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3.8 Upgrading from older versions

The following procedure covers an upgrade from all gnats 3 versions newer than 3.108. If your installation is an older 3.10x version, or even the ancient 3.2 version, you need to review the UPGRADING.old file in the gnats distribution before carrying out the steps detailed here.

3.8.1 Overview

Although almost all of the gnats internals have been redesigned and rewritten for gnats 4, little has changed in the format and structure of the database data. The only change that needs to be taken into account when upgrading is the fact that the database index format is binary in a default installation of gnats 4. Thus, you will need to regenerate your database index by using the gen-index tool. In addition, if your old gnats installation was so-called “release-based”, you need to make some simple modifications to the database setup file dbconfig. See below for details.

Apart from building and installing new binaries, the major changes which impinge on the upgrade procedure are all on the configuration side. The main database configuration file, dbconfig, is far more complex and powerful than the old config file, and while the installation process creates a sensible set of default values which are similar to gnats 3.11x's defaults, you still need to migrate any changes you may have made to your own local configuration.

Another aspect which needs consideration are remote submitter sites. Such sites either need to be instructed to upgrade their locally installed copies of the gnats user tools (send-pr, edit-pr and query-pr), or they should be given access through interfaces such as Gnatsweb.

Since the gnats network daemon has been completely reworked, with an entirely new command set, all network-based interfaces, such as Gnatsweb and TkGnats need to be upgraded to versions that support gnats 4. The contrib directory of this distribution contains some third-party interfaces, and the README file contains pointers to where you can obtain the newest versions of these tools.

This document only deals with upgrading gnats itself. Third-party tools should have separate upgrading instructions in their distributions.

3.8.2 Upgradingustar rootroot dbconfig mode - Keeping Track

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2.5.7 dbconfig mode

The Emacs interface defines a simple major mode gnats-dbconfig-mode for editing dbconfig files, dbconfig file. It defines basic mode attributes like character syntax and font lock keywords, it does not define any special commands now.

gnats-dbconfig-mode-hook
Hook run when gnats-dbconfig-mode is entered.
./usr/share/doc/gnats/gnats/edit_002dpr.html0000644000000000000000000001126411700107624017525 0ustar rootroot edit-pr - Keeping Track

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2.3 Editing existing Problem Reports

Use edit-pr to make changes to existing PRs in the database. This tool can be invoked both from a shell prompt or from within GNU Emacs using ‘M-x edit-pr’.

edit-pr first examines the PR you wish to edit and locks it if it is not already locked. This is to prevent you from editing a PR at the same time as another user. If the PR you wish to edit is already in the process of being edited, edit-pr tells you the name of the person who owns the lock.

You may edit any non-readonly fields in the database. We recommend that you avoid deleting any information in the Text and MultiText fields (such as Description and How-To-Repeat (see Problem Report format). We also recommend that you record the final solution to the problem in the Fix field for future reference. Note that heavily customized installations of gnats may have differently named fields, and sites using such installations should provide their own set of routines and instructions regarding how PRs should be treated throughout their life span.

After the PR has been edited, it is then resubmitted to the database, and the index is updated (see The index file). For information on pr-edit, the main driver for edit-pr, see Internal utilities.

If you change a field that requires a reason for the change, such as the Responsible or State fields in the default configuration, edit-pr prompts you to supply a reason for the change. A message is then appended to the Audit-Trail field of the PR with the changed values and the change reason.

Depending on how the database is configured, editing various fields in the PR may also cause mail to be sent concerning these changes. In the default configuration, any fields that generate ‘Audit-Trail’ entries will also cause a copy of the new ‘Audit-Trail’ message to be sent.

Mail received at the PR submission email address and recognized by gnats as relating to an existing PR is also appended to the ‘Audit-Trail’ field, see follow-up via email.

./usr/share/doc/gnats/gnats/Locations.html0000644000000000000000000000430711700107626017446 0ustar rootroot