GIT-CVSSERVER(1)                                              GIT-CVSSERVER(1)



NAME
       git-cvsserver - A CVS server emulator for git

SYNOPSIS
       SSH:

       export CVS_SERVER="git cvsserver"
       cvs -d :ext:user@server/path/repo.git co <HEAD_name>





       pserver (/etc/inetd.conf):

       cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git-cvsserver git-cvsserver pserver





       Usage:

       git-cvsserver [options] [pserver|server] [<directory> ...]





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&#8217;t allow recursing into subdirectories


       --export-all
              Don&#8217;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>
              You can specify a list of allowed directories. If no directories
              are given, all are allowed. This is an additional restriction,
              gitcvs access still needs to be enabled by the gitcvs.enabled
              config option unless --export-all was given, too.


DESCRIPTION
       This application is a CVS emulation layer for git.


       It is highly functional. However, not all methods are implemented, and
       for those methods that are implemented, not all switches are
       implemented.


       Testing has been done using both the CLI CVS client, and the Eclipse
       CVS plugin. Most functionality works fine with both of these clients.


LIMITATIONS
       CVS clients cannot tag, branch or perform GIT merges.


       git-cvsserver maps GIT branches to CVS modules. This is very different
       from what most CVS users would expect since in CVS modules usually
       represent one or more directories.


INSTALLATION
       1. If you are going to offer CVS access via pserver, add a line in
          /etc/inetd.conf like


             cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody git-cvsserver pserver


          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


             cvspserver stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git-cvsserver git-cvsserver pserver


          Only anonymous access is provided by pserve 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:


             [gitcvs]
                  authdb = /etc/cvsserver/passwd


          The format of these files is username followed by the crypted
          password, for example:


             myuser:$1Oyx5r9mdGZ2
             myuser:$1$BA)@$vbnMJMDym7tA32AamXrm./


          You can use the htpasswd facility that comes with Apache to make
          these files, but Apache&#8217;s MD5 crypt method differs from the
          one used by most C library&#8217;s crypt() function, so don&#8217;t
          use the -m option.

          Alternatively you can produce the password with perl&#8217;s crypt()
          operator:


             perl -e 'my ($user, $pass) = @ARGV; printf "%s:%s\n", $user, crypt($user, $pass)' $USER password


          Then provide your password via the pserver method, for example:


             cvs -d:pserver:someuser:somepassword <at> server/path/repo.git co <HEAD_name>


          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


          cvs -d ":ext;CVS_SERVER=git cvsserver:user@server/path/repo.git" co <HEAD_name>


          This has the advantage that it will be saved in your CVS/Root files
          and you don&#8217;t need to worry about always setting the correct
          environment variable. SSH users restricted to git-shell don&#8217;t
          need to override the default with CVS_SERVER (and shouldn&#8217;t)
          as git-shell understands cvs to mean git-cvsserver and pretends that
          the other end runs the real cvs better.

       2. For each repo that you want accessible from CVS you need to edit
          config in the repo and add the following section.


             [gitcvs]
                  enabled=1
                  # optional for debugging
                  logfile=/path/to/logfile


          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=0

             [gitcvs "ext"]
                  enabled=1


       3. If you didn&#8217;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.


       If the commit is done directly by using git (as opposed to using
       git-cvsserver) the update will need to happen on the next repository
       access by git-cvsserver, independent of access method and requested
       operation.


       That means that even if you offer only read access (e.g. by using the
       pserver method), git-cvsserver should have write access to the database
       to work reliably (otherwise you need to make sure that the database is
       up-to-date any time git-cvsserver is executed).


       By default it uses SQLite databases in the git directory, named
       gitcvs.<module_name>.sqlite. Note that the SQLite backend creates
       temporary files in the same directory as the database file on write so
       it might not be enough to grant the users using git-cvsserver write
       access to the database file without granting them write access to the
       directory, too.


       The database can not be reliably regenerated in a consistent form after
       the branch it is tracking has changed. Example: For merged branches,
       git-cvsserver only tracks one branch of development, and after a git
       merge an incrementally updated database may track a different branch
       than a database regenerated from scratch, causing inconsistent CVS
       revision numbers. git-cvsserver has no way of knowing which branch it
       would have picked if it had been run incrementally pre-merge. So if you
       have to fully or partially (from old backup) regenerate the database,
       you should be suspicious of pre-existing CVS sandboxes.


       You can configure the database backend with the following configuration
       variables:


   Configuring database backend
       git-cvsserver uses the Perl DBI module. Please also read its
       documentation if changing these variables, especially about
       DBI->connect().


       gitcvs.dbname
              Database 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.


              All variables can also be set per access method, see above.


              In dbdriver and dbuser you can use the following variables:


       %G     git directory name


       %g     git directory name, where all characters except for
              alpha-numeric 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_PATH takes the place of the argument to --base-path.


       GIT_CVSSERVER_ROOT specifies a single-directory whitelist. The
       repository must still be configured to allow access through
       git-cvsserver, as described above.


       When these environment variables are set, the corresponding
       command-line arguments may not be used.


ECLIPSE CVS CLIENT NOTES
       To get a checkout with the Eclipse CVS client:


       1. Select "Create a new project &#8594; 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.

       Protocol notes: If you are using anonymous access via pserver, just
       select that. Those using SSH access should choose the ext protocol, and
       configure ext access on the
       Preferences&#8594;Team&#8594;CVS&#8594;ExtConnection pane. Set
       CVS_SERVER to "git cvsserver". Note that password support is not good
       when using ext, you will definitely want to have SSH keys setup.


       Alternatively, you can just use the non-standard extssh protocol that
       Eclipse offer. In that case CVS_SERVER is ignored, and you will have to
       replace the cvs utility on the server with git-cvsserver or manipulate
       your .bashrc so that calling cvs effectively calls git-cvsserver.


CLIENTS KNOWN TO WORK
       o  CVS 1.12.9 on Debian

       o  CVS 1.11.17 on MacOSX (from Fink package)

       o  Eclipse 3.0, 3.1.2 on MacOSX (see Eclipse CVS Client Notes)

       o  TortoiseCVS

OPERATIONS SUPPORTED
       All the operations required for normal use are supported, including
       checkout, diff, status, update, log, add, remove, commit. Legacy
       monitoring operations are not supported (edit, watch and related).
       Exports and tagging (tags and branches) are not supported at this
       stage.


   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.


       You can make the server use the end-of-line conversion attributes to
       set the -k modes for files by setting the gitcvs.usecrlfattr config
       variable. See gitattributes(5) for more information about end-of-line
       conversion.


       Alternatively, if gitcvs.usecrlfattr config is not enabled or the
       attributes do not allow automatic detection for a filename, then the
       server uses the gitcvs.allbinary config for the default setting. If
       gitcvs.allbinary is set, then file not otherwise specified will default
       to -kb mode. Otherwise the -k mode is left blank. But if
       gitcvs.allbinary is set to "guess", then the correct -k mode will be
       guessed based on the contents of the file.


       For best consistency with cvs, it is probably best to override the
       defaults by setting gitcvs.usecrlfattr to true, and gitcvs.allbinary to
       "guess".


DEPENDENCIES
       git-cvsserver depends on DBD::SQLite.


GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite




                                                              GIT-CVSSERVER(1)
