Setting up a CVS Server on Linux?

Mr. Pliant asks: "I'd like to set up a CVS server on my Linux box but I'm having some trouble finding the docs to do so. The stuff on Cyclic's site was a little crytpic and the info wasn't organized very well. Anyone have any pointers? "

CVS via SSH

[platinum]

The links above are your best bet for basic cvs server configuration. Once you have a pserver set up, you may consider using cvs via ssh. All you need to do is the following:

1) Have ssh and sshd set up on the client and server machines
2) Set CVSROOT="[e-mail]:/home/ncvs"
3) Set CVS_RSH="/usr/local/bin/ssh"
4) Use cvs normally
(Obviously, insert the proper host/paths above)

You can also set up cvs/ssh to not need a password every time (similiar to an initial 'cvs login'):

1) run ssh-keygen on client machine using no passphrase.
2) copy/add ~/.ssh/identity.pub on the client to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the server
(man ssh for more details)

The main reason I mention this is: I couldn't find any real information regarding this in any of the docs/tutorials; it's much more secure then using rsh/pserver connections; and it's cool :)

Just my $0.02.

Setting up a pserver

[AT]

To set up a pserver (for /etc/passwd authentication), make sure your /etc/services contains:
cvspserver 2401/tcp
and add this line to your /etc/inetd.conf:
cvspserver stream tcp nowait root /usr/bin/cvs cvs --allow-root=/home/cvs/cvsroot pserver

Next, make the directory /home/cvs/cvsroot.

Finally, set your CVSROOT to :pserver:user@host:/home/cvs/cvsroot, and do a cvs login and cvs init.

Other CVS frontends

[AT]

Some other gooey CVS frontends:
wincvs [wincvs.org] (windows)
maccvs [maccvs.org] (mac)
pharmacy [earthlink.net] (gnome/UNIX)

Some pointers

[Mike Miller]

I'd reccomend the CVS Bubbles page http://www.loria.fr/~molli/cvs-index.html [loria.fr] as well as the Users Manual written by Per Cederqvist et al, available under the documentation section. Some of the stuff is a little out of date, but it isn't too bad overall.

- Mike

CVS Help

[1nterMod]

I just went through all the hoops this week installing CVS to manage my intranet that uses PHP and perl to run backend databases.I also use it to manage other binary files, text config files, etc. CVS isn't just for source code anymore! I did have some hurdles, but this particular site really helped me out: http://durak.org:81/cvswebsites/ [durak.org]. Troubleshooting is alittle on the darkside, but in Sean Dreilinger's CVS Version Control for Web Site Projects , there's simple directions for installing CVS on Linux. He recommends trying the cvs login command, but I found telnet 2401 better. If your inetd.conf file is incorrect, you'll get a list of the valid CVS commands sent back to you. I found Sean's configuration to be correct for Linux, but found some of the docs on Cyclic's site to have errors in these files. If your telnet 2401 goes correctly, just enter anything and you should be returned with a bad auth protocol start: Other than that, CVS is really straight forward. I only use the command line interface, as that has everything I need just fine. There's other interfaces, namely jCVS, but I haven't tried it yet.

Documentation

[ecsmith]

I recently began to set up a test CVS server at work as the Versioning software that we have been using is basically only good for getting a diff. I would recommend going and getting Jim Blandy's notes for a CVS course. Which I believe are available from the cyclic web site. This gives a real brief sketch look into how to use CVS. I feel this is extremly helpful for setting up a server. Once I began to understand that it was much easier.
After that I would get the CVS doc by from Per Cederqvist et al. Also from the cyclic site. this is rather large about 115 pages so don't even think about printing it all at once. No one at work will like you. But there are several sections (the HTML version has a good TOC) that go over the procedures and ways to set it up.

Finally I went out and got the WinCVS documentation. Although any GUI would do. This way you show other people the easy ways to access your repository.