GIT-CVSSERVER(1) Git Manual GIT-CVSSERVER(1)NAMEgit-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'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.
--version, -V
Print version information and exit
--help, -h, -H
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
Currently cvsserver works over SSH connections for read/write clients,
and over pserver for anonymous CVS access.
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 anonymous 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
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'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.
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.
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'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 BACKENDgit-cvsserver uses one database per git head (i.e. CVS module) to store
information about the repository for faster access. The database
doesn't contain any persistent data and can be completely regenerated
from the git repository at any time. 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.
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.
Variable substitution
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.
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.
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->Team->CVS->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
· 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. Legacy
monitoring operations are not supported (edit, watch and related).
Exports and tagging (tags and branches) are not supported at this
stage.
The server should set the -k mode to binary when relevant, however,
this is not really implemented yet. For now, you can force the server
to set -kb for all files by setting the gitcvs.allbinary config
variable. In proper GIT tradition, the contents of the files are always
respected. No keyword expansion or newline munging is supported.
DEPENDENCIESgit-cvsserver depends on DBD::SQLite.
COPYRIGHT AND AUTHORS
This program is copyright The Open University UK - 2006.
Authors:
· Martyn Smith <martyn@catalyst.net.nz>
· Martin Langhoff <martin@catalyst.net.nz>
with ideas and patches from participants of the git-list
<git@vger.kernel.org>.
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Martyn Smith <martyn@catalyst.net.nz>, Martin Langhoff
<martin@catalyst.net.nz>, and Matthias Urlichs <smurf@smurf.noris.de>.
GIT
Part of the git(7) suite
Git 1.5.5.2 10/21/2008 GIT-CVSSERVER(1)
