Release Notes for the Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway General Release 2008.1 Jul 3, 2008 Introduction These notes include release-specific information about the Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway. For details about installing, configuring and using this product, consult the Defect Tracking Gateway Guide, which is included in the distribution zip file. The file name for the user guide is p4dtg.pdf. The Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway integrates Perforce with third- party defect tracking systems. The Mercury Quality Center 9.0 plugin supports the Windows platform, with any of MSDE, SQL Server or Oracle as the underlying database. The Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway requires 2006.2 or later Perforce server. This version of the Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway supports Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Linux 2.6 and BSD 6. It does not support Windows Vista. The Mercury Quality Center plugin only support the Windows platform and is not available for a Linux or BSD installation of the Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway. The Windows installation supports replication with a Quality Center installation that is on either a Windows or non-Windows platform. Installing the Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway WINDOWS INSTALLATION: To install the Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway, download and run the installer from the Perforce web site. LINUX/BSD INSTALLATION: To install the Perforce Defect Tracking Gateway, download the tar file and uncompress in the directory where you intend to install the product. To test the basic operation of the system, invoke the p4dtg-test.exe executable and issue the following commands (commands indicated by ">", output consists of "Loading module" and "Module loaded" messages: WINDOWS: C:> p4dtg-test.exe > LL plugins\p4jobs.dll Loading module: [plugins\p4jobs.dll] Module loaded: plugins\p4jobs.dll > LT Module tests passed > LF Module freed > LL plugins\qc90dtg Loading module: [plugins\qc90dtg] Module loaded: plugins\qc90dtg > LT Module tests passed > LF Module freed > Q LINUX/BSD: host% ./p4dtg-test > LL ./plugins/p4jobs.so Loading module: [./plugins/p4jobs.so] Module loaded: ./plugins/p4jobs.so > LT Module tests passed > LF Module freed > Q Usage Notes - The most common cause of replication failure is caused by updates that are made using the username that the replication engine uses to update Perforce jobs. The engine does not replicate transactions that were submitted using its own username. To avoid this problem, ensure that this username is employed only by the replication engine. - The configuration tool requires write-access to the 'config', 'help' and 'repl' subdirectories. - Connecting a plugin of one type (e.g., Mercury) to a server of a different type (e.g., Perforce) can yield unexpected and unpredicable results including hanging of the configuration tool. If this happens, simply kill the application and specify a server of the correct type for the selected plugin. - The replication engine runs as a process that is spawned by a Windows service. The configuration tool automatically installs the service when you start replication for the first time. The service is deleted when you delete the associated mapping. After installation, use the configuration tool to start and stop replication for specific mappings. To ensure that the replication engine restarts when the machine is rebooted, use the system Service control panel to set the replication service to Automatic. If you configure the replication engine as an Automatic service, you must run the replication engine on a machine other than the machine where Perforce and Quality Center are running, because you cannot control the order in which Windows starts services. - Configuration files created by the 2006.2 Beta release of this product are not compatible with configuration files used in the production release. If you participated in the Beta, you must run the configuration tool to rebuild all of your configuration files. Configuration files created by the 2006.2 release of this product are compatible with this release. - If Quality Center is configured to support a strict workflow, do not mirror any fields used to enforce that workflow. Because the Perforce jobs subsystem does not provide support for workflow rules, updates to Mercury Quality Center fields that are used in workflow enforcement might violate those rules, causing the transaction to be rejected. - If a change on the Perforce side is rejected by Mercury Quality Center, the Perforce job is marked as being in an error state, and further attempts to replicate it cease until the error is corrected. Error states are recorded in the DTG_ERROR field of the affected job. - Quality Center reports errors using a "Dispatch Error" format. For more detailed information about these error conditions, check the log file that is generated by the replication engine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Changes since release 2008.1: #160411 Correct the set of required fields to only those fields which are used by the system. (Bug #30184) Changes in Release 2008.1: #150549 Filter Replication - Enables any DataSource to be segmented using a specific SELECT field so that a single DataSource can be used in multiple replication mappings. (Bug #24777) #148395 DataSource specific Attributes - Support plugins that require additional information for configuring a DataSource. (Bug #24780) #158128 The configuration tool will report failures to write or delete configuration files to/from the 'config' directory. (Bug #29950) #153291 The Mercury Quality Center plugin supports user configutation of the time offset using the Attribute editor. The default value of 30 seconds should be acceptable for almost all instances. (Bug #29165) #158206 The configuration tool checks for write-access to the config, help, and repl subdirectories on start-up. (Bug #29959) #155501 The Select Mapping Editor in the configuration tool will treat duplicate options for a SELECT field as a single entity. (Bug #29606) #155355 Correctly report malconfigured DataSources. All Perforce sources require a 'Job:' field, a field containing the last modified by, and a field containing the last modified date. All DTS sources require a field containing the issue/defect id and a field containing the last modified date. (Bug #29570) Replication engine will check for required fields and exit with an appropriate message if missing. (Bug #29556) #154937 The About help page now has navigation links at the bottom of the page. (Bug #29390) #154443 If the machine running the replication runs out of disk space, there is a chance the setting file may become corrupted or out-of-date. The configuration tool will report such errors and you can resolve them by restoring the backup copy of the setting file in the config directory. The backup ends in '.old'. Alternatively, you can simply delete the set-MAPNAME.xml file and reset the start date using the configuration tool. (Bug #29295) #154362 Prevent duplicate DataSource and DataMapping names (Bug #29300) #157077 The replication log now displays the proper path for files. The use of '/' and '\' for directory separators has been normalized. (Bug #29172) #149920 The replication engine now reports which server has failed to return the current date. (Bug #28590) #149920 The replication engine reports more information on which server is failing on a connect request. (Bug #28591) #151536 The configuration tool now checks for the correct directory structure upon startup and report any errors. (Bug #28907) Changes since Release 2007.1 May 3, 2007: #148124 Support for P4TICKETS. To use tickets, leave the password field blank for the Perforce Data Source. A valid ticket must be obtained prior to running the configuration tool - if the ticket expires, replication stops. After setting the ticket(s), copy the p4tickets.txt file into the 'C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService' directory so that the replication server service can find the ticket file. (Bug #28464) Changes since Release 2006.2 January 15, 2007: #122074 DTS Source Creation requires a Project to be selected before enabling the "OK" button to save the new source. (Bug #24481) #122074 p4dtg-test rejects calls to Perforce-only extensions for non-perforce plugins. (Bug #24647) #122074 p4dtg-test help text now states that the SD method might require a connection to a specific project to work correctly. Quality Center plugin has this requirement. (Bug #24648) #122074 p4dtg-test help text now states that the DE method requires the date to be formatted according to the plugin being tested. (Bug #24649) #122074 Perforce plugin now puts single-line field values on the same line as the field name. (Bug #24652) #119397 Configuration tool no longer crashes when connecting to a non-p4d server using the p4jobs plugin. (Bug #24256) #119387 Prevent replication engine from being run when the Defect Tracking Source is not providing a "Last Modified Date" field. (Bug #24242) #119387 Correct non-enabling of possible select values when all select value mappings are deleted using UNMAP ALL. (Bug #24226) #118987 Prevent running the replication engine on an empty mapping description. (Bug #24206) #118866 Correct check for incomplete select mappings to not consider deleted mappings. (Bug #24198) #118864 Prevent changing of nicknames after they have been established. (Bug #24200) #118864 Prevent deletion of Data Sources that are used in mappings. (Bug #24194) #118755 Prevent invoking replication on a mappings marked for deletion (Bug #24190) #118383 To ensure that all new Mercury issues are properly replicated, the Quality Center plugin subtracts 30 seconds from the timestamp used used to detect new or changed issues. (Bug #24153) #117382 Enable the Perforce server and the Defect Tracking server to run in different time zones. (Bug #23792) #117101 Enable the configuration tool to display long project names. (Bug #23954) #117035 P4DTG now supports the following Mercury date formats: DMY - Day Month Year - dd/mm/yyyy MDY - Month Day Year - mm/dd/yyyy YMD - Year Month Day - yyyy/mm/dd 24 hr - hh:mm:ss 12 hr - hh:mm:ss AM|PM Other formats are not supported. (Bug #23916) #116366 The replication engine no longer crashes if the Defect Tracking System returns a NULL value for a defect's LastModifiedDate field. (Bug #23855) #115643 Support running the replication engine using Windows services. (Bug #23050)