architect anyway (so this is a good
excuse to switch to RoR).

It would be great if we had a 'best-of-breed' bug tracking system that just
happened to be written in Ruby/Rails. It seems like a great combination
and it could only help further the reach of both Ruby and Rails. Yeah
there are a lot of bug tracking systems out there, but there's always
room for improvement.

What I eventually plan to make is an "incident response and tracking"
system. Integrating my existing log analysis code, BugTrack, data
from Snort and some configuration management tools I am writing.
BugTrack will be helpful as a starting point to the incident/response
portion (once I can figure out Rails).

Wayne

 

[Wayne Pierce]

It will definitely have a pluggable architecture as we would like to

include portions of this system into our intranet. We are also
planning on writing an inventory system with ruby/rails that will
integrate with the bug tracker. So, for instance, "john" reports a
bug with some application he has installed. We want the ability to
link (plug into) to the inventory system to see what type of computer
he has, the applications he has installed, etc... This is a very
specific, but beneficial feature that we want and knowing that's not
the norm, we decided to write such a beast. There are a host of other
features that we need and will include.

Andy,

This isn't as unique as you might think, I was looking to do a similar
setup for configuration management and incident response. We
currently use Remedy for some information but I was looking to extend
that with a separate system. The problem with using Remedy for my
whole project is their security model.

My perspective on this, since I work in a security department, is
mostly compliance though.

Wayne

 

[Kent Sibilev]

And if you provide me with changes, I'd be glad to include them into
BugTrack application.

Cheers,
Kent