Troubles with triaging syzbot reports [LWN.net]

Troubles with triaging syzbot reports

Posted Dec 16, 2022 2:03 UTC (Fri) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
In reply to: Troubles with triaging syzbot reports by NYKevin
Parent article: Troubles with triaging syzbot reports

My reading says the problem with the different tools is only the tip of the iceberg. Yes, the need to switch tools is annoying, but the underlying problem is that relevant information isn't being included up-front. The fuzz testers know which filesystem they were testing, and the information is present in the dashboard entry that has the more detailed information. But instead of including that very basic information in the title of the email, they make maintainers dig through the dashboard entry to figure it out. It's just massively inefficient and makes people much less inclined to pay attention. If they would just do the absolute most basic thing, like saying in the email title they generated the bug while testing fuzzed NTFS images, it would make life much easier.

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Troubles with triaging syzbot reports

Posted Dec 16, 2022 2:34 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (2 responses)

As a Googler, I have to put up with this sort of thing (i.e. "here is an email/stderr message/log entry/whatnot, it contains a link, the link points to the actual information") so often that I'm basically immune to caring at this point. It's simply The Way Things Are Done over there.

(This is not meant to excuse it, merely to commiserate with other people being subjected to it.)

Troubles with triaging syzbot reports

Posted Dec 16, 2022 17:44 UTC (Fri) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

An email that points you to the information might be OK if you can at least have some confidence it's about your project. It's far worse when it's an email to a whole mailing list, most of whom aren't involved. Expecting people dig through a convoluted process just to figure out if the email is even relevant to them is just ridiculous.

Troubles with triaging syzbot reports

Posted Dec 16, 2022 19:19 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

My reaction to that is to dump it in /dev/null. I have enough things to do anyway, it's easy to not find time to go searching down a rabbit warren.

And if it's work, I just dash off a reply saying "please provide the following extra info ..." - if I don't get a response it just disappears down the priorities :-) And if I do get a response well, once you've actually got buy-in from the other end, things usually end up well :-)

Cheers,
Wol