Q: Wait a moment! Cookies? Can I eat them?
A: No, not these. The cookies about which we are talking here are little data packages that a web-server sends to your browser (in our case, on behalf of Gnatsweb) and your browser sends them back to the server next time. Modern browsers give you the option to generally accept or reject cookies, or to be asked whenever a cookie arrives (some even can make this decision based on the web-server). To learn more about cookies, visit, e.g., the Cookie Central.
Q: So, which cookies does Gnatsweb send, and why?
A: Gnatsweb uses a cookie gnatsweb-db-database_name to
store your login information (username, password), and a cookie
gnatsweb-global to store the gnats database you are working on,
your e-mail address (to fill it in for you when you create a new report
or reply to an existing report), a default list of fields to display in
search results, and defaults for Submitter-Id and
Originator fields.
Gnatsweb also sets a cookie for each "saved query" (named
gnatsweb-query-queryname).
It is therefore essential that you allow Gnatsweb to set its cookies. For a typical effect of rejecting them, see Login Not Remembered.