-*-Text-*-
			    Debian Repair

(c) 1995 Richard Kettlewell <richard@elmail.co.uk>.  See debian.README
(in the source distribution) or /usr/doc/copyright/repair (when
installed) for details.

1. Purpose of Repair

Repair is intended to simplify the submission of bug reports.  It is
intended for use both by ordinary users of a system and by system
administrators.

Many perceived bugs are not bugs at all: they are local errors, or
even as simple as failure to read available documentation.  It is
highly undesirable that such problems should be reported to the Debian
bugs list; therefore Repair is capable of asking simple questions
about the problem, and will hopefully be able to suggest a solution or
at least point out where the documentation may be found.

Another issue is the system information necessary to fix a bug -
version numbers for package, kernel and libc might be relevant, for
example.  This can be tiresome to look up and type in, especially when
it may turn out to be irrelevant.  Therefore Repair is capable of
doing this automatically.

2. Using Repair

The simplest use of Repair is simply to type 'repair' and answer
questions as they are asked.  This will typically lead to a bug report
being sent to the local administrator - unless it is that user who is
entering the bug report, in which case they will receive a message
directing them to this document.

As well as asking the user for descriptions of the problem, Repair
will - if it can - call an appropriate per-package script which knows
more about the package in question, and can therefore ask the user
more relevant questions.

If Repair is in expert mode, then it is possible to use the --global
option to ask it submit the bug to the Debian bugs submission address.
Expert mode can either be turned on from the command line with the
--expert option, or the /etc/repair.conf configuration file.

3. Configuring Repair

The /etc/repair.conf file may be used by the system administrator to
set up a few options:

	expert		Turns on expert mode for all users
			(so --global will always work)

	global		Turns on global mode for all users
			(so bugs will always be reported to
			debian-bugs)

	bugs <address>	Sets the submission address for external bug
			reports.

	admin <address>	Sets the submission address for non-global bug
			reports.

4. Supporting Repair

Other packages may support repair with a 'bugs' control file.  In the
source this should be named debian.bugs; it should be copied into
debian-tmp/DEBIAN like the other control files.

The script will be called with either or both of the command line
options --user and --sanity, and with a filename to which a report of
any problems should be written.  Equivalent information should also be
written to the standard output.

The exit status should be:-

	0	no problems
	1	something wrong with config files
	2	user made a mistake, e.g. didn't RTFM
	3	bug is something else

See /usr/doc/examples/repair/repair.bug for an example.  Note that
this includes /usr/lib/repair.pl, which contains various useful
definitions.

5. Development

What else should go in Repair?  Please let me know.

26/7/1995 Richard Kettlewell <richard@elmail.co.uk>
