Reporting bugs in Debian¶

Debian maintainers use debbugs, an email-driven system that requires no authentication. This allows anyone to report bugs—from minor glitches to critical issues—from any system.

The canonical documentation is available at the Debian Bug Reporting page.

Searching for Debian bugs¶

Use querybts (included in the reportbug package) to search for existing reports from the command line:

querybts vim

This command allows you to view full reports or filter results using patterns to find specific issues.

Using `reportbug`¶

Debian recommends the reportbug utility to handle the proper email formatting for submit@bugs.debian.org.

Configuration on Ubuntu¶

On Ubuntu systems, reportbug is configured by default to report to Ubuntu mailing lists. You can override this:

One-time: Use the -B debian flag: reportbug -B debian <package_name>
Permanently: Edit the bts line in /etc/reportbug.conf.
SMTP: If smtphost is set to an internal Ubuntu relay, you may need to change it to a public relay host.

Run reportbug --configure to set up your ~/.reportbugrc before first use.

Forwarding patches with `submittodebian`¶

Part of the ubuntu-dev-tools package, submittodebian is the preferred way to forward patches upstream. It handles Debian Usertagging and opens an editor for final patch cleanup.

Example Workflow:

apt-get source xicc
cd xicc-0.2/
# Perform your changes
dch -i 'debian/control: replaced "colour" with "color".'
debuild -S
submittodebian

Note: You must build the source package (debuild -S) before running submittodebian.

When to report to Debian¶

Since most packages in the Ubuntu universe are synced from Debian, fixing bugs there prevents unnecessary divergence and helps the broader Ubuntu community.

Verify: Ensure the bug applies to Debian and isn’t caused by Ubuntu delta.
Wishlist: File suggestions as wishlist bugs.
Patches: Use submittodebian or attach a debdiff to a reportbug report tagged with patch.

Mass Bug Filing¶

For issues affecting 10 or more packages, follow the Debian Developers Reference.

After reporting¶

Link the Debian report to the corresponding Launchpad/Ubuntu bug:

Select “Also affects distribution” in the Ubuntu bug report.
Enter the Debian bug number in the Launchpad bug report to link the Debian fix automatically.