162359 - Change wording on the cookiepath parameter

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Bugzilla :: Administration, task, P1)

Description

[Vidar Haarr (not reading bugmail)]

The current description wording on the 'cookiepath' parameter confuses me.

"cookiepath: Directory path under your document root that holds your Bugzilla
installation. Make sure to begin with a /."

The first thing that came to mind, was my "document root" at my FreeBSD box..
I'm not a FreeBSD/Linux geek, so I had no idea if the box had a "document root"
at all.. Therefore I assumed that "document root" had to be the home directory
of the user. My bugzilla installation runs as the user 'projects', so naturally,
I installed bugzilla under /home/projects/bugzilla/, and thus set the cookiepath
to point to that.

My bugzilla installation is accessed through http://bugzilla.domain.com/ .. so
obviously this went wrong, and caused all my cookies to be invalid. So every
time I made an action that required login, I had to login again. /Every/ time :)

I don't have a proposed wording.. The only thing I know, is that the words
"directory path" and "document root" confused me, so please refrain from using
those :) Use something that includes 'URL' or similar. "URL root" or something.

Thanks !

Comment 1

[Vidar Haarr (not reading bugmail)]

ddk's word on irc: set target milestone to 2.18.

Comment 2

[Joel Peshkin]

Option 1:
   "If your Bugzilla is accessed at 'http://mycompany.net/firmwarezilla/index.cgi',
then set the cookiepath to '/firmwarezilla/' "

Option 2:
   Get rid of the cookiepath param and figure it out from URLbase

Comment 3

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Figuring it out from the urlbase is out...  it's separate because there are
legitimate reasons to have "/" for a cookiepath and something longer than that
in your urlbase (for example if you have something other than Bugzilla on your
site that you've rigged to use Bugzilla's authentication, but it lives outside
of Bugzilla's directory).

"document root" is what Apache uses in its documentation to tell where your web
pages are.  Would it be safe to say "web document root"?  Adding the word
"relative" in front will probably help, too.

proposed text:

Relative directory path under your web document root that cookies issued by
Bugzilla will be restricted to (the user's browser can't return them to your
site outside of this path).  Normally this is the portion of the URL after your
domain name in the above urlbase parameter.  If you want other pages on your
site outside of Bugzilla to be able to see Bugzilla's cookies, you might want
this less restrictive.  Make sure to begin with a /.

Comment 4

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

I'll call this a bug rather than an enhancement.  The current wording is
outright confusing people.

Comment 5

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

just FYI, comment 3 and comment 4 got swapped on here because I posted on the
wrong side of the daylight savings time change :-)  To maintain context, comment
4 should be read before comment 3

Comment 6

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

And picking up my email this morning, I discovered my proposal for the fix for
this bug never got mailed because of the daylight savings bug.  So if you're
reading this bugmail, click the link at the top and go read comment 3 in the bug :)

Comment 7

[Deven Corzine]

How about this text to keep it simple?

cookiepath: Directory path (relative to your document root) to restrict Bugzilla
cookies to.  (Normally the URI portion of your URL base.)  Make sure to begin
with a /.

Regardless, this should be changed.  It wouldn't hurt to validate the parameter
entered, either -- if no such directory exists, warn the user and suggest the
URL from "urlbase" as the recommended value...

Comment 8

[Matthew Barnson]

Changed the parameter line to some modified text for clarity.  Figured this was
some code the Doc Knight could hack :)  Line now reads:
desc => 'Path, relative to your web document root, to which to restrict' .
           'Bugzilla cookies.  Normally this is the URI portion of your URL' .
           'base.  Begin with a / (single slash mark).  For instance, if' .
           'Bugzilla serves from http://www.somedomain.com/bugzilla/, set' .
           'this parameter to /bugzilla/ .  Setting it to / will allow' .
           'all sites served by this web server or virtual host to read' .
           'Bugzilla cookies.',

A bit lengthy, sorry, but I felt as if it couldn't be made clear without an
example.  If you can figure out a way to shorten it, by all means do so.

Comment 9

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

You need to add spaces inside the quotes between lines in the source.

Another thing that might have been caught if the patch was reviewed first. ;)

Comment 10

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

reassigning to original patch author

Comment 11

[Matthew Barnson]

Added spaces, I'll be sure to get it reviewed next time :)