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How to report a bug in Debian
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Important things to note before sending
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Please don't report multiple unrelated bugs -- especially ones in
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different packages -- in a single bug report. It makes our lives much
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easier if you send separate reports.
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You should check if your bug report has already been filed by someone
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else before submitting it. Lists of currently outstanding bugs are
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available on the World Wide Web and elsewhere -- see other documents
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for details. You can submit your comments to an existing bug report
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#<number> by sending e-mail to <number>@bugs.debian.org
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If you can't seem to determine which package contains the problem,
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please send e-mail to the Debian user mailing list asking for advice.
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If your problem doesn't relate just to one package but some general
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Debian service, there are several pseudo-packages or even mailing
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lists that you can use to relay your message to us instead.
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If you'd like to send a copy of your bug report to additional
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recipients (such as mailing lists), you shouldn't use the usual e-mail
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headers, but a different method, described below.
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Sending the bug report using an automatic bug report tool
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The reportbug program can ease filing bugs by guiding you through the
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bug reporting process step by step. The querybts tool, available from
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the same package as reportbug, provides a convenient text-based
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interface to the bug tracking system.
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Emacs users can also use the debian-bug command provided by the
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debian-el package. When called with M-x debian-bug, it will ask for
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all necessary information in a similar way to reportbug.
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Sending the bug report via e-mail
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Send e-mail to submit@bugs.debian.org, as described below.
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Of course, like any e-mail, you should include a clear, descriptive
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Subject line in your main mail header. The subject you give will be
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used as the initial bug title in the tracking system, so please try to
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You need to put a pseudo-header at the start of the body of the
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message. That means that the first line of the message body should
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Replace <something> with the name of the package which has the bug.
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The second line of the message should say:
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Replace <something> with the version of the package. Please don't
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include any text here other than the version itself, as the bug
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tracking system relies on this field to work out which releases are
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You need to supply a correct Package line in the pseudo-header in
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order for the bug tracking system to deliver the message to the
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package's maintainer. See this example for information on how to find
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The pseudo-header fields should start at the very start of their
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Please include in your report:
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* The exact and complete text of any error messages printed or
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logged. This is very important!
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* Exactly what you typed or did to demonstrate the problem.
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* A description of the incorrect behaviour: exactly what behaviour
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you were expecting, and what you observed. A transcript of an
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example session is a good way of showing this.
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* A suggested fix, or even a patch, if you have one.
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* Details of the configuration of the program with the problem.
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Include the complete text of its configuration files.
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* The versions of any packages on which the buggy package depends.
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* What kernel version you're using (type uname -a), your shared C
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library (type ls -l /lib/libc.so.6 or dpkg -s libc6 | grep
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^Version), and any other details about your Debian system, if it
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seems appropriate. For example, if you had a problem with a Perl
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script, you would want to provide the version of the `perl' binary
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(type perl -v or dpkg -s perl | grep ^Version:).
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* Appropriate details of the hardware in your system. If you're
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reporting a problem with a device driver please list all the
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hardware in your system, as problems are often caused by IRQ and
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I/O address conflicts.
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Include any detail that seems relevant -- you are in very little
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danger of making your report too long by including too much
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information. If they are small please include in your report any files
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you were using to reproduce the problem (uuencoding them if they may
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contain odd characters etc.).
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For more advice on how to help the developers solve your problem,
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please read How to Report Bugs Effectively.
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A bug report, with mail header, looks something like this:
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To: submit@bugs.debian.org
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From: diligent@testing.linux.org
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Subject: Hello says `goodbye'
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When I invoke `hello' without arguments from an ordinary shell
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prompt it prints `goodbye', rather than the expected `hello, world'.
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Here is a transcript:
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I suggest that the output string, in hello.c, be corrected.
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I am using Debian GNU/Linux 2.2, kernel 2.2.17-pre-patch-13
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Sending copies of bug reports to other addresses
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Sometimes it is necessary to send a copy of a bug report to somewhere
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else besides debian-bugs-dist and the package maintainer, which is
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where they are normally sent.
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You could do this by CC'ing your bug report to the other address(es),
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but then the other copies would not have the bug report number put in
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the Reply-To field and the Subject line. When the recipients reply
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they will probably preserve the submit@bugs.debian.org entry in the
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header and have their message filed as a new bug report. This leads to
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many duplicated reports.
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The right way to do this is to use the X-Debbugs-CC header. Add a line
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like this to your message's mail header:
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X-Debbugs-CC: other-list@cosmic.edu
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This will cause the bug tracking system to send a copy of your report
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to the address(es) in the X-Debbugs-CC line as well as to
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Avoid sending such copies to the addresses of other bug reports, as
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they will be caught by the checks that prevent mail loops. There is
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relatively little point in using X-Debbugs-CC for this anyway, as the
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bug number added by that mechanism will just be replaced by a new one;
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use an ordinary CC header instead.
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This feature can often be combined usefully with mailing quiet -- see
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If a report is of a particularly serious bug, or is merely a feature
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request that, you can set the severity level of the bug as you report
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it. This is not required, however, and the developers will assign an
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appropriate severity level to your report if you do not.
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To assign a severity level, put a line like this one in the
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Replace <severity> with one of the available severity levels, as
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described in the developers' documentation.
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You can set tags on a bug as you are reporting it. For example, if you
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are including a patch with your bug report, you may wish to set the
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patch tag. This is not required, however, and the developers will set
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tags on your report as and when it is appropriate.
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To set tags, put a line like this one in the pseudo-header:
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Replace <tags> with one or more of the available tags, as described in
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the developers' documentation. Separate multiple tags with commas,
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Replace <usertags> with one or more usertags. Separate multiple tags
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with commas, spaces, or both. If you specify a <username>, that user's
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tags will be set. Otherwise, the e-mail address of the sender will be
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used as the username.
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Other pseudo headers (primarily of interest to package maintainers)
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Forwarded: foo@example.com
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will mark the newly submitted bug as forwarded to foo@example.com. See
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Recording that you have passed on a bug report in the developers'
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documentation for details.
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Owner: foo@example.com
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will indicate that foo@example.com is now responsible for fixing this
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bug. See Changing bug ownership in the developers' documentation for
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the equivalent of Package: for bugs present in the source package of
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foopackage; for most bugs in most packages you don't want to use this
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Finally, if your MUA doesn't allow you to edit the headers, you can
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set the various X-Debbugs- headers in the pseudo-headers.
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Different submission addresses (minor or mass bug reports)
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If a bug report is minor, for example, a documentation typo or a
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trivial build problem, please adjust the severity appropriately and
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send it to maintonly@bugs instead of submit@bugs. maintonly will
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forward the report to the package maintainer only, it won't forward it
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to the BTS mailing lists.
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If you're submitting many reports at once, you should definitely use
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maintonly@bugs so that you don't cause too much redundant traffic on
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the BTS mailing lists. Before submitting many similar bugs you may
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also want to post a summary on debian-bugs-dist.
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If wish to report a bug to the bug tracking system that's already been
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sent to the maintainer, you can use quiet@bugs. Bugs sent to
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quiet@bugs will not be forwarded anywhere, only filed.
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When you use different submission addresses, the bug tracking system
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will set the Reply-To of any forwarded message so that the replies
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will by default be processed in the same way as the original report.
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That means that, for example, replies to maintonly will go to
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nnn-maintonly@bugs instead of nnn@bugs, unless of course one overrides
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Normally, the bug tracking system will return an acknowledgement to
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you by e-mail when you report a new bug or submit additional
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information to an existing bug. If you want to suppress this
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acknowledgement, include an X-Debbugs-No-Ack header in your e-mail
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(the contents of this header do not matter; however, it must be in the
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mail header and not in the pseudo-header with the Package field). If
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you report a new bug with this header, you will need to check the web
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interface yourself to find the bug number.
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Note that this header will not suppress acknowledgements from the
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control@bugs mailserver, since those acknowledgements may contain
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error messages which should be read and acted upon.
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Bug reports against unknown packages
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If the bug tracking system doesn't know who the maintainer of the
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relevant package is it'll forward the report to debian-bugs-dist even
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if maintonly was used.
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When sending to maintonly@bugs or nnn-maintonly@bugs you should make
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sure that the bug report is assigned to the right package, by putting
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a correct Package at the top of an original submission of a report, or
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by using the control@bugs service to (re)assign the report
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appropriately first if it isn't correct already.
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Using dpkg to find the package and version for the report
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If you are reporting a bug in a command, you can find out which
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package installed it by using dpkg --search. You can find out which
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version of a package you have installed by using dpkg --list or dpkg
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apt-get is /usr/bin/apt-get
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$ dpkg --search /usr/bin/apt-get
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apt: /usr/bin/apt-get
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Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
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| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
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|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
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||/ Name Version Description
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+++-==============-==============-============================================
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ii apt 0.3.19 Advanced front-end for dpkg
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Status: install ok installed
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Maintainer: APT Development Team <deity@lists.debian.org>
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Replaces: deity, libapt-pkg-doc (<< 0.3.7), libapt-pkg-dev (<< 0.3.7)
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Provides: libapt-pkg2.7
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Depends: libapt-pkg2.7, libc6 (>= 2.1.2), libstdc++2.10
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Description: Advanced front-end for dpkg
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This is Debian's next generation front-end for the dpkg package manager.
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It provides the apt-get utility and APT dselect method that provides a
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simpler, safer way to install and upgrade packages.
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APT features complete installation ordering, multiple source capability
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and several other unique features, see the Users Guide in
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/usr/doc/apt/guide.text.gz
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_________________________________________________________________
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Debian BTS administrators <owner@bugs.debian.org>
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Debian bug tracking system
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Copyright � 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997, 2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd,
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1994-1997 Ian Jackson.
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_________________________________________________________________
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includes/etch/install/doc/bug-reporting.txt
