2.5. OS-Specific Installation Notes

Many aspects of the Bugzilla installation can be affected by the operating system you choose to install it on. Sometimes it can be made easier and others more difficult. This section will attempt to help you understand both the difficulties of running on specific operating systems and the utilities available to make it easier.

If you have anything to add or notes for an operating system not covered, please file a bug in Bugzilla Documentation.

2.5.1. Microsoft Windows

Making Bugzilla work on Windows is more difficult than making it work on Unix. For that reason, we still recommend doing so on a Unix based system such as GNU/Linux. That said, if you do want to get Bugzilla running on Windows, you will need to make the following adjustments.

2.5.1.1. Win32 Perl

Perl for Windows can be obtained from ActiveState. You should be able to find a compiled binary at http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/ActivePerl/. The following instructions assume that you are using version 5.8.1 of ActiveState.

2.5.1.2. Perl Modules on Win32

Bugzilla on Windows requires the same perl modules found in Section 2.1.5. The main difference is that windows uses PPM instead of CPAN.


C:\perl> ppm install <module name>
        

The best source for the Windows PPM modules needed for Bugzilla is probably the Bugzilla Test Server (aka 'Landfill'), so you should add the Landfill package repository as follows:


ppm repository add landfill http://www.landfill.bugzilla.org/ppm/
        

Note

The PPM repository stores modules in 'packages' that may have a slightly different name than the module. If retrieving these modules from there, you will need to pay attention to the information provided when you run checksetup.pl as it will tell you what package you'll need to install.

Tip

If you are behind a corporate firewall, you will need to let the ActiveState PPM utility know how to get through it to access the repositories by setting the HTTP_proxy system environmental variable. For more information on setting that variable, see the ActiveState documentation.

2.5.1.3. Code changes required to run on Win32

Bugzilla on Win32 is supported out of the box from version 2.20; this means that no code changes are required to get Bugzilla running.

2.5.1.4. Serving the web pages

As is the case on Unix based systems, any web server should be able to handle Bugzilla; however, the Bugzilla Team still recommends Apache whenever asked. No matter what web server you choose, be sure to pay attention to the security notes in Section 4.3.1. More information on configuring specific web servers can be found in Section 2.2.4.

Note

If using Apache on windows, you can set the ScriptInterpreterSource directive in your Apache config to avoid having to modify the first line of every script to contain your path to perl perl instead of /usr/bin/perl.

2.5.1.5. Sending Email

To enable Bugzilla to send email on Windows, the server running the Bugzilla code must be able to connect to, or act as, an SMTP server.

2.5.2. Mac OS X

Making Bugzilla work on Mac OS X requires the following adjustments.

2.5.2.1. Sendmail

In Mac OS X 10.3 and later, Postfix is used as the built-in email server. Postfix provides an executable that mimics sendmail enough to fool Bugzilla, as long as Bugzilla can find it.

As of version 2.20, Bugzilla will be able to find the fake sendmail executable without any assistance. However, you will have to turn on the sendmailnow parameter before you do anything that would result in email being sent. For more information, see the description of the sendmailnow parameter in Section 3.1.

2.5.2.2. Libraries & Perl Modules on Mac OS X

Apple did not include the GD library with Mac OS X. Bugzilla needs this for bug graphs.

You can install it using a program called Fink, which is similar in nature to the CPAN installer, but installs common GNU utilities. Fink is available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/fink/.

Follow the instructions for setting up Fink. Once it's installed, you'll want to use it to install the gd2 package.

It will prompt you for a number of dependencies, type 'y' and hit enter to install all of the dependencies and then watch it work. You will then be able to use CPAN to install the GD Perl module.

Note

To prevent creating conflicts with the software that Apple installs by default, Fink creates its own directory tree at /sw where it installs most of the software that it installs. This means your libraries and headers will be at /sw/lib and /sw/include instead of /usr/lib and /usr/include. When the Perl module config script asks where your libgd is, be sure to tell it /sw/lib.

Also available via Fink is expat. After using fink to install the expat package you will be able to install XML::Parser using CPAN. There is one caveat. Unlike recent versions of the GD module, XML::Parser doesn't prompt for the location of the required libraries. When using CPAN, you will need to use the following command sequence:


# perl -MCPAN -e'look XML::Parser'        (1)
# perl Makefile.PL EXPATLIBPATH=/sw/lib EXPATINCPATH=/sw/include
# make; make test; make install           (2)
# exit                                    (3)
        
(1)(3)
The look command will download the module and spawn a new shell with the extracted files as the current working directory. The exit command will return you to your original shell.
(2)
You should watch the output from these make commands, especially "make test" as errors may prevent XML::Parser from functioning correctly with Bugzilla.

2.5.3. Linux-Mandrake 8.0

Linux-Mandrake 8.0 includes every required and optional library for Bugzilla. The easiest way to install them is by using the urpmi utility. If you follow these commands, you should have everything you need for Bugzilla, and ./checksetup.pl should not complain about any missing libraries. You may already have some of these installed.


bash# urpmi perl-mysql
bash# urpmi perl-chart
bash# urpmi perl-gd
bash# urpmi perl-MailTools             (1)
bash# urpmi apache-modules
      
(1)
for Bugzilla email integration