querybts(1)

💅 querybts — bestie's guide to snooping on bugs (from the General Commands Manual, manual page querybts(1))

✨ NAME ✨

querybts — go look at all the outstanding bug reports chillin' on a debbugs server 🐛👀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

querybts [options] <package | number [number2]...>

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so querybts is literally designed to be the convenient, easy-to-use interface to the Debbugs bug tracking system — the one Debian uses, and several other projects too, no cap. 🫶

You can hand it either a package name or one or more report numbers. That's the whole vibe. Slay.

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

So the program follows the usual GNU command line syntax — long options start with two dashes (--), standard. Here's the summary, bestie, and I am not skipping a single one:

• -h, --help — shows you a lil summary of the options. the classic cry-for-help flag 💖
• --version — prints the version of querybts and then dips. ✌️
• -A, --archive — browse archived bugs instead of current reports. Here's the tea: Debbugs servers clear out closed reports after 28 days and stash them in a separate archive, so this option lets you view those older, already-resolved reports — at least on servers that actually maintain an archive. 🗄️✨
• -B SYSTEM, --bts=SYSTEM — instead of the Debian bug server, use the server that SYSTEM says. Valid options are default and debian, but like… check --help for an updated list, because things change, iykyk. 🔄
• -b, --buglist — display a bugs list for the given package. 📋
• --latest-first — displays the bug reports list all sorted, with the latest reports at the top. freshest first, main character energy 🔥
• --mbox-reader-cmd=MBOX_READER_CMD — pick a command to open the bug reports mbox file. You can use %s to substitute the mbox file being used, and %% to insert a literal percent sign. If you don't specify a %s, the mbox file name gets supplied at the end of the argument list. 💅
• -m, --mbox — retrieve the given bug number(s) or package name(s) as a mailbox file instead of viewing it. It'll get dumped to standard output. 📬
• --proxy=PROXY, --http_proxy=PROXY — specify the WWW proxy server to use for handling queries to the bug tracking system. You should only need this if you're behind a firewall, bestie. 🧱
• -s, --source — query on source packages rather than binary packages. 🧚
• --timeout=SECONDS — set the network timeout, aka how many seconds to wait for a resource to respond. If nothing's specified, the default timeout is 1 minute. ⏳

And heads up: in case of a network error, there are chances it's because the timeout is too low — so try passing the --timeout option with a value higher than the default. 😭

• -u INTERFACE, --ui=INTERFACE, --interface=INTERFACE — specify the user interface to use. Valid options are text, urwid, gtk; the default is taken from the reportbug configuration files. 🎀
• -w, --web — launches a web browser to view bug reports instead of using the internal interface. This also lets you see the whole discussion about a particular bug at once, instead of one message at a time like querybts would do. (Only the first bug number on the command line will be opened, so don't come for me.) 🌐

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💜 CONFIGURATION FILES 💜

querybts supports a simple run control file syntax, periodt. Commands are read from /etc/reportbug.conf and $HOME/.reportbugrc, and commands in the latter override the ones in the former. 💖

Commands are not case sensitive, and currently take 0 or 1 argument; arguments containing whitespace must be enclosed in quotes.

Any line starting with # is taken to be a comment and gets ignored. 🚫

Generally, options corresponding to the long options for querybts are supported, without the leading -- sequences. See the default /etc/reportbug.conf for all acceptable options, and reportbug.conf(5) for all acceptable options and detailed information.

Options only supported by reportbug will be silently ignored. 🙈

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

• http_proxy — provides the address of a proxy server to handle the BTS query. This should be a valid http URL for a proxy server, including any required port number.

lowkey important: simply specifying a hostname, or omitting a port other than 80, WILL NOT WORK. 💀

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

reportbug(1), reportbug.conf(5), bts(1)

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🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Chris Lawrence <lawrencc@debian.org>, Sandro Tosi <morph@debian.org>.

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okay bestie that's the whole page, we ate and left no crumbs 🍓✨ this was the querybts(1) manual page from the General Commands Manual — go forth and query those bugs, you're the main character now 👑💖