106778 - Allow uploading attachments from a URL

Status: NEW

(Bugzilla :: Attachments & Requests, enhancement, P2)

Description

[James A. Laska]

Users of our bugzilla would like to submit attachments that exist on another
system.  These attachments are not patches but testcases used to test our
product.  I was thinking of writing a patch to allow createattachement.cgi to
accept a URL in the filebox and go and grab the associated file.  I was
intending the URL to be an http or ftp request (e.q.
ftp://<username>:<password>/<file>,  or  http://foo.bar.com/file1) but without
investigating the underlying perl I'm not sure how universal this could be.

I would choose to add URL support to createattachment.cgi (rather than writing
some installation specific changes that would be a pain to keep in sync).  I
wanted to post this bug before I write the attachment to see hear your comments
and see if the bugzilla community would find this a useful feature.

Thanks!

Comment 1

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Doesn't sound unreasonable, but why not add the URL itself in the URL field (or
in comments if there is more than one)?  That way you save space and
automatically point people to the latest revision (otherwise you would have to
create a new attachment on the bug every time the test case is revised).

If you do add this feature, however, patch attachment.cgi rather than
createattachment.cgi, as the former script now has much better "create"
capabilities and obsoletes the latter one (which is scheduled to be removed at
some point per bug 104521.

Comment 2

[James A. Laska]

I'm told rather than adding a URL (which could be an ftp link with
username/password and they wouldn't want others to see that) they would like to
have the testcase that is causing the bug to be stored with the bugzilla bug so
that future visitors to that bug will be able to see the problem.  If the
testcase is added as an attachment, the testcase which produces the error will
be stored for the lifetime of bugzilla.

My users find it repetative to go ftp the testcase to their machine and then add
it as an attachment.  So they have requested that they be able to add the
testcases directly.  Instead of creating a whole login interface (hostname,
username/password, file), I would be happy with just a URL as the attachment and
attachment.cgi would go to the link and download the attachment.  Also,
sometimes users have the testcases on disk that is read-protected from other
users.  I'm guessing they would like to skip a step and add the attachment
directly through bugzilla.

Comment 3

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

Yes, standard practice is that we place copies in Bugzilla in case the resource
disappears.  Also the URL field does not allow attachment statuses to be added.

Comment 4

[timeless]

the only concern i have is the possibility of a user asking bugzilla to attach
to itself a resource to which the user wouldn't naturally have access.

Comment 5

[Vlad Dascalu]

Bug 149504 is a possible duplicate of this.

Comment 6

[Christian Reis]

Joel has a patch over at that bug, duping.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 149504 ***

Comment 7

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

bulk removing target on WONTFIX/INVALID/WORKSFORME/DUPLICATE so they'll show up
as untriaged if they get reopened.

Comment 8

[Frédéric Buclin]

*** Bug 341086 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[Frédéric Buclin]

Bug 149504 doesn't upload the file pointed by the URL. So that's a different issue. Either this feature should be implemented, or the bug should be marked as WONTFIX, but it's not a dupe.

Comment 10

[Eyal Rozenberg]

Resummarizing.