Roundup Issue Tracker

Download: Display current version of Roundup on PyPI. Badge displaying number of downloads per month. Graphic displaying size of newest docker image on hub.docker.com. Build Status: Status of primary regression test job on github.

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 2.6.0, which includes bug fixes and additional features compared to the previous 2.5.0 release.

Roundup is compatible with Python 3.10+.

Python 2 Support

Python 2 support ended with release 2.4.0 (July 2024). Use Python 3 for the deployment of new trackers. Existing trackers should be upgraded to use Python 3.

Release Highlights

Some improvements from the 2.6.0 release are:

  • Fix for missing CSRF protection for PATCH method

    The REST interface does not apply CSRF checks when using the PATCH command. See request still in progress at time of release.

  • Filter history entries where permissions are handled by check function

    The history of a property change was always shown if the property permissions included a check function. The permissions are now properly checked using the check function. CVE request still in progress at time of release.

  • Modern CSRF prevention method without CSRF tokens available

    This release implements CSRF protection using Cross-Site Request Forgery by Filippo Valsorda. This is an effective method for CSRF protection and is much simpler as well. There are no configurable options unlike the 8 options for the older method.

  • Require reauthentication when making changes to sensitive fields

    You can trigger a reauthentication when the user changes particular fields. For example you can require a password be entered before the user changes their password.

  • Classic UI interface modernization.

    The classic tracker has basic responsive support for mobile. The table based layout was removed and HTML 5 landmarks (main, nav …) are used along with flex and grid layouts. The left hand menu now collapses to a grid layout in a single column when on a smaller display. This can be retrofitted to existing classic trackers.

    When you moved from one page to the next on an index, the query/search name was lost. This release now preserves the search name.

    Queries triggered from the query edit page now include the query name in the index view.

    The web UI now allows users to log in without a password. Before the password field was required which prevented completing the login action.

    The user.item.html template now generates valid javascript.

    The jinja2 template got an updated copy of bootstrap.

More info on the 49 changes can be found in the change notes.

Roundup Use Cases

For more information on Roundup see the features list, design overview, and all the other 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 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 -2.6.0 version identifier to match the version of Roundup you want to use).

  1. python3 -m pip download roundup

  2. tar -xzvf roundup-2.6.0.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-2.6.0.tar.gz

  3. cd roundup-2.6.0

  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…