Getting Your Own python-dev Tracker

This page describes how to setup a roundup tracker instance that works exactly as the tracker for python-dev on http://bugs.python.org. The intended audience is people that want to help out with the tracker, developing new features etc.

Requirements

• Roundup, from the vendor branch used for python-dev (see below).
• PostgreSQL for use as backend database.
• Installation of psycopg.

• BeautifulSoup and M2Crypto

• A checkout of the spambayes_integration (instructions are given below).
• A checkout of the python-dev instance from python's subversion repository (instructions are given below).

Installing roundup

For python-dev, we use a slightly modified version of Roundup which has some features that are not yet in the core Roundup. To keep track of the changes, we keep a vendor branch of roundup.

Check out /tracker from the python subversion repository as documented on http://python.org/dev/tools/. For example, here's how to do read-only (if you don't have commit privileges) and read/write (if you have them) checkouts:

  svn co http://svn.python.org/projects/tracker
  svn co svn+ssh://pythondev@svn.python.org/tracker

The tracker directory contains the roundup source and the instances (e.g. python-dev, jython, meta tracker).

cd in the tracker/roundup-src dir and install Roundup using setup.py (note: you might need privileges to run this command):

  cd roundup-src
  sudo python setup.py install --prefix /opt/tracker-roundup/

Install and configure PostgreSQL

For the python-dev tracker instance we use PostgreSQL as backend database. Roundup has support for many different databases for backend (anydbm, metakit, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite...), but for the python-dev instance, PostgreSQL was selected as it has the best performance for large installations. Also, for performance reasons, there is at least one place in the python-dev instance that has a hardcoded dependency on the backend being an SQL-based one, so you do need PostgreSQL even for development work (another SQL-based backend might work, but this has not been tested). I recommend that you run postgreSQL to make your development environment behave exactly like the environment the real tracker runs in.

Details on how to install PostgreSQL is outside the scope of this Wiki Page (sudo apt-get install postgresql should be enough). Both version 7.4 and 8.1 of PostgreSQL has been tested without any known problems. It has been reported that 8.2 and 8.3 work well.

Access configuration of postgresql can be tricky. You need to make sure that the user you're running roundup as (your unix/windows user) has access to the postgresql database you intend to use for roundup, as the postgresql user you've configured in roundup's configuration.

For a development environment with no demands on security, the easiest way to configure this is probably to allow all users to connect as any database user as long as the request originates from the local host. This can be accomplished editing pg_hba.conf (usually found in /etc/postgresql/8.x/main/ -- you might need privileges). The end of the file should look like this (the three changed lines are preceded by ##):

# Database administrative login by UNIX sockets
##local   all         postgres                          ident
local   all         postgres                          trust

# TYPE  DATABASE    USER        CIDR-ADDRESS          METHOD

# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
##local   all         all                               ident
local   all         all                               trust
# IPv4 local connections:
##host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32          md5
host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32          trust
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all         all         ::1/128               md5

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a secure configuration on a multi-user machine.

After the change in pg_hba.conf, reload your postgreSQL database to make sure it knows about your new access configuration. Something similar to

sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql reload

should do the trick on Unix-like platforms.

Create a database user that is allowed to create databases. This user will be used when roundup connects to the database.

$ psql -U postgres
postgres=# create user roundup;
postgres=# alter user roundup with createdb;

Installing psycopg or psycopg2

You need to install psycopg or psycopg2. Download it from http://www.initd.org, as pre-packaged versions have been reported to cause problems.

Checkout spambayes_integration

Even if you don't intend to use the SpamBayes detector you must still check out the spambayes_integration instance.

  svn co http://svn.python.org/projects/tracker/instances/spambayes_integration

If you do intend to use it, you will need to also install SpamBayes proper and configure it appropriately. Otherwise, a dummy configuration should work.

Checkout and Configure your Development Roundup Instance

The python-dev tracker instance is version-controlled with subversion, and resides in the python subversion repository.

  svn co http://svn.python.org/projects/tracker/instances/python-dev

Keep in mind that the python-dev instance has relative symlinks to ../../spambayes_integration/[...], so if your directory layout is different you have to update these links:

extensions/spambayes.py -> ../../spambayes_integration/extensions/spambayes.py

detectors/spambayes.py -> ../../spambayes_integration/detectors/spambayes.py

Now enter the python-dev directory, and create the 'db' directory (not in svn as it's just to much fuzz to keep it there - every time you run roundup-admin init it is removed and recreated, confusing svn who wants to keep its .svn directory intact), as well as the db/backend_name file which decides which backend (i.e. database type) to use:

cd python-dev
mkdir db
echo postgresql > db/backend_name

Copy python-dev/config.ini.template into config.ini, and modify it according to your site. Pay special attention to settings marked with NO DEFAULT. However, if you've configure your PostgreSQL as above, most settings should be OK.

If you need to do development on the busybody or tellteam detectors, copy detectors/config.ini.template into detectors/config.ini, and adjust the e-mail addresses accordingly. The CIA.vc detector sends emails about issue changes and is on by default. Disable it by adding a return to its init() function (detectors/cia.py):

   1  def init(db):
   2      return # <--
   3      db.issue.react('create', sendcia)
   4      db.issue.react('set', sendcia)

Initialize your roundup instance:

/opt/tracker-roundup/bin/roundup-admin -i <your python-dev directory> init

Provide a password for the 'admin' user when asked for.

Note: you have to provide the full path to your python-dev directory, otherwise the command will fail.

Start your roundup instance:

/opt/tracker-roundup/bin/roundup-server -p 9999 python-dev=<your python-dev directory>

You should now be able to browse http://localhost:9999/python-dev/ and get a roundup instance that looks just like http://bugs.python.org, except for some missing new values for fields like Stages and Keywords. It's possible to replace initial_data.py with an updated version so that your fields will have values that match those currently present in the Python Tracker.

The IDs for values in a given field might be different from those in the Python Tracker. This should only be a problem if you try to import CSV files from one tracker into the other.

After you created your user, you can use roundup-admin to set developer privileges:

/opt/tracker-roundup/bin/roundup-admin -i <your python-dev directory> init
Roundup 1.4.10 ready for input.
Type "help" for help.
roundup> display user8
...
roundup> set user8 roles=Developer
roundup> commit
roundup>

You can find your user id clicking on "Your Details" in the left sidebar and then looking at the address bar (it should show something similar to http://localhost:9999/python-dev/user8).

SpamBayes Setup

If you intend to use the SpamBayes detector to weed out spam from your tracker you will need to install it and start an instance of its core_server application. Briefly:

• Download and install at least version 1.1a4 of the SpamBayes source from SourceForge. If you are running on Windows do not use the binary installer!

• Establish a basic configuration, e.g.:

Devote a directory to it, e.g.:

 SBDIR=/usr/local/spambayes/core_server  # or whatever...
 mkdir -p $SBDIR

Create an INI file:

 cd $SBDIR
 cat > bayescustomize.ini <<EOF
[globals]
verbose:False

[Headers]
include_evidence:True
include_score:True

[Tokenizer]
record_header_absence:True
summarize_email_prefixes:True
summarize_email_suffixes:True
mine_received_headers:True
x-pick_apart_urls:True
x-fancy_url_recognition:False
x-lookup_ip:True
lookup_ip_cache:$SBDIR/dnscache.pck
max_image_size:100000
crack_image_cache:$SBDIR/imagecache.pck

crack_images:True
image_size:True
ocr_engine:gocr
[Classifier]
use_bigrams:False

[Categorization]
ham_cutoff:0.2
spam_cutoff:0.85

[Storage]
persistent_storage_file:$SBDIR/hammie.db
persistent_use_database:pickle
messageinfo_storage_file:$SBDIR/messageinfo.fs

[html_ui]
display_score:True
EOF

Finally, run it:

 BAYESCUSTOMIZE=$SBDIR/bayescustomize.ini core_server.py -m XMLRPCPlugin

• If you are seeing image spam (this seems not to be a problem with wiki spam - yet), download and install GOCR.

Common Problems

SpamBayes dummy configuration

Incomplete/Missing SpamBayes setup:: In your detectors/config.ini file set spambayes_uri to a syntactically valid, but nonexistent URI, e.g.:

    spambayes_uri = "http://localhost:9999/nobodyhere"

Check other available workarounds.

Misbehaving detectors

Problematic detectors may be disabled by returning from their init() function, as was the case of detectors/audit2to3.py (no longer present). Note that this would be a temporary solution before a graceful fix became available. Reporting issues with local instances is the best way help solving the problem.

Resources for Tracker Development

Getting Help

Subscribe to and ask your question on the tracker-discuss mailing list. See http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tracker-discuss

Since the Python Tracker is a slightly modified version of Roundup, both Roundup's Documentation and issue tracker contain relevant information about how the Python Tracker works and problems one might find working with its code.

The Meta Tracker

A Meta Tracker is available for handling bugs and features requests for the Python Tracker.

Learn more About the Importer(s)

http://svn.python.org/projects/tracker/importer/README.rst has some information about the importer(s) written to convert sourceforge data into roundup data.

The Test Tracker

Public test instance of the Python tracker: http://bot.bio.br/python-dev/ (currently offine)

Instance that attempts to match the code used in http://bugs.python.org to allow testing, reproducing and verifying fixes for tracker bugs. Can also be used as a sandbox by users interested in learning about Developer, Coordinator or Admin tasks and features. Testing new content (e.g. Components or Statuses) is OK, but new features show be tested in the Experimental Tracker instead.

Currently the email system is disabled (redirected to file), so people interested in having an account there to test new features should email tracker-discuss to get one. Maintained by DanielDiniz.

The Experimental Tracker

Modified version of the Python tracker: http://bot.bio.br/python-dev-exp/ (currently offline)

It's an instance to showcase and test new features.

New features (2009-04-18):

• Issue tags

• Quiet properties

• Restore removed messages and files

• Claim ('assign to self') and add/remove self as nosy buttons

• Don't close issues with open dependencies

• Auto-add nosy users based on Components

• "Email me" buttons for messages and issues, "Reply by email"

• RSS feeds (per issue and global)

• Display selected issues in the index view

• Mass-update/batch-editing support

Currently the email system is disabled (redirected to file), so people interested in having an account there to test new features should email tracker-discuss to get one. Maintained by DanielDiniz.

There is also a list of additional DesiredTrackerFeatures for which no patches yet exist.

Getting Your Own jython Tracker

To set up a local jython tracker, please follow instructions for python-dev tracker with following exceptions:

• There is no need for BeautifulSoup and M2Crypto

• There is no CIA.vc detector

• The code for jython tracker can be checked out using the command:

  svn co http://svn.python.org/projects/tracker/instances/jython

CategoryTracker CategoryDevelopmentProcess