Architecture Overview

Before we describe the architecture, lets introduce some terms and definitions.

Definitions

A client application is a Windows application written in C++ language and built in Visual C++ IDE. A client application is the application you want to use crash reporting with.

Crash reporting is a technique allowing to receive user feedback and improve quality and stability of your client application.

A end user is a person who downloads and installs your client application on his/her machine running Windows operating system. A end user may be located in any country of the world. If a critical error occurs in your client application on end user's machine, you may have no easy way to request the details.

A Crash Reporting Library is a Windows application written in C++ language and built in Visual C++ IDE. The purpose of the crash reporting library is to intercept critical errors (exceptions) in your client application, arising on end user's machine, generate crash reports and send those reports over the network to CrashFix server.

CrashFix software is a server system. It installs and runs on the server infrastructure of your choice. Its purpose is to receive crash reports sent by the crash reporting library, process and store them, and to provide graphical user interface to CrashFix users.

A CrashFix user is a person who has an account in CrashFix web application. A CrashFix user may be assigned certain permissions and project roles, and can log into CrashFix web application using a web browser and perform some actions.

CrashFix Components

CrashFix software consists of two server-side components: CrashFix service and CrashFix web application, and of a client-side component: CrashFix debugging symbol uploader tool. Those components are denoted as blue rectangles on the figure below.

The figure below illustrates the components schematically:

CrashFix Components

CrashFix Service (Daemon)

The daemon component is a server-side component. The term server-side means this component installs and runs on your server infrastructure and processes requests from web application.

The CrashFix service processes incoming crash reports and debugging symbol files. Also, the service's work is to send pending mail messages to CrashFix users.

The only component interacting with CrashFix service is the web application. CrashFix users can not access the service directly, they can access the web application only.

CrashFix Web Application

The web application is a server-side component, too. It resides on the same machine the service resides.

The web application is a PHP website that allows CrashFix users to perform administrative and daily usage tasks through a web browser application, such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. The web application allows multiple users to access CrashFix concurrently, browse and manage crash reports, debugging symbols, bugs and other.

Debugging Symbol Uploader Win32 Application

The uploader application is a Windows application. It is a client-side component. The purpose of uploader is to allow CrashFix users to upload debugging symbols to CrashFix server web application. Debugging symbols are required to correctly recover stack traces from incoming crash reports. Typically a CrashFix user who builds the client application may run the uploader tool to upload generated debugging symbols to CrashFix web application.

The uploader application exists in two flavors: as GUI application and as a console application. The GUI application is more easy to use. The console application, however, is applicable for automating symbol uploading procedure.

Reporting Library

Another important client-side component is the crash reporting library. On the figure above this component is denoted by the dashed rectangle. The crash reporting library should be shipped with your client application. When a critical error occurs in the client application on end user's machine, this library sends crash reports from your client application to CrashFix server over local area network or over the Internet.

The crash reporting library component is not a part of CrashFix distribution, this is a third-party software downloaded separately and distributed under a separate license.

CrashFix currently supports one such a library called CrashRpt. CrashRpt is a free and open-source library distributed under the New BSD License. It can be used in both commercial and open-source applications, with or without modifications. More the details on integration with CrashRpt library can be found on Client-Side Integration page.