CVS Pserver is, by definition, an insecure protocol. Among other things, passwords are transmitted in plain text, making it undesirable for much use. However, CVS Pserver is very good for providing anonymous CVS access to a repository.

In this document we will introduce you to setting up a CVS repository (although not intruding on the CVS HOWTO's space), and how to set up a chroot jail for the Pserver. We will also talk about using SSH for developer access to a repository.

Now that CVS and cvsd are built, let's set them up.

$ cvs -d /cvs/root init
  

$ cvsd-buildroot /cvs
$ mkdir -p var/lock
$ adduser cvsd
$ addgroup cvsd
   

Uid cvsd
Gid cvsd
PidFile /var/run/cvsd.pid
RootJail /cvs
MaxConnections 10
Nice 1
Listen * 2401
Repos /root
Limit coredumpsize 0
    

# cvs -d /cvs/root checkout CVSROOT
# cd CVSROOT
  

# cd ../
# cvs -d /cvs/root commit
  

# cvsd-passwd /cvs/root anonymous
  

# cd /cvs
# chown -R cvsd:cvsd var
# chmod -R 775 var
# cd
# cvs -d /cvs/root checkout CVSROOT
# cd CVSROOT
  

# cd ../
# cvs -d /cvs/root commit
  

This Mini-HOWTO was written by Morgon Kanter, who is reachable at <morgon AT surgo DOT net>, public key available from http://www.surgo.net/pubkey.asc. Email all problems with this document to him, and they will be fixed ASAP.

My thanks goes out to all the people who contributed to CVS over the years, as well as the creators of Viewcvs, and in turn the creators of cvsweb who inspired it.

I would also like to thank Tabatha Persad for reviewing and helping me edit this monster, as well as putting up with me. Thanks!

Also thanks to the various email contributors who pointed out missing stuff. Thank you Y Giridhar Appaji Nag and Pasi Hirvonen!

GNU Free Documentation License
Version 1.2, November 2002


Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.


0. PREAMBLE

The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other
functional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: to
assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it,
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This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative
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We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free
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1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

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2. VERBATIM COPYING

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It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the
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4. MODIFICATIONS

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the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release
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C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the
 Modified Version, as the publisher.
 D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
 E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications
adjacent to the other copyright notices.
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G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections
 and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.
 H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
 I. Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add
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 J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for
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 You may omit a network location for a work that was published at
least four years before the Document itself, or if the original
 publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.
 K. For any section Entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications",
Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all
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and/or dedications given therein.
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 unaltered in their text and in their titles.  Section numbers
or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
M. Delete any section Entitled "Endorsements".  Such a section
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 N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled "Endorsements"
or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.

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You may add a section Entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains
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5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

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Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of
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In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled "History"
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6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents
released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this
License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in
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verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.

You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute
it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this
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other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.


7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate
and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright
resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights
of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit.
When the Document is included an aggregate, this License does not
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If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these
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the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on
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8. TRANSLATION

Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may
distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4.
Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special
permission from their copyright holders, but you may include
translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the
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Document, and any Warrany Disclaimers, provided that you also include
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or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.

If a section in the Document is Entitled "Acknowledgements",
"Dedications", or "History", the requirement (section 4) to Preserve
its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual
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9. TERMINATION

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except
as expressly provided for under this License.  Any other attempt to
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10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions
of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time.  Such new
versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may
differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.  See
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number.
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ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of
the License in the document and put the following copyright and
license notices just after the title page:

Copyright (c)  YEAR  YOUR NAME.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU
Free Documentation License".

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts,
replace the "with...Texts." line with this:

with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the
Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other
combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the
situation.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we
recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of
free software license, such as the GNU General Public License,
to permit their use in free software.