This incorporates all the comments, I think. I'll take further comments on this draft until 14th November, then consider this final if no-one objects.
Ben. --- 1. Required information Submitters are expected to run reportbug or other tool that runs our 'bug' script under the kernel version in question. The response to reports without this information should be a request to follow-up using reportbug. If we do not receive this information within a month of the request, the bug may be closed. Exceptions: * If the kernel does not boot or is very unstable, instead of the usual system information we need the console messages via netconsole, serial console, or a photograph. * If the report is relaying information about a bug acknowledged upstream, we do not need system information but we do need specific references (bugzilla.kernel.org or git commit id). * If the bug is clearly not hardware-specific (e.g. packaging error), we do not need system information. * If the bug is reported against a well-defined model, we may not need device listings. 2. Severities Many submitters report bugs with the wrong severity. We interpret the criteria as follows and will adjust severity as appropriate: 'critical: makes unrelated software on the system (or the whole system) break...' The bug must make the kernel unbootable or unstable on common hardware or all systems that a specific flavour is supposed to support. There is no 'unrelated software' since everything depends on the kernel. 'grave: makes the package in question unusable or mostly so...' If the kernel is unusable, this already qualifies as critical. 'grave: ...or causes data loss...' We exclude loss of data in memory due to a crash. Only corruption of data in storage or communication, or silent failure to write data, qualifies. important We include lack of support for new hardware that is generally available. 3. Tagging We do not use user-tags. In order to aid bug triage we should make use of the standard tags and 'forwarded' field defined by the BTS. In particular: * Add 'moreinfo' whenever we are waiting for a response from the submitter and remove it when we are not * Do not add 'unreproducible' to bugs that may be hardware-dependent 4. Analysis by maintainers Generally we should not expect to be able to reproduce bugs without having similar hardware. We should consider: * Searching bugzilla.kernel.org (including closed bugs) or other relevant bug tracker * Searching kernel mailing lists - Of the many archives, http://news.gmane.org seems to suck least - Patches submitted to some lists are archived at http://patchwork.kernel.org/ * Viewing git commit logs for relevant source files - In case of a regression, from the known good to the bad version - In other cases, from the bad version forwards, in case the bug has been fixed since * Searching kerneloops.org for similar oopses * Matching the machine code and registers in an 'oops' against the source and deducing how the impossible happened (this doesn't work that often but when it does you look like a genius ;-) 5. Testing by submitter Depending on the technical sophistication of the submitter and the service requirements of the system in question (e.g. whether it's a production server) we can request one or more of the following: * Gathering more information passively (e.g. further logging, reporting contents of files in procfs or sysfs) * Upgrading to the current stable/stable-proposed-updates/ stable-security version, if it includes a fix for a similar bug * Adding debug or fallback options to the kernel command line or module parameters * Installing the unstable or backports version temporarily * Rebuilding and installing the kernel with a specific patch added (the script debian/bin/test-patches should make this easy) * Using 'git bisect' to find a specific upstream change that introduced the bug When a bug occurs in what upstream considers the current or previous stable release, and we cannot fix it, we ask the submitter to report it upstream at bugzilla.kernel.org under a specific Product and Component, and to tell us the upstream bug number. We do not report bugs directly because follow-up questions from upstream need to go to the submitter, not to us. Given the upstream bug number, we mark the bug as forwarded. bts-link then updates its status. 6. Keeping bugs separate Many submitters search for a characteristic error message and treat this as indicating a specific bug. This can lead to many 'me too' follow-ups where, for example, the message indicates a driver bug and the second submitter is using a different driver from the original submitter. In order to avoid the report turning into a mess of conflicting information about two or more different bugs: * We should try to respond to such a follow-up quickly, requesting a separate bug report * We can use the BTS 'summary' command to improve the description of the bug * As a last resort, it may be necessary to open new bugs with the relevant information, set their submitters accordingly, and close the original report Where the original report describes more than one bug ('...and other thing...'), we should clone it and deal with each separately. 7. Applying patches Patches should normally be reviewed and accepted by the relevant upstream maintainer (aside from necessary adjustments for an older kernel version) before being applied. 8. Talking to submitters We should always be polite to submitters. Not only is this implied by the Social Contract, but it is likely to lead to a faster resolution of the bug. If a submitter overrated the severity, quietly downgrade it. If a submitter has done something stupid, request that they undo that and report back. 'Sorry', and 'please' make a big difference in tone. We will maintain general advice to submitters at <http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernelReportingBugs>. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-kernel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
