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.

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. A detailed step-by-step installation guide for Windows is also available if you need more help with your installation.

Win32 Perl

Perl for Windows can be obtained from Active State. 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 Active State.

These instructions are for 32-bit versions of Windows. If you are using a 64-bit version of Windows, you will need to install 32-bit Perl in order to install the 32-bit modules as described below.

Perl Modules on Win32

Bugzilla on Windows requires perl modules. The main difference is that windows use PPM instead of CPAN. Active State provides a GUI to manage Perl modules. We highly recommend that you use it. If you prefer to use ppm from the command-line, type:

C:\perl> ppm install <module name>

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.

If you are behind a corporate firewall, you will need to let the Active State PPM utility know how to get through it to access the repositories by setting the HTTP proxy system environmental variable.

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.

The web server looks at /usr/bin/perl to call Perl. If you are using Apache on windows, you can set the ScriptInterpreterSource directive in your Apache config file to make it look at the right place: insert the line

ScriptInterpreterSource Registry-Strict

into your httpd.conf file, and create the key

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.cgi\Shell\ExecCGI\Command

with C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe -T as value (adapt to your path if needed) in the registry. When this is done, restart Apache.

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.

Mac OS X™

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

Send mail

In Mac OS X 10.3 and later, Postfix is used as the built-in email server. Postfix provides an executable that mimics send mail enough to fool Bugzilla, as long as Bugzilla can find it. Bugzilla is able to find the fake send mail executable without any assistance.

Libraries & Perl Modules on Mac OS X

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

You can use MacPorts (http://www.macports.org/) or Fink (http://sourceforge.net/projects/fink/), both of which are similar in nature to the CPAN installer, but install common unix programs.

Follow the instructions for setting up MacPorts or Fink. Once you have one installed, you’ll want to use it to install the gd2 package.

Fink 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.

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/includes 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 MacPorts and Fink is expat. After installing the expat package, you will be able to install XML::Parser using CPAN. If you use fink, 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’

# perl Makefile.PL EXPATLIBPATH=/sw/lib EXPATINCPATH=/sw/include

# make; make test; make install

# exit

The look command will download the module and spawn a new shell with the extracted files as the current working directory.

You should watch the output from these make commands, especially “make test” as errors may prevent XML::Parser from functioning correctly with Bugzilla.

The exit command will return you to your original shell.

Linux/BSD Distributions

Many Linux/BSD distributions include Bugzilla and its dependencies in their native package management systems. Installing Bugzilla with root access on any Linux/BSD system should be as simple as finding the Bugzilla package in the package management application and installing it using the normal command syntax. Several distributions also perform the proper web server configuration automatically on installation.

Please consult the documentation of your Linux/BSD distribution for instructions on how to install packages, or for specific instructions on installing Bugzilla with native package management tools. There is also a Bugzilla Wiki Page for distro-specific installation notes.

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