REPORTBUG.CONF(5)

💖 reportbug.conf(5) 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the reportbug.conf manual page — yes it's a File Formats Manual, yes it's section 5, and yes we're gonna make it cute. this is the configuration file for reportbug. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

reportbug.conf — the configuration file for reportbug 🌸

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

/etc/reportbug.conf - The configuration file for reportbug, a program
designed to report bugs in the Debian distribution

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically this page tells you how the reportbug and querybts config file is laid out, plus every single option you can put in it. 💅 the default home for it is /etc/reportbug.conf, and you can override stuff in $HOME/.reportbugrc (same format as reportbug.conf, no cap). ✨

⚠️ lowkey important: any config file has to be a valid UTF-8 document, and not in some other locale. this hits different when you need localized characters (like for realname). 😭

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🌈 FILE FORMAT 🌈

config options go in like this:

option-name option-value

True/False (boolean) options go in like this:

boolean-option

(if it's there, it's a True. periodt. 👑)

usually, no-option will disable option if option is boolean. ✨

and you can put options in any order you want. no rules, we're free. 🦋

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

here's the summary of possible options (alphabetical, because we're organized like that bestie):

• bts — the bug tracking system to use. run reportbug --bts=help to see the list of currently supported BTSes. 🔥
• cc (boolean) — whether the reporter should be Cc:ed on the bug report. 👀
• check-available (boolean) — whether Debian package lists should be queried for newer releases of the package. and in advanced and expert mode, https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html also gets checked. ✨
• compress (boolean) — whether modified configuration files included in the bug report should be stripped down.
• config-files (boolean) — whether modified configuration files should be included with the bug report. 🎀
• draftpath — the directory where unsubmitted reports should be saved. default is /tmp.
• editor — the editor to use to edit the bug report. example:

editor "emacs -nw"

• email — default From address of the bug email (override with environment variables, see reportbug(1)). example:

email "humberto@example.com"

• envelopefrom — specify the Envelope From mail header (also known as Return-path). by default it's the From address, but you can pick a different one in case the MTA doesn't canonicalize local users to public addresses. you can set this to the empty string if the MTA doesn't allow setting the Envelope From. 💌
• list-cc-me (boolean) — send a carbon copy of the report to your automatically detected email address after a report number is assigned, like the --list-cc-me option. 🫶
• mbox_reader_cmd — specify a command to open the bug reports mbox file. you can use %s to substitute the mbox file to be used, and %% to insert a literal percent sign. if no %s is specified, the mbox file name is supplied at the end of the argument list. example:

mbox_reader_cmd "mutt -f %s"

• header — additional headers to add to the bug email. like:

header "X-Silly-Header: I haven't edited my /etc/reportbug.conf"
header "X-Debbugs-No-Ack: please" # to suppress acknowledgments

note that setting additional headers may not work reliably if the bug email is passed to an external MUA for submission. 💀

• http_proxy — default HTTP proxy used to query the BTS (override with environment variables, see reportbug(1)). example:

http_proxy http://proxy.example.com:3128/

• justification — the justification in case of a Release Critical bug (severity either 'critical', 'serious' or 'grave'). example:

justification "text here"

• keyid — the GPG key to use, if different from the default one on the system. example:

keyid 12345678

• maintonly — see the --maintonly entry in reportbug(1). 👑
• max_attachment_size — the max size any attachment can have. example:

max_attachment_size 5000000

• mh — use the mh mailer. 📬
• mirror — the address of a BTS mirror. example:

mirror http://mirror.address/

• mode [novice|standard|advanced|expert] — the default operating mode for reportbug(1). ✨
• mta — the path to the MTA used. any SMTP server on Debian should be OK with the default:

mta /usr/sbin/sendmail

• mua — the mail user agent to use (the default is empty, to use an internal mailer). example:

mua 'mutt -H'

• mutt — use the mutt mailer. 🐕
• nmh — use the nmh mailer.
• no-check-uid (boolean) — disables checking whether the UIDs are outside admin range (root is still checked). 🔍
• no-debconf (boolean) — disables adding the debconf-show output to the bug report.
• no-query-source (boolean) — disables querying the source packages for bugs.
• offline — disables all external queries. 🛑✨
• paranoid — paranoid mode: print the whole email envelope before sending it. 👀
• printonly — print the report on screen, don't sent it. 🖨️
• query-bts (boolean) — whether the BTS should be queried for existing bug reports.
• quiet — see the --report-quiet entry in reportbug(1).
• realname — the default real-name in the From address of the bug email (override with environment variables, see reportbug(1)). example:

realname "Humberto Flores III"

• replyto — the default Reply-To in the bug email (override with environment variables, see reportbug(1). example:

replyto "Humberto Flores <humflores@example.org>"

• severity [critical|grave|serious|important|normal|minor|wishlist] — the default severity level of the bug reported. setting this in the configuration file will disable prompting while running reportbug. 💅
• sign [gpg|pgp|gnupg|none] — program used to digitally sign bug reports automatically ('none' to disable it). ✍️
• smtphost — use an MTA different from /usr/sbin/sendmail. a port number other than 25 can also be specified. example:

smtphost mail.example.com:2525

use "smtphost localhost" to enable the internal MTA. 🏠

• smtppasswd — the password to use for SMTP. example:

smtppasswd f10r35

• smtpuser — the username to use for SMTP. example:

smtpuser hflores

• smtptls — enables TLS encryption for the SMTP connection, using STARTTLS. this setting is ignored if you connect to port 465, in which case SSL/TLS will always be used. 🔒
• submit — use submit as the bug submission address. 📮
• template — use the template mode, bypasses all prompts and the output it sent to stdout. ✨
• timeout — the number of seconds to wait for a network resource to respond. the default is 60 seconds. example:

timeout 30

• ui [text|urwid|gtk] — the user interface that querybts(1) and reportbug(1) should use. 🎀
• verify — enables automatic verification of package installation before reporting using debsums, if available. ✅

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🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

reportbug(1), querybts(1)

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

reportbug was written by Chris Lawrence <lawrencc@debian.org> and it's now maintained by Sandro Tosi <morph@debian.org>. 💖

this manual page was written by Y Giridhar Appaji Nag <giridhar@appaji.net> for the Debian project, but may be used by others. 🫶

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and that's the whole REPORTBUG.CONF(5) File Formats Manual bestie — go forth and configure, you absolute icon 💅✨🌈