Bug Status Workflow
This document describes best practices for setting Bugzilla status for bugs and feature requests. For Change proposal trackers, use the Bugzilla status described in the Changes policy.
Statuses
The image below presents a general flow chart for bugs in the typical case. The flow is bi-directional: a bug can revert to a previous status if, for example, a proposed fix is incomplete.
The table below summarizes the statuses. More details, including additional keywords, flags, and resolutions are given in the following sections.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
NEW |
The default state. Generally indicates bug has not been actively investigated by the assignee. |
ASSIGNED |
Can be used by maintainers to indicate that the bug has been vetted and is assigned for work. |
ON_DEV |
Can be used by maintainers to indicate that work is actively in progress. This is especially useful if there exists a team of maintainers for a package. |
POST |
Indicates a fix is ready, but not applied. This is often used when a pull request is open upstream. |
MODIFIED |
Indicates a fix has been built in an update. Bodhi will set this status automatically when an update is created if the bug is associated with the update. |
ON_QA |
Indicates an update with a fix is in the testing repo. Bodhi will set this status automatically when an update reaches updates-testing if the bug is associated with the update. |
VERIFIED |
Indicates a bug has a confirmed fix in an update. |
RELEASE_PENDING |
(Generally unused in Fedora. Used for Red Hat Enterprise Linux workflows.) |
CLOSED |
Indicates the bug has been fixed or will not be fixed. The CLOSED status has different resolutions to indicate why the bug was closed. Bodhi will set this status automatically when an update reaches the updates repo if the bug is associated with the update. |
Resolutions
The table below describes the resolutions that can apply to the CLOSED status.
| Resolution | Meaning |
|---|---|
CANTFIX |
Used by maintainers to indicate a bug that cannot be fixed. |
CURRENTRELEASE |
Indicates a bug reported in Branched prior to release and the fix is fixed for the final release. |
DEFERRED |
(Generally unused in Fedora. Used for Red Hat Enterprise Linux workflows.) |
DUPLICATE |
Indicates a bug is a duplicate of another. |
EOL |
Indicates a bug that was filed against a version that has reached End of Life. |
ERRATA |
Indicates a bug is fixed in a stable release. |
FAILS_QA |
(Generally unused in Fedora. Used for Red Hat Enterprise Linux workflows.) |
INSUFFICIENT_DATA |
Indicates that the bug reporter is unwilling or unable to provide sufficient information to diagnose or fix the bug. |
NEXTRELEASE |
Used by maintainers to indicate a bug that will only be fixed for later releases, not on the release reported. |
NOTABUG |
Indicates that the report is not a bug (e.g. is a hardware failure or a support question). |
RAWHIDE |
Indicates a bug is fixed in a Rawhide update. |
RELEASE_PENDING |
(Generally unused in Fedora. Used for Red Hat Enterprise Linux workflows.) |
UPSTREAM |
Used by maintainers to indicate that a bug is expected to be fixed upstream and naturally rolled into Fedora Linux in a subsequent update. |
WONTFIX |
Used by maintainers to indicate a bug that will not be fixed. |
WORKSFORME |
Used by maintainers to indicate a bug that cannot be reproduced. |
Priority and Severity
Severity
The Severity field is used to indicate the bug’s importance. The values for the severity field should be assigned with reference to the following guidance:
-
Urgent: the bug makes whole system unusable (or it is a security bug, which is per definition urgent)
-
High: the bug makes the program in question unusable, or a major packaging guideline violation (license problem, bundled library, etc)
-
Medium: a real bug which makes program more difficult to use, at least part of the program is available; possibly workarounds are available
-
Low: anything else - cosmetic issues, corner cases with unusual (non-default) configurations, etc.
| The Urgent setting should not usually be used for hardware-specific bugs: a bug which causes the entire distribution to be affected but is restricted to a single specific type of hardware should usually be set to High. For instance, if a bug prevents X.org working correctly on a single particular graphics chipset, use the High severity, not Urgent. |
For most packages, most issues are likely to be of Medium severity. These are not hard and fast rules. Use your best judgement in setting the severity field appropriately. There are obvious cases which require the exercise of judgement—for instance, a bug which affects more than just the program in which it occurs, but less than the 'whole system'.
Priority
The Priority field may be used, at their choice, by maintainers to keep track of the order in which they wish to address bugs in their package(s). This may be done with relation to the severity setting, or by any other method the maintainer chooses, at the maintainer’s sole discretion. It may also be entirely ignored, if the maintainer in question does not wish to use it No-one other than the maintainer or team responsible for a particular bug should change this setting.
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