=====================
Roundup Issue Tracker
=====================
.. meta::
:title: Roundup Issue Tracker
:description: A simple-to-use and -install issue-tracking system
with command-line, web, REST, XML-RPC and e-mail interfaces.
Adaptable to many use cases. Allows you to customize the look
and feel and implement different workflows.
:og\:type: website
:og\:url: https://www.roundup-tracker.org/
:og\:title: Roundup Issue Tracker
:og\:description: A simple-to-use and -install issue-tracking system
with command-line, web, REST, XML-RPC and e-mail interfaces.
Adaptable to many use cases. Allows you to customize the look
and feel and implement different workflows.
:og\:image: https://www.roundup-tracker.org/_images/index_logged_out.png
.. raw:: html
Roundup is an issue-tracking system that boasts a user-friendly
interface and easy installation process. It offers a range of
interfaces, including command-line, web, REST, XML-RPC, and e-mail,
making it a versatile solution for issue tracking. The system is based
on the award-winning design by Ka-Ping Yee, which emerged victorious
in the Software Carpentry “Track” design competition.
Roundup is highly customizable, allowing users to tailor the system to
their specific needs and preferences.
The latest stable version of Roundup is 2.5.0, which includes bug
fixes and additional features compared to the previous 2.4.0 release.
Roundup is compatible with Python 3.7+.
.. admonition:: Python 2 Support
Python 2 support ends with release 2.4.0 (July 2024).
Several Continuous Integration (CI) services are
discontinuing their resources for testing with Python 2.
Use Python 3 for the deployment of new trackers.
Existing trackers should be `upgraded to use Python 3.
`_
Release Highlights
==================
Some improvements from the 2.4.0 release are:
* **XSS vulnerability with devel and responsive templates fixed**
Just before release an XSS security issue with trackers based on
the devel or responsive templates was discovered. The `updating
directions`_ include instructions on fixing this issue with the
html templates from earlier releases. (CVE-2025-53865)
.. _`updating directions`: docs/upgrading.html#cve-2025-53865
* **The property/field advanced search expression feature has been
enhanced and documented.**
Search expressions are usually built using the
expression editor on the search page. They can be built manually
by modifying the search URL but the RPN search expression format
was undocumented. Errors in expressions could return results that
didn't match the user's intent. This release documents the RPN
expression syntax, adds basic expression error detection, and
improves error reporting.
* **The default hash method for password storage is more secure.**
We use PBKDF2 with SHA512 (was SHA1). With this change you can
lower the value of password_pbkdf2_default_rounds in your
tracker's config.ini. Check the upgrading documentation for more
info. (Note this may cause longer authentication times, the
upgrade doc describes how to downgrade the hash method if required.)
* **Roundup's session token is now prefixed with the magic
``__Secure__`` tag when using HTTPS.**
This adds another layer of protection in addition to the
existing ``Secure`` property that comes with the session cookie.
* **Data authorization can be done at the database level speeding up
display of index pages.**
Roundup verifies the user's authorization for the data fetched
from the database after retrieving data from the database. A new
optional ``filter`` argument has been added to Permission
objects. When the administrator supplies a filter function, it
can boost performance with SQL server databases by pushing
selection criteria to the database. By offloading some
permission checks to the database, less data is retrieved from
the database. This leads to quicker display of index pages with
reduced CPU and network traffic.
* **The REST endpoint can supply binary data (images, pdf, ...) to
its clients.**
Requesting binary data from a REST endpoint has been a
hassle. Since JSON can't handle binary data, images (and other
binary data) need to be encoded. This makes them significantly
larger. The workaround was to use a non-REST endpoint for fetching
non-text attachments. This update lets the REST endpoint return
raw message or file content data. You can utilize the
``binary_content`` endpoint along with an appropriate ``Accept``
header (e.g. ``image/jpeg``) in your request.
* **Extract translatable strings from your tracker easily.**
The ``roundup-gettext`` tool has been enhanced to extract
translatable strings from detectors and extensions. This will
simplify the process of translating your trackers.
More info on the 42 changes can be found in the `change notes`_.
Roundup Use Cases
=================
For more information on Roundup see the :doc:`features list
`, :doc:`design overview `, and all the
other :doc:`documentation `. Roundup has been deployed for:
* bug tracking and TODO list management (the classic
installation)
* customer help desk support (with a wizard for the phone
answerers, linking to networking, system and development
issue trackers)
* issue management for IETF working groups
* sales lead tracking
* conference paper submission and double-blind referee
management
* weblogging (well, almost :)
* thing management using the `GTD methodology `_.
...and so on. It's been designed with :doc:`flexibility
` in mind - it's not merely another bug
tracker.
Try It Out
==========
Roundup ships with a **demo tracker** to play with - you don't need to
install Roundup. After you've unpacked the source, just run "``python
demo.py``" and load up the URL it prints out!
Follow the source gratification mode with these steps (change the
``-2.4.0`` version identifier to match your downloaded file).
1. ``python3 -m pip download roundup``
2. ``tar -xzvf roundup-2.4.0.tar.gz``
* if you don't have a tar command (e.g windows), use::
python -c "import tarfile, sys; tarfile.open(sys.argv[1]).extractall();" roundup-2.4.0.tar.gz
3. ``cd roundup-2.4.0``
4. ``python3 demo.py``
(The source download can also be used to `create a custom Docker
image `_.)
Alternatively, you can install using a virtual environment with pip
by:
1. create a virtual environment with::
python3 -m venv roundup
2. activate the environment with (assuming your shell is
sh/bash/zsh/ksh like)::
. roundup/bin/activate
3. install the latest release of Roundup with::
python3 -m pip install roundup
4. create a demo tracker with::
roundup-demo
using ``./demo`` as the directory and the ``classic`` tracker.
5. load the URL printed by the demo tracker
6. when you are done, use `deactivate` to return your shell to using
the system python.
Both of these methods produce the same result.
Origin Story
============
Roundup was originally released as version 0.1.1 in late August, 2001.
The first `change note`_ written said:
Needed a bug tracking system. Looked around. Tried to install many Perl-based systems, to no avail.
Got tired of waiting for Roundup to be released. Had just finished major product project, so needed
something different for a while. Roundup here I come...
.. _`download`: https://pypi.org/project/roundup/
.. _`change notes`: https://sourceforge.net/p/roundup/code/ci/tip/tree/CHANGES.txt
.. _`change note`: https://sourceforge.net/p/roundup/code/ci/tip/tree/CHANGES.txt
.. _`its own set of docs`: https://www.roundup-tracker.org/dev-docs/docs.html