Avoid Spam: Make Bugzilla Private

Bugzilla is a great bug tracking system. But when you open an account, it doesn’t automatically have your privacy in mind. In fact without taking a couple short steps, your email addresses will actually be visible to the public. This is an open invitation to spam.

Consider what the Privacy Notice email says:

PRIVACY NOTICE: Bugzilla is an open bug tracking system. Activity on most bugs, including email addresses, will be visible to the public. We recommend using a secondary account or free web email service (such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or similar) to avoid receiving spam at your primary email address.

Yikes! Why use the software at all? I have to set up new email accounts just to accommodate all the spam I’ll get?

Don’t despair. There are only a couple steps you need to take to make your Bugzilla private.

From the Bugzilla Main Page, follow this..

Administration -> Parameters -> User Authentication

Scroll down the page to this field:

Hit the “ON” button. (You want to turn on the requirelogin feature.)

Next find this field:

Delete the contents of the field. (Delete the “ .* “)

There you go! Two easy steps.

Spam can be a headache. As an administrator you want to keep all activity on Bugzilla private, for yourself and all involved with your project. Take these two steps first.