NAME
git-cvsserver - A CVS server emulator for GitSYNOPSIS
SSH:export CVS_SERVER="git cvsserver" cvs -d :ext:user@server/path/repo.git co <HEAD_name>
cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git-cvsserver git-cvsserver pserver
git-cvsserver [<options>] [pserver|server] [<directory> ...]
DESCRIPTION
This application is a CVS emulation layer for Git.OPTIONS
All these options obviously only make sense if enforced by the server side. They have been implemented to resemble the git-daemon(1) options as closely as possible. --base-path <path>Prepend path to requested CVSROOT
--strict-paths
Don’t allow recursing into
subdirectories
--export-all
Don’t check for gitcvs.enabled
in config. You also have to specify a list of allowed directories (see below)
if you want to use this option.
-V, --version
Print version information and exit
-h, -H, --help
Print usage information and exit
<directory>
The remaining arguments provide a list of
directories. If no directories are given, then all are allowed. Repositories
within these directories still require the gitcvs.enabled config
option, unless --export-all is specified.
LIMITATIONS
CVS clients cannot tag, branch or perform Git merges.INSTALLATION
1.If you are going to offer CVS access via
pserver, add a line in /etc/inetd.conf like
Note: Some inetd servers let you specify the name of the executable
independently of the value of argv[0] (i.e. the name the program assumes it
was executed with). In this case the correct line in /etc/inetd.conf looks
like
Only anonymous access is provided by pserver by default. To commit you will have
to create pserver accounts, simply add a gitcvs.authdb setting in the config
file of the repositories you want the cvsserver to allow writes to, for
example:
The format of these files is username followed by the encrypted password, for
example:
You can use the htpasswd facility that comes with Apache to make these
files, but only with the -d option (or -B if your system suports it).
Preferably use the system specific utility that manages password hash creation
in your platform (e.g. mkpasswd in Linux, encrypt in OpenBSD or pwhash in
NetBSD) and paste it in the right location.
Then provide your password via the pserver method, for example:
No special setup is needed for SSH access, other than having Git tools in the
PATH. If you have clients that do not accept the CVS_SERVER environment
variable, you can rename git-cvsserver to cvs.
Note: Newer CVS versions (>= 1.12.11) also support specifying CVS_SERVER
directly in CVSROOT like
This has the advantage that it will be saved in your CVS/Root files and
you don’t need to worry about always setting the correct environment
variable. SSH users restricted to git-shell don’t need to
override the default with CVS_SERVER (and shouldn’t) as
git-shell understands cvs to mean git-cvsserver and
pretends that the other end runs the real cvs better.
cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody git-cvsserver pserver
cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git-cvsserver git-cvsserver pserver
[gitcvs] authdb = /etc/cvsserver/passwd
myuser:sqkNi8zPf01HI myuser:$1$9K7FzU28$VfF6EoPYCJEYcVQwATgOP/ myuser:$5$.NqmNH1vwfzGpV8B$znZIcumu1tNLATgV2l6e1/mY8RzhUDHMOaVOeL1cxV3
cvs -d:pserver:someuser:somepassword@server:/path/repo.git co <HEAD_name>
cvs -d ":ext;CVS_SERVER=git cvsserver:user@server/path/repo.git" co <HEAD_name>
2.For each repo that you want accessible from
CVS you need to edit config in the repo and add the following section.
Note: you need to ensure each user that is going to invoke git-cvsserver
has write access to the log file and to the database (see Database Backend. If
you want to offer write access over SSH, the users of course also need write
access to the Git repository itself.
You also need to ensure that each repository is "bare" (without a Git
index file) for cvs commit to work. See gitcvs-migration(7).
All configuration variables can also be overridden for a specific method of
access. Valid method names are "ext" (for SSH access) and
"pserver". The following example configuration would disable pserver
access while still allowing access over SSH.
[gitcvs] enabled=1 # optional for debugging logFile=/path/to/logfile
[gitcvs] enabled=0 [gitcvs "ext"] enabled=1
3.If you didn’t specify the
CVSROOT/CVS_SERVER directly in the checkout command, automatically saving it
in your CVS/Root files, then you need to set them explicitly in your
environment. CVSROOT should be set as per normal, but the directory should
point at the appropriate Git repo. As above, for SSH clients not
restricted to git-shell, CVS_SERVER should be set to
git-cvsserver.
export CVSROOT=:ext:user@server:/var/git/project.git export CVS_SERVER="git cvsserver"
4.For SSH clients that will make commits,
make sure their server-side .ssh/environment files (or .bashrc, etc.,
according to their specific shell) export appropriate values for
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME, GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL, GIT_COMMITTER_NAME, and
GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL. For SSH clients whose login shell is bash, .bashrc may be
a reasonable alternative.
5.Clients should now be able to check out the
project. Use the CVS module name to indicate what Git head you
want to check out. This also sets the name of your newly checked-out
directory, unless you tell it otherwise with -d <dir_name>. For
example, this checks out master branch to the project-master
directory:
cvs co -d project-master master
DATABASE BACKEND
git-cvsserver uses one database per Git head (i.e. CVS module) to store information about the repository to maintain consistent CVS revision numbers. The database needs to be updated (i.e. written to) after every commit.Configuring database backend
git-cvsserver uses the Perl DBI module. Please also read its documentation if changing these variables, especially about DBI->connect(). gitcvs.dbNameDatabase name. The exact meaning depends on
the selected database driver, for SQLite this is a filename. Supports variable
substitution (see below). May not contain semicolons ( ;). Default:
%Ggitcvs.%m.sqlite
gitcvs.dbDriver
Used DBI driver. You can specify any available
driver for this here, but it might not work. cvsserver is tested with
DBD::SQLite, reported to work with DBD::Pg, and reported
not to work with DBD::mysql. Please regard this as an
experimental feature. May not contain colons ( :). Default:
SQLite
gitcvs.dbuser
Database user. Only useful if setting
dbDriver, since SQLite has no concept of database users. Supports
variable substitution (see below).
gitcvs.dbPass
Database password. Only useful if setting
dbDriver, since SQLite has no concept of database passwords.
gitcvs.dbTableNamePrefix
Database table name prefix. Supports variable
substitution (see below). Any non-alphabetic characters will be replaced with
underscores.
Git directory name
%g
Git directory name, where all characters
except for alphanumeric ones, ., and - are replaced with
_ (this should make it easier to use the directory name in a filename
if wanted)
%m
CVS module/Git head name
%a
access method (one of "ext" or
"pserver")
%u
Name of the user running git-cvsserver.
If no name can be determined, the numeric uid is used.
ENVIRONMENT
These variables obviate the need for command-line options in some circumstances, allowing easier restricted usage through git-shell. GIT_CVSSERVER_BASE_PATHThis variable replaces the argument to
--base-path.
GIT_CVSSERVER_ROOT
This variable specifies a single directory,
replacing the <directory>... argument list. The repository still
requires the gitcvs.enabled config option, unless --export-all
is specified.
ECLIPSE CVS CLIENT NOTES
To get a checkout with the Eclipse CVS client: 1.Select "Create a new project →
From CVS checkout"
2.Create a new location. See the notes below
for details on how to choose the right protocol.
3.Browse the modules available. It
will give you a list of the heads in the repository. You will not be able to
browse the tree from there. Only the heads.
4.Pick HEAD when it asks what
branch/tag to check out. Untick the "launch commit wizard" to avoid
committing the .project file.
CLIENTS KNOWN TO WORK
•CVS 1.12.9 on Debian
•CVS 1.11.17 on MacOSX (from Fink
package)
•Eclipse 3.0, 3.1.2 on MacOSX (see
Eclipse CVS Client Notes)
•TortoiseCVS
OPERATIONS SUPPORTED
All the operations required for normal use are supported, including checkout, diff, status, update, log, add, remove, commit.CRLF Line Ending Conversions
By default the server leaves the -k mode blank for all files, which causes the CVS client to treat them as a text files, subject to end-of-line conversion on some platforms.DEPENDENCIES
git-cvsserver depends on DBD::SQLite.GIT
Part of the git(1) suite02/28/2023 | Git 2.39.2 |