Socorro/Glossary

The following is a list of common terms specific to the Socorro project.

Terms

Add-on: A program installed into the browser to extend the browser's capability. Also known as an extension.

Branch: For Mozilla, this refers to the Gecko version number that a product / version is built upon.

Build: A date encoding used to identify when the client that submitted the crash was compiled.

Cooked Crash Dump: A raw crash dump that has been processed.

Crash Dump / Metadata Pair: shorthand for The pair of Raw Crash Dump and corresponding Raw Crash Metadata

Crash Report Details Page: The crash stats page produced by Socorro UI that displaus all known details of a crash.

Crash Stats: Another name for Mozilla's implementation of the Socorro UI.

DeferredJobStorage: a file system location where Crash Dump/Metadata pair are kept without being processed.

Dump File: See Raw Crash Dump.

Extension: See Add-on.

Job: a job queue item for a Raw Crash Dump that needs to be processed

JsonDumpStorage: the Python module that implements SocorroFileSystem

Materialized View: the tables in the database containing the data for used in statistical analysis. Including: TopCrashersBySignature, TopCrashersByUrl. The "Trend Reports" from the SocorroUI display information from these tables.

Minidump: see 'raw crash dump'

Minidump_stackwalk: an application from the Breakpad project that takes a raw dump file, marries it with symbols and produces output usable by developers. This application is invoked by the Socorro Processor.

Monitor: the Socorro application in charge of queuing jobs. See Socorro Monitor.

OOID: A crash report ID. Originally a 32bit value, the original legacy system stored it in the database as a hexidecimal text form. Each crash is assigned an OOID by the SocorroCollector when the crash is recieved.

Platform: the OS that a client runs on. This term has been historically a point of confusion and it is preferred that the term OS or Client OS be used instead.

ProcessedDumpStorage: the disk location where the output files of the minidump_stackwalk program are stored. The actual files are stored with a .jsonz extension.

Processor: the Socorro application in charge of applying minidump_stackwalk to queued jobs. See Socorro Processor.

Product: The name for a piece of software that submits crashes to Socorro.

Raw Crash Dump: See Raw Dump.

Raw Dump: the data sent from a client to Socorro containing the state of the application at the time of failure. It is paired with a Raw Crash Metadata file.

Raw Crash Metadata: the metadata sent from a client to Socorro to describe the Raw Crash. It is saved in JSON format, not to be confused with a Cooked Crash Dump.

Raw JSON file: See Crash Dump Metadata. A file in the JSON format containing metadata about a 'dump file'. Saved with a '.json' suffix.

Reporter: Another name for Mozilla's implementation of the Socorro UI.

Skip List: Lists of signature regular expressions used in generating a crash's overall signature in the Socorro Processor. See Socorro Processor Signature Generation.

StandardJobStorage: A file system location where JSON/dump pairs are kept for processing

Throttling: Statistically, we don't have to save every single crash. This option of the Socorro Collector configuration allows us to selectively throw away dumps. See also: http://code.google.com/p/socorro/wiki/SocorroCollector#throttleConditions

Trend Reports: the pages in the SocorroUI that display the data from the materialized views.

UUID: A univeral unique identifier. Term is being deprecated in favor of OOID.

Version: A specific revision of a Product.

Web Head: A machine that runs the Socorro Collector.

Please Rename

The following have been identified as terms that need to be renamed throughout the documentation and code:

Need New Names

• Dump - No more poop jokes in meetings.
• Hoopsnake - The seldom used, almost adopted name for the Socorro middleware layer.
• Throttle - Throttle means increase and decrease at the same time; creates confusion.

Have New Names

• UUID - Change to OOID.

Deprecated Terms

Release: a categorization of an application's product name and version. The categories are: "major", "milestone", or "development". Within the database, an enum called ReleaseEnum represents these categories.